Art Bell hosts a wide-ranging discussion with callers debating same-sex marriage, from the Senate’s 85-14 ban on federal recognition to personal freedoms like hospital visitation rights, while struggling to reconcile his prejudice with logical arguments. Callers propose radical redefinitions—transgender marriages, polygamy, or even abolishing marriage entirely—highlighting inconsistencies in procreation-based justifications. Bell dismisses fringe ideas but acknowledges the Supreme Court’s potential role, referencing Hawaii’s precedent and constitutional debates. Meanwhile, he touches on fringe theories like Flight 800’s alleged missile strike, Jurassic Park-style DNA extraction, and chupacabra rumors, blending conspiracy with cultural and legal tensions. The episode underscores America’s unresolved clash between tradition and evolving societal norms. [Automatically generated summary]
From the high desert and the great American Southwest.
I bid you all good evening.
Good morning across all these many time zones stretching from the Tejan and Hawaiian Islands in the west with the hammocks, the girls, the grass skirts, all the way over to the Caribbean.
That's over all of us.
And the U.S. Virgin Islands still being hammered by rain last I heard.
From Hortense down south into South America, north to the pole.
This is Coast to Coast A.M. and I'm Art Bell.
Good to be here.
In fact, great to be here this morning.
It will be open lines all night long.
However, I do have just a few announcements here.
Number one, Thursday night, Friday morning, by popular demand, Dr. Courtney Brown is back.
And he'll be here ahead of appearance, an appearance he's going to make down in Tampa.
In view of the last program he did and what he had to say about Mars and then the announcements that were made.
It should be an intriguing program, to say the least.
A lot of people after Major Ed Dames wanted to have Courtney Brown on, Doctor.
So so it is.
So it has been written.
So it shall be done.
Then, Friday night, Saturday morning, this one a lot of you have been waiting for.
The new news on anti-gravity is going to be given and explained, as best as one can do it, by Richard Hoagland.
So, there you've got it.
Dr. Courtney Brown, Thursday night, Friday, and Friday night, Saturday, Richard Hoagland and anti-gravity.
It's going to be a pretty intense couple of days, to say the least.
You may remember Dr. Brown on the air prior to my vacation about Mars.
And then my vacation, and then all the news on Mars.
So it'll be an interesting appearance.
Then I would like to confirm something for you, and that is, you know, the 25th of this month will be the debates.
A lot of people would like to have Harry Brown, even Ross Perot, in the debates.
But I don't believe it's going to occur.
And that doesn't mean you ought to stop trying to get Harry Brown or even Ross Perot into the debates, but I don't think so, folks.
And so I've arranged, confirming now, to have Harry Brown on the very night of the debates, the 25th.
He'll be our guest for as long as we would like him.
And I will collect during the debates the relevant questions asked of the two major party candidates.
And I will ask them of Harry Brown.
Then all of you will be able to make up your mind about whether Harry Brown should have been in the debates.
And moreover, what the debates would have been like had Harry been there.
So that's the plan.
Thought you'd want to know.
That'll be Saturday the 25th.
Harry Brown, the Libertarian Party candidate, here to debate the debates.
All right, otherwise, let us skip about the news.
Under the category of Hayart, what's wrong with this picture?
From what I've been hearing on the news, Hurricane Fran has caused billions of dollars, that's true, in damage in North Carolina alone.
At least a billion, I know, and more to the north.
And yet the mass media seems to be covering Fran's wake rather well as far as dispensing damage tallies and body counts.
But have you noticed a conspicuous absence here?
When was the last time, if ever, that you heard mention of FEMA and its response to this disaster?
Weird, huh?
Jason KCMO, 50,000 watts of serious attitude and right, Jason, that he's exactly right.
Normally we hear about FEMA cranking up, sweeping down, taking care of business, giving out no interest, low-interest loans.
And I looked at this and I said, wow, Jason is exactly right, isn't he?
Nary a word.
Well, Mother Nature is a rocking.
So was Tokyo.
An earthquake measuring 6.9, that's a big one.
On the Richter scale, rocked Tokyo and surrounding areas Wednesday morning.
Buildings swayed in Tokyo, and let me tell you, that must be something to see.
I was in Tokyo a year ago, and they've got some big buildings.
The epicenter in the Pacific, 90 miles east of Tokyo, there is a tsunami tidal wave warning, in effect, now for Japan's Pacific Ocean coast around Tokyo.
6.9, that's a big earthquake.
And I'm telling you, being in Tokyo downtown is just like being in New York City.
Big, big buildings.
And you can imagine the horror, or maybe you can't, of a really major earthquake in an area like that, in a city.
It's almost unimaginable.
A quake big enough to bring down the skyscrapers.
Can you imagine?
Staying with Mother Nature, Hortense, battering Puerto Rico does not do it justice.
There have been as much as 20 inches of rain out of this hurricane.
20 inches.
And maybe more now.
My friends in the Virgin Islands, I'm sure they're ready to wash away down there.
Talked to a lady early in the program yesterday who said, you know, a lot of us don't have roofs, or the roofs are in very poor condition.
So they're running around with buckets and you name it to try to catch the water in a lot of, not all the homes, obviously, but a lot of them with roof problems.
This much rain, 20 inches of rain.
Folks, that's a lot of rain.
Hortense is intensifying.
Its pressure has been dropping during the day today.
It is headed generally in our direction, about 850 miles south of Miami right now.
Still, I believe, moving roughly west-northwest.
Now, forecasters say that they hope that a cold front coming down through the central part of the U.S. is going to produce pressure or a trough that will keep this hurricane off the coast.
We'll see.
It'll no doubt intensify.
This could be a rough hurricane, another one.
And it could hit in an area where the people don't need it.
Hopefully not.
There has been a new warning issued to Saddam Hussein, and that is, if you rebuild your radar sites, we will once again missile them into oblivion.
Now, there are reports that at least three of the sites that we attacked and supposedly destroyed are being rebuilt or are already back in action now.
Now, I'm not an expert in these areas, but my understanding is one of our missiles, cruise variety, costs about a million dollars.
A million.
Could somebody out there tell me what the price of a radar site would be and how you can rebuild them in just one week?
Now, what is the economics of this?
If they rebuild the missile sites in a week, and our missiles cost a million dollars apiece, are we having an economically viable situation here?
President Clinton says he believes homosexual partners should have certain rights, but legal marriage is not one of them.
He's going to now have a chance to stamp this into law.
The Senate passed and sent to the President a bill that would allow states not to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.
Why did they do that?
Because Hawaii appears ready to legalize it.
The vote, 85 to 14.
It will define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
Now, remember, there has not yet been a Supreme Court test of this, and whatever they do could be undone by the court.
I basically agree with this legislation, but then not the second part.
I agree with the first part, but the second part, the Senate rejected 50 to 49, a bill that would extend civil rights laws to protect people from being fired because of their sexual orientation.
And I think that I'm not in favor of what they have done here.
I definitely don't favor same-sex marriage.
But, frankly, I think that people should have the right to be protected from being fired simply because of their sexual orientation.
Now, if their sexual orientation is affecting their job, their business, the business, then I would say so.
But if somebody is simply detected on the QT of being gay, getting canned over that seems wrong to me.
So I've got kind of a mixed feeling about this.
Breaking news on CNN earlier in the day.
And I guess it is breaking news in a way.
Mr. Perot has picked his running mate after running through all of list, a whatever that is.
You know whoever else, he wanted some big-name politician.
Mr. Perot has chosen as his running mate Pat Choate economist, a frequent visitor on the Chuck Harter show.
