I’ve long wondered what, exactly, opponents of same-sex marriage believe will happen if gay couples have the same right to marry as straight couples. Several years ago, I recall Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum telling TV preacher Pat Robertson, “[T]he consequence is very clear. Marriage loses its significance. People will stop getting married. Homosexuals will not get married; heterosexuals will stop getting married. And that to me is the real threat to the American family and to the culture generally.”
Now, this quote has always stood out for me because I’d really like to meet the straight person who believes, “I planned to marry the person I love, but I’ve decided not to. If gays can marry, it’s just not worth it.” That, I assumed, was the only way for Santorum’s argument to make any sense.
As it turns out, there’s another way Santorum could have been right.
June 17 marks the date that gay and lesbian couples can marry legally in California, following a landmark ruling by the state’s Supreme Court in May that struck down the ban on same-sex marriage. The day will be marked by joyous celebrations and eager couples earning a right they have waited years to obtain.
Yet, the occasion will also be punctuated by the division it creates throughout the state…. [T]he Butte County clerk-recorder issued a June 11 news release saying her office will stop performing wedding ceremonies altogether — for gay and heterosexual couples. The Kern County clerk issued a June 4 release that she would do the same.
Calaveras county has decided to follow Butte’s and Kern’s lead, and will also stop performing marriages altogether.
It never occurred to me that conservatives would actually find a way to make marriages between gay couples affect marriages between straight couples. Kudos to their right-wing, hate-filled creativity!
No Trackbacks To “Three California counties to locals: No marriage for you“
Well, if their job is to marry couples, and they refuse to do that, FIRE THEM!!!
How stupid does this have to get?
Well, if you know anything about California, then you know that those states are the farmland area. The California bible Belt.
Jesus Cristo. What can be said for morons like Santorum?
But he’s totally right, I was gonna get married tomorrow, but why bother? Damn gay people.
Wow, self fullfilling prophecy. Santorum was right /sarcasm.
I was watching CNN and one of the “women” featured on “Robin Meade’s Morning Express” said that “she” and “her partner” were upholding God’s Law.
I wonder which one she is referring to — the one about “an abomination”? Or another one?
I can’t seem to find in the Bible where God made a law for gays to marry each other.
Can anyone help me out?
Obama would support their decision not to wed them.
http://www.towleroad.com/2008/.....lizes.html
fear and hate, that’s all they have.
but that’s how jeebus would want it.
Without a doubt there will be legal challenges on this.
*
Getting gay married (again) in Santa Clara county soon, wish us luck.
Fire the workers exactly. “Oh you won’t do your job? Hmmm I guess we don’t have to pay you then.” F*&^$% right wing nut jobs. Personally I have a hard time with companies that pollute the air, wipe out natural resources but you know what, I do my job because that’s what I’m hired to do. If you don’t want to prescribe birth control then DON’T BECOME A PHARMACIST. If gay marriage is against your belief system and you work a job where you have to register gay marriages, FIND ANOTHER JOB SHIT HEAD! The world doesn’t revolve around your beliefs contrary to your narcissistic maniacal ego.
Let the lawsuits begin! These assholes and their bigotries should be challlenged!
$10 says the Butte County local high school mascot name is the Pirates, because that’s just how irony works.
By the way, there’s the nuance…Santorum said if gays marry, straights won’t want to get married…that’s hardly the same as a few bigots in charge not allowing straights or gays to marry! Either way, fuck them!
I live in Butte County……right-wing conservative redneck heaven or, from my perspective, hell.
And if heteros stop getting married, having children, and indoctrinating them in accordance with , where will future tithings come from? This is a CATASTROPHE!!!
KYJurisDoctor @ 5:
There is no law in the bible that says that gays can marry. Nor is there any law in the bible that permits coronary bypass surgery; neither does the buybull tell you how to pass a driver’s test. The buybull is a collection of myths, and this country is founded on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights - which were recently shredded by fascists.
They’re finally reducing Big Government.
