Why the O.C. Register needs to explain its change of opinion on same-sex “marriage”

In my previous post, I noted that the O.C. Register changed its opinion on “legalizing” same-sex “marriage.” It was opposed to the change in 2000, supporting an initiative that defined marriage as solely between a man and a woman. But last Friday its editorial took the opposite position. I still think the paper’s managers — Freedom Comm CEO Scott Flanders, Reg Publisher Terry Horne, Editorial and Commentary Director Cathy Taylor, and her deputy, Matt Leone — need to write an explanation for this change.

It’s a simple courtesy to their subscribers — of whom they have about 100,000 less than in 2000.

There’s nothing wrong with changing one’s opinion, even in a major way. Just give some reasons.

For example, I used to be a big proponent of school choice/vouchers, in my 19 years with the Register writing a couple of hundred editorials in favor of the reform. But in recent years I’ve come to doubt the reform. The reason: I came to see that such a reform only would mean the government, in doling out the tax money to private and parochial schools, would come to control them.

From NewsBank, via the Orange County Public Library’s online connection (you’ll need an OCPL library card, or check your local library), I dug out the Register’s March 1, 2000 editorial, which I did not write, in favor of Proposition 22. Here it is:

The Marriage Laws

Proposition 22 , which says that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California,” has become one of the most bitterly contested initiatives on the March 7 ballot.

Supporters claim that the purpose of the measure is to halt a nationwide effort by gay-rights activists to force every state to recognize homosexual “marriages.” Opponents say that it is an unnecessary initiative that stems mainly from its proponents’ bigotry toward gays.

That polarized view isn’t a surprise given that there isn’t much middle ground on the subject of homosexuality. Depending on one’s social and religious outlook, it is unnatural and a sin, or an alternative way of living that is as morally relevant as whether one is right-handed or left-handed.

In terms of hatred or bigotry, there’s plenty to go around on both sides – a typical occurrence when two diametrically opposed camps compete in the winner-takes-all world of politics.

As a rule of thumb, the best way to deal with such divisive issues is to reduce the government’s involvement in them. The state should not forbid or punish homosexuality, nor should it be in the business of legitimizing behavior or policing claims of discrimination.

The authorities should step in only when members of either camp invade the rights of others or legal protections are abridged.

Under current law, the government grants certain rights and privileges based on whether people are married. Those include some tax benefits (and some penalties also), some welfare-state benefits and special legal standing that non-married couples don’t have. For instance, non-married couples can gain inheritance rights and buy property together – but they require legal contracts to do so.

The ultimate question in Prop. 22 is whether the definition of what constitutes a marriage should remain as it always has been, or whether the door can be opened to same-sex marriages – and by extension to any other sort of arrangements that people might devise.

Despite what some opponents argue, the definition of marriage initiative wasn’t proposed out of the blue. Gay-rights activists have been looking for the most liberal state to gain recognition of same-sex marriage. Once that eventually is accomplished, they hope to invoke the “full faith and credit clause” of the Constitution, which requires all states to recognize certain acts by other states.

As we see it, gays should be free to marry anyone they choose, provided that they find a church or private group to do it. But they shouldn’t use government policy as a truncheon to insist on society’s acceptance – something that is at the heart of the gay-marriage movement.

Rather than try to change the nature of marriage, gay rights groups ought to rely – and increasingly are doing so – on domestic partnership laws and private contractual relationships to address legitimate concerns about estates and guardianship. If gay partners truly are denied hospital visitation rights, then the Legislature can easily fix that.

Reinforcing the current definition of marriage will in no way impede efforts at providing gay couples with fair treatment. But it will stop a disingenuous strategy to impose a new view of marriage on Californians based on what may happen in some other state’s legislature or court system.

That’s why we urge a “yes” vote on Prop. 22.

