By Mike Appleton, Guest Blogger
“So let us be blunt about it: we must use the doctrine of religious liberty to gain independence for Christian schools until we train up a generation of people who know that there is no religious neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, and no neutral civil government. Then they will get busy in constructing a Bible-based social, political and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God.”
-Gary North, “The Intellectual Schizophrenia of the New Christian Right,” (Christianity and Civilization: The Failure of the American Baptist Culture, Number 1, Spring, 1982)
In Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S 1 (1967), the Supreme Court held that Virginia’s prohibition of interracial marriage violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. “The freedom to marry,” wrote Chief Justice Warren, “has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.” 366 U.S. at 12. Many people were hoping that the Court would formally accord that status to same-sex marriage last month. But it did not happen. Edith Windsor will receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax refunds from the federal government, but the Court did not find it necessary to address the issue of same-sex marriage as a constitutional right, and elected not to do so. United States v. Windsor, No. 12-307 (June 26, 2013).
While that central constitutional issue remains unresolved, opponents of same-sex marriage are on the move. The Freedom Federation, a coalition of civil and religious right-wing organizations ranging from Americans for Prosperity to Wallbuilders, has issued a pre-emptive strike in the form of a signed letter declaring that “the Supreme Court has no authority to redefine marriage… .” The letter, which can be found on the Freedom Federation website, asserts that should the Court grant legal recognition to same-sex marriage, it “will be acting beyond its proper constitutional role,” and concludes with the vaguely ominous warning that “this is the line we must draw and one we cannot and will not cross.”
We have witnessed in recent years an increasing willingness by state legislatures to adopt nullification statutes, facially unconstitutional but politically potent. Now the religious right has determined to extend the nullification doctrine to the judicial branch, employing the language of religious freedom to hide a theocratic dominionist vision of government and society.
In 2004 and again in 2005, legislation known as the Constitution Restoration Act was introduced in both the House and the Senate. If adopted, the act would have stripped the federal courts of jurisdiction to consider any case challenging the acknowledgment of God as a source of law by any federal, state or local governmental unit. The act would have also mandated impeachment for any violation. The legislation did not make it out of committee, but its intention was crystal clear: the rejection of the secularist notion of separation of church and state.
The drafting of the statute was largely the work of Herb Titus, a lawyer who served as the first dean of the law school at Regent University and who famously represented Judge Roy Moore, the Alabama jurist removed as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court for his refusal to comply with a federal court order compelling the removal from the courthouse rotunda of a monument to the Ten Commandments.
The failure of the attempted legislative assault on established jurisprudence construing the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses, combined with the pronounced hatred of the LBGT community by many religious fundamentalists, virtually guaranteed that something resembling the Freedom Federation letter would emerge when it did. The co-author of the letter is Mat Staver, the founder of Liberty Counsel and dean of the Liberty University School of Law. In March of this year, Liberty Counsel welcomed the Florida Faith & Works Coalition to its member organizations. The Coalition represents approximately 600 conservative pastors engaged in promoting universal Christian dominionism. From its website: “Subduing and having dominion over all the earth commands responsibility over the entire animate and inanimate world including the moral values that form the basis of society. We affirm that, historically, America was established as a Christian nation and its policies were based on biblical principles. The guardian of those biblical principles has always been His church. And His church, in recent history, has passively abdicated its guardianship responsibility.”
The arguments in the Freedom Federation letter are boldly theocratic. First, it is urged that marriage solely between a man and a woman is mandated by “natural moral law,” a product of reason. But it approaches natural law in the same manner that Justice Scalia approaches the Constitution, as a rigid and dead body of law. (It also fails to identity which system or systems of natural law it endorses, but that’s another topic.) The truth is that our understanding of natural law theory and of the Constitution have evolved precisely because reason evolves as it is informed by knowledge and experience.
The letter next asserts that natural moral law is “affirmed, fulfilled, and elevated by Christian teaching,” thus adding the biblical foundation for the treatment of marriage between a man and a woman as divinely ordained and not subject to expansion or modification by positive law. This is not only an argument against a secular view of marriage; in accordance with dominionist theology, it is also a rejection of religious pluralism.
