Posted on 08/05/2010 5:41:02 PM PDT by Maelstorm
Let's look at how the gay-marriage thing in California has unfolded so far:
The state’s Supreme Court in 2008, on a one-vote margin, decides to redefine marriage to dump one key parameter that had always and everywhere in human history been part of marriage: that it be between complementary sexes, not identical ones.
Within months, the voters of the state overrule the court, amending their constitution to say that, no, you can’t redefine basic social institutions against the will of the people. The losers sue the state.
And Wednesday, a federal judge – a judge, as in one – overrules the people, ruling, among other things, that “gender no longer forms an essential part of marriage.” It doesn’t?
Gay “marriage” advocates cheered, of course, saying it’s a great advance for equality. Ask yourself, however, this: What changed, precisely, because of the decision (presume, for a moment, that all appeals courts agree with Judge Vaughn Walker).
Does this, as gay “marriage” advocates often say, remove some impediment to their preferred relationships?
No, it doesn’t. The fight isn’t about the freedom to love, since the law says nothing (nor should it) about who can love whom, a fundamentally private matter.
Does this change practicalities, such as the right to co-own a house or leave legacies to a gay lover?
No, it does not. Even in places that, like Wisconsin, have not redefined marriage, one may make wills, mortgages, adoptions, benefits arrangements and the like with whom one wants. For its part, California had civil unions carrying all the benefits of marriage.
Does this alter the ability to a couple to tell each other they’ll be faithful unto death, of one flesh, as married couples (ideally) do?
No. People have always been able to say and mean whatever they wish to each other. Again, the law has no say in such private matters.
Does this allow gay couples to be regarded as if they were married by friends? Does it allow acquaintances to think of long-time lovers as being married?
Again, no. People have long done this, and some churches have long been blessing such couples. That’s their right, of course. They require no judge to do so.
Does this mean that everyone else, including especially perfect strangers, must also now grant gay relationships the same unique and special public respect that until now society has always and everywhere reserved for married couples?
Yes, it does. That’s what the decision was exactly about: Commanding society to view homosexual relationships with a favor that society has been unwilling to grant.
Don’t take my word: As the New York Times explained it, gay-rights activists have increasingly sought same-sex marriage not simply to “lessen discrimination” but also as “an emotional indicator of legitimacy.” The paper quoted one activist as saying that to not redefined marriage “is to deny respect for the essence of who we are as gay people.”
Which is why the state’s civil unions, which conferred the practical benefits of marriage, weren’t enough: They sealed the relationship privately, while only marriage itself could mandate public approbation.
Gay-marriage backers constantly mock an idea they cannot grasp, that redefining marriage will damage it. What – they say – suddenly you’ll love your wife less? Obviously not, but as established a few paragraphs back, marriage isn’t a private affair. Its strength as a social institution – as the relationship at the core of the family – has certainly been damaged, too, by the explosion in divorce, but that’s no reason, either, to euthanize the whole thing.
The reason gay “marriage” damages marriage is not because it changes individual couple’s relationships but because it commands us all to accord as much respect to homosexual relations as society always has done to genuine marriage. Insofar as many people, by their own varied moral reasoning, freely choose to see homosexual relationships as somehow disordered, they will respond to this mandate, then, by according less respect to traditional marriage.
Early research shows this is how it actually works, just as easy divorce, while not necessarily changing any individual couple’s relationship, nonetheless reduces the social expectation that marriage is permanent. If marriage often amounts to a temporary thing, then people see it so even when it comes to couples who seek permanence.
If this is so (and I think the evidence shows it is), then Judge Walker’s decision will have won for gay couples an “emotional indicator” of a "legitimacy" that will rapidly diminish to meaninglessness.
Meanwhile: Paul Mirengoff sees collateral damage:
“Judge Walker's decision is the fruit of a lengthy process through which an eilite within the legal profession has worked tirelessly in an effort to blur, hopelessly, the distinction between the law and personal preferences of that elite. If the decision stands, its main impact will be a diminution, probably past the tipping point, of public confidence in the law and the courts.”
And: Orin Kerr at Volokh sees Walker as having missed entirely the rationality is society not wanting to have too-rapid change imposed on it.
And: Kathryn Jean Lopez talks to Dan Brown of the National Organization for Marriage, who tells of the violence and hate that defenders of traditional marriage have encountered. He outlines what’s at stake:
“Gay marriage has consequences. The goal of this movement is to use the law to reshape the culture so that disagreement with their views on sex and marriage gets stigmatized and repressed like bigotry. Children will be taught, whether parents like it or not, that traditional faith communities’ views on marriage are based on hatred and bigotry. In the new America they are attempting to build, core civil rights will be sacrificed for imaginary ones that will then be used to exclude most religious people and institutions from the public square. We are already seeing the beginnings of this great purge in the academy, and it will march from there through professional licensing and institutions in ways that will affect a great many people.”
regardless ...I am not ready to explain this to my grandson.
