The Family Research Council is naturally quite upset by the Connecticut Senate passing a bill to allow civil unions for gay couples in that state. They're also trying very hard to pretend that the public in that state doesn't support the bill. And the Worldnutdaily, naturally, gives them the forum for doing so:
"So-called 'civil unions' are simply same-sex 'marriage' cloaked with a different name, something that a clear majority of Connecticut residents oppose," Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council, said in statement. "I call on the Connecticut House to reject this bill. If the House, like the Senate, ignores the will of the people, I urge Governor Jodi Rell to veto it."...Citing a recent poll by Harris Interactive, Perkins accused Connecticut senators of ignoring the will of the people.
"Seventy-six percent of Connecticut voters want to have an official say on the future of marriage and legislators who ignore that demand are showing contempt for democracy and for the people who elected them," he said.
You have to love his description of the results of the Harris poll. 76% of Connecticut voters "want to have an official say on the future of marriage", and by his, uh, reasoning, that means they reject civil unions. But Quinnipiac University conducted a poll that asked voters in that state specifically whether they supported civil unions and the results of that poll were clear: they supported civil unions, as long as they weren't actual marriages, by a margin of 56 to 37 percent. Even Republicans in that state were almost deadlocked on civil unions, 45-48. Which is consistent with the results in the Senate the other day, where 6 of the 12 Republicans voted for the bill. So it would seem, Mr. Perkins, that in that state it is the opponents of civil unions who are "showing contempt for democracy and for the people who elected them." And remember, the FRC and other religious right groups have pushed for an amendment to the Constitution that would prevent states from allowing civil unions, even if the voters in that state support it and want it passed.
But this is nothing new for religious right groups, who regularly invoke the "will of the people" when it suits them, yet ignore it when it doesn't. For instance, take last year's stem cell proposition that was approved by a majority of California voters in a referendum. It passed by a wide margin by a vote of the people. Yet the Family Research Council has urged the governor to strike down the referendum, and supported a court challenge to get the results overturned. So you see, when the people are on your side you criticize your opponents for ignoring the will of the people and showing "contempt for democracy." And when the people are not on your side, you keep blathering the same empty rhetoric and hope no one notices. And lucky for you, most of your followers are ignorant and deluded enough that they don't notice and likely wouldn't care if they did. Because it doesn't matter how dishonest or logically inconsistent you are, as long as you're on the side of God himself.
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I don't believe in the will of the people, period. The people, whether it's their will or not, can not infringe on the rights of the individual. It was either Madison or Jefferson (or probably both) that said during the debate on the constitution that the tyranny of temporary majorities was as muched to be feared as was the tyranny of a monarch.
Matthew,
You have to believe in the will of the people in the long run. The people ratified the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the other amendments after all.
These are written in general terms, however. There's a problem when something specific comes up that the temporary majority doesn't agree with. The judge properly applies the general will of the people to the specific case. If people understood this function of judges better, there wouldn't be such an ado about judicial activism. B
I really don't understand this whole civil union thing. I mean, I can understand it politically, in the sense that clearly it's more likely to pass than gay marriage, but I don't understand why. If you accord civil unionees all the rights and responsiblities of married couples, surely that damages marriage (if that's what opponents think gay marriage does) more than just a name. After all, if you're being chased by an axe murderer, you don't give a shit what clothes he's wearing. Quite clearly, the social consequences of widespread gay marriage almost entirely the same whatever it's called. So it becomes a question of artificially preserving the supposed sancticty of the word 'marriage'. Religions deal with sanctity, not government. If religions want to discriminate against gays, that's their problem. But government? If gay weddings must be civil unions, then there's no credible reason why all non-religious weddings shouldn't have to be as well.
Who is Tony Perkins, a member of a group with a small body but a big bark, to say what the majority of people in Connecticut think? America isn't the Family Research Council.
Didn't a majority of people in the south support "seperate but equal"...weren't they against Civil Rights?...but, the laws were changed because it was the right thing to do.
Just as this is the right thing to do. Why people wish to push their religious views on other? Tell my, how does two women or two men getting married, undermine my marriage?..The answer is: IT DOESN'T. Period.
Anyone who tells you it does has an axe to grind based on his own religious point of view.