As a matter of fact, he was sort of part of the Chuck Harder show for a while really and now will be Perot's running mate, and I wonder how you feel about that.
They call him an economist.
It will then focus the Perot campaign squarely on trade, how America is getting screwed in trade the, the NAFTA agreement GATT, free trade generally.
It looks like that is the direction the campaign is going to go.
So it's going to be back to the giant sucking sound and it'll be interesting to see how it plays this year in a fairly decent economy.
Maybe not as well.
I'm sure that Mr. Perot wanted a name.
Somebody would give weight to the candidacy.
You know, certainly Colin Powell.
I'm sure he wouldn't get Colin Powell, but obviously somebody of that genre, somebody of that that weight to add to his ticket.
Bob Dole is scheduled to meet with congressional Republicans Wednesday amid growing signs of concern about his flagging campaign, you know, and potential damage to the party.
That's great.
The meeting in Washington comes eight weeks before election day, with Dole trailing President Clinton by at least 15 points in the polls 21 points in some polls, 30 points with women not good.
And amidst all that, Dole Man has soul man worries woes, worries.
The publisher of the classic 1960s song Soul Man is asking Bob Dole to stop using it as his campaign theme or face legal action.
So I don't know what else can go wrong for poor Bob Dole.
But that is the current sad state of affairs.
And I'm I just I knew the way his Dole campaign was going to go and I, so I'm not surprised at what the news is today.
Now, I've received this as just typical of what I've received.
Hi Art, my wife and I found the information presented in the summary for the world very interesting.
My wife is a sixth grade teacher at West Jordan, Utah.
She would be interested in using the facts in her classroom.
Do you happen to know the source of this information?
If you do, please email it back to me.
Well, I do.
It's a friend of mine.
Where he got it, I don't know.
It is now on the webpage.
So many of you have requested a copy of A Summary of the World that it is on the webpage.
But let me one more time, for the sake of so many requests, read it to you.
It is a summary of the world.
If we could shrink the Earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people with all existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look like this.
There'd be 57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 from the Western Hemisphere, North and South, and 8 Africans.
51 would be female, 49 male.
70 non-white, 30 white.
70 non-Christian, 30 Christian.
50% of the entire world's wealth would be in the hands of only six people, and all of those would live here in the USA.
80 would live in substandard housing.
70 unable to read.
70.
50 would suffer from malnutrition.
One would be near death.
One near birth.
Only one would have a college education.
Nobody would own a computer.
When one considers our world from such an incredibly compressed perspective, the need for both tolerance and understanding becomes glaringly apparent.
And that is from a friend of mine, Jerry LeWine, at the radio station in Ventura, KVEN.
And he sent that to me, and everybody liked it so much that I put it on the webpage.
And inevitably, somebody has sent me a follow-up.
Here it is.
If we could shrink the Earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, real estate prices would go right into the dumper, among other things.
There would be 57 Asians, 37 Chinese, 12 Japanese, 19 Europeans, 10 Germans, 24 Americans, and a bunch of Arab guys.
None would be math majors or employable as census takers.
45 would be females.
45 would be males, and the others would be undecided.
50 would be from across the U.S. 15 would be from the Tahitian Islands to well down into South America.
Two would be in Perump.
The rest are aliens.
50 would be unable to read, most unable to spell hard words like Vidian.
One guy would remember to turn his radio down before it picks up the phone.
And one will probably spontaneously combust.
Two would have a college education, but neither of them would be employed in their chosen fields of study.
Both would own computers, but only use them for games of solitaire and web surfing.
The world from the point of view of somebody who listens to my show, specifically Jeff in Washington State.
Okay, bottom of the hour, and we'll be right back with a couple of other small items, and then we're off and running.
If you've heard a late report, I would appreciate any update.
I've got a little conflicting news here.
Ex-Senator Barry Goldwater suffered a stroke.
He is in the hospital in Phoenix, and I wish him well.
I understand that he has suffered no major consequences as a result of this, they believe, and I wish him well.
And Senator Goldwater is somebody I have interviewed.
I've wanted to interview the senator for the longest time.
So if you're laying there in your hospital bed, Senator, if you ever get a chance, I sure would like to interview you.
Art, consider this.
How does the audience feel about this?
We have here in the Madison High, or the Madison area, an openly bisexual man who teaches high school.
Do you think his job ought to be guaranteed in view of this?
Many gay rights folks here say yes.
It is stuff like this that leads me to homeschooling.
Mike.
Well, I don't know.
That's a close call in school.
And the part about being openly bisexual, that could be a potential problem, I suppose.
But I, you know, looking at what the Senate did today, I don't agree with the second part.
If somebody who is openly gay, wearing it on their sleeve, that sort of thing, then I could understand, depending on the job, that it might have an effect on the job.
And then, of course, it is a consideration in dismissal.
I think that's fair.
But as a general course of events, if somebody's private sexual life somehow comes to the attention of somebody else, I don't think that's cause to lose a job.
And I don't think you ought to be able to get fired for that.
So it depends on circumstances, frankly, but it's a close call.
Oscar winner Jody Foster has landed an out-of-this-world role.
Believe it or not, Jody Foster will play an astronomer who first hears intelligent radio signals from outer space.
The movie is an adaptation of Contact, astronomer Carl Sagan's novel about detection of extraterrestrial life.
Wow.
That sounds like arrival or a version of arrival.
And so that should be interesting.
Have you noticed how they just keep coming?
This is a genre of movie.
They just keep coming.
As though they are preparing us for something.
Again, speaking of that, you don't want to miss Courtney Brown, Thursday night, Friday morning, Dr. Courtney Brown.
That should be interesting.
And then the weekend will kick off with Richard Hoagland on anti-gravity.
Well, no matter how it happened, we've got to face it.
And, you know, I just have these horrible nightmares of how Bob Dole is going to stack up against Bill Clinton in the debates.
And, you know, I think really we Republicans had better get behind Harry Brown and get him in the debates because otherwise Clinton's going to be president for sure.
Well, I don't think Harry Brown is going to be in the debates.
unidentified
Well, you know, you may just be right, but I don't see any hope if Bob Dole is the standard bearer in the debates and the sole standard bearer for constitutional government.
What I hope and what I believe are two different things.
And I was trying to tell you what I really think is going to happen.
And I don't think Harry Brown and I don't think Ross Perot are going to be in the debates this year.
And I'm sure Harry Brown hopes he's going to be in the debates, and you should not let up your efforts to get him in the debates.
But the fact that he has secured a position on this program on the 25th, the date of the debates, I think tells you how he feels about the possibility.
And so there's reality and then what you hope.
Listen, one other little item here.
Also tonight on my web page is a diagram of the lights that formed while a photographer took video of them.
Lights that formed.
Well, yes, lights that formed and then produced, supposedly, on videotape, and lots of people have now seen it in nine seconds a crop circle.
If you want to see that crop circle, the nine-second beauty, with the measurements and the reference to the lights and all the rest of it, it's also up on the webpage.
And by the way, in talking to Dr. Courtney Brown earlier in the day, he said be sure and go take a look at his website because in the last few days it has been modified and he's got all kinds of newer, really cool stuff on his website.
I did not get an opportunity to go in there and look myself.
We have a jump-off point, so for whatever you would like to do, go up to my page and from there jump to Courtney's and take a look.
The address, for those of you that might not have it, is www.artbell.com.
It would seem like an awfully basic mistake for Ross Pro to have made.
Therefore, one of them no doubt has legal residence elsewhere.
