Banning Partner Benefits in Kentucky

A Kentucky lawmaker is introducing a bill to prohibit public universities in the state from offering any sort of domestic partnership benefits. And he's got that standard issue vacuous reasoning:

Rep. Stan Lee (R-Lexington) filed notice this week that he will introduce the override bill as soon as the legislature returns. Lee said the benefits would undermine marriage.

"I submit that we are teaching children a very bad lesson about the value of marriage by doing this," he told The Courier-Journal.

Well, obviously so. If our children see a gay person getting medical care, that will make them want to become gay. You see, being gay comes with such awesome fringe benefits that we have to find as many ways as possible to punish gay people to make being gay as unattractive as possible. I mean, just being viewed as a pariah by half of society, being harrassed and beaten up and viewed as evil, that just isn't enough to reduce the overwhelming lure of being gay. We must deny them health benefits. Hell, jobs too. It all stands to, uh, "reason." I mean, if you're an idiot.

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The Pew Research Center has released the results of a national survey with some very good news for advocates of gay marriage.
tags: gay marriage, ten reasons
Sadly, I think it's the latter. As many others have remarked on a variety of issues, one of the most pernicious effects of the right wing has been to mainstream crazy and hateful positions.
Buju Banton, a Jamaican reggae artist whose tour is being greeted with protests by gay rights supporters all over the country, says he's not a gay basher:

Ed,
u rawk!

Indeed, apparently the only way to "protect marriage" is to deny contractual benefits to between 5 and 10% of society. As soon as one of these dumbasses wants to explain to me how that actually works--without any logical fallacies, lies, or demagoguery--I'll be impressed.

Honestly, I sometimes wonder if we as a nation will overcome this gay hysteria in my lifetime. I figure we will at some point, as it has more or less been the case in this country that protection of individual rights has increased over time, and the same thing will probably happen in this case. However, it would be nice to see it happen while I'm still alive.

By ThomasHobbes (not verified) on 19 Oct 2006 #permalink

Has anyone else noticed that "impressionable children" are getting older and older?

50 years ago was it not the case that people attending university were expected and expecting to encounter ideas that they would not only disagree with but vehemently oppose?

I guess that in those days a University education also produced a logical thinker, not just someone who could research and regurgitate (and before you say it's jealousy talking I'm a University grad... and I didn't really need to do any creative thinking or demonstrate logical thinking to get my degree)