Republicans in Oklahoma are showing that, like the rest of the Republican Party, they are taking their cues from the racists who brought us the strategy of massive resistance during the civil rights movement.
Of course, the new civil rights movement is for marriage equality and equal treatment and dignity in general, and the dead-enders don't like it one bit. They especially don't like that the federal courts are ordering them to stop discriminating, so in Oklahoma they're resurrecting a favored tactic from the Jim Crow days.
You know that a couple of weeks ago a federal court found Oklahoma's marriage equality ban to be unconstitutional, but you might not have heard that the legislature has been trying to decide what to do about it.
For their solution they are looking to the ideas of the old South, when cities under pressure to integrate their public schools closed the public schools entirely, creating what were colloquially known as seg academies, private schools with the ability to keep discriminating. Or, if the city was told it had to integrate its swimming pools it would just close down the public schools.
Bingo, problem solved, no race mixing allowed.
What's the marriage equivalent? Pure simplicity, really. Just abolish marriage.
No, really, I'm not kidding. Watch this:
I'm thinking they may not have thought this whole thing through, though. For instance, lots of people like being married. In addition, lots of people, even straight couples, like the tax and other benefits that being married brings.
I don't think this is going anywhere, but if you want to have a clue to their mindset this is a good place to start.
If you don’t play by MY rules, then I am going to take the ball and go home!
In the past decade, this tactic has been used in schools where courts have ruled that prohibiting a Gay-Straight Alliance club or after school activity is illegal (thanks in part to the First Amendment and to the Equal Access Act of 1984, which, ironically enough, was signed into law by St. Ronald Reagan and intended to force schools to allow religious student groups to hold Bible studies on school property during lunch and after school).
Some school boards, rather than allow GSAs, shut down all after-school clubs (the only way they could get out from under the Equal Access Act, other than by refusing federal funds: chess club, Future Farmers of America, drama club … any student-led club of any kind.
Mostly, it didn’t work. But it is a similar tactic to the marriage cancellation being considered, although Oklahoma’s potential use of it has even less chance of succeeding.
Ideal democracy: the triumph of rights for all over privileges for a few.
NanuqFC
[T]he rights afforded every citizen under our Constitution mean nothing if we do not protect those rights — both from unjust laws and violent acts. ~ US President Barack Obama
I’m all for using civil contracts to establish all of the rights and responsibilities normally associated with traditional marriage.
I’ve never really understood why the state should have any interest in what is really a cultural tradition.
With a great many people never choosing marriage for a variety of reasons, but still having children and mortgages and other shared social encumberances, it just seems like the twenty-first century way to go is with civil unions for everyone.
Those who wish to be “married” in the traditional sense may undertake the ceremonial/spiritual act in whatever private way they choose. If that involves a “sanctification” by clergy, it is up to the denomination to decide who qualifies for the privilege.
I’m not in a rush to see this secularization happen because I think that, culturally, we may not be ready for it yet; and, in any case, marriage equality is an important step forward; so that needs time to be fully adopted…
But…yeah, I’m not crazy about government endorsed marriage.
Out of my healthcare!
(But I’m fine with you poking it into my bedroom, civil arrangements, and uterus!)