Pat Choate.
I couldn't believe it when I heard it.
So it's right back to the giant sucking sound.
By the way, while we're on the subject of the giant sucking sound, hi, I listen to you just about every night, Art.
Heard you last night talking about the dog on.
That is a machine that sucks prairie dogs and such out of their holes at 300 miles per hour.
How can the animal that flies 300 miles an hour, any animal, survive, even with the foam?
Seems like the animal will be killed on impact.
And even if it didn't, how could it live through being sucked at 300 miles per hour?
Just out of curiosity, do you have any plans to interview the inventor of this thing?
If so, when would that interview air on the radio?
Well, I called for him to contact me last night.
A number of people are trying, and we will see.
I would like to talk to him so I can understand this.
300 miles an hour.
East of the Rockies, you're on the air.
Good morning.
unidentified
Hey, Art, a couple of quick points.
Were you aware that in all of American presidential history that nobody has come from as far behind as Bob Dole is now at this point in the game to win the election?
No, I wasn't aware of that, but I'm not surprised by that.
unidentified
And on this including third parties into the debates, I understand the dilemma on this, but the other side of it is do we want our system to turn into an Italy where three people get in a phone booth, form a party, and have a candidate.
Yeah, I think probably Clinton's got a glass chin.
unidentified
I think a couple of qualifying things could be if they make it for federal matching funds and if they're on the ballot in all 50 states, that would seem fair, wouldn't it?
You go up to my website, and we've got what pretends to be a photograph of the chupacabra, and I guarantee you, it will take any cartoon and put it in the dirt.
And I guess the buildings in Tokyo shook, quote, rather radically, according to a spokesman.
Tidal wave warning for Japan's Pacific Ocean coast right after the earthquake.
But that was lifted about an hour later.
I understand.
Now, CNN is reporting as though it was still in place, and I'm a little unclear as to whether they've had one quake or two, but whatever it is, it shook them up big time in Tokyo.
And there are big buildings.
It's like New York City.
Tokyo is like New York City.
And to imagine a quake of major proportions in Tokyo is almost unimaginable.
What would occur if some of those big buildings began to come down?
I have a report here of a 5.0 earthquake in Germany one hour after Japan's earthquake.
I also have one other report of a here we go again category, compass shift.
Radical one art.
My compass has shifted 30 degrees tonight.
It moved 15 degrees within the last 10 minutes.
My spinal column has been on fire all day.
Several others have called today regarding electronic equipment failures.
So there are two things that I would like to ask my audience to do.
One is, those of you who monitor compass deviations which I think we only do on this program please check your compasses now.
Those of you who monitor the the sun's activity, I wish you would tell me what is going on with that.
I have not checked the terrestrial embassies, and so I would like to know, are we having a flare or any unusual solar activity?
At the moment, Hurricane Hortense is battering Puerto Rico.
It has dumped into the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico up to 20 inches of rain.
20 inches of rain, that's going on.
Two feet of rain and baby, that's a lot of water.
Otherwise, we are monitoring all kinds of news.
We've got open lines tonight.
We're warning Iraq we may bomb them again.
They have fixed already, I understand, three of the radar sites that we knocked out with missiles at one million dollars each.
May have to do it again and I wonder what the economics of that is.
Offhand, How much does their radar site cost versus our missile to take it out?
Does anybody know?
Anyway, we've got some guests coming up Thursday night, Friday morning.
It's Dr. Courtney Brown backed by popular demand.
He was on the program prior to all the news on Mars, and he had talked about Mars extensively.
And so he'll be back and talking about Mars Thursday night, Friday morning.
Don't miss it.
Friday night, Saturday morning, Richard Hoagland is here, and he is just full of news about the new anti-gravity discovery in Finland.
And boy, is he excited.
So stand by for all of that.
Open lines right now.
Oh, yes, Harry Brown has confirmed he will be here on the night of the debates.
Presuming, of course, he is not in them.
He will be here on this program, and we will show you what it would have been like had Harry been in the debates.
Now, that may seem a defeatist attitude, but I don't think he's going to be in them.
And I think, frankly, he doesn't think that either.
He ought to be because it would certainly make them interesting, not a prospect presently that I have.
And I will think about it, but I just, it's, as I told her, it's like it's a bridge too far for me right now.
And somebody brought that up to me.
That's right.
Oh, I've been taking over the coals for being in an interracial marriage.
Who cares?
And I understand you're saying, well, if I, in effect, condone that, then why can't I understand what you're doing?
And I don't have a good logical answer for you, an immediate answer, except to tell you culturally, I guess because of my upbringing and my background, it's repellent to me.
It's repugnant.
But I will promise to think about it.
And I really do understand what she said.
She is in love and thinks she ought to be able to get married like anybody else.
And I wish I had a ready, quick, or flippant answer to whiz back on you about why I feel the way I do, but I don't.
I can't lay out a good chain of logic about why it should not be.
I mean, they're going to talk about the reason for marriage being procreation, but that's bold, too.
There's a lot of people who get married, don't procreate at all.
So I don't buy that.
That I suppose the religious angle in the Bible's references to homosexuality, but I'm not going to stand behind that either.
I just, I can't lay out a good logical reason why I'm against it.
unidentified
But culturally and because of my upbringing, it's kind of like if you don't want your children watching Beavis a butthead on MTV, you know, you buy a lockbox.
This guy claims he found the seals in a library book somewhere and tore them up.
You know what that means, right?
In case you don't know what it means, hold on here.
I've got a good reminder for you, particularly in view of the earthquakes and the magnetic deviations, it means, on the other hand, it may not mean that at all.
West of the Rockies, you're on the air.
unidentified
Yeah, I was wondering what you thought about Revelation.
The topic of same-sex marriages, I'm not so sure on it, you know.
But the thing is, I heard somebody saying once on a radio show, freedom is allowing people to do what we don't like.
I know.
And, you know, I guess whether we like it, Whether it's procreation or not, and like you said, a lot of people who get married don't have children, but it is allowing a couple to live together and share, I guess, medical benefits and death benefits and Social Security and other benefits in a monogamous relationship.
So I guess in one aspect it might be okay for that.
For the religious aspect, I don't think the government should be getting involved as to whether the Bible says it's good or not.
Because I really don't think the government should be getting involved in a situation like that.
I guess it's up to each person to decide how they feel about it themselves.
And another thing I wanted to mention, John, you kept on talking about the elections coming up.
Yes.
About you keep saying that you don't think Dole is going to win.
I fasted you something about a couple weeks ago.
So saying like that, you know how they stopped taking exit polls and announcing them during the elections?
I heard a rumor from a friend of mine who works down in Washington, D.C. After Flight 800 a couple days, he heard a rumor going around that what happened to Flight 800 was a tow missile hit it and that it was stolen from Fort Bragg.
That is not to dismiss the entire missile theory by any means.
I just don't you know, I I wouldn't think it would be a tow.
unidentified
Yes, I understand that.
But here's the thing.
He work he also does contract work for the d those defense work and stuff, and he was down at Quantico Marine Base.
And going in, he had no problems, but when they were coming out, they were checking every car with missile, with explosive-sniffing dogs, seeing what was being taken off the base.
But when I flush my toilet, the water is spinning in the opposite direction.
What's going on?
Signed, Sleepless in San Francisco.
That one's simple.
Turn your GMX magnets around the other way.
I have no idea.
Dear Art, the reason I'm opposed to same-sex marriages is not for this generation.
It is for the generations who will come after us.
If men and women are interchangeable, those who come after us will be more confused than ever.
