Update: New mix available for download here.
Compliments of Waldo, a Marshall-Newman Amendment protest song. You can download it from the author/musician, Brady Earnhart. A commenter has posted the lyrics to Waldo’s site.
In response to one of our local anti-gay activists, who complained that the song unfairly links the amendment effort to homophobia, Earnhart gently and compassionately explains the connection, ending with
..Any decent folk who are now in favor of the amendment ought to be aware of the toxicity that will seep out of it down the road.
His lyrics and commentary are dead on. What we have seen in other states with so-called “marriage” amendments is that those who insisted that their only interest was in “protecting traditional marriage” were not satisfied with that. The aftermath of amendments in states like Oklahoma and Michigan has been the introduction of legislation that strips away additional rights from GLBT people and our families, using the amendment as justification.
What will happen in Virginia? First of all, legislation to rescind the Small Business Insurance Parity Act will be introduced – making Virginia once again the only nanny state in the nation to dictate to private businesses how they administer their insurance plans. What’s that? The AG says the amendment doesn’t apply to private contracts? You must be kidding – the opposition to that bill was completely framed in terms of how such benefits are like the benefits of marriage, and therefore Virginia businesses shouldn’t be allowed to offer them to “homosexuals.” We will see a barrage of anti-gay legislation and the hate-filled rhetoric that goes with it that even surpasses the 2005 session.
It doesn’t matter whether the amendment would directly void such arrangements or benefits. The intent of its architects is to keep going until GLBT people are driven back into the closet and unable to even safely speak up for ourselves. The decent, well-meaning people (and there are some) who genuinely mean us no harm and think they can support this amendment without causing us harm are very sadly mistaken. Each and every one of us knows someone like this. They need us to help them understand the truth, and to vote “NO.”
Apparently Bob Marshall has his own rebuttal in the form of a 50-year-old song by Sammy Cahn:
http://www.dailypress.com/news/opinion/outlook/dp-30582sy0may28,1,3659825.story
The site requires registration, but Marshall’s full editorial needs to be read in full to be believed … or, I hope, convince voters of the mentality behind his amendment.
BY ROBERT G. MARSHALL/SPECIAL TO THE DAILY PRESS
May 28, 2006
Do I think songwriters are smarter than attorneys, judges and some politicians including senators and governors? Well, songwriters Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn sure are. In the 1950s they wrote “Love and Marriage” for the musical version of Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town.”
Frank Sinatra sang it, accompanied by Nelson Riddle’s orchestra. Here are the lyrics:
Love and marriage, love and marriage
Go together like a horse and carriage …
Turkey Baster Bob is what’s known as a fine piece of work.
Where to start, where to start? I’m not sure how these folks keep track of their arguments at this point – haven’t they been beating the drum that “love” isn’t the point of marriage, that it’s really about the “design” (i.e., insert tab A into slot B)? It was all the rage last year to talk about how, if marriage was just about “love,” it would be ok to marry your dog, or your sister, or your car.
Maybe “love” in this context is supposed to be code for something else – like “compulsory procreative sex.” Which brings us to the curious statement that heterosexual marriage “requires sexual exclusivity.” Who knew?
I can’t help thinking that Bob and Bob’s ilk are suffering from terrible envy over what they imagine gay relationships are like. Here they are, struggling to coexist with this person who they have been trained and conditioned to think of as a kind of alien species, and they think that a partnership with someone of the same gender must be so much easier. There’s always this palpable sense that IT’S NOT FAIR, that straight people are working SO hard to fit themselves to this institution, and they are making SUCH sacrifices to be who they are “supposed” to be, and they are SO miserable, so who are we to just be happy with our partners? They are so completely defined by gender distinction that they can’t comprehend the simple truth: IT DOESN’T MATTER. Two people are two people, we all have to work on our relationships. Straight people are not missing out on some carefree non-stop party. Hear that, Bob?
We’ve tried to communicate with Bob, but he’s notoriously resistant to information that conflicts with what he has already decided is true. There is some logic to his approach – if he avoids meeting you, he can claim to not know that you exist.