Questions About Marriage
Dear Answerers:
A kind reader called my attention to an important article from the Washington
Business Journal that is available through Commercial Real Estate
News: “Six Property Owners Request Tax Breaks,” http://www.loopnet.com/xNet/MainSite/News/News.aspx?DocID=7812&Region=washington&sourcecode=1lntd008.
The article lists tens of millions of dollars of tax exemptions and
abatements that are being sought by politically connected developer
friends of the mayor and councilmembers. The largest giveaways are $50
million for Union Station Redevelopment Corporation, $20.3 million for
Metropolitan Development, and $8.5 million for Donatelli Development.
Don’t listen to what politicians have to tell you about tough times
for city government and restricted budgets. If you’re hungry, the
Wilson Building is still serving an unlimited, all-you-can-eat,
open-table buffet every day. Just be sure to tip a few of the maitre-de’s
on your way in. Throwing the mayor a birthday fundraising party next
year, as Chris Donatelli did this year, will be a most productive
investment.
In this issue, discussion continues about the referendum to overturn
the city council’s bill requiring DC to recognize same-sex marriages
that are performed in other jurisdictions. The “Referendum Concerning
the Jury and Marriage Amendment Act of 2009” is available online at
the Board of Elections web site and at http://www.dcwatch.com/election/ref090527.htm.
The legislation itself is still not posted on the city council’s web
site, but it is available at http://www.dcwatch.com/council18/18-70.htm.
I’ve been pondering a question about the messages, both in themail
and in other media, that support this legislation and the upcoming
future legislation legalizing same-sex marriages performed in the
District. People are saying that it is illegitimate and invalid to base
arguments for legislation, at least legislation concerning marriage, on
the grounds of religious belief, morality, human history and experience,
sentiments and feelings, or tradition. Legislation, they maintain, must
be based solely and strictly on reason, and reason must not be based on
religion, morality, history, experience, sentiments, feelings, or
traditions. Proponents of homosexual, gay, or same-sex marriages, who
have very recently begun to use the term “marriage equality,” claim
that there isn’t a single rational, reasoned argument against marriage
equality.
But using their own criteria, I don’t see how the proponents of
marriage equality can make any principled, legitimate argument against
extending marriage equality to polygamous, polygynous, and group
marriages. (Many more societies and religions have recognized some form
of polygamous marriage than have ever recognized gay marriages.) What is
the argument against giving marriage equality to consensual adult
incestuous marriages? (The only “scientific” argument against
incestuous marriages is that they cause genetic defects, but that claim
is very scantily supported. To the extent that it is true, defects would
occur in only a very small percentage of incestuous marriages, http://tinyurl.com/kp9x2s).
Some may argue against incestuous marriages because of the “ick”
factor, but in the case of gay marriage revulsion is presented only as
proof of the objectors’ bigotry, not of any legitimate instinct. Why
shouldn’t the same be true in the case of incestuous marriages? In
this argument, the near universal experience of human societies
throughout history is taken as proof only of the benighted ignorance of
our ancestors, and of ourselves prior to 1995 or so, when we suddenly
realized that gay marriage is a human right. Therefore, proponents of
marriage equality can’t cite revulsion as a legitimate argument
against incestuous marriages. And the specific relationships that are
covered by incest taboos have varied widely among societies, showing
that they are merely arbitrary and unreasonable.
Is the switch to the “marriage equality” terminology only an
instance of one side of a political debate choosing the language that is
most favorable to its side, or does it really signal a change in the
debate, a change to embracing all potential forms of human unions as
being equally legitimate?
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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Good News Twitter Stream from the Los
Angeles Times
Phil Shapiro, pshapiro@his.com
Here’s something the Washington Post ought to try: a Twitter
stream of good news only with retweeting possibilities from anyone in
the community. If you’re on Twitter, try following LATimesGoodNews.
After you do, you’ll receive this automatic response: http://tinyurl.com/l6hujn
It pains me to say this, and the words stick in my throat:
Washington, DC, could learn something from Los Angeles. (I deny ever
saying it.)
In case you might not have heard, Twitter has grown from two million
subscribers to thirty million subscribers in the past year. Either there
are 28 million sheep out there, or Twitter is onto something good.
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Ward 3: Crime and Speech
Frank Winstead, Forest Hills, frank.winstead@gmail.com
A crime on Councilmember Mary Cheh’s block in upper Northwest is
not very newsworthy. A reported crime in Mary Cheh’s neighborhood is
newsworthy. According to the Metropolitan Police Department’s 2D
E-mail list, a burglary occurred on the afternoon of Wednesday, May 27,
in the 4500 block of 30th Street; case number: 071-992.
