The Marriage Police

Buried in a footnote of the appeal of the pending resumption of Armageddon in California is a fascinating claim about what puts the Traditional in Marriage:

Infertile marriages also advance the institution’s central procreative purposes by reinforcing social norms that heterosexual intercourse — which in most cases can produce offspring — should take place only within marriage.

This isn’t just a passing remark — the Prop 8 sponsors spend a good ten pages dwelling on the subject. But it reveals a subtext to the issue that wasn’t entirely apparent in November 2008:

Prop 8 protects the State’s right to regulate fucking.

Not just gay fucking. All fucking. Or, to be more precise: All unlicensed fucking.

Of course, with or without Prop 8, the Great State of California already regulates fucking: You can fuck your spouse, you can fuck some stranger you’ve picked up at a bar — heck, you can even fuck two or more people at once. But you cannot fuck as a business transaction. If you wanna pay for it, you’ll need a prenup.

This perfectly legitimate legal precedent is overlooked by the appeal, however, in favor of arguing that the State has a right to regulate marriage because the State has a right to regulate spawning.

You know — just like China. Or, since everybody else is going there these days: Hitler’s Germany.

They don’t say it quite that way, of course. And they certainly didn’t say it quite that way within the text of Prop 8 itself:

Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

That’s it. That’s all Prop 8 added to the California constitution. But what the sponsors are saying now is that California voters have a right to arbitrarily define marriage as they see fit, because the State has a valid interest in keeping fucking in the family.

No, we’re not making this up. We swear. Just look at how the appeal treats Loving v. Virginia.

Loving, you’ll recall, besides being the best-named case in Supreme Court history, also affirmed the right of Dark Meat to be served with White Meat. It struck down one form of “traditional marriage.” But now we’re told there was more at stake:

Furthermore, while the opposite-sex definition of marriage is inescapably connected with that institution’s central procreative purposes, antimiscegenation laws were affirmatively at war with those purposes, for by prohibiting interracial marriages, they substantially decreased the likelihood that children of mixed-race couples would be born to and raised by their parents in stable and enduring family units.

Now that’s creative reading — an argument nowhere found, or even alluded to, in the Loving opinion itself.

Virginia’s law — the one struck down — was all about the State’s interest in Proper Procreation. It wasn’t about the Ick Factor of Colored Tab A in White Slot B, but Virginia’s statutory fear of Mongrel Spawn C. Anybody but Whites could drop babies at will, for all the law cared. As Earl Warren wrote in his decision:

In upholding the constitutionality of these provisions… the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia referred to its 1955 decision in Naim v. Naim as stating the reasons supporting the validity of these laws. In Naim, the state court concluded that the State’s legitimate purposes were “to preserve the racial integrity of its citizens,” and to prevent “the corruption of blood,” “a mongrel breed of citizens,” and “the obliteration of racial pride,” obviously an endorsement of the doctrine of White Supremacy.

An entirely reasonable exception was made, of course, for descendants of hot August nights shared by John Rolfe and Pocahontas. Really. We are not joking.

Warren declared Virginia’s interest in Purity of Essence poppycock, and focused solely on the couple’s fundamental right to love:

The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.

Nothing there about marriage’s “central procreative purposes.” If anything, Loving dismissed procreative purposes as even relevant.

The Prop 8 supporters, in their appeal, turn the point on its head: Of course Virginia had a right to regulate marriage for purposes of procreation. Virginia just chose the wrong purposes.

This novel reading of what marriage amounts to — and, by extension, the precedent Prop 8 would set — is at the heart of the sponsors’ appeal. If Prop 8 is upheld, they’re saying, so is the State’s right to dictate the form of the family. They’re not insisting — yet — what other prerogatives their reasoning grants the State. But they are saying there’s a lot more to Prop 8 than they let on at the time.

Perry v. Schwarzenegger: Emergency Motion for Stay Pending Appeal [Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals/PDF]
42 Comments

I wonder if the Mormonis are still involved with this?

“The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation”
-Pierre Elliot Trudeau

‘Colour’ me shocked. You mean what the Prop 8 proponents really want is to rearrange society so we all have to live according to their lights? Who could have guessed?

In more important news – me – I’ve had a couple of unpleasant jolts recently. It was distressing while watching what I could of Inception to find that the dying geezer in the bed was someone I’d acted with and when I last saw him was spry and vigorous. I spent a good deal of the movie thinking “God! I hope I don’t look that old.” Plus I’m reading the obit of a guy who was in the first play I ever did in NYC. He did well after that and was widely admired in the biz for the size of his whanger. Golden lads, indeed.

Anyhow, not very nice. Someone should do something.

@Benedick: The Dying Geezer in the Bed (Pete Postlethwaite, for those who don’t know whom we’re talking about) is one of my all-time favorite actors. You know all about theatrical make up, right? He’s still up and at ’em and looking like a Man of Exceptional Health! Here’s a younger version of Pete.

ADD: This one is about three years old. He still looks fantabulous!

Alright, who’s up for a petition drive in CA to ban both divorce and unmarried fucking? If the Morons and their evangelical allies want to whinge about “threats to marriage”, let’s up the ante…

@JNOV: That’s Pete as he was when we were in a few plays together. He’s very good in Brassed Off.

@al2o3cr: There already is a semi-official petition going about to ban divorce. Count me in.

