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Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Thomas Sowell :: Townhall.com Columnist
Affirmative Action and Gay Marriage
by Thomas Sowell
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But this is not discrimination against a person. The cyclist who gets into a car is just as free to drive on the freeway as anybody else.

The question is not whether gays should be permitted to marry. Many gays have already married people of the opposite sex. Conversely, heterosexuals who might want to marry someone of the same sex in order to make some point will be forbidden to do so, just as gays are.

The real issue is whether marriage should be redefined-- and, if for gays, why not for polygamists? Why not for pedophiles?

Despite heavy television advertising in California for "gay marriage," showing blacks being set upon by police dogs during civil right marches, and implying that homosexuals face the same discrimination today, the analogy is completely false.

Blacks had to sit in the back of the bus because they were black. They were doing exactly what white people were doing-- riding a bus. That is what made it racial discrimination.

Marriage is not a right but a set of legal obligations imposed because the government has a vested interest in unions that, among other things, have the potential to produce children, which is to say, the future population of the nation.

Gays were on their strongest ground when they said that what they did was nobody else's business. Now they are asserting a right to other people's approval, which is wholly different.

None of us has a right to other people's approval.

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Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of The Housing Boom and Bust.
 
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Reply # 1
Date: Nov 29, 2008 - 2:29 AM EST
Seriously?
Sowell, you know better. The majority gay community wants one thing; the same LEGAL rights and standings as hetero couples, obtained the same way, with the same laws. They DON'T care about changing the definition of marriage, because that particular term has no place in public policy, since it is religious. The government doesn't define lent, or mass, or speaking in tongues, or any OTHER religious term, so why marriage? And no, they can't claim they do it to protect families; the government is not to be in the business of attempting to structure families. That's far worse than structuring business. The government does it because it's a relic, exactly the same as the old laws banning women's sufferage, held on by conservatives who think having good morals requires shoving morals down other people's throats. Women's sufferage was claimed to be anti-biblical, defying God's description of women as homemakers and family raisers; homosexual marriage is likewise called anti-biblical, defying God's description of them as sinners. The bible is not to run this country's GOVERNMENT.
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Reply # 2
Date: Nov 16, 2008 - 5:14 PM EST
Re: The Blk Blame Game Pt2
I don't agree with much of what Sowell said here, but I do on one point. The "gay movement" should stop comparing itself to the black civil rights movement. I do believe you are born gay and it's not a choice. I am a black man in the US. Why would I willingly stack the odds against myself :-)

That being said, this country was built partly on the backs of slaves and sharecroppers who had little or no rights. Blacks had to fight for simple equalities like water fountains, bus seats etc. They were lynched for even thinking of voting. When is the last time a gay person was forced to sit at the back of the bus?

Furthermore, when people first see me, they see a black man- not a gay man. Most don't even know I am gay until I tell them or show up to a function with my partner. That difference alone is ALL the difference. For the gay community to continually draw a comparison is disingenuous at best.

This is particularly so when I am hearing reports on the news and from actual friends that gay black people are being harassed at some "overturn 8" rallies, having the N Bomb dropped on them, and told that Prop 8's failure is their fault! I believe there is a sense of entitlement there that comes from being white and not being denied much of anything, I guess that is gard to take if you're not used to it. Now that California has voted the gay community is angry. I get it. But scapegoating blacks is not helping, especially when some of them belong to your own community.

At the risk of sounding boastful, everyone needs to take a cue from my family's holiday dinners. We will only come to a viable compromise through intelligent discourse. The violence of the 60s was not the solution, but a product of that movement. You can disagree with someone without treating them as if they just murdered your childhood puppy with an axe.
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