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<td width="343" valign="bottom"><p class="date"><!-- InstanceBeginEditable name="date" --><a href="default.html">3/5/04• Vol.
128, No. 18</a><!-- InstanceEndEditable --></p></td>
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<td align="left" valign="top"><!-- InstanceBeginEditable name="sectionheadlines" --><a href="amendment.jsp">Bush's
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<h1><font size="4" face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Bush's amendment
violates historical precedents</font></h1>
<p class="byline"> </p>
<p class="byline">The Lipstick Liberal</p>
<p class="byline">By Virginia Cabrera</p>
<p class="storyText">On Feb. 24, President Bush declared his position in
a raging battle over gay marriage. The compassionate conservative announced
his support for the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would limit marriage
to a union between a man and a woman.</p>
<p class="storyText"> His announcement, which responds to events in Massachusetts
and San Francisco, reflects many of the irrational fears and fallacies
behind anti-gay marriage
arguments. </p>
<p class="storyText"> He states, “after more than two centuries of American jurisprudence
and millennia of human experience, a few judges and local authorities
are presuming to change the most fundamental institution of civilization” and
that a constitutional amendment to “prevent the meaning of marriage
from being changed forever” is necessary to protect the “sanctity
of marriage.”</p>
<p class="storyText"> Gay marriage isn’t about changing the rights and responsibilities
of a marriage, instead it is about giving full equality and liberty to
a group that has been unfairly denied access to the ultimate expression
of commitment in our society.</p>
<p class="storyText"> The most frequent attack on gay marriages relies
on the idea that the institution of marriage and the nuclear family has
been a constant on
which society’s order rests upon. The institution of marriage has
gone through many definitions. Throughout history marriage has been denied
based on discriminatory factors. </p>
<p class="storyText"> For example, in many countries, a Muslim is not allowed
to marry outside of their faith and as recently as 1996, marriage was
prohibited based
on a physical handicap by the Roman Catholic Church. </p>
<p class="storyText"> In the United States anti-miscegenation laws prohibited
interracial marriages as recently as 1967 when the Supreme Court overturned
these laws in Loving
v. Virginia. Bush’s argument that marriage is defined as the union
between a man and a woman by a “millennia of human experience” is
clearly negated by the discovery of the tomb of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep
in 1964, a same sex gay married couple, which dates to 2,500 BCE. </p>
<p class="storyText"> In his book, “Same Sex Unions in Premodern Europe,” John
Boswell reports recently discovered evidence that the Catholic Church
performed marriage ceremonies between same-sex partners. For those whose
arguments lean toward the religious right, the Bible includes eight different
types of marriage, which include polygamy, Leverite Marriage, and the
forced marriage between a rapist and his victim. </p>
<p class="storyText"> Marriage has been redefined through time but has
always included commitment, rights and responsibilities. Extending marriage
to gays would not change
any part of that nor weaken its values. </p>
<p class="storyText"> Marriage would extend America’s offer of liberty and freedom for
all to gays and put into practice America’s emphasis on civil rights. </p>
<p class="storyText"> Just as slaves and interracial couples were denied
the fundamental right to marriage, gay couples are currently facing an
issue of discrimination
and equality not of religion and morality. Modern critics argue that
if we open up marriage to gays then surely polygamy, incest and bestiality
would follow. </p>
<p class="storyText"> If these arguments sound familiar it’s because these scare tactics
have been used before to argue against interracial marriages. Decades
of interracial marriages have shown these arguments to be completely
ridiculous and based on irrational fears. </p>
<p class="storyText"> It’s easy to talk about gay marriage in abstract political terms.
For many Americans, this is bigger than a political discussion or a voting
record—for these citizens, gay marriage is about rights denied. </p>
<p class="storyText"> The Federal Marriage Amendment would marginalize
gay families and continue to treat them as second-class citizens. Gay
families are people like
Edward Balmelli who would like to recognize his partner as a beneficiary
of his pension plan but cannot do so because his gay partner is not
recognized by his state as a spouse. </p>
<p class="storyText"> Gary Chalmers and his partner are not able to obtain
a family insurance policy through their employers because they are not
married. </p>
<p class="storyText"> Gay couples are denied rights like Social Security
survivor benefits upon the death of a partner, the right to family leave
under the Family
and Medical Leave Act, the right to make decisions on a partner’s
behalf in a medical emergency, the right to stability, security, economic
partnership and happiness. </p>
<p class="storyText"> In arguing for gay marriage, the Web site www.marriageequality.org
cites multiple studies which have consistently shown that married people “live
longer, have higher incomes and wealth, engage less in risky behaviors,
eat more healthily and have fewer psychological problems than unmarried
people” as opposed to any other relationship arrangement. </p>
<p class="storyText"> Doesn’t our Constitution guarantee all the pursuit of happiness?
I think its time for you to read the Constitution again Mr. Bush.</p>
<p class="storyText"> —
This columnist can be reached at collegian@csufresno.edu</p>
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