(Note: The 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Act, which President Bill Clinton signed into law, supposedly prevented forcing states that don’t recognize same-sex “marriage” to do so, and federal courts have upheld it so far. However, it has yet to be tested in the U.S. Supreme Court, which is at least as erratic as the California Supreme Court.)

And here’s the new editorial published last Friday, May 16, 2008; I’ll just include the main sentences:

Prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying, even though they can have most of the privileges of marriage, is an act of discrimination that is not countenanced under California’s constitution.

In our view, the state should have little or no role in defining or regulating so intimate a relationship as marriage. People should be free to call their relationship a marriage if it is loving and committed, and churches should be free to decide whether or not to bless such relationships.

Given the reality that the state has inserted itself into so many aspects of our private lives, however, and that it treats married couples differently from those who are simply cohabiting, this decision was virtually inevitable as an expression of simple fairness.

Curiously, the phrase — “Given the reality that the state has inserted itself into so many aspects of our private lives, however…” — is itself a blank check for government to do absolutely anything. Hardly a libertarian sentiment.

Anyway, this is the biggest state issue of the year, and Register readers have a right to know why the change in opinion was made.

Don’t you think?

O.C. Register editorial page should explain why its position changed on homosexual “marriage”

Back in 2000, the Orange County Register backed a proposition that defined marriage as between a man and a woman. I was an editorial writer there at the time and remember it well.

Today its editorial, written by editorialist Alan Bock, backs the state Supreme Court ruling that persons of the same sex can “marry” one another. Yet it offers no explanation for the switch in opinion. It should do so. I’m curious about the reasoning behind the switch. Maybe they could put it up on their blog.

And given that an unsigned editorial like this represents the opinions of the paper’s owners and editors, not just that of a lone editorialist, all involved should put up their own opinions, from the Hoiles family and Freedom CEO Scott Flanders on down to the paper’s editorial and commentary director. This is a major opinion switch, and readers are curious about how the individuals in the collective came to this decision.

Get government out

My own position is simple.

First, there is no such thing as homosexual “marriage.” By definition, marriage is between a man and a woman. Anything else is something else. Two persons of the same sex can no more “marry” than can a man “marry” his golden retriever.

Am I exaggerating? Over by Palm Springs, near the interstate is a sign reading, “Pets are children, too.” Animal rights groups now will begin lobbying for the right to marry their pets.

Second, if you want a legal view defending the ruling, the best one is by constitutional scholar Glenn Greenwald, whom I highly respect. He closely read the court opinion, which points out that previous court rulings mandated that “equal protection” be applied to the “right to marry.”

But he doesn’t deal with my objection: That the ruling also means that a man now has a “right to marry” his golden retriever.

Third, all this brings us to my main point, which I made last December: that government should entirely get out of the marriage business. Only in recent centuries has government seized a privilege previously exercised only by families, churches, and the marrying man and woman themselves. (Nowadays, athiests, agnostics, and other non-religious types could marry within their groups, or make up their vows. Just don’t bother me about it.)

Not surprisingly, government has made a mess of marriage, with a divorce rate of 50%. If airplanes crashed 50% of the time, how long would airlines be in business — or airline executives out of prison?

As to homosexual “marriage,” it’s a chimera. But if people want to believe they have one, they obviously should be allowed to believe such, just as people should be allowed to believe that Jabba the Hut, Boba Fett, Darth Vader, and other “Star Wars” fictions actually exist.

Fourth, and finally, the conservatives and “family values” types criticizing the California Supreme Court ruling have only themselves to blame. For at least 30 years now, especially during the current Bush regime, they have exalted government as never before, vastly increasing the police, regulatory, and snooping powers of the government — all the while saying they favor less government. That cognitive dissonance — saying they want less government but giving us more — shows how conservatives have led the redefinition of reality.

As a Bush administration official put it:

We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.

That’s how even “conservatives” think nowadays.

They should not be surprised now that government, having been built up by them to monstrous proportions, arrogates to itself the power to redefine reality, in this case redefining marriage.

