Gay Marriage Debate on Pundit Review Radio
When the issue of gay marriage is in the news in Massachusetts, we
bring on the leaders from both sides for a civil discussion of the
issues.
Chris Mineau of Vote on Marriage and Marc Solomon of Mass Equality
were our guests.
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June 29, 2006 4:14 pm 
Massachusetts conservatives are blaming Mitt Romney for instituting “gay” marriage.
(In a Google search, type “the father of gay marriage.”)
The Boston Globe isn’t reporting it, but the overwhelmingly Democratic Massachusetts legislature flagrantly ingnored the overwhelmingly Republican SJC’s “order” to legalize same-sex marriage. (After all, the legislature answers to the people, not the courts.) So, in early 2004 a constitutional crisis appeared to be inevitable…until Republican Governor Mitt Romney stepped in, just before the “deadline” came, and singlehandedly enforced the court’s ruling. Our hero!
And now presidential-hopeful Romney, the “father of gay marriage,” is peddling a constitutional amendment to ban the very law he imposed, which - it just so happens - is scheduled to hit the ballot in (you guessed it) 2008.
It appears that sacred marriage isn’t safe in the hands of either political party. So government and marriage should be divorced.
Although I did read many articles on this matter, I question the validity of it all.
I personally can not stand Mr. Romney as he comes off as a “band-wagon” politician when it comes to taking sides to please the public, I have not yet seen this issue of “flip-flopping” to be true.
Yes, sacred marriage isn’t safe in the hands of either political party. But a democratic process to let the people vote on this issue is unfortunately through the hands of our politicians.
The Commonwealth needs to finally have a thumbs up or down say on this issue of same-sex “marriage”. Let’s just get it over with and see what the people of Massachusetts want in their state and we can be done with this debate.
I will try to address some points of this show as I have heard them:
First someone gives a maniacal laugh immediately after Mark Solomon was intruduced, which is blamed on technical difficulty. Listeners could have easily considered this as a deliberate attempt to insult. I would have thought that your radio station would have been more professional than to allow such a thing.
Kris Mineau does not recognize the decision of the SJC as legal. If it were not, were are their lawyers? Surely if the SJC had overstepped its bounds we would not have a need for a petition. Kris says that if the people vote gay marriage in, his work is over and he will try to learn to live with it. Only time will tell if he has been honest.
Mr. Solomon points out that children need to know the truth about what is out there in life, otherwise we leave them unprepaired. For a child that is being raised in a gay marriage family ommitting this from teaching creates a feeling that their lives are not as important, or somehow wrong. I don’t think it is appropriate to do so. What do we do about teenagers, emotionaly fragile by nature, who come across the aspect that they themselves are gay? Do we have any programs to help them cope with who they are, or do we try to make them fit into the cookie cutter just the same?
Homosexual as a noun is a term that is considered dorogatory by fashion, like the word nigger is dorogatory. The proper rescptful term of this generation is gay. Look it up at Wikipedia.com.
Greg tries to defend against the issue of Loving vs. Virginia by saying gay marriage is not a civil rights issue. Neither was inerracial mariage until we made it so. Since the 1967 case was brought up and Greg tried to defend the people of Virginia by asking if Mr. Solomon thought the people of Virginia were racist, I will answer for him. Yes, in 1967 polls were conducted and in fact most people thought it best not to mix the races in marriage, and frowned on them dating. Their education and eventual realization that they were wrong began with this great step forward in civil rights.
Marriage is not always about parenting. It is commonly about wanting to proclaim your love for someone else for the rest of your life. To say that marriage is about children is to deny elderly, the steryle, or the unwilling a chance to marry. This is not our practice, and never has been. In the 1600’s when prior to our nation even being formed people came here to hide from religious persecution, and marriages were held as civil unions, with no priest involved. Chattel was a man’s right to own a woman. A little different than today huh? So much for saying that marriage has been unchanged in tradion throughout the years.
The issue in Lexington was about a man who didn’t want his child to hear the story of the Two Princes. Last time I checked he could put his child in a classroom that did not read this. It does make me wonder though; do you think ignorance on issues is better than knowledge? Where is the damage done here that we can measure. Do anyone think that if we do not talk about people being gay that somehow children won’t find out? This approach was used in sex education, and look how badly that turned out.
Kris Mineau brought up that Bob Jones University does not allow interracial dating. Is this really OK in the 21st Century?!
One of the impacts blamed on gay marriage is the Catholic Charitie’s decision to abandon the adoption of children because they refused to comply with our state’s anti-discrimination laws. This is in the face of the fact that they have placed children in gay homes several times successfully. This in my opinion was a thinly veiled attempt to draw attention off their own abuse of children, and frankly it disgusts me.
Thousands of people are gay and living their lives here in our community. Why do we continue to make them feel like outsiders, allowing our children and our troubled in society act out against them? Short of a final solution gays are here to stay, and they will influence our society as they go along. We can either be active participants in the future that will be created by the next generation, who approves of gay marriage by nearly 70%, or we can struggle to hold on to the control we think we have until it is wrenched from our hands by the next and more educated future leaders.
Whether or not gay marriage succeeds and spreads, or whether it fades into obscurity, we will still have to deal with radical elements of our own society. To each side I say be kind, and let compassion rule your actions.
Hate is not an American value, let’s stop the anger and start learning what we CAN do together, as good neighbors. I don’t feel like anyone has to have their happiness at the expense of someone else’s happiness.
John Hosty
Blogger, KnowThyNeighbor.org
John,
Thanks for your thoughtful note. Let me say first off that the ’someone’ did not give a maniacal laugh after Marc was introduced, that was a sound effect that is used frequently, in this instance, mistakenly. A technician in the booth where the sound is stored was showing someone what we had in the library and it went out over the air. I am telling you straight, it was not intentional at all. We all were embarrassed by it. We apologized to both Marc and Kris on the air and privately during a commercial. I hope you will reconsider your opening remarks.
We gave both sides a forum to offer their positions and I feel like it was a balanced discussion in terms of both sides having equal opportunity to do so. That should be further evidence that we had no intention of embarrassing anyone at the open.
I am the only on air person at WRKO who is not opposed to gay marriage. I feel good about the interview. We gave both sides a forum and a fair shake in my opinion. You may not have liked what was said, but both sides had their chance. It was a contentious but civil discussion. We can’t do much more than that.
Again, I hope you will reconsider your opening remark, I assure you it was a mistake.
Kevin