October 28th 2008
Prop 8, Gay Marriage And The Spread Of Islamofascism
Y
ou know the old saying, “Gays and Islamofascists don’t mix.” Funny, yes, but there really is a nexus: If California’s Prop 8 fails and gay marriage remains the law of the land here, look for the Golden State to become the address of choice for America’s Islamofascist population.
Islamofascists, or Islamists as I prefer to call them, don’t want to be bothered with Judeo-Christian laws and traditions that get in the way of their living the Koran in their daily lives. That means more than just not wanting any toilets around that face toward Mecca; it means being able to live out their misogynistic “right” to polygamous marriage.
Muslims, and particularly Islamists, have a way of using local laws - laws they dislike for not being Sharia - to their advantage. For example, Mark Steyn writes about some welfare law wrangling that’s gone on in the UK:
You can’t (for the moment) marry multiple wives within the United Kingdom, but if you contract a polygamous marriage in a jurisdiction where polygamy is legal, such as certain, ahem, Muslim countries, your better halves (or better eighths?) are now recognized as eligible for British welfare payments. Thus, the concept of “each additional spouse” has been accepted both de facto and de jure.
And elsewhere in Europe:
Thousands of polygamous marriages like Hadi’s have sprung up throughout Italy as a byproduct of a fast-paced and voluminous immigration by Muslims to this Roman Catholic country.Despite the obvious culture clash, Italian authorities largely turn a blind eye, leaving women in a murky semi-clandestine world with few rights and no recourse when things go especially badly, as they did in Hadi’s case. …Italy is one of several European nations faced with the issue of polygamy. In Britain and Spain, where large Muslim communities have also settled, some officials favor recognizing polygamous marriage as a way to ensure the wives’ access to pensions, medical care and other state benefits.
Steyn details at length in America Alone how Islamists and their hard to find but supposedly still around somewhere more moderate Muslim brethren have used Europe’s open society and namby-pamby multiculturalism to exploit laws protecting gay rights to make inroads toward the legalization of polygamous marriage. After all, if a man can marry a man, why can’t a man marry three women?
Charles Krauthammer explained the logic in a 2006 WaPo column, Pandora and Polygamy:
In an essay 10 years ago, I pointed out that it is utterly logical for polygamy rights to follow gay rights. After all, if traditional marriage is defined as the union of (1) two people of (2) opposite gender, and if, as advocates of gay marriage insist, the gender requirement is nothing but prejudice, exclusion and an arbitrary denial of one’s autonomous choices in love, then the first requirement — the number restriction (two and only two) — is a similarly arbitrary, discriminatory and indefensible denial of individual choice.
This line of argument makes gay activists furious. I can understand why they do not want to be in the same room as polygamists. But I’m not the one who put them there. Their argument does.
He concludes the piece with what I forsee as the rallying cry of CAIR as it begins to hurl petrodollars by the barrel at California legislators in the days that would follow the rejection of Prop 8:
[D]on’t tell me that we can make one radical change in the one-man, one-woman rule and not be open to the claim of others that their reformation be given equal respect.
Todd Zywicki, writing at Volokh, made a similar if more inscrutable point:
Here’s my thought–the definition of marriage as one man and one woman seems somewhat arbitrary, which is why it is difficult to justify. The primary justification I can see is a Hayekian one of prudential deference to tradition unless there is an extremely strong case for rejecting it. I would distinguish this from what I would understand as a Burkean objection, which I would read as tradition being prescriptive, rather than prudential. But whether this is an accurate distinction is probably a debate for a different day.
So the question is, if you get rid of the “man-woman” prong as largely arbitrary, why does this not lead to getting rid of the “one-one” prong as well? It seems like the new line is just as arbitrary as the old one.
Indeed. And California is just the place for this to happen.
California has liberal courts and, with Massachusetts, the nation’s longest gay rights tradition. It has a liberal legislature that is prone to writing state laws in the name of multiculturalism and inclusion. One doesn’t have to be a gay rocket scientist to see that in the blink of an eye, gay marriage in California will lead to a very Sharia-like polygamous marriage in California. And if that happens and you happen to be a jihad-hungry, woman-deriding Islamist living in Kansas or Kentucky, what state would you head for?