How about: “Government has become a laughingstock” doesn’t just happen in fairy tales, my lad.
Traditional marriage proponents need to start referring to it by its full title: “holy matrimony.”
That would put a quick end to any claim by homosexual couples.
What it is about is the end of “the consent of the governed.”
Exactly why must the government get into the business of promoting relationships of any kind? How about eliminating the differences in the tax code and other areas of law between married and single folk? All this goes away in an instant the moment the government gets its nose out of this area of life where they have no business (just like about 4 million other areas of our lives that they have no proper authoity to be involved in).
When it comes to any law, terms such as ‘love’, ‘happiness’, etc, have no relevance. This is simply a matter of defining standards of contracts and measure (in this case, standardized meanings of terms and definitions on the contract).
I personally believe the tax code should be simplified. I don’t believe in rewarding someone or hurting someone with the tax code however that is irrespective of whether it is constitutional for the govt to license marriage as originally defined and not generic unions and call them marriage.
The judges ruling is crap and while I support less of a role of govt in my life govt supporting marriage as it has always been and rationally defined is not high on my list of oppression. What I do see as oppressive is those who would intimidate and deprive me of liberty because of my very valid and reasoned opinions concerning one form of “sexual” behavior.
Several Constitutional arguments can be made around being authorized to define standards and measure (in this case a uniform definition of terms) and in regulating naturalization (as citizenship is tied to directly to birthright, parentage, and marriage.)
The US needs to reexamine the role of the Fed in family life. I suspect the ‘tax perks’ for the traditional family has run its course.
How come nobody makes the argument that we want to encourage traditional marriage, as a society.
1. There is a cost to marriage. Ask any guy. There has to be rewards to compensate.
2. We (used to, anyway) want as a society to limit the number of unclaimed children underfoot. Having a stable family structure was a big help here.
3. Despite all the fake studies to the contrary, children need both a mother and a father. Only the willfully blind think that other arrangements are just as good.
So society decided to give special privileges to man and wife marriage. Sorry, other types of marriage do not help us.
If I were granted Carte Blanche over the way we do taxes on the federal level here’s what I’d do:
An individual* income tax set to a universal fixed and uniform rate of 10% [for ease of calculation] with no exceptions, exemptions, credits, or write-offs which would be charged/billed semi-annually {NO WITHHOLDING}.
{*Individual because that would necessarily keep churches, which are not individuals from being taxed; pastors, however, are individuals. It would also keep corporations from being taxed on their profit/incomes/”capital gains” allowing them to R&D... which they will have to employ [more] INDIVIDUALS for.}
The public school will make sure that your young grandson will understand that two men can have sex in preschool and K. Now they have the law behind them to start the brainwashing and indoctrination with Sesame Street and with full force now. The Day of Silence was indoctrination also and their sex education classes that the homosexual “safe” school czar will sexualize those in Kindergarten—start them to think about what they could be doing with their you know what.
It is the sickest thing in the world, what these selfish homosexuals are trying to do to children’s thinking. The radicals are doing it on purpose, so when these little kids grow up they will approve of that lifestyle. They will also dabble in it because it is learned and they will be conditioned.
It will make religion obsolete (paganism and orgies acceptable....there will be no sexual morality—how could there be).
Communism wants a Brave New World with no parental controls over children....they want the natural family to be obsolete because biological relationships create loyalty and groups that could be strong enough to oppose the State.
It is the NWO to abolish revealed religions. Very Sad...because the Christian paradigm creates the most egalitarian societies where EVERYONE has worth, esp. women, who never have equality when marriage is not protected by state. With polygamy (which is next) women are always marginalized and second class citizens.
I think all tax perks and penalties should be eliminated. Now this doesn’t mean I think we should raise taxes. I think we should start at a 15% flat tax across board and shrink the govt to match it. However the constitutionality of preserving marriage licensing in the context of normal heterosexual “monogamous” relationships is not unconstitutional nor has it ever been nor would anyone who created the constitution or participated in the passage of the amendments have assumed any such thing. If they had dreamed this kind of mess would be possible they would have written the supremacy of heterosexual marriage into the constitution as an obvious fact.
Good point and marriage should be encouraged and the govt is completely constitutional in encouraging it. The problem we face today is that fringe sexuality has been given equal ground with heterosexual monogamy which is stupid and irrational but that is the world we live in. There is also no good reason to reward homosexuality.
bullshit!!
No one can ever make me accept queers in any way under any circumstances!
the future looks bleak indeed..
5700+ years of Jewish and Christian civilization define marriage for me. Gays are supremely arrogant to defy this. Judaism was a rebellion against paganism which included the sexually bizarre including sanctioning homosexuality. Gays are just a pimple on the ass of our civilization and its history
You nailed it.
Biology defines it for me. Homosexuality is illogical and unreasoned. Most of those who are homosexual have either been abused or have some form of sexual retardation or maladjustment. It is not something to be encouraged.
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