Finally, the letter claims that same-sex marriage, once legitimized, will inevitably lead to its compulsory recognition by Christians, thereby undermining freedom of religion and conscience. This position is demonstrably absurd, of course, since no religious sect has ever been compelled to grant sacramental status to any marital union that conflicts with its own doctrinal requirements. And in the eyes of the law, no marriage has ever required religious approval as a condition of legitimacy.
Fundamentalist Christians must recognize by now that they are losing the battle against the ultimate acceptance of same-sex marriage. But they are also patient and vigilant. The Freedom Federation letter is a reminder that the preservation of secular government and religious freedom will also require patience and vigilance.
randyjet: [Gene’s] contention that procreation is not the business of government is wildly absurd in [his] reply to David. It is the whole business of government except for the actual sex act.
No it isn’t, not in the least. The government’s job is to protect and serve, so their citizens can go about their lives as they see fit, safe from predation by others that would use force or exploitation of circumstance to subjugate or coerce them.
As citizens go about their normal business in relative safety, their normal psychology and biology will take care of all the details of boy-meets-girl, mutual sexual attraction, and successful reproduction.
If boy-meets-boy, or girl-meets-girl, and they fail to reproduce, there is no crisis of a reproductive shortage; biology ensures we will have more than enough incidents of boy-meets-girl to satisfy any replacement requirements.
Reproduction is nature’s business, and it is quite good at it. It needs no help from government.
Survival is also nature’s business, and although different animals have found different routes to it, the human animal thrived by becoming the ultimate predator on the planet. Unfortunately, that predatory mindset runs very deep in us, and small defects and deficits in emotional control, exacerbated by desperate circumstances or oppression, sometimes results in other innocent humans being in the cross-hairs as prey.
That is government’s real job, not to ensure nature takes its course, but to ensure it doesn’t.
Typo. Second sentence should read: “Hopefully permanent companionship, but divorce statistics suggest otherwise.”
How about if I posit that the purpose of marriage is not procreation, but companionship. Hopefully permanent companionship, but divorce statistics suggest Marriage carries legal implications for responsibility, support and inheritance. There is nothing in the marriage compact that supports procreation. Lots of people procreate without being married. And lots of married people do not procreate, either by choice or by inability. In fact, many married heterosexual couples seldom, if ever, have sex. Same applies to gay couples. For some people, sex is not the reason to be (or stay) married.
The American Psychological Association has published figures showing the divorce rate to fluctuate some from year to year within the 40-50% range. The divorce rate for subsequent marriages is even higher. If any argument is based on the permanence of marriage, it fails the fact check test.
Gay marriage is not equivalent to polygamy; it is still two people.
Sorry Tony C it has taken some time to get back to you. All you show by this statement is your bigotry towards polygamy. Marriage until recently in US law refered ONLY to one man/one woman legal contracts granted by the state. Now you wish to change the definition to suit your prejudices and exclude polygamy. If you can simply redefine marriage as being only between two legal persons, then you can also expand that definition to what much of the world considers marriage to be which is multiple partners. If you wish to make new definitions without any rational legal, traditional or moral basis, then polygamy is certainly the same. Indeed polygamy is FAR more traditional than gay marriage in human history. You just arbitrarily decide that polygamy is bad, immoral, and illegal. If the state can prohibit multiple partners, then it must show that such arrangement must have some state interest in that ban. In the case of Gene, H, he would have to admit that since polygamy is not prohibited or even mentioned in the Constitution, it must be considered to be among those rights left to the states and most definitely the right of the individuals concerned to make that decision free of governmental interference.
My position is fairly simple in that as long as the state grants marriage contracts, they have the right to define it. In granting the marriage contract, they cannot discriminate against any one man/one woman union unless modified by other factors such as age and health. That is what the Loving decision said. So unless the marriage laws discriminate against gays getting married to a person of the opposite sex by imposing some test of gayness/straight, fertility, etc…then the state has every right to define the contracts it grants. Now if the state wishes to define marriage as two legal persons, then that also is their right. Just as it is their right to grant polygamous unions. But please,just don’t pretend that only your definition of marriage is the “right” one just because that is what you say. In much of the world, marriage means more than one wife too, and in fact, there are probably more countries in which that is true than gay marriage.