In a closing footnote, it’s interesting that you could take this argument entirely the other way: If Prop 8 passes, it will open the door to polygamous marriage. That’s a favorite red herring of the No on 8 set, who argue that because the proposition calls for the enthroning in our state constitution of a definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman - instead of one man and one woman - it’s all just a Mormon conspiracy to turn California into Warren Jeffs‘ new hang-out.
Chilling. It looks like either way, the Islamists could win.
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Posted in California, Gay Marriage, Islamism, Sharia | 23 Comments » | 
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October 29th, 2008 at 11:56 am
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November 6th, 2008 at 3:42 am
November 6th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Comments
October 28th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Gee, you’d think they’d overrunning Utah by now….
October 28th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Hi;May I interject a real life situation. I’d like to hear your guidance on this.My mother was given a drug to take to lessen the chance of miscarriage and promote healthy babies — that’s what the doctor told her. The drug is Diethylstilbestrol, or DES. In male fetuses, it feminizes the brains of one in five of us ‘DES sons’.I finally came to terms with this, and realized my choice was transition or die. So, I’m now a male-to-female transsexual who’s had ‘the operation.’ I’ve changed all my legal paperwork and although I still have a male body with XY chromosomes, it has been retrofitted to approximate female anatomy, which is good because if I ever end up in an accident, there will be no ’surprise’ for the first responders.I ‘pass’ very well, thank you. Only rarely do strangers figure out I was not born this way. Most people have to be told, by me, or, more often, by someone else who just has to ‘drop the bomb.’All my paperwork has been changed. Legally, I’m female. But I have to find an OB/GYN who can check my prostate during my yearly pelvic exam (yearly mammograms don’t need that level of disclosure.)So my question to you is — knowing what you know now about me, and assuming for the moment you get absolute power to label me and make determinations on where I can and can’t go — -Do I marry a man? Or do I marry a woman?-Which restroom and changing facility do you feel I, a male-to-female transsexual, should use when in public spaces?-Am I immoral?-Am I a paedophile?-Am I tearing down western society in support of a deviant agenda?-Am I selfish?I eagerly await your responses;Hazumu Osaragi
October 29th, 2008 at 7:23 am
Thanks for your email, Hazumu (Hazumu-ko, I guess). I’ve heard of DES and I’m very sorry that you’ve had to live through all this and I’m thankful that you have found a way to do so that appears to be working, since you didn’t mention anything about depression, suicide, etc.
You misunderstood my post; it was only about gay marriage, which is separate and apart from the rest of the gay rights agenda. I oppose gay marriage because marriage is a sacred institution that deserves protection and respect. Society requires marriage between male and female because it channels the male into productive, family-building work in return for the promise of life-long sex. It gives the woman the assurance she needs to have children; that there will be a man there to provide and protect. I do not oppose gay unions, and would much prefer gays settling into stable long-term relationships instead of the clubs, multiple sex partners and other craziness.? Why? Because they’ll be healthier and happier, just as with heterosexuals.
Are you immoral? Yes, and so am I because we are all immoral, we all sin, and we all fall short of the moral perfection and glory of God. That’s why we need Jesus and the forgiveness he brings. Accepting Christ doesn’t take away our immorality; we will continue to fail, but it will give us new strength to do better and live better, and it will give us forgiveness and peace.
You’re not a pedophile unless you sexually attack underage children. You have no excuse from your background to do this, and if you do it, I hope you’re prosecuted and given a just and long sentence. Other than that, I’d appreciate it if you’d live your life with your sexuality secondary and private, like the rest of us do. The ways many gays publicly flaunt their sexuality is abhorrent to a socially conservative society like ours, and there is no excuse whatsoever for behaving that way when children are present.
All your other questions are yours to answer, Hazumu, except the very interesting one about do you marry a man or a woman. If you marry a man, chromosomally you’re in a gay marriage. If you marry a woman, psychologically you’re in a gay marriage. Wow! Since you’ve had the operation, I’d say marry a man, and I think the age-old tradition of marriage will not be threatened.
