Posted on 06/13/2010 2:38:39 PM PDT by Recovering_Democrat
Nearly a century after the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, the Supreme Court unanimously affirmed that "marriage is one of the 'basic civil rights of man.' " That 1967 case, Loving v. Virginia, ended bans on interracial marriage in the 16 states that still had such laws.
Now, 43 years after Loving, the courts are once again grappling with denial of equal marriage rights — this time to gay couples. We believe that a society respectful of individual liberty must end this unequal treatment under the law.
(Excerpt) Read more at cato.org ...
This is one of those times.
Societies that did not place boundaries around sexuality were stymied in their development. The subsequent dominance of the Western world can largely be attributed to the sexual revolution initiated by Judaism and later carried forward by Christianity.
This revolution consisted of forcing the sexual genie into the marital bottle. It ensured that sex no longer dominated society, heightened male-female love and sexuality (and thereby almost alone created the possibility of love and eroticism within marriage), and began the arduous task of elevating the status of women. (snip)
“That doesn’t sound libertarian to me.”
Certainly not - but they look at it the way most of us looked at Communism the first time, and then quickly outgrew.
They see an ideal road pricing scheme as the end of traffic jams and, ideally, having exactly the same traffic at 4 AM as 4 PM...if you set the incentives right.
That’s all fine and dandy (just like the equality of Communism), but getting there is the hard part - and is spreading out the traffic better for a society than building more highway lanes? I don’t think so - I don’t want to be dropping off junior at school at 1AM and then go to work at 3 PM to help them with their glorious quest.
The reason libertarianism is a political failure is because the main motivation for the “movement” is “I want what I want, and I want everyone to leave me alone”.
Political movements are built by selfless true believers who are willing to sacrifice to see it through. If the only reason you’re part of a movement is self-interest, the minute you face difficult opposition that requires much work to over come, the inconvenience of it offsets what you hoped to gain and you give up.
“Women should be very worried. Dennis Prager quote:
Societies that did not place boundaries around sexuality were stymied in their development. The subsequent dominance of the Western world can largely be attributed to the sexual revolution initiated by Judaism and later carried forward by Christianity.
This revolution consisted of forcing the sexual genie into the marital bottle. It ensured that sex no longer dominated society, heightened male-female love and sexuality (and thereby almost alone created the possibility of love and eroticism within marriage), and began the arduous task of elevating the status of women. (snip) “
AWESOME. When you think of the Pacific Island societies, for example - they simply stalled dead in their tracks, with this Cato lifestyle.
If the government can prohibit the marriage of minors, close relatives, and multiple partners, it can prohibit the “marriage” of same-sex couples. There is no “unequal application of the law” here. All men — regardless of sexual orientation — are prohibited from marrying other men. As are all women from marrying other women.
Two gay people can already form legal constructs identical to marriage. They just have to hire a lawyer to do it. And when they want a "divorce" they'll hire lawyers again.
This fervent desire to "marry" is bogus. It's an attempt to force gestures of validation from those who disapprove of homosexuality.
Hey, Cato, do we no longer have the freedom to disapprove?
Seems to me the libertarian position would be to get the gov’t out of the institution of marriage, leaving it up to folks’ faiths. Gov’t involvement hasn’t been good for the institution of marriage, in my opinion. Like most thing gov’t is involved with, it eventually screwed it up.
Freegards
100% agree with you Recovering Democrat
What is his stand on polygamists? Do they not have the same rights?
Not advocating for that, just trying to illustrate the ramifications of such reasoning.
Polyandy and Polyamorists, too, should be allowed to “marry” according to his logic. Also adult relatives.
It is a behavior that is destructive to the family unit, demeans the relationship between a man and woman which unites the sexes and gives their baby the natural right to be raised by a biological mother and biological father.
It should not be promoted by government because it goes against Natural Law....which our country is based on. I would say it is unconstitutional because as Cicero said thousands of years ago.......Laws that go against Natural Law are unjust. It is that simple.
Homosexuality is sexist....eliminates the need for the opposite sex, so it is discriminatory besides being unnatural. Homosexuals are sexist bigots and intolerant and are trying to make hate speech laws that silence Christians and other people of true faith or rewrite the Bible.
Our Bill of Rights gives us freedom of religion and the homosexuals are destroying our rights to raise moral, religious children because they force "tolerance" (sin pride) in the public schools which is nothing but indoctrination into that lifestyle. It is unnatural and has to be learned by grooming young boys into the lifestyle so they become confused about their sexual identity and morality. It is a learned behavior. It goes hand in hand with child abuse--don't be fooled.
Loving v. Virginia was about anti-miscegenation laws. Such laws were ruled to be a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, because such laws were about a status. You can't realistically change your race (Michael Jackson was never realistic about anything), but you can choose with whom you want to have sex (subject to the other person's consent).
If gay marriage is permitted nationwide, marriage will become a joke. The polygamists will call for legalization of plural marriages and they will easily win. At that point whole groups of people will marry one another for the government benefits (imagine a marriage consisting of 24 men and women). After that, State governments will save money by ceasing to recognize any marriage.
That's the point of all of this. They want to destroy marriage by making it a cultural joke and removing its special place in the law.
What's wrong with a good old-fashioned marriage of one guy and 50 to 100 women?
The purpose of marriage is to encourage and promote safe home lives for kids. Nothing more. Since when to gay adults need that?
Civil Marriage has been the greatest invention of the last millennium! It has ensured that women and children, abandoned by unscrupulous men, are able to avail themselves of a legal, governmental resolution mechanism without resorting to familial retribution or falling into destitution. By providing legal protection of inheritance rights it has prevented much premeditated sexual/financial fraud and abuse within society. It's stabilizing force exerted on modern family life may very well be a major source of the economic growth of the last 500 years!
Many folks see it as just another lousy government contract that can be broken and resumed as long as government says so. Also, many seem to be conditioned think that marriage comes from the govenment, to the point they easily accept impossibilities like “gay marriage” as long as the governmnet says it can exist.
Do you think a piece of paper from the gov’t makes two people married? Who is more married, a man and a woman who are married in their faith or two men with a piece of paper from the government?
If marriage was controlled by folk’s faiths, I don’t think that so many would accept the impossibility of “gay marriage” today.
Freegards
Ditto. Perhaps there is a reason that Washington insiders call it the Gayto Institute. I used to go to excellent lunchtime lectures, but it’s been at least fifteen years since I last went.
FWIW the only person I've ever known to work there "plays for the other team", as we used to say.
Has CATO been absorbed by the gay borg?
AWESOME. When you think of the Pacific Island societies, for example - they simply stalled dead in their tracks, with this Cato lifestyle.>>>>>>>>>>>
Thor Heyerdahl and his wife moved to a small Pacific Island and found out how screwed up it was. They left what they had thought would be a utopia for them for a few years. Heyerdahl wrote a book about it
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