OS There are many purposes and reasons for legal marriage contracts, but the state has an interest in promoting marriage and that is the reason for its existence. We as a society and government are only concerned with the state interest in establishing that contract. The government has no legitimate interest is regulating sexual habits or preferences among legal adults and I think we can all agree on that. The state does have an interest in promoting stable heterosexual unions mainly for procreation reasons and establishing responsibility for the children that come from sexual acts. When homosexual sex results in children, then I will most certainly demand gay marriage and will be in line to sign any petition to grant it.
“… why womens right to vote required an amendment to have their rights.” (rj)
Because men and women who supported that right did not trust their government to follow through with keeping that right intact. An amendment to the Constitution guaranteed the right. It’s the same reasoning that produced the 13th … the Emancipation Proclamation and the use of the 5th was not nearly enough to guarantee the abolishment of slavery … and enforcement thereof.
Very important to both:
“Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
ARE,
Your argument relies on the assumption that because a right isn’t specifically recognized that it does not exist.
That is an incorrect assumption.
The 9th Amendment reads: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
At the core of this matter, it is about freedom of association and equal protection. While an amendment would end any and all arguments on the matter, so will the pending and naturally consequential law suits regarding equal protection, full faith and credit, and conflict of laws. While that process may take longer to reach the inevitable conclusion based on the notions of the 9th and 14th Amendments to filter through at the state levels (and through the Federal courts), the end result will be the same. It will mirror the fall of state miscegenation laws in the wake of Loving v. Virginia and homosexuals will have the same rights to marry and the attendant duties and obligations such a relationship creates as heterosexual couples now enjoy (regardless of their race).
Well Gene H your contention that same sex marriage is still a right even though it is not enumerated is simply false since you do not say why womens right to vote required an amendment to have their rights. We had all the amendments the 9th, 14th before and no judge ever saw that in our Constitution. Now that might mean that all of our previous justices were dolts and ignorant, but I think most rational people would reject that. There is a way out of that conundrum, and that is to say that voting is NOT a right,though I would reject that notion and I think you would too.
Your contention that procreation is not the business of government is wildly absurd in your reply to david. It is the whole business of government except for the actual sex act. That is why we have government to begin with to live and reproduce. In fact, China while I disagree with their measures, figured out that they needed to stop procreating at a high rate.
The government also has the right to promote activity that it deems good for itself and society by granting subsidies and preferences. Denying those to others in business has never been held to be discrimination nor denying them a not enumerated right either.
Now I will have to assume that you will support plural marriages if gay marriage is a right. In fact, polygamy has a FAR longer history, and in our laws in the US. As you know, Congress coerced the Mormons into rejecting polygamy, and I suppose that someday a Mormon or Muslim judge will declare polygamy a right and unlawful discrimination and a denial of their religious rights. I hope that you will back them up and campaign for their “rights” too.
Randyjet: It is customary, when one is arguing the legal merits of a position, to support ones assertions (or refute someone else’s) with something other than a bare “you’re wrong because I strongly believe it.” For instance, you state, “Your contention that procreation is not the business of the government is wildly absurd…” That is an opinion. The statements you make in the rest of that paragraph are not subjective support for your opinion, as they should be. We are at the point in the discussion where everyone is aware of each other’s beliefs, so why don’t you try backing up your beliefs with some sort of logical support?
Juliet N. While I am willing to concede that Gene H may have used a poor formulation in his post by using procreation when he may have wanted to say sex. it is surreal to have you back up his poor choice and defend it since procreation is the whole point of all societies and government. Your response reminds me of political hacks I have had to deal with who will support even the most absurd propositions for political reasons. I even provided an example of how a government was concerned legitimately about its population. I think that most rational people would agree that China had a huge population explosion problem. So they acted to restrict severely procreation. Others have the opposite problem and they instead are in the business of promoting procreation. I am sorry that you either have no idea of what procreation means or are rationally deficient. One deficiency can be cured, the other cannot. I will leave it to others to decide what it is in your case.