October 29th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Hazumu-san! Hajimemashite!Your comment addresses a point I’ve pondered before, and on which I’ve sent letters of comment to the likes of Dennis Prager before. Dennis, along with many others, seems to believe that sexual reassignment surgery is giving in to a person’s sickness – akin to a doctor amputating a limb to gratify a patient who has an amputation fetish.I recall a case where a boy’s penis was damaged in a botched circumcision, and the doctors’ “solution” was to surgically convert the boy into a girl. This “girl” grew up convinced she was actually a male, trapped in a body of the wrong sex. Prager (and presumably many others) accept this claim on the part of this individual because “she” (he) turned out to a 26th chromosome pair that buttressed “her” (his) beliefs.I assert that at least some cases of transsexualism are no less real. (How many? Insufficient data!!!) For your sake, though, I’m glad we have the technology to address your case in a productive way.However, the bearing your case has on the issue of gay marriage strikes me as tenuous at best. As you write in your post, “Legally, I’m female.”Legally.In effect, the law has decided that some attributes matter more than a person’s 16th chromosome pair. This may or may not be a reasonable criterion, and many societies have chosen other criteria to determine who is male and who is female. Indeed, I believe one will find that in the bulk of cases where married partners are anatomically (or genetically) the same sex, they are legally opposite sexes based on a criterion the surrounding culture deems important. So if you marry a male, it is an opposite-sex marriage because you are legally female.As for your other questions:”Which restroom and changing facility do you feel I, a male-to-female transsexual, should use when in public spaces?”You are legally female — you use the restroom and changing facility for legal females. (Duh!)”Am I a paedophile?” Insufficient data. Are you sexually attracted to legal minors? To prepubescent children (to distinguish between paedophile and ephebophile)? What do you do about this attraction if you have it? I need more data before I can answer.”Am I tearing down western society in support of a deviant agenda?”Since you are legally female, you are supporting western society by making efforts to conform to its standards.”Am I selfish?”Since we’re all selfish to some extent, I’d say yes. I think your selfishness is quite reasonable. You describe your choice as “transition or die”, and most people selfishly, but quite reasonably, prefer not to die.”Am I immoral?”
I find no reason to call you immoral based on what you write here. There are a number of situations where I might judge you as moral or immoral, based on the context, but absent further details — insufficient data.
I’ve written a fair amount on same-sex marriage elsewhere. You might find it of interest………………….Karl
October 30th, 2008 at 10:40 am
<cite>The ways many gays publicly flaunt their sexuality is abhorrent to a socially conservative society like ours, and there is no excuse whatsoever for behaving that way when children are present.</cite>
Oh, really? And, you don’t think that heterosexuals “flaunt” their sexuality? How, exactly, do “gays” “publicly flaunt” their sexuality. Please, enlighten me - but, before you click “submit comment”, ask yourself about the myriad of ways that you and other heterosexual and cisgendered people not only “publicly flaunt” your heterosexuality, but preach from the highest mountaintop with unbridled self-righteousness that yours is the only way. Talk about a double-standard.
F*ckin’ hypocrite.
October 30th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Laer, are you a socialist? Who are you to define what a marriage is? Who are you to insist that it be defined a certain way out of the interests of the state? How hypocritical to criticize Obama for socialist tendencies and then lay down such a whopper of a defense for Prop 8, namely utilitarian state interests. The reality is that if you want to preserve your conception of marriage, then you should take it out of the sphere of the state and into a church of your choosing.
If all marriages are civil unions and carry the same legal rights, then gays and straights would be equally protected while you can define marriage however you like in the privacy of your own church and home. The problem is that the people such as yourself that claim to be protecting marriage are not prepared to first make all marriages civil unions because you want to deny the set of legal rights enjoyed by straight couples to gay couples, who will be forever inferior to those of heterosexuals.
The Mormons who are viscerally opposed to homosexual behavior and oppose gays adopting children and the like, have funded the majority of the pro-Prop 8 campaign; this is proof of what the real goal is–minimize gay rights. This is unAmerican. This strategy of bigots also was the problem with the separate-but-equal rhetoric in the US before the Civil Rights movement, or in South Africa before the end of apartheid. The first state supreme court to uphold gay marriage, Massachussetts, has a state supreme court chief justice who grew up in South African and clearly understands this risk and inequity better than you or those in favor of overturning gay marriage in California.
