NOM ally Louis Marinelli: Your marriage isn’t a marriage unless I say it is

By Adam Bink

Louis (hi, Louis!) has done it again. Here’s his post responding to the picture I posted yesterday of a couple married in Iowa (h/t Good as You) (bolding mine)

We are going to Sioux City because we are holding a rally there on Tuesday to stand up for geniune marriage between a man and a woman. I say geniune, and I’ve made this point before, because a piece of paper doesn’t make you married. A piece of paper gives you access to a series of benefits afforded to married couples but it doesn’t make you married.

I say this because of this picture taken by one of our stalkers over at the NOM Tour Tracker.

It’s a sign held by one of our opponents today in Des Moines (we held a good rally there earlier today at th State Capital) was holding a sign that said she was married to her parner for 9 months and was thanking the State of Iowa for that.

These people are not married.

Marriage is between a man and a woman and taking something and molding it into the shape of marriage and then giving it the name of marriage doesn’t make it marriage! It is merely a mockery of marriage and that is what these so-called “same-sex marriages” amount to.

What this reasoning amounts to is that institutions are always static. No doubt, in the world of such activists, extending voting rights to African-Americans or women doesn’t make them voters, and extending citizenship to undocumented immigrants doesn’t make them Americans. After all, you can take the right of the vote, which was originally intended for whites only, and extend it to African-Americans or women, but that doesn’t make them voters, right? And to Louis, marriage is between a man and a woman because that’s the way it always has been. Because in the history of the world, institutions like voting or citizenship or marriage have never been, you know, expanded or anything.

I’m also fascinated by the view that personal views triumph over civil law. As Jeremy Hooper writes:

[Louis’ piece is] A body of thoughts that really tells you everything you need to know about the anti-marriage equality movement. Because here we have a jurisdiction that does, empirically, have civil marriage equality on a state level. Civil marriage, we will remind you, is the only kind of marriage equality for which the organized LGBT activist movement is fighting. And it’s in place. Right now. Today. In Iowa. Two men or two women can go to the city hall and get a license.

Yet Louis Marinelli, based on nothing but his own personal faith, says, “Nope, don’t think so.”

Since Louis reads our little blog here, I have two questions for him:

1. Was President Obama born in the United States?

2. Does his birth certificate from the Hawaii Department of Health documenting his birth in Honolulu make him a American?

I’m looking forward to seeing if Louis (a) is a birther, but more interestingly (b) believes a U.S. birth certificate merely “gives you access to a series of benefits”, or actually makes one an American. Let’s see how far his logic goes. We’ll await your response, Louis.

In the meantime, I have news for him. His views on what do and do not make a marriage can apply to him and his significant other. That’s his business- and that’s as it should be. The rest of us seek the freedom to marry under civil law. Live and let live, Louis.