Connecticut: State Supreme Court says same-sex couples can marry

The Danbury News Times/The Associated Press ^ | October 10, 2008

[manc]

LOL

how sad and really stupid that the homosexual felt the need to come on here with different names and try to lecture us about marriage.

Thankfully Admin booted them off

[Yardstick]

ie the exercising of rights available to the rest of the population.

Can two straight men or two straight women get married in Connecticut? I don't think so. And if not, then no right is being denied to gays, since the straight population doesn't have that right either.

Ultimately it comes down to this: the right that homosexuals seek isn't the right to marry, but rather the right to determine how society defines marriage -- and they don't have a right to that. It's important to frame the argument correctly.

Now it is true that while society has the right to define marriage, it doesn't have the right to define it in a way that denies someone their rights. This is why the miscegenation laws were rightly overturned by the courts. Those laws reflected a definition of marriage that took race into account, and it is a violation of rights to judge people by race.

The gay marriage crowd will then say that defining marriage according to sex is no different than defining it according to race, that these are an equivalent violation of civil rights, but they are wrong. The difference is that whereas race does not determine behavior, sex does -- especially the behavior known as "having and raising children", which society has a particular interest in. Since society has a right to make laws based on behavior, and since sex determines behavior, it may define marriage according to sex.

Therefore, society has a right to define marriage as between a man and a woman. Such a definition does not violate the rights of gays, and gays don't have a right to change it.

[Antoninus]

Could you clarify what exactly you mean here by "shun"? I mean, obviously, you can look away when these people pass you on the street, spit to the side, refuse to allow them entry to your home or business, etc. Is there anything else you would like to be doing but, at this time, cannot?

What world do you live in, exactly? Here's what I mean by "shun":

I'd like to be able to raise my children without constantly worrying that they will be exposed to homosexual content on television and movies.

I'd like to be able to volunteer at my Church and not have to undergo a criminal background check to make sure I'm not a homosexual predator.

I'd like to be able to send my children to a public school where I don't have to worry that they're being indoctrinated into the homo-positive agenda.

I'd like to be able to publicly oppose the homosexual agenda without being charged with a crime.

I'd like for my town council to be able to decide if it wants a gay "bookstore" to open up on Main Street without being subject to ACLU lawsuits and the intervention of the courts.

Basically, I'd like my local community to be able to govern itself on issues of morality without having immorality forced upon us by tyrannical state and federal courts. It's called federalism. Perhaps you're familiar with it?

I don't think that's too much to ask.

[manc]

agree with all of that, not sure why I got asked but yes I agree with you ALL THE WAY.

as for the other two I can only think they are trolling

[PureSolace]

Why do gays want to get married again?

[Antoninus]

Ignoring for the moment the existence of numerous systems of Natural Law (Aristotelian, Christian, Islamic, Hobbesian, and so on) which don't necessarily agree with one another,

Strangely enough, I think all of those systems of Natural Law (even that of Aristotle) would agree that the notion of a man marrying another man is contrary to nature. Even the Greeks recognized that a catamite was not a spouse and that he would eventually become a man and need a wife. The only one in antiquity who tried the "man and husband" arrangement was Nero--and he had very few defenders, ancient or modern.

[Mark Bahner]

“Can two straight men or two straight women get married in Connecticut? I don’t think so. And if not, then no right is being denied to gays, since the straight population doesn’t have that right either.”

That was the same argument used to try to justify why bans on inter-racial marriages were constitutional.

[Yardstick]

That was the same argument used to try to justify why bans on inter-racial marriages were constitutional.

And it's a lousy argument when used to try to justify inter-racial marriage. However, it's a good argument when used to justify hetero-only marriage. This is because race and sex have the fundamental difference that whereas race does not determine behavior, sex does. And since society has a right to make laws that regulate behavior, society has the right to make distinctions based on sex. (I made these points in my last post, btw.)

This is why it's okay to have men's and women's bathrooms, but not black and white bathrooms. If sex were identical to race in terms of civil rights, then "separate but equal" bathroom accommodations for the sexes would be just as wrong as separate but equal accommodations for the races. But obviously that's not the case.

For similar reasons, whereas society does not have a right to define marriage according to race, it does have a right to define it according to sex.

[Yardstick]

Correction:

And it's a lousy argument when used to try to justify laws against inter-racial marriage.

[Claud]

Ignoring for the moment the existence of numerous systems of Natural Law (Aristotelian, Christian, Islamic, Hobbesian, and so on) which don't necessarily agree with one another, I'm curious: Is slavery compatible with Natural Law? Is polygamy? Both of these things have ample biblical, cultural, and historical grounding.

I'm no expert on these areas, but I feel confident at least saying that they are, if opposed to the natural law, less opposed than homosexuality--or at least people must have felt so, because as you mention they were fairly prevalent once upon a time.

Slavery is a particularly complicated moral question. I remember reading an account of the settlement of the Carolinas around 1670-1680: the Westo Indians were selling captives acquired in war to the Carolina slave mart. It was justified at the time by saying they would have horribly tortured and killed these war captives otherwise. But the Westo ran afoul of the Carolina authorities by waging war on peaceful and friendly tribes for the sole purpose of taking slaves--which was pretty roundly held to be immoral.