The title is half-right: America has changed their mind on marriage rights, but not in the way this report -- and most everybody else -- thinks.
For most of this country's history, pretty much everybody agreed with the following concept:
The government should not be subsidizing by handouts or tax breaks or special privileges, any corporation or association or relationship or activity which does not have as a primary purpose the benefit of the public Good rather than somebody's private benefit.I suspect most American citizens today probably would still agree with that statement, unless and until you show how they themselves are the inappropriate beneficiaries of government handouts. The change of mind started to occur sometime during Lyndon Johnson's Presidency, when the government started giving out handouts to some people apart from their contribution to the public Good. The Obama administration has extended that largess to corporations like Solyndra. FDR started the handouts, but at least the recipients at that time were presumed to be laboring on "Public Works" for the benefit of the common Good. Corporations have been added to the take recently as part of Obama's drive toward the failed socialist ideology, but (for example) the automotive bailouts are open to debate as to whether they served the public Good, while the silly Obama energy handouts served only the WhiteHouse cronies and political supporters -- far more so than the alleged cronyism of his predecessor.
But the biggest useless handout started much earlier, about the time Kennedy died. That was when the Pill and no-fault divorce both came into widespread use, and the function of marriage ceased to be to provide a stable environment for preparing the next generation of citizens to become productive members of society. Let me repeat it again:
The government should not be subsidizing by handouts or tax breaks or special privileges, any corporation or association or relationship or activity which does not have as a primary purpose the benefit of the public Good rather than somebody's private benefit.That includes people who choose to live together under the same roof for their own private benefit. The government has no business -- not now, not in 1963, not in 1776, nor any time in the future -- subsidizing by handouts and tax breaks and special privileges any friendship activities of two or more people who are not by their cohabitation providing a positive benefit to society. The only positive benefit that can be consistently demonstrated is providing a nurturing environment for their own (shared) biological children, which reduces crime in the streets when those children reach maturity. The fact that people happen to like each other for a year or two or ten is irrelevant when there are no mutual children.
NOBODY has been denying homosexuals any rights that shouldn't also be denied to heterosexuals ever since 1776. It's not about equality, but SPECIAL PRIVILEGES being given to non-productive corporations and to couplings that by their nature cannot benefit society.
Yes, America has had a "Change of Mind on ... LGBTQ Rights" because we now seem to want to give them rights neither they nor anybody else should have. The "Christians" are wringing their hands (and the other side is gloating) over the wrong question.
Full disclosure: I did not do anything to contribute to
the funding of the next generation of government Ponzi payers (aka children)
so the government does not offer me any handouts in recognition of that,
and (unlike the homosexuals) I'm not demanding it. I also do not accept
government handouts for the priviledge of being old (and unproductive),
nor for being sick (and unproductive). In fact, next year I expect to begin
paying
an extra tax for the priviledge of NOT being on the government dole, the
largest single tax increase on low-income people in the history of this
country (except when FDR increased taxes to pay for his war).