The MPD cannot keep Cheh’s neighbors safe from the property
devaluation caused by people’s actually reporting crimes. But the MPD
is improving neighborhood aesthetics by cracking down on animal rights
protesters. On Sunday afternoon, seven people gathered in front of a
house a few blocks from Cheh’s to protest Huntingdon Life Sciences.
Two MPD officers arrived as the group was already dispersing. One
officer repeatedly yelled, “Please stay,” as he equipped himself
with plastic tie handcuffs. For photos of the protest and info on Cheh’s
failed attempt to eliminate free speech in DC, go to http://tinyurl.com/kv4pu6
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Good News in Cleveland Park
Gabe Fineman, gfineman@advsol.com
There is a lot of commotion on the E-mail lists in Cleveland Park
about the Cleveland Park Citizens Association (CPCA). They had about 425
members in April, with about thirty five showing up to vote on things
like zoning changes and electing officers. Typical moribund NIMBY
political organization. However, they seemed to have ticked off
residents that supported a new Giant store, and these “young Turks,”
mainly in their thirties, had to decide what to do. They could have
discredited the CPCA or even tried to destroy it. They could have just
ignored it and let it continue to slide into irrelevancy.
Instead, they decided to reinvigorate it. At least 75 people
committed to become active members and joined. They intend to drag the
organization into at least the twentieth century and perhaps the
twenty-first. They have started a listserv for the members. They want
on-line polls and perhaps on-line voting. They want communications among
the members and not just top-down edicts. Until more people come to the
meetings, they think that multi-way internal communications is
essential..
So, how did the current leadership react? Not so well. (The current
Vice President refuses to use E-mail as a matter of principal.) The CPCA
constitution requires that elections are held on the first Saturday in
June. The executive committee declared an emergency and canceled the
meeting and said there would not be another one until at least
September. It is not at all clear that the chance of losing an election
is an emergency or if an emergency can justify postponing a mandated
meeting. The best news is that almost no one defended the bizarre
reaction of canceling an election. Citizens (at least in Cleveland Park)
seem to want democracy and elections. We will have to wait and see if
the mayor weighs in with his previously unique view of how transparency
and democracy works.
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Google SketchUp Cookbook
Phil Shapiro, pshapiro@his.com
DC author and engineer Bonnie Roskes has published a new book about
Google SketchUp, the free 3D drawing program from Google. This book is
intended for intermediate and advanced SketchUp users. If you know a
bright youngster who loves designing things, SketchUp could give them
hours of fun. It’s a software tool designed for architects but easy
enough for kids to use. Further info about the Google SketchUp
Cookbook can be found at http://tinyurl.com/or3db6 Check out the
three-minute screencast video that explains what this book teaches.
Some of my own SketchUp explorations can be found at http://infinitemuseum.blogspot.com
Bonnie Roskes’ web site is at http://3dvinci.net
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Same-Sex Marriage
Malcolm Wiseman, mal@wiseman.ws
The “redefinition” that should be happening is not about what is
marriage and if it is sex-based, but what are civil unions. Why is “marriage”
a part of our government’s supposed secular law? Marriage should
remain totally within the realm of church, and governments should adopt
civil unions universally as a human right. (Please see and interpret for
yourself Articles 2 and 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/.
My conclusion is that Art. 2 forbids Art. 16 from withholding marriage
rights from gays.) Government, to serve all the people, having decided
to have specific policies for couples who legally meld resources and
share household responsibility, should drop the terms marry and
marriage, etc., from its secular lexicon and convert to “civil union.”
This needs to happen at the federal level, but local and state
governments should push for it.
I’m delighted that the District council is among the humane and
progressive leadership on this huge rights issue. In a democratic
nation people who are not religious or god-believing have exactly the
same rights as people who may be spiritual. All oppressive doctrine must
go. Things ain’t what they used to be, and there’s no going back.
Freedom belongs to everybody. Withholding the rights and protections of
civil union from gays is the same as robbing DC residents of statehood.
Civil union is a statehood issue and vice-versa.
By the way, don’t believe what you may hear in the local media
about a racial divide and racial ramifications in DC around this issue
— as if all blacks have the same views. I know more than a few blacks
and browns who support same-sex whatever, but who are religious or
god-believing, and disagree with the “gay lifestyle.” Many of us are
able to hold our beliefs or lack of them in one hand yet strive to
practice the Golden Rule with the other. We know deep-down, at the core,
that anything anti-gay, anti-person, whether in church or in the school
yard is about oppression and ignorance.