Randyjet: Ad hominem attacks are no better than bare assertions and, in fact, can get you banned. Improve.
randyjet wrote: “Well Gene H your contention that same sex marriage is still a right even though it is not enumerated is simply false …”
The concept that rights exist which are not enumerated in the Constitution is a valid one. However, Gene H switched premises of your argument. Your previous argument pointed to stare decisis. Where have the courts identified gay marriage as a fundamental right? Gene switched to talking about the Constitution instead of court recognition. It is still a valid concern that the courts perhaps never identified a right that still exists, but to make that case, one must make the case for why gay marriage is a fundamental right. In every situation, they assume it to be true without presenting evidence or even making a logical argument for it. That is why I have spoken about a person’s gullibility to popular propaganda.
Regardless of establishing the authoritative word for the presumptive right to gay marriage (why do so many want to resort to authority rather than rational arguments?), the argument for gay marriage being a fundamental right is never made successfully by anybody. The courts haven’t done it and nobody here has done it (except maybe a religious argument from Juliet about the Bible not prohibiting it).
Furthermore, some in the conversation confuse the concept of fundamental rights with simple human rights. The term fundamental right means an inalienable right that exists without government granting it, and no government can infringe upon it without showing a compelling interest to do so. The basis for court review is strict scrutiny. I don’t think anybody here is arguing that same sex couples do not have the right to associate and form a lifelong partnership together. What is under discussion is whether that partnership is a fundamental right that would be better treated legally under the banner of marriage, the same way that opposite sex marriage is treated.
The closest argument we have for identifying same sex unions as a fundamental right is a semantic one. Call same sex unions marriage, then point to court decisions declaring marriage to be a fundamental right. The problem is that the context of these court decisions hinge upon marriage being opposite sex unions and directly speak of the right of an individual to reproduce (and typically it requires the man and woman coming together to reproduce). So to yank court statements out of context is inappropriate.
Some have attempted to use the right to contract, but freedom of contract is fiercely regulated by States, and the SCOTUS uses rational basis review not strict scrutiny, so if the right to contract is agreed upon as the reason, then same sex unions are NOT a fundamental right.
So why must same a sex union be considered identical to an opposite sex union? Is it caused by a confusion of what gender equality means? Has gender equality been emphasized so much that people confuse the concept of legal equality with equality of form and function?
We agree they have the right to a partnership, but that partnership has traditionally been considered different from marriage. The legal obligations have been different. Has a disparity emerged such that the rights and privileges of those in civil partnerships are not properly enumerated? In some cases yes. States like California have addressed this by amending their laws regarding domestic partnerships.
The bottomline is that the case has never been made that civil partnerships are fundamental rights equivalent to marriage and that it is necessary to treat them exactly the same. We are suppose to just accept it on authority or because someone we like in society holds to that position.
By the way, I notice how they dodge your point about polygamy. Your thought process there is spot on.
Your suspicions are quite unfounded in reality, David.
The basic cause for your discomfort is you are finding it increasingly difficult to convince the general public that discrimination and deprivation of a minorities rights and equal protection under the law is just let alone justifiable under a reasonable civil definition of both what a marriage is and what the government’s rational and reasonable interest in said relations is.
Procreation isn’t the government’s business.
Upholding a religious definition of marriage to the detriment of a minority – a minority seeking equality, not superiority – isn’t the government’s business.
Promoting your religiously based devaluation of others in society because you don’t like their sexual orientation isn’t the government’s business.
The government’s only rational and reasonable interest in marriage is in recording the relationship for both contractual reasons, testate and intestate devolution and the application of special laws attendant to said relationship (the right to speak for an incapacitated spouse, qualifications for third party transactions like insurance, etc.).
Recognizing homosexual rights does not harm, hinder or otherwise affect heterosexual marriages.
There are no legal grounds nor rational non-belief oriented arguments to be made for denial of their rights. Rights which even when not spelled out explicitly still exist and are reserved to the individual via the 9th Amendment. The equal protection of which is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.
