According to Reverend Samuel Rodriguez, head of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, this attempt to slip LGBTI rights into this bill was a slap in the face of all those who worked so hard to get it passed.
Source: Lez Get Real
Right, because it's an insult to opponents of xenophobia and racism when their own irrational, immoral bigotry is not catered to.
The usual excuse of how this would undermine “traditional” marriage has been trotted out, this time in a letter to California Representative Mike Honda. According to the letter sent to him by the bishops, allowing a person to sponsor their same sex partner “would erode the institution of marriage and family by according marriagelike immigration benefits to same-sex relationships, a position that is contrary to the very nature of marriage, which pre-dates the church and the state.”
It would, of course, be nice to remind these people of the history of the institution of marriage, and that many other cultures practiced marriage, and a few of them actually did engage in marriage between two individuals of the same sex. Their definition is, of course, limited to specifically the Christian view of marriage, and, of course, incorrect since it was not defined fully as being between a man and a woman until around AD 500.
I doubt that anti-gay bigots like Rodriguez and other Catholic bishops are completely ignorant of the fact that how they define marriage is not how marriage has been defined in every culture at every point in time. I doubt that they are ignorant of the different forms marriage has taken or of the fact that marriage today in America is very different from what marriage was a few decades or even a couple of centuries ago.
Because they think they have the moral high ground, however, I suspect that they don't much care whether their arguments and claims are factually correct or not. It would be more honest, I think, if they simply admitted that they are relying on a conception of "marriage" which they believe their god has decreed is the only legitimate one and so it doesn't matter what anyone else has ever tried to do — everything else is wrong because "God says so" and that's it.
Then again, such an admission would effectively mean admitting that their position would not be a valid basis for civil law. Could that be playing a role in their public rhetoric?
Some Christians have a lot of trouble understanding why civil law can't reflect all of their religious beliefs. They are convinced that their religion is correct, that their religion accurately expresses and demands and expectations of God, and that their religion teaches the best if not only correct way of living. Given such assumptions, it's easy to see why someone would think that their religious beliefs not only should be the foundation for civil law, but would be the only legitimate foundation for civil law.
Not every Christian will think about these issues in such explicit terms, but that's actually part of the problem — if they did, they might realize just how wrong it is. When these assumptions remain implicit, however, it's easy for the conclusions to be taken for granted without being challenged or questioned. Thus we have Christians simply taking for granted the idea that civil law shouldn't recognize gay marriages, that of course Christians are best suited for public office, etc.
I can’t say this surprises me, but it saddens me. You would suppose that people who have suffered from discrimination themselves would be more sympathetic when others are subjected to it. However, that is so often not the case.
I think that a group that has suffered discrimination is more likely to discriminate against others the moment it’s not directed at them any more. Just like a child who grew up with an abusive father is more likely to abuse his own children later on. A learned set of behaviors. Not a rule, but it’s likely.