This is a libertarian not a conservative argument. Conservatives believe timeless values don't change with the political seasons. Its our duty to uphold them even when they aren't popular cause these values are right no matter what era we live in.
And, if we don’t trust the government to deliver the mail why would we give them the power to determine who we sleep next to?Nobody cares what consenting adult you sleep next to. The issue is marriage. Here is a free clue: conservatives are not (necessarily) libertarians.
The author doesn't really address the huge gulf that exists between those who consider homosexuality a blasphemy to God as opposed to those who are just grossed out.
NOT!
Logically it may not seem to compute, that turning a blind eye to shacking up with whoever you please equates to requiring that the state bless these things as "marriages." BUT in the devil's plan it's all part of the same strategy.
It's b.s. that gay marriage has nothing to do with polygamy. Every argument made for gay marriage could be made for polygamy (privacy, consenting adults, "it's their culture," etc.)
Can only count to 5 then has to start over with the other hand.
I'm assuming your divorce was long and brutal. I've never heard marriage described as "excruciating minutia."
The first thing everyone is probably going to ask or assume is that you are gay. I state that, but I find it immaterial.
Actually, adultery is illegal in the military. Check out what the UCMJ has to say on the subject.
The reason I highlight this part ofyour argument is that I find it the strongest part. Thousands of people are scream to protect marriage by outlawing gay marriage, but if you ask any of them about eliminating no-fault divorce, and they fail to see the connection. Why do we have a "cooling off" period for buying a hand gun, but anyone with the fee can get married, or get divorced in certain states. If you are a Catholic, and your spouse wants to divorce you, holy wedlock or not, you are forced to spend a tremendous amount of money getting an anullment, spend the rest of your life alone, or leave the church. Whose rights are being trampled then? I saw this happen to an aunt and to an uncle. Both were devout Catholics and both came home to find their spouse had cleaned out the house. Neither is Catholic today. My Uncle spent nearly ten years trying to put his life back together, especially as to role the church would play in that life. Granted each bishop can essentially determine this for his diocese, but many make it difficult.
My biggest problem with the entire issue of gay marriage is the same arguement I had against Bill Clinton's "don't ask, don't tell policy." Isn't there something more important that we could be discussing? We are in the middle of a multiple-front war, and we're facing a shortage of military personnel due to low enlistments. We have an economy that is struggling valiantly to come back to life. We're facing a fuel shortage, and our infrastructure for producing addtional fuels is either hamstrung by the eco-movements, or hasn't been touch in nearly 30 years. You know, even if we had crude oil at a half the price it is today, and 1000 times the reserve, we still don't have the refining capacity to cover the increased demand.
Let's not forget social security, health care, education, home land security, the power grid, the struggling airline industry, etc, etc, etc.
While even these issues are not all monumentally huge, they are all far more important than what two consenting adults want to do on their own.
Conservatives need to fight the important fights, and I see gay marriage as a lose-lose battle for everyone.
The fact that Rosie O'Donnell has a wife, or my trying to change that relationship:
will not put food on my table for my children,
will not increase my business revenues,
will not bring the cost of gasoline down to a level where I can afford to travel more than 20 miles from home,
will not make our borders any more secure,
will help me pay my mortgage
will not allow my parents to spent their retirement funds on themselves instead of medication.
will not help me pay for a college education for four children.
I could go on and on.
Let's focus on truly important issues. This is not one of them, unless anyone can tell me how it impacts any of the above.
Unfortunately, we decriminalized adultery. I am all for the immediate extinction of "no fault" divorce. I am horrified that fellow Catholics come from all across the globe to have their marriages annulled here in the US because its easier to have it done here than anywhere else on earth. I'm disgusted with many US Catholic bishops for (among other things) allowing this to go on.
The government has no interest in seeing homosexuals stay together. It is irrelevant. The government does have an interest in the general moral sense of citizens. Gay marriage offends the moral and logical sense of most. It is contrary to our biological make-up and government has no obligation to endorse it. In fact, it has an obligation not to. Marriage is completely intertwined in the fabric of our government and culture. It is the foundational structure of human life, not just culture. A forced redefinition to satisfy the unnatural urges of a few is foolishness. Every orgasm is not owed a marriage license.
There was a time when the gays simply asked to be left to live their lives as they saw fit. The vast majority of Americans, even those who don't necessarily approve of that lifestyle for religious or other reasons, are willing to do that.
By asking for gay marraige, now the gay community wants not simply to be tolerated, but for society's approval and subsidy. Because that's what marraige is. Besides being a religious ceremony, it's society publicly approving and subsidizing a relationship. Marraiges are subsidized by society through the tax code, marraige and insurance benefits and other means.
We don't give this to heterosexual marraiges simply because we like of them more. Society encourages heterosexual marraiges because it has a stake in the success of those relationship. When a man and woman share a bed every night, eventually they produce children. And we've long since recognized that it is healthier for the children and, by extention for all of us, for them to grow up in a stable household with a mother and father. There is simply no substitute. Men bring things to the raising of children that women can't and vice versa. It's why up until recently, society has discouraged men and women living together without being married; because they don't have the committment of those who are married and children in that kind of household don't have the same kind of stability.
Gay marraiges cannot produce children. Society simply doesn't have any interest in whether gay relationships stand or fall. If a gay couple wants to share a household, nothing stops them. If they want to write each other into their wills, they can. If they want to have a ceremony to commemorate their realtionship, they are free to do so. And if a private company want to offer benefits to gay couples, well, it's their bottom line. But don't ask through government for the rest of us to subsidize and approve relationships we don't have any stake in the outcome of.
Remember when aborton was only allowed in the first trimester? Well lo and behold 30 years later we can't even agree on a law to make infantacide illegal. Once you start tampering with the moral underpinnings of a society such as respect for life, family and property then it's open season.
You're young and Californian, John.
In early America, sodomites were hung by their necks until they were dead. Adulterous Quaker witches (predecessors to present feminists) were tied to carttails and had the tops of their dresses pulled down. They were then beaten and sent out of town.
If our founders had found themselves in the current situation we have with activist, Californian Ideology judges, they would have pass the Marriage Amendment quickly. Thomas Jefferson, one of our two most left-thinking and immoral founders, only wanted homosexuals castrated.
To hell with "Outright" liberaltarian moves, and I've seen enough from the lilting Cali social left.
Furthermore, the assertion that tolerance of homosexuality in any form does not constitute a moral domino is itself a straw-man. The same argument has been made on topics such as pornography and prostitution since the early 1960's when increasing tolerance for amoral behavior began. Indeed, we can already see the next domino in the activities of organizations like NAMBLA. The slippery slope is very real and very, very steep.
The southern California and northeastern contingents have done nothing more than shoot fathers' rights in the foot and hold us back.
And the Libertarian Party, in lack of effect, doesn't exist.
Mr Phillips is quite correct.
Gayness is taxonomically invisible.