It has to do with Michigan's voter-approved Defense of Marriage Amendment to the State constitution:
LANSING, Mich. (AP) -- A conservative group on Wednesday sued to stop Michigan State University from offering health insurance to the partners of gay and lesbian workers and said the school is violating the state constitution...
...The lawsuit's purpose is to ensure that courts rule on the constitutionality of domestic partner benefits at public universities, said Patrick Gillen, an attorney for the Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, which is representing the American Family Association.
By providing the benefits, Michigan State is "recognizing same-sex marriage in substance, if not by label," Gillen said.
Michigan State spokesman Terry Denbow said the school would not comment on pending litigation.
In 2004, Michigan voters approved a constitutional amendment that made the union between a man and a woman the only agreement recognized as a marriage "or similar union for any purpose."
I understand the full language adopted is, "the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose". This will all revolve around what the judges decide "similar" means. Will the judges read the clear intent, and thus invalidate the domestic partner benefits in public employment (private employers are entirely unaffected by this issue one way or the other), or will we get some totured reading which essentailly allowed gay marriage without calling it that? Time will tell.
As a strict constuctionist on matter constitutional, I don't see how anyone can get 'round the fact that the clear laguage of the amendment indicates that the people of Michigan voted to have nothing like gay marriage - not in any way, shape or form. Given that MI has gone "blue" in the last four Presidential elections, one cannot say that Michigan is just some hick "red" State. No, Michigan is just a Joe-Average American State, with a modest over-representation of blue collar workers - Michigan isn't off on some radical path here, but is just entirely mainstream American.
As I've been saying for some years now, as regards gay marriage the American people demonstrate each time it comes up for a vote that they don't want it. This opposition also cuts across ideological lines - people just don't believe that marriage can or should include people of the same sex getting married. Its just outside of common-sense commonplaces of human life - and this is over and above any particular theological disagreement with the notion - from atheists to fundamentalists (though, obviously, moreso among the fundamentalists than the atheists), the opinion is that gay people can do whatever they please - but they can't get married.
Will this ever change? I don't think so. Some people seem to think that liberal youth, grown up, will change things and enact gay marriage - but this ignores the fact that people tend to greater conservatism as they grow older. More than likely, a good portion of those youngsters allegedly in favor of gay marriage today will change their minds as age and wisdom creep up on them Be that as it may, the one way to ensure that it never changes - by provoking an eventual constitutional amendment - is for gay marraige advocates to seek redress in the courts. As long as there is the worry that some judge somewhere will legalise gay marriage everywhere, then the electoral opposition to gay marraige will just grow and intensify.
I'd like to think that the gay marriage advocates can think a bit and realise that their time - the time the've spent in Court, that is - has been a gigantic waste of time and, indeed, has only made things worse. A much better use of the money would have been to sit down and think a bit about what one wants, and then think of way to make it palatable to the American people do it otherwise, and you'll get what we've got: massive backlash against the very idea.
Posted by Mark Noonan at July 6, 2006 07:32 PM
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Hmm... I've always taken a "let sleeping dogs lie" kind of approach to the gay debate. I really don't like folks publicly flaunting any relationship, gay or strait, but I'm perfectly fine with them having it. If you are a good person, you're a good person reguardless of what gender of folks you sleep with.
Now that it's entered the public arena I tend to agree that the attention is bad for all concerned. When folks bring it up the name calling immedietly starts which hurts both sides. Any progress that might have been made or a happy "middle ground" is made more difficult by the passions involved. I think the gay "rights" folks would have been able to move much farther along if they didn't beat people over the heads with their lifestyle.
In the end who knows what will happen, though I do suppose that "Marriage" will not occur for a while, but "civil unions" will be okay.
Posted by:
Gozer at July 6, 2006 07:52 PM
This report from the Heritage Foundation (can’t get more right wing than the HF) provides statistical evidence of the benefits of marriage for individuals, children and society. Persons that are married are healthier, wealthier, better educated, commit fewer crimes and raise better adjusted children than persons that are not married. Allowing same sex marriages would only benefit society.