SweettP2063 @ 14:
I know it’s cost prohibitive (I have no hope of owning a home in SF proper), but seriously: a fucking great city to live in. Or many other parts of the Bay Area. Whatever! Get your ass out here!
Oops - “(religion of choice)” dropped out of that last sentence.
Actually, I’m (sort of) related to the county clerk-recorder for Butte county, and she’s a really nice lady. Sadly, I guess she felt strongly enough about this that she’s just going to stop doing all marriages (not her entire job, by the way). It sucks, but my guess is that given the conservative bent of the county most folks there will approve of it.
KYJurisDoctor @ 5:
God’s law was to love one another…unless you can think of a better way, what’s better than marrying the person you love most and want to spend the rest of your life with?
and they think that is going to work cause……?
Mickxotic @ 16:
“Buybull”. Hah!
The only way gay marriages can affect straight marriages is if the straight guy gets drunk and and beats up the gay couple and ends up in jail and then his wife leaves his stupid redneck ass.
Mickxotic @ 16:
Hey, I like that … “BuyBull” can I use it in my posts. one word can say so much.
Same thing happened with the Loving case. Local officials refused to marry inter-racial couples. I was investigating a murder case in Mississippi in 1993, and I had to go through some marriage records. The county clerk very kindly showed me the records room — filled to the brim with black registers, and white registers — literally — black-colored registers recorded negro marriages and white-colored registers recorded caucasian marriages. The segregated registers went right up to the 1980s, and the registers after that were green, because they finally started performing inter-racial marriages. It was a real wake-up call, I can tell you — it wasn’t ancient history, it was very recent…. So I’m not surprised — there will always be some very narrow people, jealously guarding their sacred way of life.
KYJurisDoctor @ 5:
It is written in the Old Testament that man should not lie with man, but women were not mentioned. Ergo, the Bible is covertly condoning women getting married through the sin of omission by not having a direct reference against it.
My point is this, people translate and twist the bible to their specific point of view. Most do it for nefarious reasons. I would not say that is the case here. Perhaps these two ladies really believe that their (they did not specify) God wants them to be together through the sanctity of marriage. I did not see the segment but from your description they did not mention the bible either.
KYJurisDoctor @ 5:
No, you are beyond help. Maybe you should find the part in the bibull that talks about loving your neighbor.
KYJurisDoctor,
I certainly hope you’re no doctor. Bigotry and religiously based hatred have no place in that profession.
Perhaps “she” (why exactly did you put women in quotation marks? Are Lesbians not women now? God, you people are SICK) meant that in binding herself to one other human being for life, to sanctify their love, she was fulfilling God’s wish that we don’t run around willy nilly all over the place?
And by the way, this whole “God’s Word” thing has always been funny to me since the “Word” you refer to was written by men, 2000 years ago, has been translated from one language to the next by MEN, edited by MEN, redacted by MEN, and twisted to serve the purposes of MEN. Any piece of God’s Word that may or may not have been in there has been “telephoned” so many times that it’s ridiculous.
Not to mention that the only thing you have is faith in order to convince yourself that the Bible isn’t the rantings of a bunch of delusional people. If someone went around with this book today, having written it yesterday, proclaiming it was the word of God, and not having the benefit of hundreds of years of the Roman Catholic Church being extremely powerful, would be branded a lunatic and committed to the nearest psychiatric facility.
P.S. By MEN I mean humankind generally and also that women haven’t really had much say in the Bible.
P.P.S Do you remember any of Jesus’s words? Such as “Judge not lest ye be judged”? or “Love thy neighbor as yourself”? or “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth”? Could you please pay extra special attention to that one and be meek, stfu, and go away? If you can do that, an entire planet shall be your reward, so sayeth the Jeebus (supposedly, depending upon what edition of the Bible you read.)
Fanon @ 28:
Truth.
rebmarks @ 26:
It’ll get fixed eventually. Because, much as they may hate actually following the law, it IS the law and if they don’t do it they get fired.