Most fundamentally, this purported desire to protect marriage is clearly a canard, since there is no credible theory showing that allowing gays to marry somehow undermines straight marriages–any more than childless marriages, for example, have done. This is why the movement goes through these ballot initiatives where they can manipulate public opinion with lies (e.g., they’re going to teach five year olds about men marrying men), and because they cannot show a legal finding of “harm” that would be required to win in the courts in those states that have passed gay marriage protections. Shame on you for your dishonesty.
Shame on you for acting so unAmerican and denying people their Constitutionally guaranteed rights for bogus reasons. And shame on you for embracing utilitarian socialism when it suits your ends while denouncing it otherwise. The hypocrisy is unbearable!! One day, in the near future, you will be viewed like those who opposed equal rights for Blacks (before Brown v. Board) and opposed interracial marriages (before Lovings). You have been warned…
October 30th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
No double standard, and you know it, Butinski. You’ve seen what goes on at Up Your Ally and other similar gay exposure events. I know of nothing of the sort in the American hetero community - the public exposure of not just way too much skin, but also fetishes, S&M, etc. The closest thing in the hetero world is Burning Man, but that’s held in the middle of nowhere.
Of course Up Your Ally doesn’t speak for the entire gay community, but I was giving advice to one person, not addressing the entire gay community.
It is interesting that out of all the points raised in my post and in Hazumu’s story, you latched on that and comment called me a hypocrite. Kinda shallow, don’t you think?
October 30th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Nice post Butinski. I just read your post and totally agree.
October 30th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Laer, try watching the 30 minute infomercials at night selling Girls Gone Wild videos and Extenz tablets. Try watching the NFL on Sunday without seeing a dozen Cialis ads. If you replaced just those three sets of commercials with ads showing gay men hitting on each other and stripping, or talking explicitly about the importance of size, or explaining the sexual benefits of a longer erection, I wonder how long it would take you, O’Reilly, Rush and others to call for a massive boycott of television stations. Your denial doesn’t constitute proof that you are not a hypocrite. And the only thing shallow is your thinking…
October 30th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Thirty minutes at night - not quite the same as 3,000 scantily clad fetishists on public street in broad (er, dude) daylight. I’m no fan of Cialis ads and their “4-hour erection” warnings, but again, your comparison is weak. You score points for the fact that they enjoy mass distribution, but lose points when they’re compared to the grossness exposed on public streets in the example I’ve cited.
It’s interesting, again, that this to me rather uncontroversial thing is all you’ve chosen to comment about. What about gay marriage, polygamy and Islamofascism?
October 30th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
DG - on your big comment, first keep the ad hominem attacks out or I’ll ban you. I don’t know you; you don’t know me, so keep it on the issues and don’t make false assumptions.
I posted “Prop 8, polygamy and Islamofascism” as an interesting, and as far as I know, previously undiscussed sidebar to the Prop 8 debate. I even included the final paragraph citing anti-Prop 8, anti-Mormon rhetoric that would have polygamy result no matter which way Prop 8 goes, so cut me some slack. The post warns of a possible outcome - show me where I made an argument for any sort of totalitarian action in the state’s interest.
I also said I support civil unions. I don’t think there should be separate inheritance laws or visitation laws because I would rather see gays in long-term monogamous relationships than living the destructive, promiscuous lifestyle. I don’t take that to gay adoption though, because of the overwhelming amount of research showing that children do best when reared by a man and a woman. I would, however, rather see a child adopted by a stable gay couple than be left in the “system.”
Finally, you insult yourself by saying the desire to protect marriage is a canard. Marriage between a man and a woman is the tradition of every society for all time. Why can’t you acknowledge that there’s something to 8,000 years of worldwide solidarity on the subject? Why should I fold my beliefs up and put them away just because the gay rights movement has decided that they have to have a marriage just like mine, without bothering to consider the larger societal impacts?
Get a tux and a pretty dress. Have a cake and a photographer. Live happily ever after … in your civil union.
November 2nd, 2008 at 10:39 am
Very very interesting article. Especially because it is a known fact, me being Muslim that most Muslims OPPOSE gay marriage and are in FAVOR of prop 8. We want to protect the sanctity of marriage between a man and woman, because as GOD showed us, by example of Adam and Eve that a man and woman are supposed to be together. We refer ourselves to the story of Prophet Lot and the city of Sodom and in thinking about that we cannot allow ourselves to say yes to allow gay marriage.
