Chris Plante: It’s Down to the Wire in Rhode Island

The latest news from GoLocalProv, a news blog in the Ocean State:

Sources are telling GoLocalProv that more than three months into the legislative session, there still are not enough votes in the Rhode Island House to ensure that a gay marriage bill would pass.

NOM-RI’s Chris Plante says it’s going to come down to the wire:

“Both the potential committee and floor votes remain on a knife’s edge. One or two key votes will swing the outcome in either direction,” said Chris Plante, executive director of the state chapter of the National Organization for Marriage. “Madam Chairperson Ajello seems overly optimistic—it is safe to say that if Speaker Fox had the support in committee or on the floor he would be calling for a vote.” “However, by no means does this mean the battle is over,” he added. “The National Organization for Marriage-Rhode Island expects that Speaker Fox, Governor Chafee, and homosexual-marriage advocates will continue to press the House of Representatives on this issue. Therefore, we are urging supporters of one man/one woman marriage to remain vigilant, continue calling and email their representatives, and to visit the Statehouse in person to speak to their representatives.”

Now is the time to stay fully engaged! 

In RI, a move for Reciprocal Benefits instead?

More evidence from the April 5th Boston Globe that the Rhode Island legislature isn’t willing to redefine marriage.

Instead, the new idea is a version of civil unions that would provide many practical benefits for couples not eligible for marriage:

Rhode Island lawmakers will consider a proposal to allow gay couples and others who can’t legally marry to enter into an agreement providing many of the benefits of marriage.

The House Committee on Judiciary will review legislation Tuesday that would extend benefits and rights associated with insurance, health care decisions, inheritance and property ownership to so-called “reciprocal beneficiaries.”

The legal relationships would be restricted to anyone older than 18 who cannot legally marry their partner. That includes same-sex couples as well as relatives, such as unmarried siblings who want the right to make medical decisions for each other.

Committees in the House and Senate have held hearings on legislation allowing gay marriage, but neither chamber has scheduled a vote on the bill. The reciprocal beneficiary bill is one of several proposed alternatives.

Video: Chris Plante of NOM RI talks about Marriage and the Hispanic Church

Chris Plante, director of NOM’s Rhode Island Chapter spoke with CBN News (full story here) about the SSM debate heating up – and about the surging support for marriage in the Hispanic Churches:

http://downloads.cbn.com/cbnnewsplayer/cbnplayer.swf?aid=22167

Video: Dr. J.R. Morse’s Testimony to RI House Judiciary Committee

This powerful video captures Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse’s (of the Ruth Institute) testimony to the Rhode Island House Judiciary on March 1:
 

Gay Marriage as an Economic Development Plan?

The headline in the March 16, 2011 Columbus, Indiana Republic said “Cummins: Gay Marriage Ban Bad for Business.”

Cummins, Inc. which makes engines and emissions control systems and mobile energy units for the Army, and stuff like that, is headquartered in Columbus, Indiana. During state senate hearings over the Indiana state marriage amendment Jill Cook, the vice president of human resources, testified that the marriage amendment would harm Cummins’ business and make the company reluctant to create jobs in Indiana.

“This resolution sends a powerful message that Indiana is not a place that welcomes people of all backgrounds, and it jeopardizes our ability to be competitive in global markets,” Ms. Cook testified.

I hope not under oath, or with her hand on a Bible, because that’s an amazing whopper we are hearing more and more often.

In Rhode Island, newly-elected Gov. Lincoln Chafee actually touted gay marriage as a serious and important part of his economic development plan for Rhode Island.

In his inaugural address he claimed passing gay marriage would do “more for economic growth in our state than any economic-development loan.” He’s taken to running around Providence brandishing a copy of the 2007 book “The Flight of the Creative Class” by Prof. Richard Florida, to try to prove his point.

“In January,” notes Providence Journal columnist Edward Fitzpatrick, “Chafee talked about Florida’s book when he chaired the state Economic Development Corporation Board for the first time. And during the February 6 edition of WJAR’s ‘10 News Conference,’ Chafee cited the book in making the case for legalizing same-sex marriage . . .”

On “10 News Conference,” Jim Taricani noted that in his inaugural speech, Chafee said, “Mark my words, those two actions will do more for economic growth in our state than any economic development loan.”

Taricani asked, “Do you have a factual basis for saying that? Has that been the case in other states?”

“Sure,” Chafee said. “Look at Silicon Valley. Look at Cambridge.” Taricani asked, “What did that have to do with gay marriage or illegal immigration?”

(Particularly since they don’t have gay marriage in Silicon Valley).

But undaunted Chafee persisted in digging his hole: “These are areas where innovation prospers. And there is a book out by Richard Florida people are talking about, and he’s making that exact point.”

