Right-Wing Seeks To Place 'Special Rights' In Oregon Constitution
The Hypocrisy Of The Anti-Marriage Movement
Once upon a time, and sadly still today, the forces of the righteous-wing of American politics enjoyed mounting campaigns against what they called "special rights" for gays and lesbians. These many and varied campaigns, of course, in reality were thinly-veiled attempts to block the explicit protection of the normal civil rights to gays and lesbians.
Any time an enlightened people and/or their elected representatives sought to make it expressly clear that gays and lesbians were not to be treated in an unequal fashion under the law, these forces of the righteous-wing would descend from their pulpits and cry bloody murder over the threat of "special rights" for homosexuals. How dare anyone try to put these so-called "special rights" into our laws or (worse yet) into our constitutions! Our laws, let alone our constitutions, are not meant for establishing "special rights" for one class of people!
In that last paraphrased plaintive cry, at least, they of course are quite correct. But in a magnificent display of the cognitive dissonance all too evident in political discussion today, these same forces of the righteous-wing have once again descended from those pulpits... to demand that "special rights" for themselves be enshrined into the Oregon Constitution.
When the State of Oregon qualifies the so-called Defense of "Marriage" Coalition's initiative against same-sex marriage for the November ballot -- and it most assuredly will -- this is what the state's voters will be asked to hammer into the Oregon Constitution:
It is the policy of Oregon, and its political subdivisions, that only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid of legally recognized as a marriage.
Traditionally (if we can turn to a word much-loved by the Defense of "Marriage" Coalition), constitutions are the guiding charters of government and the legal foundations into which we place the most fundamental and equal protections of the rights and privileges of all people. Traditionally, they are not intended to make distinctions between one class of people or another -- at least not in ways that cause one class of people to benefit over another.
In fact, the now nearly-infamous Article I, Section 20, of the Oregon Constitution reflects this very constitutional premise. It reads:
No law shall be passed granting to any citizen or class of citizens privileges, or immunities, which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens.
Of course, the anti-marriage initiative proposed by the forces of the righteous-wing would not be a "law" but an amendment to the constitution itself. As such, it will not matter that the initiative in fact institutes a direct contradiction to Article I, Section 20. At least as far as we understand these things, the Constitution is meant to be read as a whole, and so in essence is allowed to technically contradict itself.
But that inescapable contradiction is important nonetheless, because it helps illustrate what the Defense of "Marriage" Coalition in reality is after: The imposition of "special rights" into the foundational document of the State of Oregon -- the very sort of thing against which the forces of the righteous-wing once warned in the most dire terms, usually accompanied by much figurative gnashing of teeth and rending of garments to underscore the danger.
"Our laws, let alone our constitutions," these self-same forces of the righteous-wing once cried in anguish, "are not meant for establishing 'special rights' for one class of people!"
How true. The voters of Oregon would do well to hand them the consolation prize of conceding this point, by firmly rejecting any definition of marriage that amounts to the enshrinement of "special rights" in the Oregon Constitution.
July 09, 2004 at 11:40 PM
Christopher, you have done well in reporting the issues. I want to thank you for helping to make sure we know the issues. Our State & our Nation, cannot continue to discriminate against my Gay Bothers and Sisters. There will be a day when everyone has equal rights under the law. That day hasn't come yet.
July 10, 2004 at 12:43 AM
Extremely well put. Just when I think I understand the political landscape on this issue, I read something like this of yours and it completely jogs my perspective.
July 10, 2004 at 08:04 AM
Bravo! No special rights.
Now consider that the Oregon Constitution is a document that RESTRICTS the legislature. From a legal analysis point of view the amendment sculpts out only a narrow prohibition on the legislature (and the court) to link the WORD marriage with a man and a woman.
It does not define marriage nor mandate anything. All rights associated with household groupings, even polyamory (or whatever), could be written in terms devoid of the dreaded word MARRIAGE. The legal effect of the use of the word marriage, even with the amendment, could be zilch. The word could be entirely stripped from the statutes and it would not offend the proposed amendment. Non-married people (man and woman) often use it just to avoid the negative consequences of hanging out with one another without being married, in the eyes of their religious zealot neighbors.
