More fabulous Flash, this time from MassEquality: Find out if your Rep or Senator supports marriage equality or not, by going here and clicking on the appropriate map.
Sadly, my rep, Paul Donato, voted “yes” to advance the amendment. That’s just wrong, and Mr. Donato should also know that it’s out of step with Medford, his utterly unscientific “surveys” notwithstanding.
Medford’s changing, Mr. Donato. Don’t be left behind like the clock in Medford Square:
(Taken at 9:48.)
Please share widely!
I found very strong agreement in Medford that creating children for same-sex couples was going too far. Because there weren’t that many people on the sidewalks bustling into the T like at Park Street or Harvard Square, I found myself talking to most of the people I handed out flyers to, so I got a pretty accurate reading of Medfordites. Maybe I sampled more locals and missed the bedroom community that drives home from Cambridge and Boston and sits inside with their Netflicks, but the locals aren’t the ones emailing “their” legislator, either. I hope Donato takes walks around and talks to people and realizes that 90% of the people who email him are just interlopers looking for a cheap castle near their job.
That’s great. If only we were talking about creating children for same-sex couples instead of same-sex marriage.
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In response to the original post, I agree that Donato is out of step with the population of Medford and Malden.
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Someone should inform him that voting to put gay marriage on the ballot is a vote for his opponent in the next election.
….I knew you were up to no good. Interesting how your schtick has now morphed from “egg and sperm” and “no two sperm or two egg babies” to
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Very different message indeed. Every same sex couple that has children has children that were “created” the good old fashioned way, some were adopted, some are biologically related to one of their gay parents, but these kids all come from somewhere.
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I pretty much figured all along that you were at your core a homophobe who had come up with a novel way to fight against gay familes. Now it seems you just don’t want gay people to have kids, period.
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Busted!
I was clear, and my flyers are clear, that I’m talking about same-sex conception, not adoption, etc. “Creating children for same sex couples” could refer to those other methods, you’re right, but that’s not what I was talking about with people in Medford. They were more consistently aghast at scientists doing mouse experiments and eventually human experiments so that same-sex couples can have children than most other communities were, and they understand the issue was intrinsically connected to marriage rights better than most communities, too. They haven’t disonnected marriage from conceiving children so much there. I think Donato is feeling that same feeling, even though the people he represents are not very loud compared the activists and donors that happen to have Medford addresses.
….believe you, you have shown your true hand.
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Shame on you!
Here’s the flyer, you can see it’s clearly about same-sex conception. My sign at the time said “What about Same-Sex CONCEPTION?” And in the FAQ’s on the back, the very first question is
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Anthony, maybe the reason you just want to write off the whole issue as “wrong. wrong. wrong…” and write me off as a homophobe or anti-gay is because you are failing to understand the benefits of the compromise to same-sex couples. The government can just prevent genetic engineering and same-sex conception with an egg and sperm law like Missouri did in 2006 and the President’s Council on Bioethics recommended Congress do in 2004, without making any deal on federal recognition, and same-sex marriages would continue to be legal strangers to their own country, or we could suggest this compromise that backs off on equal marriage here so as to preserve marriage’s conception rights and respect that difference in rights of both-sex couples but also respects the equal protections that same-sex couples deserve by granting federal recognition. This could be done THIS SUMMER if you would only see it as the opportunity it is instead of fearing it like you do.
That would be here. Let me know what you think. I’ve handed out over 10,000 now, mainly last fall and mainly at Harvard Square and Park Street and in front of the State House, but also in cities all over the state, like Springfield, Brockton, Chelsea, Dorchester, and Medford.
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I’d estimate that 95% of people feel that same-sex conception is bad, based on my conversations with people. I’d love to see a real poll, or some campaign data. Virtually no one has even heard of it, perhaps 1%, but when they do, they’re usually against it, unless they take a knee-jerk gay rights position and don’t look at the issue on its own merits (and that is a terrible shame that such a hostile and defensive environment has been created).
…marriage putting everyone’s conception rights in jeopardy is particulary ridiculous.
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Wrong, again.
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If it walks like a bigot, and talks like a bigot….