McCain: Four more years! (of the Iraq War)

In a weird speech, a kind of scripted free-association about the world after John McCain has been president for four years, the candidate said the Iraq War finally would be winding down. That means, if he’s right, in January 2013 the Iraq War will have lasted nearly 10 years.

And the Afghan War, assuming it’s also going on when McCain potentially leaves office, will have lasted longer, more than 11 years.

Let’s look at how long other American wars lasted:

Vietnam War: 8 years — scored from the beginning of LBJ’s major escalation in early 1965 (just after he won re-election claiming Goldwater was a warmonger!) to Nixon’s troop pullout in early 1973.

Civil War: 4 years.

World War II: 3-3/4 years.

Korean War: 3 years, one month.

1812 War: Less than 3 years.

World War I: Less than 2 years.

Mexican-American War (1846-48): Less than 2 years.

Spanish-American War (1898): 5 months.

Gulf War (1991): 3 months.

Whether you agree with the Iraq War or not, it’s just lasting too long. And McCain wants it to last even longer.

This is going to be a major campaign issue, eclipsed only by the imploding economy. It’s McCain’s top issue, and he’s going to keep pushing it until he loses.

Bush, McCain, the Neocons, and most Republicans are like Gollum in “Lord of the Rings” (who actually looks like Bush), and the Iraq War is the ring they are addicted to: “Precious, precious, precious! My precious! O my precious!”

Is America free?

For lunch today I went to a German deli in Costa Mesa and ordered a roast-beef sandwich. I wanted to get ein Bier, but the girl behind the counter told me I couldn’t drink it in the store.

I pointed out that, in Germany and the rest of Europe, you can drink just about anywhere — certainly in a cafe.

I asked where she was from. She said Mexico City. I asked if you can drink anywhere in Mexico. “Yes,” she said. Her English was quite good.

It’s only in America that you can’t drink even a single beer in a German cafe. I think this is because our Lords and Masters — the politicians and busybodies like the insane MADD special interest lobby group — know that, if you give them one beer, next you know they’ll be holding up a liquor store, chugging a fifth of vodka, and driving down the street like a maniac.

Well, the rest of us are more responsible. We can have a beer with a sandwich and act responsibly.

In July, California is going to ban using cell phones in cars. Again, the problem is that the politicians who passed the law — and Gov. Arnold, who signed it — know that they can’t responsibly talk on the phone and drive at the same time. They’re so busy using their cells to scheme to raise our taxes and pass laws like this one — or the one banning beer in a deli — that they get emotional and start swerving their tax-paid cars all over the interstate.

They assume we’re as irresponsible as them, but we’re not. We’re responsible.

Except on election day, when we irresponsibly return these tyrants to power — and give them more power through initiatives.

Politicians blab how America is the “freest” country in the world.

Don’t you believe it.

Republican Death Wish

Calling Dr. Freud.

In the last couple of days I’ve been talking with a lot of Orange County Republicans. Quite a few of them want McCain to lose big — and the House and Senate to go even more to the Democrats.

They realize this will be horrible for America: Obama and the Democrats will raise taxes, impose new socialist programs and regulations, and reduce our liberties.

But these Republicans are looking beyond the current election. They know that Bush has ruined their party, and that McCain’s election would be a 3rd Bush term. That’s the last thing they want. And they also want the Neocons out of the government and way away from the levers of American foreign policy. They want Bushism and Neoconism discredited with extreme prejudice. And the only way to do that is for a big wipeout of McCain and other Republicans this November.

They cheer the recent big losses of previously heavily Republican House districts in Mississippi, Illinois, and Louisiana as harbingers of impending disaster.

They see that, the bigger the loss, the bigger repudiation of Bushism and Neoconism will occur. And the bigger the loss, the quicker the party can return to its roots of small government and a prudent foreign policy — in short, a return to Reaganism.

