HomoQuotable - Robert Oscar Lopez

"There is no contest here. The child comes first. In any ethically grounded discussion, same-sex marriage is dead on arrival. Why, then, are we still having a debate about same-sex marriage? Why is Hollingsworth even an issue? The problem is metaphor, which keeps getting in the way. Whatever same-sex marriage is, that’s not what gays are after. They are after a symbolic vehicle that can make them equal to people who can do something they cannot—procreate. The tenuousness of this equivalence, in fact its near impossibility, makes the fight for same-sex marriage even more metaphorically desperate. Faced with the prospect that nothing a same-sex couple does will ever approximate the uncomplicated triangular bond among child, mother, and father, the activists deflect attention away from the child's rights toward the rights of gay adults again and again. As long as the focus is on gays, a wealth of metaphors, especially the notion that gay is the new black, can shield the gay activist from inevitable scrutiny about the effects of his demands on children." - Homocon activist Robert Oscar Lopez, writing for Public Discourse.  Last month Lopez filed a joint Supreme Court brief against the overturn of Proposition 8.

RELATED: JMG reader Straight Grandmother points us to a response essay from former LGBT rights foe David Blankenhorn, who has engaged Maggie Gallagher rather forcefully in the comments.  Blankenhorn writes:

I am repulsed by what Lopez says and the way he says it. To me, his voice is the voice of the fanatic, the denouncer of others, the accuser, the utterly self-confident dogmatist who wants to pound us all, in party by the sheer vehemence of his language, into accepting whatever doctrine he is insisting on. I read him with care, and I find some nuggets of truth, including some that are troubling to me now (in a good way), but in him I find no wisdom, no maturity, no way of seeing the world that reminds me in any way of our shared humanity or the complexity and mystery of the human condition. I do not a trust a voice of this type on anything that truly matters to me.

Maggie Gallagher: We'll Lose On DOMA

"To strike down Prop 8 on 'narrow grounds' proposed by the 9th Circuit is so intellectually dishonest that if that is what the Court wished to do I think they would have refused to hear the case. I think Kennedy will overturn DOMA (perhaps joined by Roberts) and then uphold the right of states to refuse to accept gay marriage (i.e. uphold Prop 8). The victories this November for gay marriage at the polls make that outcome more likely. Justice Kennedy will likely see it as not at all unlikely voters will overturn Prop 8 soon and see that as a much better outcome than constitutionalizing gay marriage." - Maggie Gallagher, commenting on the blog of former gay marriage opponent David Blankenhorn.

NOTE: This tip comes via JMG reader Str8 Grandmother, who reports that Gallagher is a regular commenter at the above-linked blog and is often responded to by Blankenhorn.

MINNESOTA: Chief Prop 8 Witness Urges Voters To REJECT Marriage Ban

David Blankenhorn continues his change of heart.

(Via Towleroad)

Matt Baume: Marriage News Watch

Brownshirt On Blankenhorn

"It is sad when a powerful and compelling voice goes silent—especially when the topic is one as important as marriage, and where the silence is not motivated by a change of view about the nature of marriage but rather a seeming succumbing to the continual pressure of the cultural elite. Yet retreating from the debate is not a path we or our followers will ever travel, for retreat will surely lead to defeat. We intend to fight on, and fight harder, for the truth—that marriage is the unique union of a man and a woman." - Brian Brown, responding to Prop 8 witness David Blankenhorn's decision to support gay marriage.

Prop 8 Witness David Blankenhorn: I've Changed My Mind About Gay Marriage

"No same-sex couple, married or not, can ever under any circumstances combine biological, social and legal parenthood into one bond. For this and other reasons, gay marriage has become a significant contributor to marriage’s continuing deinstitutionalization, by which I mean marriage’s steady transformation in both law and custom from a structured institution with clear public purposes to the state’s licensing of private relationships that are privately defined.

"I have written these things in my book and said them in my testimony, and I believe them today. I am not recanting any of it. But there are more good things under heaven than these beliefs. For me, the most important is the equal dignity of homosexual love. I don’t believe that opposite-sex and same-sex relationships are the same, but I do believe, with growing numbers of Americans, that the time for denigrating or stigmatizing same-sex relationships is over. Whatever one’s definition of marriage, legally recognizing gay and lesbian couples and their children is a victory for basic fairness." - David Blankenhorn, writing for the New York Times.

Major Prop 8 Backer OPPOSES NC Ban

Proposition 8 backer David Blankenhorn, one of the few Protect Marriage witnesses to actually testify in Perry Vs Schwarzenegger, has come out against North Carolina's Amendment One. Blankenhorn today published an editorial in the News & Observer.