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Marriage Equality
Joan Eisenstodt, jeisen@aol.com
I struggle to understand why those who oppose marriage equality (also
known as “gay marriage”) are so opposed. As others have said,
another’s marriage does not interfere with mine, or with yours. When
my husband and I married, there was concern by his family about our age
difference. At our wedding there was a gay couple, together longer than
most of our “straight but not narrow” friends who participated in
our ceremony. Our rabbi acknowledged that he hoped one day they too
could marry and have the same rights my spouse and I would now have.
The citizens of DC deserve better than those who oppose marriage
equality are willing to give. Please think again and consider the good
of sanctioning the love of two people.
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Perhaps the difficulty we are having conversing about same sex
marriage is that the state has ventured into the church’s arena. My
understanding is that marriage is being defined in religious terms: “what
the Bible says,” “what God wants.” Perhaps if we leave marriage to
the purview of religious institutions, the state could concentrate on
the legal benefits and responsibilities of binding two people together,
such as tax breaks (or not), hospital visits, home ownership,
inheritance. So if you want to be married, you go to a religious
institution; if you want legal recognition of your union, you go to the
state. The state should not recognize religious marriages for legal
benefits or responsibilities. This makes it so much cleaner. Religious
institutions will not feel forced to perform marriages they don’t want
to, and state-bestowed legal rights won’t kick in without a state
union.
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
McMillan Park Tours, June 3, 6
Peter Tucker, pete10506@yahoo.com
McMillan Park is twenty-six acres of open park space right by the
Washington Hospital Center, just off of North Capitol Street. Despite
overwhelming community opposition, the developers EYA and Jair Lynch are
attempting to have the city give them the twenty-six acres so they can
put two million square feet of development on the site,
McMillan Park is historic, having been designed by Frederick
Olmstead, who designed Central Park in New York city. The park, which
served as a water filtration plant, has large underground spaces. There
are two chances to see this precious piece of public property. McMillan
Park and Sand Filtration Site tours will be given on June 3 at 6:00 p.m.
and on June 6 at 10:00 a.m. Please come if you can! Tours will start at
the west gate entrance on 1st Street, NW, and will last approximately
one hour. RSVP by June 1 to John Basile, jbasile@eya.com,
or 301-634-8679. (Isn’t it interesting that we have to E-mail the
developer who wants the property in order to take a tour of our public
property?)
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Environmental Health Group (EHG) Events, June
10
Allen Hengst, ahengst@rcn.com
World War I munitions, bottles filled with chemical warfare agents
and contaminated soil have been found in and around the Spring Valley
neighborhood of northwest DC. The Environmental Health Group (EHG) seeks
to raise awareness of the issues and encourage a thorough investigation
and cleanup. Every Sunday at 1:30 p.m., please join the Environmental
Health Group for an informal discussion about Spring Valley issues. At
Glover Park Whole Foods Market, 2323 Wisconsin Avenue, NW (one block
south of Calvert Street). For more information, visit the EHG on
Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Washington-DC/Environmental-Health-Group/67807900019.
Wednesday, June 10, 2:00 p.m.: At the request of Congresswoman
Eleanor Holmes Norton, the Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal
Issues and the District of Columbia will hold a hearing in room 2247 of
the Rayburn House Office Building on the proposal of the Army Corps of
Engineers to conclude its cleanup of chemical weapons, unexploded
ordinances and other chemicals in Spring Valley, a Formerly Used Defense
Site (FUDS) in Northwest, a neighborhood in the District. The
Congresswoman has worked with the residents of Spring Valley, the Army
Corps, and the Department of Defense (DOD) on the cleanup for more than
fifteen years. The Army Corps proposes to destroy the chemical weapons
and to declare the FUDS completely cleaned within the next two years,
but Congress has not been consulted. “No information has been
submitted to the public or Congress concerning how the Corps has
ascertained that the entire site is clear, safe, and without residual
health effects,” Norton said.
[Note that this is a new date and new room for the hearing, and this
notice updates the notice in the last issue of themail, May 27. — Gary
Imhoff]
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CLASSIFIEDS — RECOMMENDATIONS
Landscaper and Gutter Cleaner
Harold Foster, Petworth, Ward 4, incanato@earthlink.net
If you can recommend a good small-yard landscaper (for about a
half-acre total) and also someone who is good at cleaning the gutters of
an attached row house, please let me know.
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