Considering how tough it is to be young these days, do we really want to make it worse?
That's from Veda in Whittier, California, listening to the mighty KABC.
From Sean, High Art Ross Perot, with his refusal to spend his own money, now his choice of little-known economist Pat Choate as vice president, has managed to snatch political oblivion from the jaws of borderline viability.
God, that's a great line.
I'm going to have to remember that.
Let me repeat that.
High Art Ross Perot, with his refusal to spend his own money, and now his choice of little-known economist Pat Choate as vice president, has managed to snatch political oblivion from the jaws of borderline viability.
Choate is able to articulately speak to important issues both the Republicans and Democrats prefer to sweep under the rug, but he brings no new constituency to Perot's ticket and will likely spend most of his time preaching to the choir due to the obviously unnecessary self-imposed financial limitations of Perot's campaign.
Before the election is over, Choate may well be asking himself the same question that Admiral Stockdale asked in the vice presidential debate in 92, who am I and why am I here?
So I guess I feel a little bit the same way about this.
Perot has not made a good choice, in my opinion.
And it is going to cause their campaign to once again focus on the giant sucking sound, which was a marginally good marching issue in 92 and will not be one this time.
Well, that doesn't mean that so it is written, so it shall be.
I mean, if the military is covering up the fact that they shot this airplane down, there's going to be holy hell to pay in this country.
unidentified
I'm not saying that they're covering it up.
Nor am I. I'm saying that they're keeping it quiet, possibly, okay, if they were involved, that they're keeping it quiet until they know for sure what happened.
I have no way of knowing whether they did or didn't what they do or don't know what level of cooperation really they're giving the FBI.
I don't know any of that.
I just know that enough time has gone by that if that was the cause and they have not told us, that to me that represents one thing, the good old word, cover-up.
It's a cover-up, because by God, by now they know one way or the other.
Yeah, I've been kind of an angry person all day, but I have a particular thing to say to the homophobic woman in Whittier who thinks that kids are going to be confused in the future.
We're all so confused.
Presumably the children are going to grow up to be as stupid as we are.
Anytime these people are telling you that they want to have smaller government, that people are too intruded upon by laws and the enforcement of those laws, and then they turn around and essentially ram this bill through the Senate that Clinton's going to sign that has, you know, no real legitimate bearing on life as it's lived in terms of making people's lives better or making a more livable, inhabitable, harmonious world.
Sir, let me finish, and then you can have it again.
Having said that, when he signs this bill, kind of like he signed the welfare bill, for obviously political reasons, how can you continue to support him?
unidentified
I can only continue to support him in that being in the political game every day, working in the process.
I know that he is going, or, you know, the only real legitimate candidate other than, not legitimate, that's the wrong word, but say viable candidate that has Snowball's chance in Hades of winning the thing.
And that Nader, although he's, you know, and Harry Brown as well, who has tenable, you know, legitimate, in some cases, way more legitimate than the two major candidates or the two more, you know, petrochemically backed, you know, signed, sealed, bought and sold candidates, you know, have to say.
But you have to play the game for two months from now, and then we have to, it's not about the president, it's about the state legislatures.
It's about do we want to go forward dividing people into these little ridiculous categories and privatizing the prisons and the public schools and making six flags over the earth and the golden arches over the Grand Canyon.
Or do we want to figure out a way to become harmonious, to harmonize, to emphasize our cooperative spirit and get ready and get coalesced and get together for the changes that your program knows and broadcasts to the world nightly are here and coming.
The profound changes.
The changes that we can't even conceive of in our day-to-day self-absorbed, I have the highest standard of living in the world, and I really, in many cases, don't deserve it lifestyle.
And think of what it must be like, first of all, to grow up this way.
To grow up in this kind of paradigmic, oppressed state where people are constantly running around saying, you know, gay men are promiscuous.
Gays are bad.
Gays are an evil influence on children.
Think of how the 15-year-old in Nebraska feels feels right now who, although it's better than it's ever been, as we've explored, as you've said, Clinton is much more responsive.
And as I have said, no president before has been at all responsive, so any improvement would be an improvement.
Think of how that child feels when you're growing up in a world.
It's hard enough being, you think you're the only one.
There are no role models, no Hollywood actor, although half of them are.
Well, even half of them are as queer as a $3 bill.
They won't walk out and say it because they won't work.
So think of how it feels growing up.
And then on top of it all, society is saying to you, we don't even think enough of you to let you find the most elusive, most beautiful, most lasting thing.
And you being a married man, know this, in this world, like the affection, not just the physical affection.
I know you all think that we're all like promiscuous and jumping around from bed to bed.
Some are, but, you know, sex, like chocolate, if you do too much, you're going to hurt yourself.
You know, it's like anything else.
It's like anything else.
It's not, you know, excess is bad in many arenas, not just in this.
And to be defined, think of how that kid in Nebraska feels sitting there going, not only is it hard enough to find someone who you're going to feel like you want to marry of either sex, right?
Now, so I'm not going to be illegal.
It's going to be impossible on top of that.
As hard as it is even to find someone on this wretched world that's so full of, you know, this transition that we're going through is so full of hatred and of confusion and of the recalibrations that we're being forced to make, the quantum redefinition of consciousness in this century.
And think of how that feels to be caught up in that vortex, and then society is telling you you are a second-class citizen of the world.
Yeah, I think the best argument is the argument with regard to freedom.
And, you know, we let the Nazis march.
We've let the Ku Klux Klan march.
We do a lot of things in the name of freedom that we don't all agree on.
And if you want to know the truth, despite the Senate vote and the presidential signature, I would expect when this gets to the U.S. Supreme Court, which it will, it'll be reversed.
I'm not sure I hope so.
And look, I appreciate your call, sir.
I will admit to you on the air, I have a profound prejudice for which I can't make a good argument, which probably ought to be telling me something.
And right now, that is, as I said, a bridge too far for me somehow.
It's just a bridge too far.
It's a jump I can't make.
And I don't have a sufficient argument to present behind it, which probably means it's a prejudice on my part.
I admit it.
I don't know what I'm going to do about it, or if I can do something about it, I will think about it.
That's all I can say.
I think the second part, the Senate was dead wrong.
I don't think anybody ought to be fired because of their sexual preference unless it is obviously affecting their job.
And then an employer always has a right to take action.
So I'm very much opposed to what they did there.
And that was a close vote, 50 to 49.
And I think it's a little shameful that we did not choose to protect people, as we do for many other reasons.
I mean, why fire somebody just because you become aware of their sexual proclivities?
If it affects their job, then, yeah.
But that's even true with a heterosexual, right?
You wouldn't fire somebody just because they're heterosexual.
You might fire them if they're out on the front counter hustling your customers heterosexually.
So it would depend on a lot of things.
But this issue of gay marriage, tough, hard, really tough and hard for me because I think of my background, my childhood, my upbringing, everything I've always thought, things I still think.
A prejudice, definitely, on my part.
But I think I am reflective of the majority of the American people.
So maybe the answer is it's just not yet time.
I don't know.
I think the Supreme Court is likely to look at it as the Hawaiian court has.
And, you know, actually, the good and logical arguments are on the side of the gays.
You want to know the truth?
Freedom.
Freedom certainly means allowing things that you personally don't necessarily agree with, or it's not freedom.
That's a good argument.
What is a sufficient argument on the other side?
I'm repelled by it.
That's the best I can do.
And it probably, in the long run, is not good enough.
do you think of that idea um i think it's kind of scary because if they bring back like the t-rex and well if you were in charge and they said all right we've done it We've got dino DNA.