Saying that, we do not treat gays inferiorly. We cannot condone what they do, but we must treat everyone with kindness and a basic human respect.
These are the thoughts of the muslims in America. Please if you do not know this, then go ask your muslim neighbours what they think of prop 8.
If we were dying to marry more than one woman then we would have wanted prop 8 to pass, therefore allow some future prop that would allow polygamy to pass, therefore we can now marry more than one woman.
This is not the case.
Your article is nothing but a logical fallacy, specifically one called “slippery slope”.
You may be surprised that you will actually find support from your muslim neighbours for prop 8.
I personally think your article has no true basis. This topic has not been discussed (as you said) because it has not been a valid point. You only thought of this in your head. You didn’t do research and actually even talk to any Muslims. Your article has no facts or examples, only fears and thoughts.
November 2nd, 2008 at 10:50 pm
Laer, first, you are right that I do not know you but I am not making ad-hominem arguments, since I am criticizing your arguments, which I find grossly un-American, but I am not criticizing you personally (the definition of ad-hominem argument). Second, where is your call and solution to rectify the denial of over 100 legal rights to gay people? You say you are in favor of these rights but offer no solution to provide them. I have provided one: make all marriages from a legal point of view civil unions and then let churches do what they want. While you seem to say you are for equal rights for gays, you clearly want to deny them some rights (like adoption, except for unadoptable kids), so you contradict yourself. Separate but equal has always turned into separate but unequal (see South African apartheid and the US South before the Civil Rights Movement). Third, you raise a straw man by referring to totalitarianism, since you need not be for totalitarianism to be socialist; you are the latter when you say that you will have a legal system treat a minority differently for the interest of the state. Fourth, your slippery slope argument (the basis of your alleged harm) is weak; calling for lower taxes doesn’t risk them going to zero or negative, so why should calling for equal rights for people born gay necessarily lead to equivalent demands for people who choose to have multiple wives or choose to marry their sister…or their dog? Note the difference between denying a legal right that isn’t there (i.e., marrying two people) with one that is there (i.e., equal protection under the law–the Equal Protection Clause in the Constitution). Fifth, if the slippery slope argument is bogus, then what is the harm of allowing gays the same rights as non-gays? Where is the evidence that granting gay rights causes straights to question their marriages? Sixth, show me the ample evidence that children do better in homes with straight parents; much of the alleged evidence has been roundly refuted but continues to be cited by partisans, so please share your sources. (And by the way, how many gay parents do you actually know???) Seventh, you misunderstood my use of the term “canard”; it is not that marriage is a canard, but that gay marriage or gay rights harms marriage is a canard (see the fifth argument above). Finally, please explain how interracial marriage and gay marriage are different as the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly showing that skin color and sexual orientation are both genetically determined? I maintain that it is un-American to deny someone equal status for something they cannot voluntarily control, but your argument implies that you have no problem with hereditary classes; I thought our founding fathers were escaping such backward thinking…
November 3rd, 2008 at 8:18 am
I said I support civil unions; by that I meant that the civil rights of marriage could go to anyone, so i fail to see why you’re on the attack. You have to surmount the mass of studies about gay parenting vs. straight parenting because the good of the child, not the wants of the couple, always must come first in adoption. You say they have been discredited, but I have no faith in your statement. You know, when my daughter goes off on a terror about the latest chemical threat - recently it’s been drinking water from plastic cups - I answer by asking her why, if there are so many threats to our well-being in the environment, does our health expectancy keep rising. It’s the same with adoption. You have thousands of years of kids being raised healthily enough by straight couple to ensure the continuation of the species versus the studies of some recent agenda-driven social scientists. Color me skeptical. (I know a lot of gay people; I was raised around them, they’ve been a positive to neutral force in my life all my life and I currently am a close friend to a couple gay men. I’m not sure about gay couples with children; none come to mind, but I’m sure I know some. I just don’t ask a lot about acquaintance’s sex status.)
hang gays from gallows.