Freud defined a Death Wish — sometimes called a Death Drive — as “an urge in all organic life to restore an earlier stage of things.”

In short, the wish for defeat in November of McCain, Bush, and the Neocons, is a wish to return to Reagan.

(P.S. Any Republicans wishing to hire my services as a psychoanalyst can do so for $200 an hour. — Dr. Sigmund Seiler.)

Dingbat Democratic tax-increase proposal

Democrats aren’t long going to enjoy running the whole government — as they will after Obama wins in November — if they raise taxes. Their latest idea: a surtax on millionaires to fund Iraq War veterans’ benefits. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is supporting the idea.

For one thing, how about ending the war, as Democrats promised in their 2006 victory campaign, so there aren’t any new Iraq War veterans?

But here’s the “reasoning” we’re getting, from Rep. Mike Ross of Arkansas:

So someone who earns $2 million a year would pay $5,000. … They’re not going to miss it….

He might not, personally, “miss it,” but his investments and businesses will — as well as the folks hired by his businesses.

Let’s change the equation a little. Somebody makes $20 million a year, so he won’t “miss” an additional $50,000 in taxes. But losing that money means he’ll have to fire a middle-class employee making $50,000 a year. The fired employee will go on unemployment and welfare, costing taxpayers more money, leading to even more tax increases

I’ve explained this over and over to Democrats for 30 years, but they just don’t get it.

Well, China’s economy is growing so fast that America can keep up only if we not only avoid tax increases, but cut taxes. (Oh, and stop wasting trillions on dumb wars.) It’s the only way to stay ahead.

Of course, when China is running America, the Democrats will have a “solution” to that: Raise taxes to teach everybody Chinese.

Free Barry Bonds! — indict Bush

The noose of fascist tyranny continues tightening around Americans’ necks. The Federal Fascists just slipped 15 more felony counts over the neck of Barry Bonds, the baseball slugger. The Chron reports:

Barry Bonds was charged in a new indictment Tuesday with 15 felony counts alleging he lied to a grand jury when he denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs and that he hampered the federal government’s doping investigation.

The career home run leader originally was indicted in November by a federal grand jury on four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice.

What business it of these federal goons what Bonds took to enhance his performance? That’s a matter for baseball, which allowed such substances at the time Bonds allegedly took them.

And it’s typically hypocritical that the indictment comes from the odious Bush regime. In the mid-1990s, Bush himself was a co-owner of the Texas Rangers when players there were injecting steroids like a diabetic injects insulin. In his book, “Juiced,” admitted steroid juicer Jose Canseco, a member of Bush’s team, describes Bush as “most certainly knowing” about the steroid abuse.

If Bonds deserves indictment, so does Bush.

Replace Arnold with Alice in the California governor’s office

No more pencils
No more books
No more teacher’s dirty looks

Out for summer
Out till fall
We might not go back at all

School’s out forever
School’s out for summer
School’s out with fever
School’s out completely
–Alice Cooper

My fellow Michigander Alice Cooper‘s “School’s Out” song played as the anthem of my senior year in high school back in 72. (YouTube from 2005 here.) I’ve been against government schools ever since.

Alice was so great we need to import him from Arizona — where he’s a major celebrity now — recall Arnold, and put Alice in the California governor’s chair.

Here’s another reason to make Alice governor: The California Government School Brainwashers’ Union (CTA) is trying to prevent budget cuts needed because of the state’s approximately $15 billion – $15 trillion deficit. (Who knows that the real numbers are anyway? Who cares?)

Arnold won’t face down these thugs, but Alice will. He’ll perform that part of his act where he brings out a guillotine and chops off his own head. That’ll scare those surfer boys in the CTA.

Arnold’s “Terminator” schtick is tiresome. “I’ll be back.” No, please go back to Austria and leave pop culture to us Michigan boys.