We can essentially do now at least part of what was in Jurassic Park.
Should we do it or not?
What would you say?
unidentified
I don't know.
Because they had, I guess, because they had their chance while they were here, and yet God, for some reason, decided not to let them live to be in our generation now.
High Art Ross Barot, with his refusal to spend his own money, now his choice of little-known economist Pat Choate as VP has managed to snatch political oblivion from the jaws of borderline viability.
When I heard Pat Choate this afternoon, yesterday afternoon, excuse me, I couldn't believe it.
I really could not believe it.
Pat Choate.
The harder sidekick of almost a full year or more, wasn't it?
And so they're going to be back with their main campaign thrust, obviously, as the giant sucking sound, which I don't believe is nearly so giant as it was in 92, and it wasn't even really giant then.
So, I don't know.
I don't think this campaign has been helped by the choice of Pat Choate, as far as I am concerned.
Snatching political oblivion from the jaws of borderline viability.
Borderline is generous in itself.
All right.
We will pause here.
And when we come back, we will peruse once again the main news headlines, and we will talk about anything you want to talk about.
They have had, depending on your source, a 6.6 or a 6.9 earthquake.
It rattled and shook the buildings in Tokyo, but good, and that is one hell of a scary, scary prospect.
If you've ever seen the buildings in Tokyo, if you've ever been in Chicago or New York, that's Tokyo, plus a little.
And it's a frightening prospect.
I don't know what kind of quake it would take, but anything in a greater magnitude and closer epicenter would have brought those buildings down.
And I'll tell you, that would be an unimaginable, unimaginable disaster.
So we had that one near the east coast of Honshu, Japan.
There has now been a 5.0 in Germany and now a 5.0 in the Annemann Islands in India.
So Mother Earth this morning is active, getting some reports of compass deviations.
Would like to know what the terrestrial embassies are like.
I wonder if we've got any unusual sun activity going on.
But it's rocking and rolling out there this morning.
I'd like to announce coming Thursday night, Friday morning, this Thursday night, Friday morning, is going to be Dr. Courtney Brown backed by popular demand, the man who did the show on Mars before the news on Mars.
And then the next night, Friday night, Saturday morning, Richard Hoagland with the news about the Finnish discovery regarding anti-gravity.
That should be really something.
So a little warning of shows to come.
Also, Saturday, not Saturday, the 25th, I don't know what day it is.
What day of the week is that?
Of September.
We're going to have Harry Brown.
I confirm that for you now.
On the night of the debates, I will collect the questions asked, bantered back and forth by the two major candidates, and I will ask them of Harry Brown here.
And it'll give you a pretty good idea of what it could have been like had Harry been allowed into the debates.
Don't give up.
Keep trying to get him in.
But I doubt it's going to happen.
We'll go through some of the other news here.
Somebody just sent me this facts.
1996.
Dole or Clinton like choosing hospital food or airline food?
Or perhaps more like picking your favorite Menendez brother?
That's Tim in Denver.
Hmm.
Pretty cynical, Tim.
Hortense is tromping and romping through the Caribbean and over Puerto Rico, dumping over 20 inches of rain.
Hopefully not headed our way.
Probably headed our way.
Saddam Hussein has received a new warning.
He has rebuilt three of the radar sites we destroyed.
Now, I still don't know what the economics of this would be.
Our missiles cost about a million dollars apiece, right?
What does a radar site cost?
I don't know.
They are able to rebuild them, apparently, in about a week.
So I wonder if it's economically feasible to be using these missiles to destroy those sites, and why can they be rebuilt so quickly and where are they getting the parts?
And lots of good questions now.
The Senate has passed a gay marriage ban.
And I am really stuck on this one.
It was 85 to 14 to not allow such unions.
In fact, let me read you the wire story, all right, so we're straight.
President Clinton says he believes homosexual partners should have certain rights, but legal marriage isn't one of them.
Clinton now has his chance to stamp this belief into law.
The Senate on Tuesday passed and sent on to the president a bill that would allow states not to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.
No state currently allows such unions, but a pending court case in Hawaii could make that state number one.
The state passed the measure on a vote of 85 to 14, the Senate rather.
The measure defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
The measure also would prohibit Social Security, veterans, and other federal benefits for spouses in same-sex marriages.
The Senate rejected by 50 to 49 a bill that would have extended civil rights laws to protect people from being fired because of their sexual orientation.
I have some real difficulties with this.
I think the Senate's rejection of the civil rights provision is wrong.
I don't think anybody ought to be fired because of their sexual orientation unless it affects their job.
So as far as I'm concerned here, the Senate was wrong.
If somebody is suddenly discovered to be gay, it's no reason to discharge them.
If their gayness, or for that matter, their heterosexual drives, affect their job, then anybody would be fired.
But if it is simply discovered that somebody is leading a quiet homosexual lifestyle, that should be no reason for dismissal alone.
So they were wrong.
With respect to the other part, the important part, I guess, I think I agree with what they have done, but I can't tell you why.
I usually can make a pretty good logical argument for why I believe something.
All I can do is admit to you that I have a prejudice that I think is born of my upbringing, my conditioning, whatever religious background I retain.
All of these things scream that the idea of two people of the same sex getting married is wrong, or I don't like it.
However, all of the good logical arguments are on the other side.
And it is my view that if this goes to the U.S. Supreme Court, which it surely will, it's going to get overturned.
The arguments for it would be freedom.
We do a lot of things in America.
We allow a lot of things in America that we don't like or we find distasteful, Nazis, marching, Ku Klux Klan, whatever you want to talk about, because of freedom.
The arguments made by the gays involve love and a relationship, they say, like any other.
They involve real things like social security, people taking care of their partners in the hospital, making decisions, that sort of thing.
And so, frankly, a lot of the logical arguments are on their side, and the other side is sort of a prejudice.
And I've got it.
And for me, I'm thinking about it, and I promised a gal an hour ago I would, and I will.
I'll think about it.
It's a very hard topic for me because I don't have logical arguments, and I don't like, I really don't like coming on here and expressing an opinion that exposes a prejudice that I can't get past.
I'm just trying to be honest with you.
Here's somebody who writes, Art, on the same-sex marriages, you were right.
This is not about people being allowed to love whom they choose.
The Constitution already guarantees them the right to love whom they choose.
And no, I don't want government in our bedrooms dictating our personal behavior.
However, this becomes a legal issue.
Social Security would have to be paid to the spouse of the partner.
Social Security disability would have to be paid to a lesbian's partner, along with any children she might bring from a previous relationship.
Many lesbians have children from previous marriages.
Follow me here for a minute.
Taken to an extreme, a 25-year-old woman and her 35-year-old brother suddenly claim they're in love and want to make their union legal.
They vow they won't have any children, but believe as consenting adults they ought to be allowed to marry.
What argument can you give them?
It's not natural.
It makes a mockery of holy matrimony.
Marriage is for procreation.
Now, I have a problem with that argument.
There are lots of heterosexuals who get married and have every right to do so and are blessed by society who decide not to have children.
The next case is an adult father and daughter.
I know you're not naive enough to believe this would not occur.
I'm not a religious fanatic art, just someone who wants a firm line drawn.
Live with your lover.
Announce to the world you love one another.
Go through a lovely service if you wish, but it shouldn't be a legal contract.
Linda in Ashland, Oregon.
So this is a hard one.
This is really, really a hard one as far as I'm concerned.
And if you want to comment on it and have at me a little bit on it, you're welcome to.