Taricani asked, “What?”

“That you can look at economic growth where there is tolerance,” Chafee said.

Clearly a new meme has been launched. The people who launched it must be counting on the idea that nobody will bother to point out how ludicrously unsupported by the facts it is.

Whether or not “tolerance” is associated with economic growth, gay marriage is clearly not.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis publishes yearly and trend data on economic growth, including the year’s increase in personal income per capita.

Take a look at this chart: eight of the top ten states with the fasted growth in per capital personal income from 1999-2009 have state marriage amendments. None have gay marriage.

1999-2009 average annual growth rate of PCPI (Per capita personal income)

State                PCPI increase     Marriage amendment?

Wyoming        5.9%
North Dakota 5.7%                    Yes
Louisiana        5.3%                    Yes
Montana         4.7%                    Yes
Oklahoma       4.6%                   Yes
South Dakota 4.4%                   Yes
Hawaii             4.4%                   Yes
West Virginia  4.3%
Arkansas          4.2%                  Yes
Alaska              4.2%                   Yes

Or consider another potential measure of a state’s business climate: What do CEO’s think? Chief Executive magazine annually surveys 543 CEOs to identify which states are the best and the worst for job growth and business. In 2009, the top five states were: Texas, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia and Tennessee. Four out of five have marriage amendments, and none have gay marriage.

(The worst? California, New York, Michigan, New Jersey, and yes, Massachusetts.)

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce also compiles a list of states that are the top “overall growth performers” a measure which combines job growth rate since 2000, and since 2007, gross state product (GSP), real GSP growth since 2000, GSO per job 2008, and growth in GSP per job. The top five states in overall growth performance (in descending order): North Dakota, Virginia, South Dakota, Maryland and Wyoming.  The top three all have state marriage amendments, none have gay marriage (Indeed the Maryland legislature in a surprise move rejected a gay marriage bill this month after a powerful public outpouring of objections, including from black churches).

Perhaps my favorite data point comes from this same recent U.S. Chamber of Commerce survey (“Enterprising States”) which includes a ranking for what it called “middle-class job growth.” These are presumably the good jobs that the creative class seeks or fosters or whatever.

What are the top five states for growing middle-class jobs between 2002 and 2009? Utah, Wyoming, Nevada, Hawaii and Texas.

True of these five states one—Wyoming—does not have a marriage amendment—yet. It almost passed one, this year however. If it did, perhaps its middle class job growth will come plunging to a halt, but somehow I doubt it.

The tiny number of liberal northeastern states that have embraced gay marriage tend to have high per capita incomes, because they are much older, supporting fewer children, and much whiter, and better educated than average. They are older in part because with so little job growth, young adults with families move elsewhere, most likely to a southern state with a marriage amendment that enjoys more robust economic growth.

Why would a representative from Cummins, Inc. make such a ludicrous claim that we would say misleads the public, if it were not for the fact the public finds it ludicrous too? We do not know, we say, shaking our heads in amazement.

But a few days ago Cummins’s CEO Tim Solso was appointed to Pres. Obama’s Presidential Management Advisory Board.

A bit of behind the scenes back-scratching?

We’ll never know for sure.

One thing we do know for sure: if gay marriage is a big part of your governor’s or your business leaders’ idea of an economic development plan, your state is in trouble.

–Maggie Gallagher, Chairman, National Organization for Marriage [cross-posted at www.nomblog.com]

[For a printable version of this article, click here.]

Breaking News: RI Speaker Gordon Fox Concedes Gay Marriage Bill in Limbo

According to the March 17 Warwick Beacon story “Marriage Bill in Limbo“, House Speaker Gordon Fox’s spokesman conceded there is no immediate plan for the House Judiciary Committee to vote on gay marriage; he says he doubts the bill will be moved until “some sort of concession can be reached.”

The Beacon says only two courses are now under consideration: substitute a civil unions bill, or put the issue before the voters on the 2012 ballot.

However gay marriage advocates “oppose those measures because they say same-sex couples should have the full rights of marriage and they fear a referendum could result in defeat.”

“Legislators interviewed for this story,” writes the Beacon, “saw no other course for the bill, short of letting it die in the House or passing it and facing possible defeat in the Senate, than replacing the word marriage or bringing it to the voters.”

Warwick-Cranston Rep. Joseph McNamara remains adamant against letting the people vote:

“Do you think the rest of the bus would have voted to let Rosa Parks sit in the front seat when she did?” he told the Beacon.

He also said National Organization for Marriage (NOM)’s mailer to his constituents “stirred up a lot of hatred.”