Needless to say, with the ballot initiative process so prevalent in CA, the RWNJ’s have already already qualified a November initiative to ban gay marriage in CA. As I have said in the past, the way to galvanize the republican base and get them to the polls in Nov. is to add local initiatives to ballots that are anti gay, anti porn, anti choice, pro death or anti terror. This is one huge strategy the republicans will use in November.
BTW the CA initiative is 90% funded by groups in San Diego county, including $600,000 from the Hoehn family, who are owners of a huge chunk of the automotive dealerships in the county.
KYJurisDoctor @ 5:
Oh, by the way…I really don’t give a shit about what the Bible, the Koran, the Torah or any other ancient bullshit scroll says–KEEP YOUR DAMN RELIGION OUT OF MY GOVERNMENT! If you want to believe in mythical sky fairies, that’s your hang-up, but don’t tell other law-abiding, tax paying American adults whom they can love, fuck or marry based on your 2000 year old fantasies! Hope that helps you out, buddy!
Is county clerk an elected position or a civil service position?
Funny how they get their panties twisted into a know over gay marriage, as being against God’s will, yet they ignore divorce.
What part of “’til death does us apart” did you christian assholes did not get? Judging by Reagan, McCain, Giulliani, Limbaugh, Gingrich, et al… there was a lot not to get.
Christian Radicals: if you want to keep taxes out of your church, keep your church out of our tax paid institutions.
This is the issue that is going to put McCain in the White House: Fear of a Gay Planet.
I misquoted Mickxotic, though. buybull!!
If you get invited to a gay wedding and you don’t want to go….
you can decline attendance politely on the RSVP.
This whole affair of not allowing gays to marry would be just fine..if
Divorce was illegal….and adulterers got the death penalty.
Now thats some dam sanctity preservation!
I would love to see the republicans try anything in CA. They can get their anti-gay base out to the polls as much as they want; it’s not going win them the state or many seats in congress beyond the ones they already have here. And it REALLY pisses off the liberals around here.
Bonkers @ 12:
I don’t think you quite get what California counties are… It’s way, way too big to have “a local high school.” Think “bigger than Rhode Island,” not “Hazzard County.” It doesn’t actually boast any major towns that share a name with the state, either… More’s the pity. ;)
That’s just pedantry, though. More on topic… I’m from Kern, this is easily my least favorite thing my home… Strike that, birth county has done in ages.
I seem to recall many people here being overjoyed when San Francisco went rogue and started violating state laws.
Peter G @ 34:
Elected, I believe. Which is why those county clerks will get to keep their job unless there’s a court case or unless someone higher up in the food chain axes them. The local populace (in Butte, anyway) supports this decision.
liberal traitor @ 29:
Considering the “Juris” part of the handle I’m betting we’re dealing with a narrow-minded sanctimonious lawyer. Great qualities to have in the legal profession.
Hmm, maybe read the article. It doesn’t say they won’t give out marriage licenses to gay couples–it just says they won’t perform ceremonies. I don’t see the outrage.
KYJurisDoctor @ 5:
Ironically I found a bible where God made a law about not killing…
Oh, and I found a copy of the US Constitution where there is plenty of references about separation of church and state.
Marriage is a legal contract, and thus it is not ruled by religious beliefs and other superstitions. Gays are citizens and thus they deserve equal protection from the law, after all they pay taxes like you and me. If you don’t like that you are free to pick up their tax tab then…
“I’ve long wondered what, exactly, opponents of same-sex marriage believe will happen if gay couples have the same right to marry as straight couples.”
Don’t you watch Drawn Together? Nazis will rise up riding dinosaurs as the Earth is consumed by fire.
I lived in Chico in the early to mid ’80s and hated every minute of living there.
Chicken Hussein Little - NOT!! @ 43:
If the KY in his name stands for KY! Actually, I think it probably stands for the jelly, since someone who so adamantly objects to homosexuals usually tend to be closeted queers themselves! I can’t wait until Little Ricky Santorum gets caught some day!
First same-sex marriage performed in Butte county