Poor Bob Dole is not going to be allowed to use the Soulman-Dole Man song anymore.
The Soulman people are facing or telling Bob Dole he faces legal action if he continues to use that song.
So they're probably not Republicans, I guess.
So we can talk about whatever you wish.
I'm having a terrible, terrible time talking about this gay marriage business.
I got a fact from Sean, which is classic in Yucca Valley.
It has to be a classic.
He says, Hi, Art.
Ross Perot, with his refusal to spend his own money and now his choice of little-known economist Pat Choda's VP, has managed now to snatch political oblivion from the jaws of borderline viability.
And I love that statement.
The crop circle, which was said to be captured, forming in nine seconds flat on videotape, is now on my webpage in the form of a diagram of where the lights were, the crop circle itself, and all of the details on my webpage now.
In addition, the world or the shape of the world.
You remember that thing I read that everybody loved so much?
If there were 100 people representing the world, that also is on my webpage because so many people asked for it.
So that too is there tonight.
Along with that newspaper article written by me, written by me, ha ha, about me.
You're going to love that.
You've got to take a look at that.
There is a new Courtney Brown website.
The jump point to that for Thursday's show, you might want to take a look, also on my webpage.
All of that is up there for you tonight, right now.
Yep, if everyone started doing what everybody and teaching, you know, daddy does this, this with daddy, I mean, books are coming out all out like that.
I mean, it's going to really ruin our societies.
I mean, I'm not bashing them, but I respect them.
I'm friends with them.
And, you know, I have a lot of friends that are that way.
But as far as, you know, marriage, that's a whole different.
Most people, according to Dr. D. James Kennedy, I mean, most gay people go back to heterosexual.
80% of the people who are homosexual come back to be heterosexual.
Baloney.
That's just not true.
You know, we're going to discuss this and let us discuss it honestly.
You know, and I don't know where people get those kinds of figures, but that's, in fact, pressed to cite even individual examples of gays that have come back to become heterosexual.
It is very, very difficult, and I've heard all kinds of discussions about this.
There are claims that somebody found God and turned their sexuality around.
And I've heard those claims made.
But to try to announce here on the air that 80% of homosexuals come back to heterosexuality is just plain, grossly wrong, incorrect, a disservice to the entire argument.
Anyway, let's break here.
We'll be right back.
unidentified
You're listening to Art Bell Somewhere in Time.
Tonight, featuring Coast to Coast AM, from September 10, 1996.
If I was walking in your shoes, I wasn't wearing none.
While you and your friends are worried about me.
Premier Networks presents Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
Tonight featuring Coast to Coast AM from the 10th of September, 1996.
Dear art, I don't believe the major problem with same-sex marriages with most people is to restrict the freedom, in quotes, of any person to live with or marry anyone they choose.
The problem arises with these people wanting all of the privileges of a normal, recognized, he says bisexual marriage, I'm sure you mean a heterosexual marriage.
I believe they are using the freedom word to get access to social security, medical coverage, and welfare handouts.
The problem is not a social issue.
It is an economic issue.
Since I do not morally agree myself to same-sex marriages, I don't want to support them with my tax dollars.
I don't think that's a good argument either.
In other words, if you don't object to the idea of two people being married on any basis other than they would be given the same kind of breaks you're given because you've got a heterosexual marriage, your argument for me just doesn't hold water.
And I really, really don't like being in the position I'm in right now, which is of having to tell you the way I feel about something when I don't have a really good argument, frankly, to make against it, other than to tell you that I apparently have a prejudice.
I do.
A deeply rooted prejudice that I can't explain in good, rational, logical terms because you can't do that with a prejudice.
It is a prejudice, and you cannot explain it logically.
And that disturbs me.
I don't know if I like taking that position, and yet I'm left with no choice.
All my life, all my conditioning, all my feelings, all my gut feelings say it is wrong, it is immoral, it is repugnant.
But, you know, I would say all those things about the Nazis marching in the street and the Ku Klux Klan and all the rest of the nutball cases out there that have their way in the name of freedom and we must allow in the name of freedom.
So I really am stuck with myself on this one, and I don't like it.
I don't like it.
And I'll tell you what I think I'm going to do.
I want to listen to some logical arguments from some of you.
So I'm going to clear a line now.
I would like a gay person, male or female, to call in defense of gay marriages.
Make your arguments for gay marriages.
And then I want somebody on the other side.
So the gay person, whoever it is, any one of you out there, it doesn't matter, can call at area code 702-727-1222 right now.
Everybody else, please, on that line, hang up.
I want only a gay person who wants to argue articulately and emotionally and forcefully for the gay marriage issue, even though it's well, actually, it's not a done deal because the U.S. Supreme Court is no doubt going to look at it.
And I've got a feeling they're going to overturn, as they did with the flag-burning thing.
They're going to overturn this.
But that's downline.
So anyway, right now, since I can't argue it reasonably past my own prejudice admitted, then I would like to hear what arguments others might have.
So a gay person, if you will, at 702-727-1222, any other line who wants to argue against it.
I came to terms with my sexuality about two years ago.
And in that time, I've been somewhat out in the gay community, both in Phoenix and then here in New York City.
And I've experienced the extreme in-your-faith type of people that are gay, that feel that that is the biggest thing in their life, and they have to force that upon people.
But then I've been able to also experience homosexuals and bisexuals who just want to live, quote unquote, a normal life as much as that is possible now.
And that includes definitely finding someone and engaging in a relationship with that person, a one-on-one relationship that includes truth and honesty and all the things that you would find in a heterosexual marriage.
And that would be my primary reason for engaging in a homosexual marriage would be just to share those same truths and that bond and that love.
And my problem with the gay marriage is that I do think that as a society, we do set limitations to freedom.
I just say having the freedom word, you know, I think that that can be a cop-out because we could use that to justify any behavior.
I'm not arguing the behavior or the finding a life partner.
I just argue with giving it the same status as the heterosexual marriage because I feel like the society ⁇ marriage is not just like an inalienable right that we are born with or have.
We have marriage in this country because the society established it.
And I think the society should have a say in what the boundaries of that acceptable marriage is.
Now, I believe, though, in local society having a right, like in San Francisco, the local society has agreed to certain things.
They're a lot more willing to accept different things than, say, other parts of the country.
But personally, I feel like there are some things where you had to say majority rules, but it's more like the society has the right to define the limits of what I mean.
I mean, we're marriage is critical to what the society defines itself as.
unidentified
But what about, and I'll just say my, speaking as a gay person, my individual rights to also experience a loving quote-unquote marriage with someone of my same sex and experience the benefits of that, such as like i if my partner is in the hospital and I want access to him and then they're going to tell me no, only his you know,
his married and if the government defines marriage as a man and a woman, then only his wife and family are going to be allowed and so I'm not going to be allowed access to that person who I could have loved and cared for for many years, but just because it doesn't fit into what you say or what society says is marriage and what has the right to be called marriage,
then I'm losing that benefit of a relationship and of experiencing the same things that you experience.
Well, I agree with you that you should have every right to be that part.
You know, if you're that chosen person to be there, that number one person in someone's life, I think that those changes could be affected in other ways than just embracing the concept of gay marriage.
I mean, it's almost like you can, you know, there can be those kind of legalities can be changed without just accepting the fact that this minority, very small minority of, you know, of marriage is going to be accepted.
But Cheryl, I want to jump in and say how, legally, you know, I'm thinking about this too.
You brought up a good point, the hospital thing.
You go into the hospital, your partner is there, and you cannot go in because only, quote, immediate family, I think is the phrase they usually use, is allowed in.