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Features/Marriage/index.cfm
Posted by: Barneyg2000 at July 6, 2006 07:52 PM
Beanie
You're missing the point. Those benfits aren't for the gay, as they are not married. They do not deserve the benefits of marriage unless they get married.
And thank God the good people of Michigan went with the law of Jesus by not granting these deviant perverts any special rights and priviledges.
Isn't it enough that we let them run the Democratic Party, do we really want them destroying kids lives, too?
It is for the children, people.
Posted by: Conservative to the Core at July 6, 2006 07:57 PM
Mark, I think you're looking at this the wrong way. It may be true that some individuals grow more conservative as they age, but society as a whole becomes more liberal as time passes. Could you imagine even thirty years ago even having this discussion? It was out of the question. Just like interracial marriag was out of the question long before that. This is the first generation of children that has been exposed to "Will & Grace" and "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy." Young people today are more likely to see homosexuals as normal people, not deranged perverts. Time marches forward, and these children will eventually start voting.
Keep in mind also that many people opposed to gay "marriage" have different views when presented with gay "civil unions."
Posted by: Wyckyd Sceptre at July 6, 2006 09:29 PM
Barney...no one is denying gays the right to marry. A gay man can marry a woman right this minute. A lesbian can marry a man right this minute.
Posted by: Warriornation at July 6, 2006 09:32 PM
It's sad to see you cheer efforts to deny healthcare and other rights to your fellow Americans.
Gay citizens are your fellow countrymen and women and yet you treat them so poorly.
Shame.
Wade
Posted by: Wade at July 6, 2006 09:36 PM
Sceptre,
RE: "Young people today are more likely to see homosexuals as normal people, not deranged perverts."
That's what they are taught by and all they hear from our liberal education system, press, media, movies, television, as well as the Internet. All they hear is sex is for entertainment. Sex is for pleasure. Do whatever you like. Emulate what you see and are told. If it feels good, do it. If you can think it... do it! Anything and everything is normal by today's liberal standards.
Why are there so many more homosexuals and lesbians today? Because of some mutation in genes that suddenly changed the number of people attracted to the same sex? No. It's because liberalism encourages and condones it -- not because of some inherited trait or predisposition to homosexuality or lesbianism!
AAR
Posted by: AAR at July 6, 2006 10:34 PM
Funny thing is, there is nothing in the bible aginst lesbianism... in fact... God may even have a bit of a thing for lesbians... who knows...
Anyways... I could care less if gays get married... it doesn't affect me at all either way. What kind of bothers me is that amendments like that strip a group of people their inheritance rights, hospital visitation rights, tax deductions, and the ability to be covered by their partner's insurance.
Marriage is one thing, but when you categorically deny a group of people the ability to exercise certain rights, that's just plain wrong.
Posted by: Georgia Frawg at July 6, 2006 11:17 PM
Morally speaking, what's the difference between "gay marriage" and a "gay civil union"? Morally, aren't they essentially the same thing?
Posted by: Freedom1 at July 6, 2006 11:33 PM
ATTN: THIS IS ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW!!
LIBERAL'S TO THE !T!.
DESCRIBING YESTERDAY'S AND TODAY'S PERVERSION!! READ IT!
God gives man over to his sin.
Romans 1:21-22 & 26-32
1:21-22
"For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish thanks were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools!"
1:26&27
"Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gosips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them!!
Jeremiah
Posted by: Jeremiah at July 7, 2006 12:05 AM
Wyckyd,
Inertia does what it does - the Ball O'Moral Depravity was set rolling with immense force in the 1960's and hasn't quite arrested yet...but it has come up against what seems an immovable object: The determination of a vast majority that same sex marriages shall not happen.
No one was more surprised than I at this - When gay marriage was first brought up about 12-15 years go, I thought it would sail through. Things worked out differently. Call it what you will, but the human experience of marriage just does not allow for same sex unions - it is for a men and women, not for men and men or women and women. Irreducible human nature has emerged here.
