Scott Cumbie

On Sunday, May 6, 2012, The Winston-Salem Journal published an editorial comparing Democrat support for eugenics for 50 years with the current Republican support for the Marriage Amendment. The following article is a response to this editorial:

I am constantly amazed at the far left editorials that are produced by this self-proclaimed moderate paper, but Sunday’s editorial written by John Railey, “Back to the future with ‘Amendment One,’” hit a new low (or would that be a new left).

For a number of years, I have watched this paper regularly pat itself on the back for “exposing” the eugenics program here in NC that most of us were already aware had existed. I was surprised to read today where for the first time, I believe, it was admitted that Democrats were the ones that promoted this program for more than five decades in NC. I am still waiting for the day when it will be printed that one of the major proponents behind the eugenics programs in the US was Margaret Sanger, who founded Planned Parenthood as part of implementing her eugenics ideology.

What shocked me this morning was that this paper then tried to connect Republicans supporting the marriage amendment with Democrats promoting eugenics. “The Democrats who ruled the state through the 45 years of that program supported it just as much as the Republicans who now rule the state legislature support the marriage amendment,” states the editorial.

Is this editorial suggesting that because I am a Republican who believes that marriage should continue to be defined as the union of one man with one woman, I am somehow equivalent to those who coerced or forced over 7,600 people against their will into medical procedures that took away their freedom to have a family of their own?

As is often stated by opponents of the marriage amendment, NC law already defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman, so why do we need an amendment? This editorial then repeats all the awful and terrible things that will occur if the amendment passes. But wait, if this is already the law in NC, why aren’t all these awful things happening now? The fact is that none of these things are happening now and none of these things will happen if the amendment passes. Somehow, though, “we are ignoring the fact that the amendment would invade the rights of many of its citizens,” the editorial curiously states.

Today, the definition of marriage is like a line drawn around one man and one woman. The opposition to the amendment is declaring that we are discriminating against and violating the rights of those on the other side of the line. So, if we move the line to include same sex couples, then what about those that still remain on the other side of the line? We will still be discriminating against those people, won’t we? There are certainly those who prefer three wives or two husbands–and then those who think the age of consent it too high. Anywhere you draw the line there will be people on the other side of the line that can make all the same arguments about discrimination and the violation of rights that we are hearing today.

If, we the people of NC, empowered this paper to draw the line for us, where would this paper draw the line? Who would this paper discriminate against? Would this paper then be as guilty as the eugenicists? What about the 7,600 victims of forced sterilization that also believe that marriage should be limited to one man and one woman? Are they as unenlightened and as guilty as those who victimized them?

How can there be any comparison between the marriage amendment and eugenics? For this paper to make this comparison after having written so often on this topic shows that it has no grasp of how horrific this eugenics program was. This comparison is unconscionable and shows an utter disregard of the horror that the victims of the eugenics program faced and it also shows a complete lack of respect for those who sincerely hold to the traditional definition of marriage.