Gene H wrote: “Procreation isn’t the government’s business.”
Are just trying to jerk my chain or are you really ignorant about this? Do you want me to take time to explain to you what governments have declared as their rationale for why they have a legitimate interest to encourage citizens to procreate through the institution of marriage?
Are you really ignorant as to the fact that this planet’s resources, in our neck of the woods, are already stretched to the limit? The last thing we need government to encourage is more breeding.
As well it should be Jean Lafayette would certainly take umbrage….. But not the Somalian pirates….. They are equal opportunity bashers……….
AY,
I was just talking to some pirates and they said to tell you, “Arrrr! We resent the comparison, matey! We’d rather be keelhauled than be bound to a person who begrudges a lil’ buggery! Denying others their right of free association is the lowest form of skullduggery!”
David,
You’re familiar with somebody says…. You’re yanking my chains…. When you jerk off change your direction….. When someone gives you something in the least bit credible…. You change directions like a pirate ship…. You have no respect for anyone hat doesn’t tow your line…. Guess what… There are more atheist, agnostics that resemble more of your Christian faith you profess…. Than you’ll ever have in the littlest of your pinky…. Does your tea party take donations…. Or are you much further right than them…..
(FYI, Numbers 15:38; variously translated as “fringes” or “tassles” and blue “cord,” “ribbon,” or “thread,” on the “corners” or “hems” of all their garments, intended to apply to all children of God throughout their generations, as a sign for themselves and to recognize each other. Hop to it, you faithful!)
randyjet: but you did not answer the question as to why the 19th Amendment needed to be passed if what your contention is true as to application or our laws and Constitution.
Below please read the first few paragraphs of this article.
Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the Constitution did not grant women the right to vote. The Supreme Court upheld state court decisions in Missouri, which had refused to register a woman as a lawful voter because that state’s laws allowed only men to vote.
The Minor v. Happersett ruling was based on an interpretation of the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court readily accepted that Minor was a citizen of the United States, but it held that the constitutionally protected privileges of citizenship did not include the right to vote.
The Nineteenth Amendment, which became a part of the Constitution in 1920, effectively overruled Minor v. Happersett by prohibiting discrimination in voting rights based on sex.
The Amendment was necessary because in 1875, legislators were still all men, and sexist, and so was the Supreme Court, so they made a mistake (as we now see it) and upheld discrimination against women citizens as “Constitutional.”
The only way to overrule the Supreme Court is for them to do it themselves, or by Amendment. After two generations (44 years) an Amendment corrected what we now see as an error. Like we now see slavery, and racial discrimination at the polls. Like I believe we will eventually see discrimination against homosexuals in the law and in the workplace and even in churches; the religious will turn a blind eye toward homosexuality just as they turn a blind eye toward God’s orders to kill their disobedient children, murder those that work on the Sabbath, or wear tassels with a blue thread on the corners of their clothing.
Tony C thank you for that reply,but you missed the main point which is that with the same Constitution and the same amendments operating after the passage of the 14th amendment, the SCOTUS could not find any legal means to allow women to vote. They even declare that voting is not a right of all citizens nor is it enumerated among those rights given in the Bill of Rights and thus NOT a God granted natural right at all. Even the Warren court never stated that gay marriage was a right at all. So by your own accounts there is no legal basis for declaring gay marriage to be a right at all. Of course, if you think that stare decisis is a bad thing, and tradition, and laws mean nothing, THEN you can support such an outlandish ruling.
I agree that the SCOTUS made an error in my opinion, in their Minor ruling, but as you rightly observed it took an amendment to correct it. If you like gay marriage to be legal, then the way to do that is by the same process, or let it be done state by state as was done in many states prior to the 19th Amendment.
randyjet: The founders were, to my knowledge, all sexists, raised in a culture of iron-handed sexism: They believed that only men had the right to vote, and a few believed only men of property should vote. They did not have the votes to end slavery, either, so most were effectively racists to boot. I believe we have a representative government because they did not trust the common man to have a direct vote.
