North Carolina Republican Calls Gay People ‘Things’ (VIDEO)
North Carolina House Majority Leader, Paul Stam (R), contended in a debate with Minority Whip Rick Glazier (D), that Gay people are “things” and should therefore be afforded different rights than other “things”.
The debate took place at the University of North Carolina Law School and it is in response to a proposed Constitutional Amendment which would ban gay marriage in NC.
Stam made the age old fallacious argument that gay marriage would lead to polygamy. He also said, “Different things can be treated differently if the things or people are in a very different relationship.”
Glazier responded by saying that people are not “things” and should be treated the “same as anyone else.” He fought back with his own ‘slippery slope’ argument:
“We engage here in an incredible slippery slope. So if gay folks aren’t allowed — don’t have the fundamental right to do the one thing that as human beings we all want to do, which is to decide who we want to live with, who we want to marry, who we want to have a relationship with. Then explain to me, maybe you should tell the folks, does that mean that they also don’t have the right to public office? That’s a lesser constitutional right to run for public office than it is to decide who you’re going to spend your day with.”
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Author: Wendy Gittleson
As a child of an artist and a Vietnam war activist, I was born a liberal. Raised half in rural, upstate New York and half in Boulder, Colorado, I have a unique perspective on politics and on life. I now call the San Francisco Bay area home.
8:51 am
He used the word “things” to articulate differentiation for what others view as equal human relationships (hetero and homo marriages). His underlying belief and his overt expression are both crystal clear… some human phenomena are analagous to things …no twisting of words, just a fuller explication of them to reveal his discriminatory (by LGBT values) mode of thought…
8:54 am
analogous
10:52 am
Gabi, you are just plain wrong about this. What you call “crystal clear” is what you think you hear because you have abandoned reason in this instance.
He did not say that gay people are things, and he did not say that gay relationships are things. In fact, if you listen carefully he uses the phrase “things or people” at one point.
This is all so ridiculous! Just because the right wing dumbs things down and makes absurd arguments, that does not mean we have to! There are so many good, strong and sensible reasons to support marriage equality. We do not have to resort to this.
10:00 pm
Unfortunately Mike is correct. If you believe in something you have to be willing to get dirt on you in the fight.
James, don’t kid yourself. I know far too many of these people and he most assuredly meant to classify homosexuals (as well as polygamourous people) as THINGS.
The wall of separationj between ANY kind of church and State needs to be rebuilt higher and stronger than ever before. We could easily be one generation from a Taliban-like Christian rule.
6:26 am
Jack, I’m not kidding myself. Defeating this outrageous proposed amendment to the state constitution requires that progressives here in NC pull together and work hard to get out the vote next May, when it will be on the ballot.
We have to start now, and we have to fight to win, not to satisfy adolescent desires to insult people we don’t like. I started on my radio program on WCOM last week, denouncing the amendment and calling on everyone to organize. So how dare you suggest that I am not in this fight to win! What have you done?
Not one vote will be added to the effort by this childish post twisting the words of someone at some law school panel discussion.
Jack, were you at the panel discussion? Probably not, but somehow you just know that what that guy said on that occasion is what you think it is because of your contempt for what people like him believe. I have just as much, if not more, contempt for the hatred and fear of gay men and lesbians. But that does not alter one little bit the fact that you have no idea what you are talking about.
The amendment would not only make marriage unconstitutional, it would also do this to civil unions. There are Log Cabin Republicans, independents and others here in this state we have to bring in to the effort. It does not help for this site to use a stupid cheap shot that clearly misinterprets a remark about the Aristotelian principle of treating equal things equally and unequal things unequally.
3:35 pm
The problem with taking the high road, as democrats/liberals/progressives have been doing is that it is easier to get get people active with anger/hatred/low blow base emotional type rhetoric than it is to appeal to to their higher sense of fairness and goodness. This is prop 8 passed, WMDs were a good reason to invade Iraq, Death panels were a reason to shoot down health care for everyone. As much as I’m not a fan of the low blow tactics, you either fight fire with fire, or end up the only one burned.
1:47 pm
Look, I am a supporter of marriage equality and infuriated about this ridiculous proposed constitutional amendment. But this is a cheap shot, and really not defensible in terms of logic or fairness. Stam was using the word “things” in stating his point in very general terms, that’s all. We don’t have to twist words of take cheap shots to win this debate against the violation of the rights of gay men and lesbians.