That would happen if we create a situation in law whereby same-sex couples are allowed to marry, but not allowed to conceive children together. If their marriage is indeed equal to all other marriages, then that means all other marriages could be prohibited from conceiving, if they didn’t meet some standard of genetic perfection or other qualification. Currently all people are allowed to marry and procreate, no marriage is prohibited from conceiving. It is the marriage that protects conception rights, which is why Richard Loving pointed to their marriage license on the wall of their bedroom when police burst in at 2:30 in the morning.
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Do you even agree that all marriages should have conception rights? Do you even agree that same-sex couples should not have conception rights? If you disagree with either of those points, then say so, and we can get the real issues out on the table. Just saying “wrong” or calling something ridiculous without making an argument is against the rules. Make an argument.
….construction of “conception rights” as founded in the Constitution are fatally flawed.
They are considered a “basic civl right of man” in Skinner vs Oklahoma, which is the Court’s way of saying that the Constitution didn’t bother to mention them, because they are so basic and understood, but they are rights nevertheless.
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I take it from this latest rule-breaking unsubstantiated blanket statement that you don’t think so? You think that a marriage can be prohibited from conceiving children? Please do explalin further, anthony. Which breeder marriages would you prohibit from conceiving, if you had your way? Dumb people? Interracial couples? People with a cancer gene? People with Huntingtons? Explain yourself.
….of case law is sophomoric and wrong.
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….because you are a crack-pot homophobe trying to wedge a ridiculous issue into the public consciousnees in order to interfere with civil rights.
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I have not lack of understanding for your postion. It is just wrong.
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You are a bigot.
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by enacting an egg and sperm law and tieing it to the marriage debate so that we can arrive at equal protections for same-sex couples and stop genetic engineering at the same time. Most people favor both of those goals, but rigid political blocks are preventing both of those goals. Most pundits don’t think that either of those is possible or likely anytime soon, if ever, because they can only imagine pursuing them in the fashion they are currently being pursued. By forcing people to see how they are connected, we can free the logjam and achieve both of those goals. Which goal upsets you, anthony? Equal protections for same-sex couples, or stopping genetic engineering?
…..absolutely no rational need to tie the two issues together. The goal that upsets me is your goal to hurt gay families for your own agenda while pretending that is not what you are doing.
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Bigot.
Why the heck would anyone want to hurt anyone? What sort of misandrist are you that you think other people might have a “goal to hurt gay families”? Why? It’s ridonkulous.
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I’m trying to help gay families by using this issue to enact federal recognition of same-sex couples. If it happens in the next twenty years, they will thank me, because I was able to come up with a distinction between marriage and civil unions that the country accepted.
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I didn’t tie the issues together, they are already tied together. They aren’t even “tied together,” they are the very same thing. Marriage IS conception rights. Always has been, always should be. Same-sex couples just shouldn’t have coneption rights, certainly not now, since scientific experiments have proven it to be enormously risky, and I think, not ever, since it will always be too risky and unnecessary to ever try. It would be a huge mistake to ever allow genetic engineering of people, because some people will still be created by natural conception of two flawed people that love each other, while other people are created by labs using genetic engineering to meet some standard of acceptable genetic excellence. This is just more Sanger Nazi Eugenics stuff, and it would be really wise of you to change your tune so that genetic engineering is NOT the core principle of gay rights that the whole program comes down to, because gay people have the most dignity and humanity and freedom if conception remains exclusive to male-female couples. Don’t let gay people be exploited by the biotech and greeting card industries into volunteering to pay for a lab to create children for them.
…life of me imagine why it is you want to hurt gay families, but you do and you are. You can type the same tired, ridiculous, infantile excuse for your position a thousand times on a thousand blogs and it won’t matter.
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You are a bigot who wants to hurt gay families.