Your slippery slope argument is easily countered by real-life experience in which radical Islam is exploiting our system of laws and benefits for their own purposes, including securing welfare payments for multiple wives. Look what radical Islam is doing in Europe. I cited this in my original post; go back and re-read it. I find that nice logic, which you do a good job of offering, is often no replacement for real world examples. My original post had nothing to do with the rights of gays; it had all to do with looking at the unintended consequences in a population that (unlike America, unlike the supporters of Prop
Inter-racial marriage is between a man and a woman so it is inherently different from gay marriage. As for your “overwhelming” studies, how about the “overwhelming” studies that show social/environmental impacts as the root cause? Say what you well, they are similarly overwhelming. Again, have your 100 rights, have your cake, have your photographer; just keep holy, sacred marriage between a man and a woman separate but apart.
November 3rd, 2008 at 9:53 am
Laer, interracial marriage and gay marriage are similar in the legally important respect that gender and sexual orientation are genetically determined and thus denying marriage and the rights that go with it is an unConstitutional denial of equal legal protection to a suspect class. If you are for the same laws for all people, then you would be for granting civil unions to everyone and making marriage something done voluntarily in churches based upon church rather than governmetn law. Is this your position? Your linkage of gay marriage to Islam is clear enough: we cannot accommodate gays in marriage because then we need to grant those rights to polygamists; others have extended the slippery slope argument to marrying your dog or daughter. The argument is specious because polygamy (obviously, not to mention bestiality and incest) is illegal in the US and has withstood legal challenge on the grounds of discrimination, violation of the Equal Protection Clause, etc. largely because you choose your religion (and lifestyle within it) but you do not choose your race, gender or sexual orientation. Hence, your linkage is a false one. Finally, if you would, please give me links to these studies showing measurably better outcomes for straight adoptive parents rather than gay ones, since the studies I’ve seen cited by conservatives in the past have been soundly disproven and I want to make sure that you are not citing those debunked claims. Thanks much!
November 3rd, 2008 at 1:22 pm
You’re beating the same horse. Just because you’re saying homosexuality is genetic to the degree that race is does not make it so.
I’m a busy man. Do your own research on parenting, or just apply the logic of the ages.
November 3rd, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Laer, have you seen Michael Jackson’s before and after pictures?!?
November 4th, 2008 at 6:02 am
Mormons have come out in strong support of proposition 8. There are also a few that have come out against it. However, the main stream Mormon church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), is one of the largest proponents of strong families and family values. I am a Mormon, and support proposition 8. I am against redefining the legal definition of marriage, as between 1 man and 1 woman. However, I am not opposed to people living in same sex relationships to have similar type of legal recognition and civil rights as married couples; just don’t define it as “marriage”. That’s what proposition 8 is about. It’s not an attack on gays; it’s a defense on traditional marriage.
So, it’s obvious that there is no covert plan to legalize polygamy by using gay marriage to get there. That being said, polygamy is not in and of itself evil. However, it is very delicate and susceptible to abuse and oppression.
As a conservative and active proponent for individual freedom, I do not like being thrown into the mix with our enemy. I am opposed to the communist and Islamic revolution.
You will find that members of the LDS church are on the right side of this battle. After all, we believe and understand that the battle against free agency began before this world was created; that we existed before this life and at that time made a conscious decision for free agency; a choice that Christ himself presented to us then and again in this life on Earth. After all, charity, Christ explained, is the greatest commandment. Charity requires a free society where individual liberty is protected. If one is robbed of his substance or compelled to behave in certain ways, then one has his free will restricted and cannot fully develop charity.
November 4th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Hyrum, defense of marriage from what? How do gay marriages infringe on straight ones? Why can’t you let your church define them one way and another church define it another way, while letting the state just grant people civil unions with equal rights to all? And if you and other Mormons are for equal legal rights, then why doesn’t Prop 8 provide for those instead of merely taking away the rights of some to protect an institution not under attack? Unless you or someone can name the potential harm to marriage or show how your Prop 8 is providing equal rights some other way, you are not a proponent of individual freedom and free will but an instrument of tyranny and inequality. Everyone pays lip service to equal rights but few actually step up and put their vote and money where their mouth is. Good thing our soldiers don’t defend freedom the way conservatives (including Mormons) do…