As marriage advocates, we oppose the state marriage amendment now being debated in North Carolina. We hope that when North Carolinians go to the polls on May 8 they will defeat this measure. Let us explain. The proposed amendment states that “marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this state.” That’s a big mouthful, and it goes well beyond the issue of same-sex marriage. For one thing, it means that North Carolina could not, now or ever, take any step or devise any policy to extend legal recognition and protection to same-sex couples. No domestic partnership laws. No civil unions. Nothing. That’s mighty cold. If you disdain gay and lesbian persons, and don’t care whether they and their families remain permanently outside of the protection of our laws, such a policy might be your cup of tea. But it’s not our view, and we doubt that it’s the view of most North Carolinians. If you want to create a backlash against mother-father marriage – if you want to convince people that the real agenda of marriage advocates is not protecting marriage, but ignoring and ostracizing gay people – then this amendment might be to your liking. But we believe that the cause of marriage is hurt, not helped, by gratuitously linking it to the cause of never under any circumstances helping gay and lesbian couples.

Co-authoring the editorial is Center for Marriage and Families executive director Elizabeth Marquardt. Stand by for the fallout.

Read the entire editorial.

Anti-Gay Prop 8 Witness Confesses: I Lied About Using Dr. George Rekers' Research

On May 25th, Prop 8 witness David Blankenhorn wrote to the New York Times complaining that columnist Frank Rich had wrongly associated him with Dr. George "Anal Longstroke" Rekers.

My expert report to the court — which was written entirely by me, includes a list of scholarly sources and is available for anyone to read — includes no mention of Mr. Rekers. And for good reason: I have never met Mr. Rekers or read any of his writings. I recently learned that a separate, lawyer-generated document submitted to the court apparently does list an article by Mr. Rekers in connection with my testimony, but that document, on this point, is in error.

Only, whoops! This week Blankenhorn wrote back to the Times with the truth.

In a letter published on May 25, I incorrectly stated that I have never read anything written by the conservative minister George Rekers. In fact, in preparing for my report and deposition in the California Proposition 8 trial, I read one report to the court on a previous California marriage case written by Mr. Rekers, as well as a report to the same court taking a position opposed to Mr. Rekers’s.

"Incorrectly stated." Yeeeeeeah.

David Blankenhorn: Protect Marriage's Disastrous Final Witness

The haters' final witness in Perry vs. Schwarzenegger yesterday was David Blankenhorn, the founder and president of the Institute for American Values, which bills itself as "devoted to contributing intellectually to the renewal of marriage and family life and the sources of competence, character, and citizenship in the United States."

By most accounts, Blankenhorn was a disastrous "expert witness" for the defense whose credentials were eviscerated by David Boies. Judge Vaughn Walker even suggested that Blankenhorn's status as an expert witness fell short of the Supreme Court's guideline that such witnesses possess "specialized skills as opposed to the insights of an intelligent layperson." At one point, Boies pointed to a quote from Blankenhorn's 2007 book which seemingly contradicted his entire reason for being there: "We would be more American on the day we permitted same-sex marriage than we were on the day before."

Via Keen News Service:

Boies went after Blankenhorn’s credibility immediately, noting that he apparently had only one peer-reviewed article to his credit and that was a thesis on a labor dispute between cabinetmaker unions in Britain. Although Blankenhorn was being offered as an expert witness on how same-sex marriages are detrimental to heterosexual marriages and children, Boies noted that Blankenhorn’s education had been in history. “You’ve never taught a course in college,” said Boies, “and you have no degree in psychology, psychiatry, sociology, anthropology.…” “No,” said Blankenhorn, interrupting. “And in preparation for this testimony, did you undertake any scientific study of what effects permitting same-sex marriages have been in any jurisdiction where same-sex marriages have been permitted?” asked Boies. “No,” said Blankenhorn.

Via New York Times:

At least a dozen times in the testimony, Mr. Blankenhorn refused to answer Mr. Boies when the lawyer posed a question and asked him to answer with a straightforward “Yes, no, or I don’t know.” Mr. Blankenhorn would say that there was no way to answer without extended clarification — even after Judge Walker instructed him to respond on several occasions. During a typical exchange, Mr. Boies asked the witness if any of the scholars he has relied on had “asserted that allowing same sex marriage would lower the rate of heterosexual marriage.” Mr. Blankenhorn replied that the “safest answer is I don’t know,” before adding, “But I believe the answer is that some of them have.” Mr. Boies then asked Mr. Blankenhorn to name the scholars, but the witness refused. As the questioning devolved into bickering, Judge Walker put both hands in the air to stop the pair. “Don’t argue with each other,” he said wearily, pointing to Mr. Boies and then to Mr. Blankenhorn. “Just ask a question and give an answer.”

The defense may rest its case today. Judge Walker has indicated that he will then take a few weeks to review the evidence before calling both sides back to make their closing arguments.