Posted by: Mark Noonan at July 7, 2006 12:28 AM
Umm... correct me if I'm wrong but a gay person can get all of those "rights" without being married. They can get visitation rights, inheritence rights and the like it just falls under a different code then marriage.
Though I could very well be wrong. My buddy does find it funny that this latest "uproar" around gay marriage didn't start until the tax credit for married people jumped up under Bush. Personally I think it's just a coincidence, but a funny one. :)
Posted by:
Gozer at July 7, 2006 12:29 AM
Jeremiah,
That about sums it up.
Gozer-"Umm... correct me if I'm wrong but a gay person can get all of those "rights" without being married."
I believe you're correct. I think, more than anything, homosexuals want society to simply condone what they are already doing. They want society to say homosexual behavior is "good" and "right".
Mark Noonan- "Ball O'Moral Depravity"
ROFL!
grin.gif
Posted by: Freedom1 at July 7, 2006 01:22 AM
Let me see if I have this right.
If I worked for the University of Michigan I could walk into the benefits administrators office and claim I am a (homosexual) and get my unemployed buddy some state funded health insurance.
Then a few months later I could say I have a "new partner" and get him a few months of state funded health insurance.
What would stop me from doing this multiple times?
(Ed. Note: Comment has been edited for vulgarity).
Posted by:
Nebraska Militia at July 7, 2006 02:04 AM
Nebraska,
Nothing at all...
Posted by: Mark Noonan at July 7, 2006 04:21 AM
Nebraska Militia and Mark: well, they could require said unmarried couples to prove they were having sex...like what was proposed earlier this year at the University of Florida:
University of Florida employees have to pledge that they're having sex with their domestic partners before qualifying for benefits under a new health care plan at the university.
The partners of homosexual and heterosexual employees are eligible for coverage under UF's plan, which will take effect in February. The enrollment process began this month, and some employees have expressed concern about an affidavit that requires a pledge of sexual activity.
If that isn't a disincentive...what is?
Posted by: Macker at July 7, 2006 08:54 AM
Editor...it just doesn't have the same ummph!
Mack,
Wow, and affidavit pledging sexual activity...now that'll stop insurance fraud. Can I pledge I'm having sexual relations with my Granny to get her better benefits?
Posted by:
Nebraska Militia at July 7, 2006 09:32 AM
Macker,
WHO CARES? What the proposal of the university of Florida is, No, What really matters is what is RIGHT, and homosexuality is WRONG!, it's a terrible act of sin, always has been and always will be, Why do you think God destroyed Sodom & Gomorrah? Because He absolutely HATED THE SIN, So God had to clean the land free of all the filth that man had placed there!
Who knows? maybe God will help out again and do an act of grace and wipe them out again!
This is a serious problem in America!, homosexual's are a VERY SICK group of people!
They are in my view INFERIOR and are extremely harmful to society!
please note: It's the SIN God hates the most!!!
I don't know if you read my first column above but the bible clearly explains how WICKED they are, and not only that, but they want others to fall in the same class with them!
They want US to fall into their "Ball O'Moral Depravity"!!
I think America is beginning to sense that it is time to put a stop to them i,e. New York & Georgia have both ruled and reinstated their constitutional amendment on the issue and both agreed that marriage between one man and one woman to be the rule, so now, hopefully this trend will continue!
And as long as we can keep the liberal courts and gay rights activist OUT! of the issue, then we should have no problem in terms of defending that wich is RIGHT!
What is right? BAN SAME-SEX MARRIAGE!!
You've seen the road signs "DO NOT LITTER"!
Well, Let's clean the LITTER OUT OF THE COURTS!,
meaning the LIBERAL JUDGES!! They are the worst kind of litter!!
Jeremiah
Posted by: Jeremiah at July 7, 2006 09:50 AM
The Thomas More Law Center, in Ann Arbor, is the same group of idiots that pushed the infamous ID suit in Dover, Pa. In their suit against MSU we can only hope that they achieve similar results.