But as McNamara, who is a Catholic, sees it, “I represent all the constituents, not just the ones who look like me.”

We wonder what about the ones who look like this?

But another Warwick legislator Joseph Trillo told the Beacon he will oppose gay marriage:

“That word is taken,” he said of marriage.

(photos: www.projo.com)

Yet another study shows the ideal place for children is with their biological mother and father.

Conclusions from the Centers for Disease Control:

Family Structure and Children’s Health in the United States: Findings From the National Health Interview Survey, 2001–2007

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_10/sr10_246.pdf

The findings presented in this report indicate that children living in nuclear families—that is, in families consisting of two married adults who are the biological or adoptive parents of all children in the family—were generally healthier, more likely to have access to health care, and less likely to have definite or severe emotional or behavioral difficulties than children living in nonnuclear families. For example, children in nuclear families were generally less likely than children in nonnuclear families to be in good, fair, or poor health; to have a basic action disability; or to have learning disabilities or ADHD….
These findings are consistent with previous research that concluded that children living with two parents were advantaged relative to children living in other types of families (18–21). Using data from the Child Health Supplement of the 1988 NHIS, Dawson (18,19) reported that children living with two biological parents were less likely to experience behavioral or emotional problems than children living in other family types….
Children living in blended (i.e., stepparent), cohabiting, unmarried biological or adoptive, extended, and other families were generally disadvantaged relative to children in nuclear families, and were, for the most part, comparable to children living in single-parent families regarding most health status and access to care measures. least likely to have seen a dentist or had contact with an eye doctor in the past 12 months…differences in child health and access to care by family structure generally persisted regardless of population subgroup, with children living in nuclear families remaining advantaged relative to children in nonnuclear families.

Finally – A principled debate on “What is Marriage?”

Now We’re Talking (About the Marriage Issue)

December 29, 2010 11:09 A.M.

By Matthew J. Franck

http://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/256046/now-were-talking-about-marriage-issue-matthew-j-franck

The impact of the article “What Is Marriage?” in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy on the gay-marriage debate continues to be profound.  Authors Sherif Girgis, Robert P. George, and Ryan T. Anderson (hereafter GG&A) issued a challenge to those who would “expand” the institution of civil marriage to include same-sex couples: answer their title question with a definition of marriage that is principled, coherent, and defensible without breaking down into the recognition of any and every sort of relationship brought forward with a claim to be recognized as a “marriage.”

So far the only answer, the only definition of marriage that meets these logically and morally compelling criteria is the one GG&A give themselves: that marriage is the comprehensive conjugal union of a man and a woman.  To say it applies to other pairs or groupings, or to male-female relations that are not comprehensive or conjugal, is to impart to marriage a definition that is self-destroying, incapable of maintaining a recognizable shape.

Two prominent gay-marriage advocates in the world of legal scholarship have stepped up to critique GG&A’s “What is Marriage?”–Kenji Yoshino of NYU law school, and Andrew Koppelman of Northwestern law school.  Yoshino, at Slate, first assayed a criticism almost completely devoid of substance, and GG&A easily rebutted him at Public Discourse.  (Yoshino has taken another stab at the issue, with the very telling concession that he “refuse[s] to answer the question ‘What is marriage?’” because the institution may in the future face even more “new challenges” to include still more relationships than those now claiming entry.)

Koppelman, for his part, writes at the Balkinization blog that he thinks Yoshino didn’t “really engage with any of [GG&A's] arguments,” and goes straight to the heart of the matter: he holds that marriage is “just a construct that has developed over time, and that therefore can be changed by human beings if that seems best.”  In other words, it has no correspondence to the nature of things, but is wholly conventional, from the bottom up.  Hence, for Koppelman, “[a] proposal to modify marriage is ontologically similar to a proposal to modify the game of chess.”  We can make it whatever we want it to be, and continue to call it “marriage” just as we could make chess indistinguishable from checkers and still call it “chess.”  Koppelman earns points for candor, but is marriage really whatever we say it is?

Today at Public Discourse, GG&A respond to Koppelman, arguing in part that “marriage isn’t a pure construct, any more than human rights are mere constructs. Both are moral realities that the state has good reasons to recognize and support.”  The whole exchange is worth reading, starting with Koppelman’s blog post.  

And here’s the really good news: Girgis, George, and Anderson appear to have started an actual debate on this question, just when many on the other side of the gay marriage controversy want to shut down debate with accusations of “hate speech,” as I noted in a recent Washington Post article.  Yoshino and, especially, Koppelman, are to be commended for their civility, and for engaging in a shared attempt to come to grips, rationally, with one of the most momentous moral and legal questions facing our country today.  Both sides cannot be right–but neither side needs to be tarred with the epithet “bigots!” while the debate continues.