I’m pushing for a federal solution that gives federal recognition to same-sex civil unions. This is the only proposal I have seen other than the pie-in-the-sky “someday when all the old people are dead, we will have the votes” plan that everyone else seems to be operating under. How hurtful can you get? The very couples that need federal recognition and survivor benefits, the older lesbians and gays that suffered severe discrimination throughout their lives and yet struggled through it together, two women earning 50 cents on the dollar, two men denied jobs and promotions, and you say “fuck them, I don’t care about their social security, I want the word marriage and I want the useless right to conceive children together right now!” So how is the view from on top of the swingset? Pretty good? You are hurting thousands of gay couples with your stupid insistence on equal conception rights. What good comes from that? What tangible benefit?
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The fact is that civil unions would be much easier to get through congress, especially if they are distinguished from marriage in a significant way. Massachusetts marriages hurt people, and that is not even getting to the children that would be put at serious risk by same-sex conception and the children that languish in foster homes while couples wait for same-sex conception to be safe and affordable. (or all the opportunity costs of making SSC safe and affordable, thousands of families going without health care because the SSC research ate up billions of dollars, doctors devoting time to deal with diseases that have never been seen before, kids having a super sick sibling that takes up all their parents resources, etc. The harm from same-sex marriage just keeps adding up. Civil unions bring relief without all that harm. And they wouldn’t have to ride on the back of any busses, you asshat, that isn’t a metaphor, that was real.)
…crazy hole, deeper and deeper.
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Hurtful Bigot!
You are a bigot. Actually, to keep within the rules of the road around here, I suppose I should say that your argument is a bigoted argument, but it’s really six of one and a half dozen of the other.
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There are other possible solutions to this “problem”, assuming that there is in fact any problem. Your insistence that the only way to go is to relegate gays to the back of the bus is a bigoted insistence.
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Furthermore, there is no law — legislated or case law — tying marriage and conception rights. The “right to conceive” is not an inalienable part of any marriage. Don’t believe me? Just ask Stephanie P. and Rodney E., a married couple barred from having children until they show themselves capable of rearing said offspring.
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Skinner v. Oklahoma did indeed call conception a basic right of man, but did not tie marriage to conception. Which means that even if you succeed in your crusade to ban gay marriage, gays will still have the right to conceive. You won’t have solved your supposed problem; you’ll just have made a second-class citizenry which is still in possession of the one thing you sought to deny them.
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So, now that I’ve demolished your arguments, you have a couple of choices. You can continue making the same old arguments, which will brand you irreparably as a bigoted crackpot, or you can start finding new ways to solve your “problem” (starting with convincing us that there is a problem) that do not involve banning valid marriages. Or you could drop it entirely, but I doubt that will happen…
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The choice is yours.
Where did you get the idea that Stephanie P. and Rodney E. were married? It doesn’t say that in the article you link to. I strongly suspect that they are not married (which makes it funny how upset people are getting that they were prohibited from conceiving.) Zablocki dealt with a deadbeat father that wanted to get married to another woman (not the mother of his children) but a Wisconsin law said a man couldn’t marry if he owed child support to a different mother, but the court struck it down, saying “if appellee’s right to procreate means anything at all, it must imply some right to enter the only relationship in which the State of Wisconsin allows sexual relations legally to take place.”
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Marriage is the law that ties marriage to conception rights, the right to conceive children is the core right of every marriage throughout history, it is what marriage means. And NO! Single people do not have the same right, they stone people to death in half the world for doing that. But even here in the modern USA, where people aren’t stoned to death or punished for out of wedlock illegitimate conception, marriage still conveys the same legitimacy, it still guarantees a right to conceive children together.
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Skinner v Oklahoma was not about marriage at all, right? It was about sterilization of criminals. So it is odd that in the most famous line from the case, the justice goes out of his way to insert the word “marriage”, isn’t it? “Marriage and procreation are fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race.” In what way is “marriage” fundamental to the existence and survival of the race, smart guy? They just mention it because in human society, it is required in order to legally procreate.
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And where on earth did you get the idea that I wanted to end gay marriage without doing anything about genetic engineering? I want to enact an egg and sperm law and stop genetic engineering. I tell VOM people all the time: a ban on gay marriage that doesn’t stop same-sex conception is worse than useless, it severs marriage from conception rights in a really stupid way. This is why most anti-ssm people and I don’t get along – they’re stupid and I let them know (eventually). Allowing people to conceive together but not allowing them to marry makes no sense and further disconnects marriage from conception. The whole point is to enact the egg and sperm law to prevent genetic engineering, and doing that is incomatible with same-sex marriage and would strip marriage of conception rights for all people.