As time goes by, knowledge increases, science progresses, and the collective becomes educated and understand the errors and prejudices and bigotry of previous generations as selfish wrongs against humanity. That happened for slaves; it happened for women; it is still in progress for African Americans and other minorities, and it will happen for homosexuals.
The generations that grow up with same-sex marriage as routine as mixed-race or mixed-religion marriage will see this period as the dying out of misguided, selfish, hatefully bigoted ignoramosaurs that wanted to oppress others based on a physical trait they personally found distasteful.
Tony C I agree with most of what you said, but you did not answer the question as to why the 19th Amendment needed to be passed if what your contention is true as to application or our laws and Constitution. That is the problem which is ignoring all precedent, laws and tradition to change laws without the legislative process. If that is acceptable,then we should simply get rid of our legislatures and let judges make the laws and save money and time.
Juliet: I don’t think that is true, I have read Leviticus and it appears pretty clear, a lot of verbal gymnastics would be necessary to claim it does not mean what it says: That homosexuals should be put to death. (One more reason to be an atheist).
As for Jesus; practically the first words out of his mouth are that he is not there to change one jot or tittle (the smallest written marks in Hebrew) of the Old Testament, which then casts Jesus as a supporter of Leviticus, and putting homosexuals to death.
I’m hooked up to a pain pump, headed into surgery shortly, so I’ll keep it brief. Translations have been substituting current words for those that do not exist or do not mean the same now as then. Temple prostitution is more likely what the Old Testament refers to. Jesus didn’t come to change the law, but to fulfill it, making the sacrifices and rules unnecessary. I can send you links to some writing that draws on decades of study regarding ancient language and customs. I’ll try to do so once I’m out of anesthesia. (Nothing terribly serious.)
At any rate, Jesus’ big thing was pointing out hypocrisy in the religious leadership of the time — keeping all the rituals, but not really living a godly (loving) life.
At any rate, the Bible thumpers who rant about gay marriage “redefining” marriage should look to Solomon — as Rep. Gohmert (R – Tx) stupidly did — about what “biblical marriage” can look like. I don’t think those words mean what they think they mean.
Regardless, we aren’t a “Christian nation.” And thank God for that.
RandyJet: Then to say that the Consitution allows for gay marriage flies in the face of over 400 years of US history and practice. and law.
The Founding Fathers specifically believed that all rights were reserved to the people unless specifically prohibited by the Constitution. In fact some were opposed to enumerating the Rights in the Bill of Rights for precisely the effect that has had on you; their fear that enumerating rights implied those were the only rights that people had.
The Founding Fathers intended “freedom” to be everything not specifically prohibited, infinite except for a finite set of restrictions, NOT a finite laundry list of “Rights.”
It is, by their lights, an error to view Amendments as a list of permissions, and you should note that the Rights they wrote are restrictions on Government, and not permissions for the citizens. The Constitution does not grant you freedom of speech, the founders assume you have always had that Right, and the Constitution is supposed to prohibit the Government from infringing upon it.
Using their frame of thinking, the Constitution, by not specifically banning homosexual marriage, permits homosexual marriage.
Tony C. I assume that you and the founders thought of voting to be a right as well. Just as marriage is considered to be a right. So why was the 19th Amendment needed at all, since all that should have been required was for a judge to declare that male only franchise was not Constitutional? There are many other similar things in our laws as well.
I sure wish you were on the Federal courts, since I would still have my airline job if you were,since what happened to me and my fellows was even more outrageous discrimination than not allowing gay marriage.
randyjet wrote to Tony C: “I assume that you and the founders thought of voting to be a right as well. Just as marriage is considered to be a right. So why was the 19th Amendment needed at all, since all that should have been required was for a judge to declare that male only franchise was not Constitutional?”
The founders did not view voting as a right for everybody. For example, Jefferson wanted education to be a prerequisite for voting, but not being able to find a way for that, his position became any male citizen liable to taxes or military duty. Keep in mind that they had no individual income tax, so “liable to taxes” implied property ownership and involved in economic activity subject to tariffs.