Tell Your Rhode Island Senator You Want to Vote on Marriage

A Governor with only 36% of the vote, and fewer popular votes than the Cool Moose Party candidate for Lt. Governor, does not have a mandate to redefine marriage for all of Rhode Island.  Yet, this is exactly what Governor-elect Chafee and the liberal-progressive fringe in the Rhode Island Assembly are planning on doing.Call the Governor’s office and the Senate-President; tell them, “Don’t Mess with Marriage.  If it is going to be redefined for all Rhode Islanders then all Rhode Islanders should have the right to vote on it!” Call Governor-elect Chafee at: 401-222-2080 Call Senate-President Paiva-Weed at 401-222-6655 Then call your Senator with the same message, “Let the people vote on marriage.”  Click here to find your Senator’s contact information. Here are some facts to help you in your call: Over 80% of Rhode Islanders want the right to vote on marriage.  The right to vote is the most basic right we have; we should be able to vote on marriage. Homosexual-marriage is not a “civil-right.”  There has never been a “right” to marry whoever you want; our government, and governments throughout history, have always regulated who you can and cannot marry. Homosexual-marriage is not “fair” for the vast majority of Rhode Islanders who’s faith and conscience disagree.    Governor Chafee may believe he can message this issue carefully thought the legislature and present it as something that is simple and fair. But it is anything but simple and it is anything but fair to the vast majority of our citizens who do not support same-sex marriage. Under the law, anyone who does not agree with this NEW definition will find themselves being punished and subjected to sanctions for refusing to go along. It is no longer a matter that people are free to agree or disagree, they will over time be forced to agree. Opponents of gay marriage will be treated under the law just like bigots and racists. Period. Our opponents like to use bumper sticker slogans like “love is love” and “if you don’t like gay marriage don’t have one.” However, the reality of gay marriage is much different. What is the reality for people who oppose it? People in the wedding or hospitality business who oppose gay marriage will have to participate or risk losing their license to make a living. After all, you can’t refuse to serve someone who is black, and under the law you won’t be able to refuse to participate in a gay wedding either. This has already happened in New Mexico. Professionals like doctors and lawyers and accountants who don’t want to perform services for gay couple claiming to be married will be sued or risk losing their license to practice their profession. This happened in California. Religious groups who run Charities, like Catholic Charities, will have to either agree to ignore their religious beliefs or stop some of their charitable work. Catholic Charities in both Massachusetts and DC no longer provide adoptions serves because the law compelled them to adopt children out to “married” same sex couples. Whenever public schools teach children about marriage, they will be forced to teach about same sex marriage. There will be no leeway. This has happened in Massachusetts, California and elsewhere. Children as young as kindergarten will be exposed to this subject in the public schools. Our position is clear: if we are going to change the definition of marriage it should only be done by voters. If you will support putting the issue to voters to decide, we will praise you and commend your position. However, if you are intent on ramming this through the legislature, we must speak up and we will speak up. So, please call today.  Our democratic government is controlled by the voices and votes of the people; please use your voice today to tell Governor Chafee and the Rhode Island Senate, “Don’t Mess with Marriage!  Put it on the ballot.”

Over 80% of Rhode Islanders Want the Marriage Question on the Ballot

The National Organization for Marriage – Rhode Island calls for 

Fiscal Conservative and Good Government Groups to join in coalition

Synopsis:  Rhode Island’s recovery from its economic disaster is forecast to lag well behind the rest of the country.  In these dire fiscal conditions Governor-elect Chafee and the new Rhode Island Assembly must focus all of their energy on saving our State’s economy.  Gridlock inducing social experiments such as homosexual-marriage will only bog down our government and take away from the energy and ideas needed to bring Rhode Island and Rhode Islanders back to prosperity. 

Instead, give the question to the people in a public referendum in 2012.

The Voice of the People of Rhode Island

Public opinion polling over the last 18-months has consistently demonstrated that the people of Rhode Island want the chance to vote on the issue, irrespective of their position on the issue.

Question: As you may have heard some people want to legalize gay marriage in Rhode Island. As far as you are concerned, is this an issue that should be decided by a vote of the Legislature or should it be decided by voters in a statewide election?                

	June 2009	December 2009
People	74	80
Legislature	10	7
DK/Refusal	16	13

 Question:  Voters in thirty states in America have had the opportunity to decide whether gay marriage would be legalized in their state. Do you think Rhode Island voters should also have an opportunity to vote on this issue?

	June 2009	December 2009	August 2010
Yes	84	82	82
No	11	10	14
DK/Refused	5	9	4