American Civil Rights

I was talking to a conservative friend of mine, and he said something that I feel needs to be countered.

Specifically he stated that (I paraphrase) liberals would never give up on the issue of gay marraige/rights because of civil rights.  He claimed that even if a huge preponderance of evidence showed that gay parents were worse than straight ones that liberals would still object to it.

I disagree.  If in fact the founding conservative arguments are proven right, I think liberals would abandon gay parental rights, irregardless of the civil rights argument.  As per the law, the interests of the child supersede those of biological parents lots of times.

(Note, that's not going to happen - the conservative arguments are full of crap, gays make just as good parents.)

It is easy to see why he would think liberals would ignore the facts.  Liberals dismiss practically out of hand those arguments currently being made by conservatives.  That's because those arguments are too often laughable and the people making them don't understand it.  We rarely bother to try and argue with the conservatives on these facts - it's like trying to convince a rabid dog that you own the shoe, no matter if the dog has it in his mouth.   They make inane statements that confuse correlation with causation, and reject obvious alternative explanations.  Among other things they confuse problems caused by prejudice against gays with problems caused by being gay.

[See my previous posts about why conservatives arguments so often fail to convince liberals - they believe in faith not science, so create arguments based on faith, not science. ]

To fully understand how and why we need to start by talking about Civil Rights.

Civil Rights are based on a core principle of American liberty.  Here, I quote, rather than merely paraphrase:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.



All men are created equal.  That is the foundation of our civil rights.  That is, gays are not evil, not sinners, nor in any way morally inferior.  They are just as smart, just as nice, just as capable as anyone else.

That is where we get our civil rights - from the concept of equality for all.

If by chance, gays WERE somehow significantly less capable parents - that would significantly undermine one of the United States' Founding Principles.  This would run counter to our experience for the past 200 years.

In this nightmare world where gays are not as good parents, Civil Rights might survive one such blow.   Like I said before, the rights of children tend to over-ride the rights of parents.    This would be a horrible shock to liberals - and to America, but we can probably survive it.

But too many such shocks would cause a political upheaval, a political revolution equivalent to the American Revolution in political thought, if not military results.   We would need to ignore those self evident truths we declared independence to get, because it would mean they had been proven wrong.

But like I said earlier this is not reality, it is a nightmare world dreamed up by conservatives.

All men, INCLUDING GAYS are created equal.  They are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights.

This includes the Civil Right to get married.   To raise a family.   To pursue Happiness.


That means they are not worse parents and their marriage does not impair striaght marriage in any way shape or form.