Ken Starr Spouts the Same, Tired BULLSHIT

SOURCE:

CHANGE.ORG

by Michael A. Jones

Published February 10, 2009 @ 06:44PM PST

Ken Starr, who will argue in favor of Proposition 8 on behalf of protectmarriage.com next month at the California Supreme Court, may have given a preview of his arguments today with a presentation at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Nashville, Tennessee. Starr was on a panel with Nadine Strossen of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Starr, who has been a little media shy since joining the legal team of protectmarriage.com, told those gathered that marriage is regulated in society in many ways, according to the Associated Baptist Press.

"Plural marriage, which is lawful in 28 countries that are members of the United Nations, would not be recognized [in the U.S.]," said Starr. "There are many, many regulations [on marriage] -- age regulations and so forth."

Barf. That's the same, tired talking point that anti-LGBT crusaders have been peddling for years when it comes to the issue of same-sex marriage. Starr also went on to tell the Nashville audience that the original California Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage was "very cultural," and countered the history and tradition of marriage in the U.S.

Sure enough, the original California Supreme Court decision may have countered Starr's and protectmarriage.com's warped view of what constitutes a marriage, but it certainly did nothing to uproot society's culture. It has long been a part of our culture to combat inequality and violations of civil rights whenever and wherever they are seen. That was the intent of the original decision to legalize same-sex marriage in California. As Chief Justice Ron George wrote for the majority, "An individual's sexual orientation -- like a person's race or gender -- does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights."

Starr is arguing the same tired bullshit and using the same tired legal argument that gay marriage is tantamount to plural marriage. Thankfully, as people increasingly realize that same-sex marriage is a civil rights issue, they are buying less and less into Starr's version of the truth.

We're still a few weeks away from the start of arguments before the California Supreme Court on Proposition 8. But from where we stand, Ken Starr's defense of Prop 8 puts him squarely in the company of people who supported the Board of Education in Topeka, Kansas in 1954, or those that supported Virginia's anti-miscegenation laws in 1967.