The issue of voting is probably a good one to bring up because like gay marriage, it clearly was not deemed to be a fundamental right. Voting is a privilege and duty to those whom government has deemed fit to vote. Over time, government has decided to include more and more people in that group being allowed to vote.
Unfortunately, the standards for voting have dropped so low and become so broad that voting has little effect any more for reigning in abuse and corruption in government. Consider that the vote of a Ph.D. of political science carries the same weight as someone with an IQ of 70 who doesn’t even know who the candidates are on the ballot he marks. Or that a wealthy business owner who employs thousands in several states has a vote that carries the same weight as a homeless man who votes because someone offers him food to do it. The vote of the educated and wise is clearly diluted. We should remember what Jefferson said: democracy cannot long exist without enlightenment.
I caution you not to fall for Tony’s inadequate logic. It is his premise that fails. In logical deduction, even if you logically follow the argument to a sound conclusion, if the premise the logic is built upon is false, then the conclusion reached also is false. This is what has happened in Tony’s analysis.
His premise is that marriage is a romantic committed relationship between two consenting adults. He ignores how culture has defined marriage for hundreds, even thousands of years, and chooses the modern culture’s understanding of marriage based mostly upon Hollywood’s romantic portrayal of it. Once he assumes his definition is correct, he is off with his logical syllogism arriving at the false conclusion, which is false not because of a problem with the logic in getting to his conclusion, but false because of the fallacy of the premise from which he started.
So caveat emptor: Back up to his premise and question it or be deceived by his soliloquy.
I agree with you and Tony C. in this regard, that the Constitution does not prohibit same sex unions; therefore, it is up to the States and the people regarding how to define these unions. This subjugates the issue to proper debate and consideration rather than to a few unelected justices. George Bush called for a Constitutional Amendment concerning gay marriage, but he got no traction. One reason is that those who want to change marriage do not want the people to discuss and debate the issue. Honest intellectual debate about homosexual marriage would destroy their objective.
In order to have honest discussion on the topic, an honest set of definitions is in order. The straw men arguments need to stop. They need to cease from claiming that their opponents are against same sex unions, that they are against same sex love, or that they want others to be unable to cohabitate with whoever they like, male or female. They need to stop claiming that all their opponents are using religious arguments based upon an outdated book. All those lies need to stop. The real question is whether it is proper for the law to treat same sex unions differently from opposite sex unions? Is there justifiable reason for the State to perceive these unions differently and perhaps regulate them in different ways in some situations? These questions get to the crux of the matter, and when proponents of gay marriage resort back to the propaganda put out by the homosexual activists, it simply creates a stall in the discussion which leads nowhere. They seem to take the position that they are right and everybody else who disagrees with them are simply stupid, religious, filled with hate, or usually all three at once. Such comforts them and gives them a smug reason to carry on without working too hard at understanding those who analyze the legal issue in a different way.
Juliet,
ARE and randyjet are the same person. It’s not a secret, but it’s also not readily apparent at times. FYI.
Ah, thanks for the heads-up. Either way, not much worth bothering with.
Ask yourself “If I had a gay child, is this the kind of world I want them to live in?” and read this . . .
Eric Ohena Lembembe, Gay Rights Activist, Tortured And Killed
When homosexuals don’t have equal rights and equal protection under the law, this is the kind of world you are inviting for them.
Fair enough tony…. Fair enough…
Oops, sorry Juliet, that reply was intended for AY.
Tony: No worries.
I’m a Christian and I’ve studied this issue extensively. The Bible has no prohibition on gay marriage or homosexuality. There are many
scholarly works on each of the verses people use to condemn them, so I won’t belabor that point. Jesus never said a thing about homosexuality. I’m of the opinion that if it had the importance the fundies place on it, Jesus would have at least mentioned it. He spoke frequently about loving our neighbors, helping the poor and not being legalistic hypocrites, though.
I’m really glad we have the Constitution to protect us from living under the rule of our own American Taliban — the “Religious Right.”
Juliet N wrote: “I’m a Christian and I’ve studied this issue extensively. The Bible has no prohibition on gay marriage or homosexuality.”