Posted by: Salvelinus at July 7, 2006 12:29 PM
If a homosexual or lesbian wants health care for their "partner", then go out and purchase it... just like an "unmarried heterosexual couple" would have to do for their partner or "significant other"!
AAR
Posted by: AAR at July 7, 2006 02:45 PM
Post a comment
Hmm... I've always taken a "let sleeping dogs lie" kind of approach to the gay debate. I really don't like folks publicly flaunting any relationship, gay or strait, but I'm perfectly fine with them having it. If you are a good person, you're a good person reguardless of what gender of folks you sleep with.
Now that it's entered the public arena I tend to agree that the attention is bad for all concerned. When folks bring it up the name calling immedietly starts which hurts both sides. Any progress that might have been made or a happy "middle ground" is made more difficult by the passions involved. I think the gay "rights" folks would have been able to move much farther along if they didn't beat people over the heads with their lifestyle.
In the end who knows what will happen, though I do suppose that "Marriage" will not occur for a while, but "civil unions" will be okay.
This report from the Heritage Foundation (can’t get more right wing than the HF) provides statistical evidence of the benefits of marriage for individuals, children and society. Persons that are married are healthier, wealthier, better educated, commit fewer crimes and raise better adjusted children than persons that are not married. Allowing same sex marriages would only benefit society.
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Features/Marriage/index.cfm
Beanie
You're missing the point. Those benfits aren't for the gay, as they are not married. They do not deserve the benefits of marriage unless they get married.
And thank God the good people of Michigan went with the law of Jesus by not granting these deviant perverts any special rights and priviledges.
Isn't it enough that we let them run the Democratic Party, do we really want them destroying kids lives, too?
It is for the children, people.
Mark, I think you're looking at this the wrong way. It may be true that some individuals grow more conservative as they age, but society as a whole becomes more liberal as time passes. Could you imagine even thirty years ago even having this discussion? It was out of the question. Just like interracial marriag was out of the question long before that. This is the first generation of children that has been exposed to "Will & Grace" and "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy." Young people today are more likely to see homosexuals as normal people, not deranged perverts. Time marches forward, and these children will eventually start voting.
Keep in mind also that many people opposed to gay "marriage" have different views when presented with gay "civil unions."
Barney...no one is denying gays the right to marry. A gay man can marry a woman right this minute. A lesbian can marry a man right this minute.
It's sad to see you cheer efforts to deny healthcare and other rights to your fellow Americans.
Gay citizens are your fellow countrymen and women and yet you treat them so poorly.
Shame.
Wade
Sceptre,
RE: "Young people today are more likely to see homosexuals as normal people, not deranged perverts."
That's what they are taught by and all they hear from our liberal education system, press, media, movies, television, as well as the Internet. All they hear is sex is for entertainment. Sex is for pleasure. Do whatever you like. Emulate what you see and are told. If it feels good, do it. If you can think it... do it! Anything and everything is normal by today's liberal standards.
Why are there so many more homosexuals and lesbians today? Because of some mutation in genes that suddenly changed the number of people attracted to the same sex? No. It's because liberalism encourages and condones it -- not because of some inherited trait or predisposition to homosexuality or lesbianism!
AAR
Funny thing is, there is nothing in the bible aginst lesbianism... in fact... God may even have a bit of a thing for lesbians... who knows...
Anyways... I could care less if gays get married... it doesn't affect me at all either way. What kind of bothers me is that amendments like that strip a group of people their inheritance rights, hospital visitation rights, tax deductions, and the ability to be covered by their partner's insurance.
Marriage is one thing, but when you categorically deny a group of people the ability to exercise certain rights, that's just plain wrong.
Morally speaking, what's the difference between "gay marriage" and a "gay civil union"? Morally, aren't they essentially the same thing?
ATTN: THIS IS ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW!!
LIBERAL'S TO THE !T!.
DESCRIBING YESTERDAY'S AND TODAY'S PERVERSION!! READ IT!
