John Kerry And Gay Marriage

With the recent resignation of Democrat New Jersey governor, announcing his homosexual affair, and the recent California Supreme Court decision voiding homosexual certificates I thought it a good time to discuss Presidential Candidate John Kerry's view on homosexual marriage.

A few months ago there was a bill going through the senate that would have created a constitutional ammendment defining marriage as only between a man and a women. Kerry used the states right argument to argue against it. Arguing that we should let the states decide instead of forcing at the federal level. That's odd he would use that argument because when a bill came through the senate pushed through by Bill Clinton, called the Defense of Marriage Act, arguing for the exact same thing, Kerry voted against it. A bill that was passed with 85% of the senate voting in favor of it, with both Democrats and Republicans voting for it. However Kerry, being the extreme liberal that he is, voted against it.

In case anyone still has any doubts Kerry is for gay marriage, read what he wrote when he voted against the Defense Of Marriage Act. He seems to be clearly on the side of gay marriage.

As for my personal opinion on gay marriage, I take the same stance as Robert George, Professor at Princeton University, he writes,

It is important to protect the substance of marriage, but a sound amendment need not, however, forbid states from enacting certain forms of domestic partnership. It need only ensure that laws do not treat nonmarital sexual relationships as if they were marital by making such relationships the basis for allocating benefits. An amendment protecting the substance of marriage would ensure that neither the federal government nor the states may predicate benefits, privileges, rights or immunities on the existence, recognition or presumption of nonmarital sexual relationships.

In other words, domestic partnerships, if states elect to have them, should be nondiscriminatory and inclusive. They should be available to people based on needs, not on sex. The law certainly should not discriminate in favor of those unmarried people who are in sexual relationships over those with the same needs who, though committed to caring for each other, are not sexual partners. Widowed sisters living together and looking after each other, or an unmarried adult son taking care of his elderly father, may have the need for domestic partner benefits such as hospital visitation privileges and insurance rights.

A constitutionally sound domestic partnership law would not discriminate against such people by excluding them from eligibility simply because their relationships are not sexual--just as a nondiscriminatory and inclusive law would not undermine marriage by treating unmarried sexual partners as if they were married.