What is amazing to me is that you are the only person professing to be a Christian on this thread, and your argument is the only religious argument being made, and yet your argument is that gay marriage and homosexuality is good and to be accepted by everyone in society. Yet you and virtually everyone else make the false claim that only religious arguments are used to argue against gay marriage. It is truly amazing irony.
My arguments here against judicial fiat support of gay marriage have been entirely from non-religious arguments, based in case law like Loving v. Virginia, Skinner v. Oklahoma, Maynard v. Hill, and even an article in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy which presented clearly non-religious arguments. The primary arguments are based in the biology of Gender Diversity, a real empirical issue that abstract concepts of legal equality have confused people about. The secondary arguments deal with the way marriage has been used as a vehicle for responsible reproduction, something which strengthens society as a whole by encouraging the parents to be co-partners in creating and raising children through a strong, structured family. The fact that there exist also religious arguments to support these issues does not mean that only religious arguments exist. Far from it, there are many strong non-religious arguments to be made and have been made. Thus far, you are the only one in this forum to profess religion and make a religious argument, but just look at how many here are blind to that clear fact. They will continue to parrot the propaganda that they have been indoctrinated to believe in spite of evidence to the contrary. Truly amazing.
Davidm: Please Google up “irony” and learn what it actually means. Then, perhaps you could begin protesting “straight” marriage, since it has about a 50% divorce rate. So much for the “strong, structured family” argument.
Your sentence: “They will continue to parrot the propaganda that they have been indoctrinated to believe in spite of evidence to the contrary.”
Now, that’s ironic.
Juliet N wrote: “Please Google up “irony” and learn what it actually means.”
I see you like the person who in a fit of emotion screams, “I’m not emotional!”
You are in effect screaming: “I am religious, and the Bible does not prohibit homosexuality or gay marriage, and the only arguments against it are religious!” Can you not see the irony here?
More importantly, I can think of one other person now who identified here as Jewish, and he was basically also in agreement with the Judiciary being in favor of changing marriage to include same sex unions. So all the religious here agree with gay marriage, yet allegedly the only arguments against it are religious ones? If “only religious arguments are against it” was valid, why are the religious people here for it and the non-religious people here against it?
Juliet N wrote: “Then, perhaps you could begin protesting “straight” marriage, since it has about a 50% divorce rate. So much for the “strong, structured family” argument.”
Marriage has been in decline for many years because it has increasingly become associated with the romantic view of what people do when they are infatuated with each other. The creation of contraception like the pill, the rise of feminism, the creation of no-fault divorce, the devaluation of women through homosexuality, etc. all contribute to the destruction of marriage. Gay marriage adds its final coup de grace.
Did you know that Maynard v. Hill, quoting Kent Law Commentaries, indicates that New York did not have a single divorce in over 100 years?
Keep along the current cultural path, and my prediction is that our civil governments will self-destruct. We will move toward what we see in Egypt, where people take up arms to defend themselves against government and neighbor alike. Tony C. predicts we will enter into an era of bliss where my views will look archaic and as foolish as those of the Inquisition or the Taliban. Through discussion we might avert destruction, or Tony C. might be right, and my position is a lot of talk about nothing important. I hope he is right, but based upon my knowledge of half the country with whom he typically does not associate, I suspect he is wrong.
Juliet: They are not ignorant; they are willfully blind, because accepting that homosexuality is not a choice means their religion is wrong, and no matter how much science and evidence one presents to support the view that same-sex sexual attraction is inborn (it has been documented in over 1500 animal species) and is not a matter of culture or confusion or rebellion or teaching, the religious will not accept the conclusion that their God, or Holy books, or esteemed Shepherds are guilty of hateful bigotry. The same goes for the non-religious homophobes, they ignore any science or logic that conflicts with what they already know; and embrace any fringe view or homophobic dissent that agrees with what they already know.
I don’t think it is ignorance, it is ego-protection and other emotional rejection of the scientifically obvious because it conflicts with what they want to be true.
Tony,
Do you really think folks are that ignorant about it being a choice…. It’s not like its chocolate cake….