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What I have proposed is a federal egg and sperm law limiting conception rights to a man and a woman, and federal recognition of same-sex civil unions. To protect the right of every marriage to conceive, we need to create civil unions for couples that do not have a right to conceive but that seek all the other rights of marriage.
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If you have thought of an alternative way to prohibit genetic engineering and ban the Dr Richard Scotts in the contry from attempting to conceive a baby from same-sex parents, I’m all ears. I suspect you haven’t thought it through, though.
…just banning genetic engineering of new humans.
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Crazy, hurtful, bigot!
the best way to ban genetic engineering is to ban everything except natural conception. That’s how Missouri did it last year, that’s how the PCBE recommends Congress do it, that’s how Margeret Somerville recommends Canada do it. No matter how it is done, it will mean that people will only have the right to conceive children with someone of the other sex. It will mean that “science’s hope of two genetic dads” will be dashed; we won’t allow Dr Richard Scott to attempt it.
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Two things. First of all, because of the demands for equal marriage and equal rights, we are not making good progress on banning genetic engineering. There are many people who insist on a right to let Dr. Scott do whatever he wants to. We have to confront that, whether we do it in the arena of same-sex marriage or just on its own. Would you say it was bigoted even to confront it without bringing up marriage? I suspect so.
Second, if we do somehow enact the ban but still allow same-sex couples to marry, it changes marriage, it strips conception rights from marriage. Do you really not understand that marriages need to have conception rights? Or are you for eugenics, and can’t stand the idea of ugly stupid breeders breeding?
…understand that you are a crazy, hurtful bigot. The rest of the stuff you claim is hogwash.
These are repeated rules violations, first of all. Second, they are annoying. Third, you are standing in the way of giving same-sex couples equal protections. You are causing harm to actual couples by makig it impossible for them to see survivor benefits in their lifetime. I have a plan to give them federal recognition that we could promote and get passed if people like you weren’t such monstrous morons. What is the sticking point? Is it that you want to be able to tell certain married couples that they cannot procreate? Is it that you want Dr Richard Scott to be be allowed to attempt same-sex conception as soon as he finds a couple willing to pay him? Is it that you want to be able to do other forms of genetic engineering? Or is it that you are stupid asshat moron who doesn’t even realize how much real harm and pain you are causing actual people? Get into reality-based reality here, anthony. Civil unions are the way to go, they will cause less harm and get here much faster.
….is to tell every bigot that they are a bigot.
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You are a bigot.
It’s not bigoted to feel that conception should be kept natural, that people should have to conceive with someone of the other sex. The reasons to be for that law have nothing to do with gay people. I’m against allowing anyone – heterosexual, homosexual, intersexed, everyone – to conceive using genetically modified gametes. The only form of conception we should allow is natural conception of a man and a woman using their own unmodified, unadultereated, genetically 100% representive gametes.
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If you are saying that to not be bigoted, people have to support same-sex conception, well, you don’t want to make it rational to be bigoted. You should instead be saying that gay people should have full dignity and respect without needing same-sex conception. This would keep bigotry irrational and wrong. That’s how I feel. I don’t feel that gay people are not fully human unless they can do same-sex conception, I feel they are fully human and worthy of equal protections today, and always will be, even if SSC never arrives.
….you are clearly mistaken in even believing Congress has the power to create Civil Unions for gay people on a federal level. Where, pray tell, does the Constitution enumerate their right to enact that legislation.
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Here is a hint, they can’t.
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You’re full of it.
Congress would enact a law that instructed all federal agencies to treat as marriages state civil unions that did not grant conception rights. As long as the state civil union was defined as “marriage minus conception rights”, then the law would say that, as far as the federal government were concerned, people in those civil unions were married.