Peck away at the nonsensical crap using secular arguments. Demand that there be a valid state interest for each of the things that blindly get bootstrapped onto the marriage misnomer. (This is where I think Dave from the ACLU was fundamentally wrong.) One big wacko thing is where a retiree can accord a spouse survivorship benefits based on marriage status at the time they fill out the final retirement documents. This can be after the final day of work and accorded to someone they met only a few days before. It is wholly unrelated to their performance on the job for any government entity and is equally silly in both the civil union context and the marriage context. This is not a part of a civil contract between the parties but is an entitlement to state dollars (a special right to obtain public dollars, a special public right) that is devoid of any rationale other than the stupid state marriage license. If the state has an interest in supporting long term relationships then a gay couple that has been together for 20 or 30 years, upon the date of retirement from public service, would have a SUPERIOR claim to that of the newlywed opposite gender couple. If the gay couple had raised kids during that period, assuming one party stayed home to care for the child, and the newlywed couple did not then this is evidentiary frosting on the cake supporting the gay couple above that of the short-term relationships and those without kids.
Special rights are not per se objectionable, but become so where the state cannot present a legitimate state interest in the public interest of all. Highlight the instances of supreme irrationality rather than claim victimhoodisms that put the judiciary in a political bind beyond their power.
July 10, 2004 at 03:02 PM
"There will be a day when everyone has equal rights under the law. That day hasn't come yet. "
See, that is the BIGGEST problem. That day *is* here. We have been approaching this the wrong way from the get-go.
We have the rights. We have the SAME legal protection as everyone else. We are guaranteed equal access under the constitution.
This time around, there isn't something that a bunch of clod-heads are trying to back out, or legislate away a behaviour. Nooooo. This time, they are trying to remove, retroactively, our rights as citizens. I say our rights, because this has potential repercussions universally. If we open the floodgates to write special rights into the constitution, there is not telling when this will stop.
I mean, we all know Jews eat babies and Lefties are "weird", right? Why not save a few babies, and some mental anguish and keep those people from holding on to their rights and legal protections. After all, they CHOSE to be Jewish and they CHOSE their political affiliation. Don't laugh, this is how Naziism got it's start. Banning one group of people, declaring them to have less governmental rights than everyone else. Then move on to the next. That is NOT what our country is about. Maybe back in the day of traditional family values, but not now. Not since we defeated Adolf and his antigay/antiabortion/antijew regime.
DO NOT let them tell you we don't have "the right". We *DO* have the right. The same right as DMC has to practice their religion. All we have to do is convince the rest of the state that this ballot initiative is un-American. Pure and simple.
And here is how you do it. Flood the state with this message: DMC is UN-AMERICAN. They want to take away rights, and want to put special rights into place. Attacking law abiding taxpayers is just plain wrong.
I will say it again: The consitution does not make qualifications on who is given what rights. The constitution applies to everyone, equally. There are no second class citizens.
The sooner ever figures this out, the better off we all will be.
jj
July 12, 2004 at 11:39 AM
> The consitution does not make qualifications on who is given what rights
> [constitutions] are not intended to make distinctions between one class of people or another
There are many good arguments against the amendment, but these are not they. Constitutions have always distinguished between classes of people. Both the US and Oregon Constitutions, as originally ratified, contained egregious discriminatory provisions. Read them. Stick to the arguments with factual support.
July 12, 2004 at 01:10 PM
Both the US and Oregon Constitutions, as originally ratified, contained egregious discriminatory provisions.
Let me clarify then: Constitutions were never meant to be places to impose distinctions between people who were actually recognized as full people. A problem we of course eventually rectified.
July 12, 2004 at 04:12 PM
The goal of gay activists goes beyond just getting marriage rights. So society has a right to step in and say, political correctness has gone far enough.
July 12, 2004 at 04:16 PM
The goal of gay activists goes beyond just getting marriage rights.
This statement without elaboration is entirely useless.
July 12, 2004 at 11:53 PM
I don't know why but that line just cries out to me to be the tagline in a commercial....
"Another entirely useless statement brought to you by the People Against Marriage."
July 13, 2004 at 12:03 AM
I may have to steal that for the headline to a future post on this subject.