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Michael Eric Dyson: Can You Hear Me Now?

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Commonwealth Club of California

Commonwealth Club

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Michael Eric Dyson Critiques Obama's Post-Racial Promise

02 min 33 sec

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All About the Bling: Dyson on Hip Hop

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Michael Eric Dyson: Is Gay the New Black?

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18 Comments

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sactownjudge

Posts: 40

Posted: 06.08.09, 08:16 AM

Finally Heybd - you'll forgive me, I hope, for calling your attempted equivalence bt drivers licenses and marriage rights silly. But I must. It is silly.

There is nothing more, in terms of what is necessarily there, than symbolism in the definition of marriage and the fact is that the symbolism matters or there wldn't be so hotly contested. There is no material loss, no disadvantage in income or mobility, absolutely no rights truncated by calling homosexual unions "civil unions" (or whatever else - let's invent a new name!) and maintaining marriages established definition. None.

Bring me your next argument.

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sactownjudge

Posts: 40

Posted: 06.08.09, 08:11 AM

DB - the equal protection argument falls flat. It's not a "special right" reserved for heterosexuals, it is simply, by definition, a contracted union between heterosexuals. There is no inherent prejudice against gay people in that 4,000 year old definition - just as Greek culture was certainly not fixed against homosexuality but it also didn't permit or even imagine marriage between them. This is because marriage has historically been tied to the possibility of procreation.

So there is nothing in the position of the average Prop 8 proponent that wishes to deny any equal rights to committed gay couples. If they want to spend their lives together they absolutely should and they absolutely should have the same legal protections afforded by marriage. And all of that can be achieved (as Elton John has pointed out) under civil unions.

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sactownjudge

Posts: 40

Posted: 06.08.09, 08:05 AM

Cheever - who said I was married? Who brought up "God"? (You, for the record). I can't find any plausible standing for divorce in this discussion. Of course divorce is a right. How does that have any bearing on the definition of marriage? The non sequiturs in your post are a bit dizzying.

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heybd

Posts: 60

Posted: 06.05.09, 09:51 AM

dbmcvey is right with regard to any violence post-Prop 8. To sactownjudge: obviously the civil rights movement and the gay marriage movement are not exact parallels, but the similarities are hard to ignore. What is the benefit to society to not recognize two people's union under the law just because they are not a man and a woman? I think that love, commitment, and stability of a family are far more important.

Further you say "The majority of proponents of traditional marriage have zero interest in denying any "rights" to anyone - in fact they would welcome a definition of civil union that provided identical rights for gay people, so long as the civil union isn't called "marriage."" If the state is going to issue licenses to citizens conferring married status upon two people, they can't deny it to anyone based on their sex/gender. The DMV doesn't deny drivers' licenses based on sex/gender, and neither should the county clerk with marriage licenses. It is about equality and freedom. And to say that you welcome civil unions with identical rights but a different title is disingenuous, because if the end result of the couple's union is not at issue, what is exactly?

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dbmcvey

Posts: 9

Posted: 06.04.09, 12:24 PM

There have been times that a majority of citizens believed black people to be less than a full human being so citing popularity is a specious argument. If marriage is not a right it is a "special right" held by heterosexuals which goes against equal protection. You state that equating gay rights with black rights is absurd--but without any arguments to back up your claim I can only think it is based in prejudice. As to your citing violence in the wake of Prop 8--I would say that voting away a persons civil rights is a violation and though it's unfortunate that some walls were spray painted and some windows broken I think the loss of protections is the greater violence. And if you look at the violence done to gays and lesbians it does not compare. There were many riots and uprisings during the civil rights movement for African Americans that resulted in far greater violence than anything after Prop 8--it's a silly argument.

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L. Riki Cheever

Posts: 13

Posted: 06.04.09, 12:17 PM

I recommend your post but I had intended to look at it. I'm actually glad I did, now I do have a few words of wisdom that you may have overlooked.

While I am certain that you would prefer that there be chattel slavery due to your inability to indemnify outright slavery; I am equally certain that you do not realize there is a movement to indefinitely keep married couples together; which I do subscribe to.

I for one have a prejudice against divorced people. I do. I do not understand why with married people, you find that it means so much to you; that you want to pledge both under law and before God, to stay together until death do you part.

You seem to be speaking for more than yourself and therefore, I ask you. Is divorce a right for married people; and do you get a bolt of lighting on the kitchen table that says all is forgiven, once you swear to God; or is it God, that doesn’t mean very much to you, anymore, that justifies your lying before God?

I think it is time you search deeper into yourself; and you realize that marriage, and its term is as cheap as water is for the moment; and doesn’t mean anything to anybody, until it does; and then, only until it doesn’t.

Your “isms” that afflicts you, are quite apparent, and there are more than likely several at your disposal. Please take the time to simply look at them.

In the interim, I hope you have chosen the proper spouse for you and I wish you a wonderful and very long-long marriage together.

One man, one woman, one marriage; Proposition 9. Problem solved.

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sactownjudge

Posts: 40

Posted: 06.03.09, 07:42 AM

To this I would add that there ARE hateful, spiteful, unforgivable bigots who identify with the Yes on 8 campaign, but they would be vehemently disavowed by the majority of its proponents. There are also hateful, spiteful bigots in the No on 8 campaign, people who want to silence those who disagree with them and caricature and distort their views.

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sactownjudge

Posts: 40

Posted: 06.03.09, 07:25 AM

The attempted equivalence bt the civil rights movement and the gay marriage battle is flatly absurd. And by wrongly comparing proponents of the existing definition of marriage to the race-mongering thugs that MLK and others struggled against in their day, Dyson and FORA.tv promote a kind of ignorance and intolerance.

The majority of proponents of traditional marriage have zero interest in denying any "rights" to anyone - in fact they would welcome a definition of civil union that provided identical rights for gay people, so long as the civil union isn't called "marriage." There is no plausible way in which that disposition even remotely connects to people being denied service at restaurants bc of the color of their skin, or being forced to sit in the back of the bus, or being chased by lynch mobs.

On the last point - most of the scenes of violence that have occurred in CA in the Prop 8 aftermath have been against Prop 8 proponents, not the other way around.

"Marriage" is not a right like voting - it's an institution with an existing definition. That definition currently precludes same sex unions and it so happens that a majority of Americans agree with this definition and in doing so they are not preventing anyone from exercising any rights. They are simply saying "this is what marriage means, it matters to us, if you want to change it, change in Democratic process and stop yelling just because the public doesn't agree with you."

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