So that person wouldn't be allowed in.
How do you change that without changing the definition of family?
I mean, changes have been made everywhere in just like, you know, an apartment can no longer, you can own private property and you cannot say a certain person cannot live there.
There are changes that have been enacted all over.
Now, that's the serious one that I don't have the answer for, because that involves, once again, the society who you're asking who's saying, I don't accept this.
unidentified
But then, you know, then we're, I guess then we're a minority.
10% is the number that I always hear.
You know, we're 10% of Americans and we're part of that society and we're paying taxes and we're, you know, we're taking out college loans and going to college and graduating and being contributing members of society, you know, running for public office and all those kinds of things and being productive members of society, but then we're not going to be able to reap the same benefits that heterosexuals are.
Yeah, I mean, I can understand that that is a problem.
But who, I mean, I think maybe if we could even sit down and people could figure out a way where even that aspect of it could be settled outside of the fact, you know, like maybe the person, you know, you get that.
But I still believe that we still have a right to define what marriage is because like the other, a caller back had mentioned, what about, you know, we had a similar type thing when years ago when the Mormons said this is how we define marriage.
Oh, well, yeah, you know, extra wives, extra husbands.
That's accepted in other places.
The individual society still has a right to define some things that say what that society is.
unidentified
But I think as long as, you know, and surely, you know, it's hard to guarantee that there's not going to be any adverse effects of, you know, including homosexuals and giving warrant to their marriages.
You can't guarantee there's not going to be any adverse effects from that.
But, you know, as much as I can see, I can see that, you know, including, you know, saying that, okay, a man and a man, you know, can get married or a woman and a woman can get married.
You know, I mean, how is that going to demean, you know, I mean, where with the Mormons it's a question of, you know, there's inbreeding and there's, you know, and that totally falls out, you know, just from a health standpoint, you know, where this, you know, is just two people committing, and that's what it is.
It's two people, whether it's a man and a man or a woman and a woman or a man and a woman.
It's two people committing to each other, you know, saying that they want to experience life as one and contribute to each other's lives and to society together as a couple, as a family.
Well, and this is where the personal opinion and the whereas like all evening arts had a problem with his conviction because he feels like it's not really grounded in things.
I have my reasons for my convictions, which I can share.
You might not accept my reasons, but that doesn't make it any less real.
One thing I can say is, for you, I do believe it's natural to have the homosexual tendency.
I believe, and I have to say this is a change I've had in the last few years, but I have come to believe that this is something occurring within the individual, and it's not just a matter of environment.
If I, you know, as I think back as far as I can think, and I've always known, you know, that I was, you know, first of all, quote-unquote, different, and then, you know, and then, okay, I've been able to realize what that difference is, you know, and accept that difference.
But I guess my, the problem is you and I both sound like reasonable people who can sit here and talk to each other and struggle to try to explain it.
And then, like you say, we're going to have the people on either side of us, you know, that we both want to cringe when they start, you know, yelling and screaming.
And I almost feel like, you know, that some of these things could be, like, you could sit there and thrash it out if you had some people that would sit there and truly understand and accept the other person's side instead of just saying, well, but it's, you know, that's a sin or, well, you.
That's just your prejudice instead of saying, well, this is my conviction because I do believe, you know, I am a religious person and I've chosen a certain standard to make all my decisions on.
But I also look at the natural aspect of it.
And I look at the fact that marriage is something established by the society.
So shouldn't the society have a right to define what it is?
unidentified
Well, then we go back to what Art said.
Art said that, you know, that there are numbers of a large number of heterosexual people who are married who do choose not to procreate.
And so if, you know, if you're saying that then the sole purpose of marriage is to procreate, you know, then I guess we know we don't.
In other words, Cheryl, this is America, and everybody's supposed to be able to pursue their own individual, as long as they're not hurting somebody else, their own individual dreams and hopes.
You know, the American dream thing.
Where does this fellow in New York City get his American dream?
You know, you might have to be part of that movement.
You know, you're the one that they can look back on years later and say it's because of them that we have these rights, just like you look back now, you know, at the gays from, you know, years ago.
The result, no doubt, of a successful heterosexual coupling.
Now back to the tough one.
Art points to ponder.
And a lot of people have sent in similar faxes.
So let us deal with this.
In a domestic dispute, the male is usually taken to jail.
In a gay marriage, who goes?
Well, in states where both partners are arrested, both would go.
In states where that is not the case, the protagonist no doubt would go.
That's easy.
He goes on, would passage of a same-sex marriage law allow, for example, me to marry my brother?
Um, I don't know about that.
I, you know, no.
I would hope not.
But I surely follow your point here.
In other words, if you allow same-sex marriage, then why not allow a brother to marry a brother?
The only prohibition that makes logical sense with regard to heterosexuals marrying family is the genetic argument.
And that is, it is well known that the offspring of a incestuous relationship are many times flawed human beings, you know, with mental difficulties and many other problems that result from that kind of coupling.
So there is a steep and logical reason why you don't allow incest.
But if you allow same-sex marriages and there is not going to be a reproductive function, then this person has a point.
What would then prohibit a sister marrying a sister and brother marrying a brother, that sort of thing?
Yeah, but if they had intended that ethic to include a prohibition against same-sex marriage, they would have written it into the Constitution that was born of those people.
One thing I thought that you or Cheryl, either one, would pick up on in the debate with Max a while ago was the one word that he used that he wanted a normal life.
It's not normal for two people of the same sex to marry.
Wait a minute, if the only reason, if the only, I'm going to turn you down if you won't stop.
If the only reason to have marriage is to guarantee offspring and generations yet to come, then if that is your reasoning for disallowing same-sex marriages, then you must also disallow heterosexual marriages where there is not to be any offspring.
unidentified
Well, no, so we were talking about the Constitution.
You were talking about the founding fathers, and it talks about posterity.
And posterity is talking about the offseed of a heterosexual marriage.
No, your argument's full of holes, so many that I don't even want to spend a lot of time with it.
Sorry.
Sorry.
That one just doesn't work.
Because if your argument holds any water, then it holds water when I say, well, then what about a heterosexual marriage where there is a clear statement that there will be no offspring?
Or perhaps where there can't be, where one partner is impotent.
What about that?
Could I just allow that?
See, I said that to you twice, and it's like you didn't hear it.
One of the things that I look at is as far as the government being involved, is the fact that, for instance, there are government officials out there that feel that feel the same view you have for same-sex marriages as far as interracial,
and they have maybe the same view to towards that as you would have towards a same-sex.
Yeah sure, it's an, it's another prejudice yeah, and so I just wanted to maybe point out something to help you kind of look at government's involvement doesn't help me.
I obviously am involved in a interracial marriage, but I guarantee you she's a woman Oh, I understand that, but what I'm saying is that arguing one doesn't make the other.
I understand that in the sense they are both perhaps a prejudice on the part of some people.
They may be similar in that sense, but otherwise they're completely different in my mind.
unidentified
Okay, and I guess what I was just thinking is that if the government rules over, you know, gay marriage and they can pass that, then possibly they can get involved in further and say, well, you know, maybe interracial marriage is repugnant to them, so that's a good argument.
You know, let's say that that's not allowed as well.
And, you know, having been involved all these years in an interracial marriage, I have felt a lot of what the people who are advocates of gay marriage are talking about.
So I know.
I know.
I still say, I'm sorry, it's my prejudice right now, and it certainly is.
It's exposed for all the world to see.
To me, it's not the same thing, and that's hypocrisy, huh?