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It is no more of a constitutional stretch than DOMA is, which says that people in some state marriages are, as far as the federal government is concerned, not married. That law was passed overwhelmingly and has been unchallenged, and it creates way more confusion and contradictions than civil union recognition would. If they could pass DOMA, they can pass recognition of civil unions that do not grant conception rights.
…hardly arrives at your promise to create federal civil unions, does it?
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DOMA is completeley unconstitutional, there is no enumerated power or implied power that gives Cogress the power to create it. It has not been challenged for political reasons because no one who would challenge it wanted to see the US Constitution amended to outlaw gay marriage when DOMA was overturned. I assure you that a national civil union bill would be challenged IMMEDIATELY becausue you and I know that there are too many bigots like you out there.
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You are not even sincere about the federal civil unions. Its a BS loss leader.
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Liar and bigot it would seem.
This can’t be a state-by-state issue. Congress clearly has the power to prohibit cloning and other forms of commercial conceptions.
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It is perhaps true that both parts of the compromise would be challenged immediately. There would be the obligatory seven gay couples suing to be allowed to use Dr. Scott’s company, perhaps joined by Dr. Scott himself, suing for his right to create babies with whatever genetic tweaking he chooses to. And there’d be some people challenging the recognition of state civil unions. Both challenges would be, uh, challenges, but I think they would both fail. Besides, what exactly are all the pres candidates supporting when they say they support civil unions and equal protections? They are candidates for federal office, so surely they think that it must be possible to have federal recognition of civil unions.
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And though I do tell the hardcore no-civil-unions people that they should support the compromise now anyway, and then they could fight to get rid of the civil unions later, that is not what I think should be done. I sincerely believe that gay people deserve equal protections of their committed relationships, including, especially, federal recognition. I tell anti-CU people that I feel CU’s are fair, nice, and as long as there is a egg and sperm law, nothing to worry about. I think that view would prevail.
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Along the same lines as what I tell the hardcore no-civil-unions people, I tell the no-compromise SSM people that they should support the compromise now to get federal recognition of civil unions, and then work on lobbying Congress to allow same-sex conception, at which point civil unions would become marriages. But again, that is not what I think should be done, I think we should never allow artificial non-eggandsperm conception.
…..say the same thing over and over when backed into a corner. Congress has no power to enact federal civil unions for everyone so your plan is nothing but BS, you are opposed to gay families and genetic engineering and bundle them together for your own political expediency.
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Mean, hurtful bigot indeed.
Funny about saying the same thing over and over. You are being ironic, right? Because I already explained that Congress wouldn’t “enact” the civil unions, it would enact a law that says “for purposes of federal law, state civil unions that are defined as marriage-minus-conception-rights are to be recognized as if they were marriages.” This must be something similar to what the candidates say they support, or else they’re just BSing everyone when they say they’re for equal protections via civil unions. Or are they for civil unions that aren’t recognized by their own country.
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I do seek to expedite passing an egg and sperm law by bundling it with a federal civil union bill and showing anti-ssm people how they should use it to help them fight SSM and preserve marriage. But I’m not inventing the conflict, I’m just showing it to people on the horizon and suggesting how it can be used to everyone’s advantage.
….ad nauseam on this site that you were for FEDERAL civil unions. Never having qualified it until now that you are backed into an inconvenient corner.
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You lie and you are a bigot.
Has anyone received a response from Representative Paul J Donato on the issue.
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I hear there are some websites collecting blog and news articles on representatives and senators and that including the full name “Representative Paul J. Donato” makes the job of collecting that data much easier!
Why, funny you should mention that, Jim. Would that be here?
i know that the people whom i know of that have contacted him on the issue have not received a response.
recounts a meeting w/ Rep. Donato on the issue.
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I’ve never met the guy, but people who know do tend to like him. He showed up at Jehlen’s budget event a few weeks ago; he sometimes returns phone calls personally; he actually tries to be responsive in some ways. And some folks have said they feel and hope he can actually be swayed on this one. I really hope they’re right.
this letter.
We are all saying the exact same things and being todl the exact same things by these leges who are fence sitting or have voted against us. Has anyone compared notes with others who talk to these Senators and Reps?
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Let’s just say Stepford Leges…