September 19, 2004
(Updated) A Random Sunday Tour Of The Marriage Front
Views Of The Faithful, And Legislating Morality
Note: This post has been updated. Any and all updates appear at the end of the original post.
Yesterday evening, Chuck Currie posted a heads-up on an article discussing the views on same-sex marriage in the part of different faiths.
At the time, all that was available was the wire version of the article in question, but the actual piece was in today's Sunday Oregonian. We notice that the article includes a quote from one Kelly Boggs, who regular readers might recall was a chief petitioner on the original set of anti-marriage ballot initiatives prior to the actions of Multnomah County, and who at one point maintained a weblog of his own.
Browsing through ORblogs, we noticed someone linking to a rather odd graphic for the purposes of opposing Measure 36, and also someone suggesting vandalism against bumper stickers supporting the amendment.
Finally, some quick responses to material in some letters to the editor in today's paper. Or, really, just a response to Mark DeLucia of Southeast Portland, who argues that we legislate morality all the time, and that we should look to the example of the Found Fathers for guidance. In part, DeLucia writes: "What our nation's fathers were passionate about was not legislating religion."
We note with no small amount of irony that this particular line is precisely the point here. Adoption of the anti-marriage Measure 36 would legislate one religious view of marriage into the Oregon Constitution. Regardless of how many people of faith oppose same-sex marriage, or how many different faiths they represent, they simply are not to be allowed to place that view into the civil law of the State of Oregon. As we are newly-found of pointing out: There is no religious test for civil marriage.
To say nothing of the fact that the Founding Fathers were not exactly exemplars of perfect morality when it came to the law, since at the time (among other things) women weren't allowed to vite, and black people were considered less than human and meant to be owned as property. Surprise, surprise, surprise -- the Founding Fathers actually believed some thigns that today most sane and civilized people would consider to be, well, you know... immoral.
Update
And the reminder, since we only just managed to remember ourselves: This evening at 6:00 PM (just under an hour from now, as we post this), is KATU's sudden resurrection of their "Town Hall" program to discuss Measure 36. They've posted some sort of preview or promo (.wvx) of tonight's program, which contains a tease of what we hope turns out to be a healthy smackdown of Kelly Clark.