I suppose.
It's hypocrisy.
But right now, there's nothing I can do about it except to try to think it over myself really hard and decide whether I'm going to come to some other conclusion based on hard thinking on the subject.
It's pretty weak, but it's the best I can do.
I have a natural, inborn, strong, profound revulsion for homosexuality.
Sorry.
That's a fact.
I can't change it.
However, I also have no good arguments other than that obvious prejudice against it.
Well, then if the argument is it's set up for the protection of children, then even within the heterosexual marriage where one partner could not possibly bear children, let us say for medical reasons, the privilege, if you want to call it that, of marriage could be denied to them.
unidentified
Well, it wouldn't be denied because nobody says you have to have them.
And there's been a lot of people that don't think they can have them and have them.
I say again, even at 20, dear, there could be an absolute medical certainty.
You wouldn't have children.
unidentified
Yeah.
I don't know.
And I still think, I think it'll increase homosexuality.
Oh, I know.
I think a lot of young people are very curious and wonder if they are or not, and it's going to make it appear very normal to them that it's a very normal state.
I'm a 20-year-old gay man, and sometime today I'm planning on coming out to my parents.
However, I've not accepted my sexuality yet, and in fact, don't want to be gay.
My parents basically have the same set of beliefs as you do.
I was wondering how you'd react if your son came out to you.
Would you be supportive?
Also, I want to let your listeners know that gays don't choose to be gay.
They just have to accept it.
We are made this way by God.
A quick aside on God.
If God were truly heterosexual, wouldn't he procreate as much as humans, and then wouldn't there be millions of gods by now?
Well, with regard to the last, I have no idea.
With regard to your question about my son, The answer is a no-brainer.
I think that I would sit down and tell him, man, you've got a hard road to hoe.
But would I stand by him?
Of course I would stand by him.
Of course I would.
You think love stops at the door?
You think you're going to stop loving your own flesh and blood because of something like that?
Not only no, but hell no.
But I tell him he's got a rough life ahead.
You know, I'd advise him his lifestyle carries with it dangers right now in society.
Big dangers.
Dangers of dying, getting AIDS, and dying.
And I probably have a terrible mental time with it.
But stand by him?
Oh, of course.
Hi, Art.
Don't have a problem with same-sex marriages.
I don't.
I figure if any two people can make a marriage work, then they have got to be doing something right.
As far as homosexuality goes, I haven't been there, haven't done that, but I feel just because they aren't doing things the way I do doesn't mean they're wrong, just different.
Also want to point out that love and sexuality are not synonymous.
As two individuals can love each other without being sexually attracted to each other, and two individuals engaging in sexual activity don't have to be in love.
Marriages are not always based in love.
They're based in commitment to each other and to a shared goal.
Over the years, this can be very difficult.
Should two men or two women be recognized for accomplishing this?
In the best of cases, in heterosexual marriages, the best of cases, it ain't easy.
As Ringo Starr once sang about, it ain't easy.
You know it ain't easy.
It isn't.
Anybody married for a long time knows that.
There's rough spots, real rough spots, and they're not easy to get over, and anybody who's managed to leap over them for a number of years knows it ain't easy.
So Kevin makes a good point.
There are many good points to be made and good arguments to be made on both sides, aren't there?
Um straight marriage is strictly functional and when you define homosexuality you have to take in not always I mean straight marriage many times sir is utterly dysfunctional.
I'm sorry, your argument doesn't work.
You're wishing and hoping, but you're not on any kind of uh solid constitutional ground at all.
You're you're trying to come here and tell me the the UH Supreme Court is going to adjudicate something In in a way they never have before or are not, within the Constitution, chartered to do.
They look at laws and determine their, their constitutional viability Period.
That's what they do Sometimes to the great displeasure of the majority of the American people and I could give you many examples flag burning and many other things that a lot of Americans find utterly distasteful West of the Rockies you're on the air.
Hello.
unidentified
Yeah um most homosexuals they they claim that they were born gay, right?
Now let's say that it was proven that homosexuality was l a lack of a certain gene.
They were born without a certain gene, you know, in their genetic structure, structure.
Now, let's say science, a scientist discovered that gene, and it could be cured, their homosexuality could be cured with one simple shot, an injection, kind of like penicillin.
In other words, is homosexuality because of that genetic difference an illness described, would it be defined as an illness or simply as a natural difference?
unidentified
Quite frankly, I would have to say that it would be a disease.
Let me ask the audience: you've asked a very good question.
I would tend off the hip to say if you've had an operation and your plumbing has been rearranged and you're legally now, legally identified as being a female where you were once a male, and you want to marry a male, I would tend to say probably, legally, you could do that.
But I don't know that for sure, and that's just an off-the-hip response.
So what he's suggesting is that if that is the case, then you are forcing people into a surgical procedure to attain a legal status.
Well, it's like the Mexicans coming over the border to take advantage of the social programs that we have here, and they come up with something like Prop 189 where they want to restrict, you know.
Yeah, but the argument is really different for citizens and non-citizens.
Well, for the purpose of our discussion, let us limit it to citizens.
Now, there, you've got a pretty good point.
I mean, the argument, you say, is to allow marriage for anybody who wants to be married so they can equally take advantage of the social programs that we have concocted.
You're absolutely right, and if those social programs were not there, the pressure to get in a position where you could take advantage of them would be.
Well, let's just dispense with all that and say the institution of marriage is between two people love each other.
And you're laying there and you've got machines pumping you and needles in you and they're keeping you alive and there's nobody else to make a decision about what is to be done with you.
Certainly your partner of 40 years can't come along and say pull the plug, even if that was your wish.
And so that's the kind of thing we're talking about.
unidentified
Yeah, yep, and I buy that.
No, I guess the only thing I was trying to lay down was the analogy that unfortunately in our system, it strikes me that rather than really trying and cure this situation at the cause.
I mean, who can blame the Mexicans for wanting to come over the border if they're starving to death on the other side and we've got freebies over here?
And that is not what the Supreme Court justices will do when they sit down with this one.
That is to say, sit down with the Bible.
They will do what they are supposed to do and look at a law passed with regard to his constitutionality, and I think it's going to be blown out like a prairie dog at 300 miles an hour.
First time caller line, you're on the air.
Hi.
unidentified
Hi.
This is the first time I've called in.
A person that called a while ago did something when he dealt with the preamble, I thought he had done something substantive in that the Constitution arose out of a certain type of people that Congress envisioned.
And I felt like the man that called about the bestiality issue and the thing that you acknowledged on people brothers and sisters, yes.
I think that shows a big problem.
And if we will consider that what we have is inordinate affection in all of this and that law arises out of the people, the Constitution guarantees that each state will have a Republican form of government, which means that they will have representatives that represent the people.
And Congress, the United States government has to reflect that.
Yes, sir, but in the formation of that same Constitution, it recognized from time to time that laws may be passed which would be popular and then passed by the representatives of those people in a popular wave that are not necessarily constitutional.
And that's why we have the High Court.
unidentified
In the opinion of the High Court, they're not constitutional.
But the Court's jurisdiction is only appellate.
And if the Congress wants to override a decision, then Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution, recognizes that in such cases that they only have appellate jurisdiction, which the Congress can override.
I'm just saying that if the general will and morality of the people is such, the Constitution cannot be repugnant to that, and there is a remedy, and it is for Congress to act to appeal something that the Supreme Court see we have in balance of powers.
Nobody has the final word in the U.S. Constitution, and that's the reason why the Supreme Court has only appellate jurisdiction here.