Posted on 10/21/2004 1:24:03 PM PDT by Agitate
bump
liberalslayer wrote,"I think you're missing my point. That federal government involvement in marriage is unnecessary and unwarranted. As I stated earlier, marriage is a personal and normally religious ceremony. As far as the government is concerned, they need to know (marriage) for citizenship and tax reasons. Yes, I'm aware we're talking semantics here, but if we're talking government, then we're talking all unions are technically civil unions. That is my point."
But govt. involvement is necessary becuase it is not just a personal or religious event. The idea of marriage bestows rights which are federally enforced in the Constitution for examples citizenship. You can not seperate them. We cant just pick and choose the elements to the Constitution we would like enforced (unless your a liberal judge of course).
Maybe you are correct in that this issue should be left with our churches but, what are you going to do when the LEFT shoves their agenda down your throat?
liberalslayer wrote,"I think you're missing my point. That federal government involvement in marriage is unnecessary and unwarranted. As I stated earlier, marriage is a personal and normally religious ceremony. As far as the government is concerned, they need to know (marriage) for citizenship and tax reasons. Yes, I'm aware we're talking semantics here, but if we're talking government, then we're talking all unions are technically civil unions. That is my point."
But govt. involvement is necessary becuase it is not just a personal or religious event. The idea of marriage bestows rights which are federally enforced in the Constitution for examples citizenship. You can not seperate them. We cant just pick and choose the elements to the Constitution we would like enforced (unless your a liberal judge of course).
I stated the citizenship issue in my response! Governments involvement is a CIVIL issue, NOT a personal/religious one.
Maybe you are correct in that this issue should be left with our churches but, what are you going to do when the LEFT shoves their agenda down your throat?
No pun intended I hope. Good point. With Rehnquist possibly retiring/dying over the next four years it is now imperative that Bush is elected. I would hate a liberal-dominated court.
This is the point I don't understand about the entire gay rights thing. I don't flaunt my heteorsexuality in public. Why does the gay rights crowd feel they need to flaunt their sexual choice? I don't want to know and don't care....and the government shouldn't care either.
So? Your point?
For the umpteenth time, marriage has never been just two people doing whatever they like. It is and has always been a solemn contract with lifelong obligations backed up by societal coercion. That is what marriage is. That is what it has always been.
In a society of one church, marriage was enforced by the coercion of being expelled from the church and therefore from civilized human society. In a society of fixed social relations and lifelong reputations, marriage was enforced by the coercion of disgrace, ostracism, and socioeconomic ruin. In a patriarchal society, marriage was enforced by the guns and swords of the woman's male kinsmen. The state is in the marriage business because excommunication, black balling, and violently upholding the honore di familia no longer exist in a modern, diverse society. As I keep saying, the only way libertarian attitudes towards marriage could ever work is if you had a closed monocultural society in which excommunication, ostracism, and duelling for provided the element of physical and societal coercion that without which, marriage and society will disintegrate.
And for the umpteenth time it belongs in the realm of religion, NOT the state.
And, as ever, what the libertarian refuses to comprehend is that the expansion of the state was created not by some liberal conspiracy, but by civil society asking it to do what clan, church, and tradition no longer can because we no longer live in closed worlds. The fewer traditions you have, the weaker the "code of conduct", the more laws you have to have.
Let's see if we can help you understand this. Let's take for instance laws against stalking. It was not possible to stalk a pre-liberated woman because there was no way past a phalanx of chaperones and her male kinsmen. But once women are liberated and on their own, without their male kinsmen controlling their lives, the downside to their freedom is that that bodyguard of male kinsmen to protect them from bad men is no longer there. So single women look to the state and sexual harrassment laws to afford them patriarchal protections but without Father running their lives.
You ramble about "holding people responsible for their actions", ignoring the fact that civil society asks the law to do this because it no longer can do so through ostracism, excommunication, duelling, or fear of "what the neighbors will say". You flatly ignore the vital cultural role of naked coercion (no society has ever rested on airy, sentimental appeals to "personal responsibility") in controlling anti-social behavior. Marriage has always been backed up by coercion and always will be because it is that important to society, so rambling about how it is purely a matter of religion ignores post-Pleistocene human cultural development. So it is ridiculous to talk about "taking government out of the marriage business".
And Republicans refuse to acknowledge is that we are increasingly a "nanny" state. I should be shocked that not only do you endorse this philosophy, but you believe it is a requirement of a "civil society."
Stalking DOES harm another so your justification for the more laws has little weight.
In terms of laws that govern PERSONAL behavior, the government has become increasingly more intrusive. You're willing to give up not only your freedom but the freedom of others. Society CAN hold people responsible for personal behavior, but government intrusiveness has denied us that ability...and your solution? More government.
Suffice it to say, we agree to disagree.
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