Ron Paul - Government and Marriage

Excellent post !

Can you cite the constitutional language providing special rights to the lavender canoodler set? Or requiring that lavender "marriage" be allowed by law? Perhaps it is located in the penumbras or whatever? Any writings by the Founding Fathers which indicate a clandestine intention or a public one to endorse or even protect the love that once dared not speak its name but now will not shut up?

Too bad about Ron Paul. After landing in DC on a marvellous first day in office, rejecting Dumbo Ford's invitation to the White House, endorsing Reagan's challenge and filing his first bill (to abolish OSHA), it has been all down hill for Ron Paul a decent, but verrrrrry eccentric fellow.

it was that branch of our national Govt. (the Judiciary)that first set about defining "Marriage" and "Family" in respect to Law. (No fault divorce debacle)

No-Fault divorce was enacted everywhere by elected state legislators, not by courts.

"Can you cite the constitutional language providing special rights to the lavender canoodler set? "

I'm not sure why your diatribe is aimed at me. I think we're in total agreement here. Obviously - and I mean that sincerely because it is obvious - under the 10th amendment any state may do whatever the hell it wants in terms of criminalizing homosexuality. And I would strongly support such a measure in my state.

Now the question at the front end of this thread was whether the constitution allowed the government (the federal government, that is) to promote marriage.

Obviously - and again I mean that sincerely because it is obvious if you actually read the Constitution - the Constitution does not expressly grant the federal government such power.

IF the fed doesn't have that power under the Constitution, then whether or not it is a good idea is completely irrelevant. This sort of proposal is simply unconstitutional. The only way around that is to buy into the reasoning which says the the constitution is whatever the courts say it is. Which is precisely the sort of reasoning you purport to reject and which gave us the gay rights measures you identify.

All that said, I am also in agreement, I believe, with Paul's analysis of why the subsidization of marriage by the federal government is a bad idea. Generally, whatever the fed subsidizes, it destroys. Do we really want to do that to marriage?

For the life of me, I can't figure out what is so damn controversial about that. If this were proposed by the Clinton administration, all of us here at freerepublic would be up in arms. But since it's our guy, we have gone soft (and I do support the re-election of our Commander in Chief).

If he is against it, how does he suggest we prevent the judicial branch from enforcing their values (or lack thereof) on all of us?

They ignore the Bill of Rights. Only fools think they won't ignore a federal marriage amendment. Apparently most "marriage advocates" are not really intelligent enough to connect the dots. Get rid of the elitist whores in all branches of our government and replace the judiciary with hardline constitutionalists who could give a rat's ass less why the government did something if it violates the US Constitution.

I apologize if you regarded my post as an intentional mugging of you. I am angry at Ron Paul for a variety of things including but not limited to his opposition to Dubya on the interventionist foreign policy questions.

The constitution is a fine ideal in most ways. It is now ignored as a general proposition. That is a shame but a reality. Having spent twenty-five years as a lawyer, I despise what courts and particularly lifetime federal judges have done to our country and our civilization and our constitution.

I do not regard the constitution (particularly as perverted by courts) as some sort of sacred writ. It probably was invalidly adopted as seems obvious from a reading of the Articles of Confederation which required UNANIMOUS approval of any changes but the constitution was implemented long before the final ratification as to all states including those that did not ratify. I really don't want to debate the hostory of it but that is a dead issue too. We have, as conservatives, lost many battles over the meaning of the constitution. That there is a written constitution means nothing if it is not observed and it is not. Ron Paul is Don Quixote.

We did not get into this mess overnight and we won't get oyt of it overnight. We have another crisis handed to us by judicial imbeciles with perverted agendas, in this case the Texas sodomy SCOTUS decision and the idiot decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in ordering the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to issue "marriage licenses" to legitimatize sodomy as "marriage."

None of this is your personal fault. We need a federal constitutional amendment to restrain the states from tampering with marriage definition as one man and one woman or we will soon enough be having "marriages" of three chimpanzees, two horses, six cockroaches, four wmen, two men and a baby if these idiots have their way. Otherwise, the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the federal constitution will be used to cram lavender canoodling posing as "marrriage" down the throats of all fifty states because of the actions of any one of them.

The Federal Definition of Marriage Act will not protect from the federal courts. Only a constitutional amendmenmt has a shot. Likewise, criminalizing abortion, and all the other social controversies. I really don't see that happening. Bear in mind that Full Faith and Credit is as much a part of the constitution as the Fourteenth Amendment is. We should repeal the Fourteenth Amendment but we won't. We should do a few thousand things but we won't. Relying on the states on such questions is Russian roulette. There is at least a theoretical possibility of using populism to force the states to ratify amendments. I am not hopeful.

Again, sorry that my anger at Ron Paul appeared to be directed at you. As a congressman, he ignores reality and tries to act as philosopher king.

good post.

on the whole i think i agree with everything you say.

the constitution is dead. i think we are in agreement on that. we wish it were not the case, but it is.

gay "marriage", with or without this constitution or any other constitution, collapses civilization itself.

the question, then, is what is the best way to hang on to what little civilization we have left? i suspect that the constitutional amendment is practically the only way to go.

as for ron paul/don quixote (i had to chuckle a bit on that), we know that he did vote for the partial birth abortion ban. it offended his sensibilities on federalism, to be sure, however, the moral imperative of trying to save some innocent lives compelled him to vote for it. i suspect he would have a similar approach to the federal marriage amendment.

it seems sometimes that the best we can do is simply slow the slide of the country. not a very inspiring vision, but i fear that is about the best we can do.

thanks for the post.

You are correct. And the Government schools taught you well.
I was in error because Iforget that most people see a dandy
lion in the grass and think only of what they see. I see a
dandylion and think of the root that nourishes what is seen.
When I spoke of the judiciary and no fault divorce. I knew
that your comment would come. And it was not the Jurists who implimented nofault divorce. It was the lawyers/attorneys trained in Law schools that have abandonded the rule of law in favor of a living Constitution
and a judiciary that is an oligarchy of despots.The root.