I’ll spare you another editorial on government schools that’s long, well-reasoned, irrefutable, and boring. You wanna reason, here it is: I spent 13 years in them, plus 2 years at at a government university, and look how I turned out. As Alice shouts:

Well we got no class
And we got no principles
And we got no innocence
We can’t even think of a word that rhymes

Bob Barr for president?

It’s not like he’s going to be elected, or like my endorsement — or vote — will mean much. But I’m not yet going to endorse Bob Barr, who just announced he’s running for prez on the Libertarian Party ticket. A former federal prosecutor and U.S. congressman, Barr has been pretty decent on canceling Bush’s police-state assault on our liberties. He’s pro-life. And he wants to withdraw from Iraq, albeit maybe not right away.

But there’s no reason to delay withdrawal from Iraq. Just have the troops throw their weapons and secret documents and computers on their vehicles and drive to Kuwait. No reason to take the refrigerators, TVs, and air conditioners. All of those things together aren’t worth the life of one trooper.

He’s no Ron Paul. (But then, who is — except Ron Paul?)

One critic notes:

I have yet to hear an unambiguous commitment to immediate withdrawal from Iraq. Unlike Paul, he also has not promised to remove our troops from the other 150 countries in which they are stationed. Barr’s campaign website uses the rhetoric of non-intervention, but a perusal of the articles available on that same website gives the lie to any idea that he opposes foreign intervention.

Barr at least might give us a choice against the virtually identical big-government policies of Obama and McCain — although Obama also probably would end the war.

It’s also been a long time — Bill Taft was the last — since we’ve had a president with a moustache. This prejudice must end. An affirmative action program might even be necessary.

Why do we bother with Big-Government Republicans?

If you’ve been around Republicans long enough, you know they always like to get your vote so they can, so they say, stop wild spending by Democrats.

A recent fundraising letter by John McCain, which I hold in my hand, insists (emphasis in original):

If liberals like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi control the White House, Congress and statehouses across the country….

government spending will skyrocket as they implement government-run health care and resurrect the entire portfolio of the failed welfare state programs of the 60s and 70s.

But not if we Republicans unite and work together. Our free-market solutions and conservative principles are better for America — that has proven true time and time again….

Sincerely,

John McCain
United States Senator

But this item was just up on the news:

In the first seven months of fiscal 2008, which ends on September 30, the government’s budget deficit swelled by 88.4 per cent to $US152.2 billion, from $US80.8 billion in the first seven months of fiscal 2007.

The latest figures point to growing strain on the budget, which is poised to face a deeper deficit as payments under an economic stimulus program agreed by Congress and the Bush administration get into full swing.

The Congressional Budget Office forecast in March that the fiscal 2008 deficit likely will hit $US396 billion. Defence spending keeps climbing as the administration seeks more funds for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In April alone, receipts primarily from taxes totalled a record $US403.8 billion, up from $US383.6 billion in April 2007.

But outlays also set a record at $US244.5 billion, compared with $US205.9 billion in April last year. Outlays are due to swell in coming months as tax rebates …that are part of the administration’s economic stimulus plan start flowing in earnest.

Although Democrats now control Congress, the spendaholism was just as bad when Republicans controlled it through most of this decade. And Republicans have controlled the White House 28 of the past 40 years since Nixon-Agnew won in 1968.

Republicans have had their chance to cut spending, but haven’t done so. Their tax cuts, while welcome, were paltry. The 2008 tax “rebate” is a gimmick that’s worthless (although I’ll cash my rebate, a small repayment of what has been stolen from me).

The only Republican who really wants to cut spending — and taxing — is Ron Paul. He’s still out there, campaigning, trying to get at least a few more delegates to try to talk sense to his fellow Republicans at the September convention in Minneapolis. His new book, “The Revolution,” is No. 1 on the Amazon bestseller list and will be No. 1 on the NY Times bestseller list this Sunday.

The rest of the Republicans, especially McCain, are just a bunch of phonies. Republicans might as well dig up Nixon and send him on another campaign tour.