@Benedick: He is also amazing in one of my very favorite movies – The Usual Suspects.

@al2o3cr: Shouldn’t we add fucking by couples that can’t prove that they are both fertile. After all, every sperm is sacred.

@Walking Still: In which case a BJ should be a capital offense.

First they’ll ban non-procreative intercourse, then blowjobs. Where will this end?

@Benedick: If done correctly.

@ManchuCandidate: Probably a grey area. Maybe thirty lashes.

But, Breaking News: Orly must pay (unless she can convince the judge to take it out in trade).

@Benedick: In which case those youths on TFLN will be in big trouble. As far as I can tell, they spend about 40% of each day giving or receiving BJs.

@Walking Still: Kobayashi!!! I LOVE that movie.

@Dodgerblue and Benedick: “First they came for the blowjobs, and I said nothing…”

@SanFranLefty:

Heh.

@Walking Still:

Shout the rightness of your cause to the stars, Orly! SCREAM TO THE GODS FOR JUSTICE DENIED!

Related to the whole “OMG MOOSLEMS” bit that’s going around:

http://forward.com/articles/129998/

Another little corner of American history they apparently forgot to tell me about in school…

@ManchuCandidate: Ladies don’t count. It’s all about the SEED, dude.

@flippin eck: Indeed. Spooge seems to be everyone’s beverage of choice.

@al2o3cr: Well, Jews are noisy, all the kvetching, you know.

@Dodgerblue: To say nothing of the Christ killing. And the whole matzoh issue.

Dodger: Frottage.

Btw, nojo, this a pretty cool iOs interface you got here.

@FlyingChainSaw: Twits From Last Night (or something like that).

@Walking Still: It’s a ‘reality’ TV show or something?

@rptrcub: Not iOS as such, but iOS-friendly. (Supposedly it also works smoothly with Android and Crackberries.) It’s a WordPress plug-in called “WPtouch”.

@SanFranLefty: Yeah. I almost signed up to be a moderator. Heh.

@JNOV: Wait, didn’t you have a submission to share too?

@flippin eck: Haha! Are we talking about ABD Mike’s dic pic from like a year ago? I stifled a scream (I was at work), and I deleted that thing. As Nojo will remember, this is The Man of the Shaved Waxed Nads. I use the term “man” loosely. If that’s what you’re talking about, you have an awesome, awesome memory!

As far as I know, I haven’t sent any drunken texts. Drunken dials, butt dials, and drunken IMs, well, yeah. I have been known to do that.

TJ/ Hey — I killed a tree by submitting a dicked-up written-while-tipsy syllabus for printing. I’d like to have a tree planted in recompense for my misdeed. Does anyone, esp Dodger, have a favorite tree-planting group I should contact? I can’t afford much, but it’ll make me feel better around the holidays.

@JNOV: Tree People in Los Angeles. A buddy of my wife’s from high school runs it.

@Dodgerblue: Excellent! As long as I’m not supporting that Butterfly chick while she lives in a tree fucking it all up.

@JNOV: I’ll plant one for you. In fact, I’ve got a couple of lilacs and a red corkscrew willow ready to go. If you fancy them I’ll name them ‘*** Gives Back’ (or whatever you want) and send you a picture. Or I’ll plant something else if you’d rather. Tell me what you like. I’m putting in a new cottage garden outside the house come Sept and what’s a tree one way or another?

@Benedick: :-) Thank you! :-)

I’m partial to the red corkscrew willow. So lovely. Do you like wisteria? That’s my favorite blooming thing. A picture of anything you choose would thrill me no end. :-*

@JNOV: I have an old wisteria that has gone wild and rampages about through the tress outside my study. I think it’s aiming to reach MA by 2012. Blooms for a couple of weeks in the spring. No place yet for another. Though perhaps a white standard in the new bed? Hmm. But the willow it is. I’ll get to it over the next few days.

@Benedick: This is one of the nicest things anyone have ever offered to do for me. Thank you, Benedick.

@JNOV: You’re welcome. Glad to do it. Particularly as I’m having a really stinking day and am happy to be able to think about something worth the bother for a while.

Now I’d better stop. Noje gets jealous if I try to be nice to anyone else. Sometimes a basement is the loneliest place.

@Benedick: I boo stinky days! Glad to be a bit of a diversion.

@Tommmcatt Cannot Be Arsed To Think About Sharon Angle: I like it when the seeds pop, and it is so fragrant. I think it’s kind of a parasitic plant like mistletoe–it works itself into the tall trees near the NJ Pine Barrens. And when it blooms, when it’s still cool enough to drive with your windows down without being attacked by green-head flies and humidity from hell, you catch whiffs of it here and there, and you can’t help but smile.

@Tommmcatt Cannot Be Arsed To Think About Sharon Angle: I didn’t know that. The one here is really old and has long since swamped the frame that was supposed to hold it and has grown up into the locust trees behind the house.

@Benedick:

Yeah, it takes about three years from first planting to get a regular seasonal bloom, or so I’ve read. That has kept me from planting it, as I always seem to be changing apartments/townhouses before I would get the benefit of my labor.

@Tommmcatt Cannot Be Arsed To Think About Sharon Angle: 3 years is about the time it takes to get anything really established. At least, that’s what I found here. Though I did quite well with honeysuckle.

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