God gives man over to his sin.
Romans 1:21-22 & 26-32
1:21-22
"For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish thanks were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools!"
1:26&27
"Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gosips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them!!
Jeremiah
Wyckyd,
Inertia does what it does - the Ball O'Moral Depravity was set rolling with immense force in the 1960's and hasn't quite arrested yet...but it has come up against what seems an immovable object: The determination of a vast majority that same sex marriages shall not happen.
No one was more surprised than I at this - When gay marriage was first brought up about 12-15 years go, I thought it would sail through. Things worked out differently. Call it what you will, but the human experience of marriage just does not allow for same sex unions - it is for a men and women, not for men and men or women and women. Irreducible human nature has emerged here.
Umm... correct me if I'm wrong but a gay person can get all of those "rights" without being married. They can get visitation rights, inheritence rights and the like it just falls under a different code then marriage.
Though I could very well be wrong. My buddy does find it funny that this latest "uproar" around gay marriage didn't start until the tax credit for married people jumped up under Bush. Personally I think it's just a coincidence, but a funny one. :)
Jeremiah,
That about sums it up.
Gozer-"Umm... correct me if I'm wrong but a gay person can get all of those "rights" without being married."
I believe you're correct. I think, more than anything, homosexuals want society to simply condone what they are already doing. They want society to say homosexual behavior is "good" and "right".
Mark Noonan- "Ball O'Moral Depravity"
ROFL!
grin.gif
Let me see if I have this right.
If I worked for the University of Michigan I could walk into the benefits administrators office and claim I am a (homosexual) and get my unemployed buddy some state funded health insurance.
Then a few months later I could say I have a "new partner" and get him a few months of state funded health insurance.
What would stop me from doing this multiple times?
(Ed. Note: Comment has been edited for vulgarity).
Nebraska,
Nothing at all...
Nebraska Militia and Mark: well, they could require said unmarried couples to prove they were having sex...like what was proposed earlier this year at the University of Florida:
If that isn't a disincentive...what is?
Editor...it just doesn't have the same ummph!
Mack,
Wow, and affidavit pledging sexual activity...now that'll stop insurance fraud. Can I pledge I'm having sexual relations with my Granny to get her better benefits?
Macker,
WHO CARES? What the proposal of the university of Florida is, No, What really matters is what is RIGHT, and homosexuality is WRONG!, it's a terrible act of sin, always has been and always will be, Why do you think God destroyed Sodom & Gomorrah? Because He absolutely HATED THE SIN, So God had to clean the land free of all the filth that man had placed there!
Who knows? maybe God will help out again and do an act of grace and wipe them out again!
This is a serious problem in America!, homosexual's are a VERY SICK group of people!
They are in my view INFERIOR and are extremely harmful to society!
please note: It's the SIN God hates the most!!!
I don't know if you read my first column above but the bible clearly explains how WICKED they are, and not only that, but they want others to fall in the same class with them!
They want US to fall into their "Ball O'Moral Depravity"!!
I think America is beginning to sense that it is time to put a stop to them i,e. New York & Georgia have both ruled and reinstated their constitutional amendment on the issue and both agreed that marriage between one man and one woman to be the rule, so now, hopefully this trend will continue!
And as long as we can keep the liberal courts and gay rights activist OUT! of the issue, then we should have no problem in terms of defending that wich is RIGHT!
What is right? BAN SAME-SEX MARRIAGE!!
You've seen the road signs "DO NOT LITTER"!
Well, Let's clean the LITTER OUT OF THE COURTS!,
meaning the LIBERAL JUDGES!! They are the worst kind of litter!!
Jeremiah
The Thomas More Law Center, in Ann Arbor, is the same group of idiots that pushed the infamous ID suit in Dover, Pa. In their suit against MSU we can only hope that they achieve similar results.
If a homosexual or lesbian wants health care for their "partner", then go out and purchase it... just like an "unmarried heterosexual couple" would have to do for their partner or "significant other"!
AAR