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To Save Traditional Marriage, End State Involvement in Marriage (Bingo)
Townhall.com ^ | March 20, 2013 | Ben Shapiro

Posted on 03/20/2013 5:57:00 AM PDT by Kaslin

Within the next few months, Justice Anthony Kennedy will likely rule that same-sex marriage is mandated by the Constitution of the United States. The ruling will offend both common sense and Constitutional law. But it will nonetheless become the law of the land. With it, states will be forced to recognize same-sex marriages; same-sex marriage will enter the public school lexicon; religious institutions will be forced to recognize same-sex marriages or lose their tax-exempt status. Religious Americans will be forced into violating their beliefs or facing legal consequences by the government. The First Amendment's guarantee of religious liberty will largely become obsolete.

There is only one way to stop this development: Get the government out of the business of marriage. Right now.

States and localities originally gave tax benefits and crafted specific legal systems in order to incentivize Americans to get married and have children within the context of marriage. But those legal institutions have been undermined over the past several decades by a culture that degrades marriage and child rearing. Incentive structures that used to provide the cherry on top of good moral decision-making no longer matter enough to drive such decision-making.

That gap between culture and the legal system has led to a cycle of defining deviancy down, with government taking the lead. The view of the value of marriage in American life changed in the 1950's and 1960's; the left used that cultural shift in order to legitimize no-fault divorce laws, legal custody and child support arrangements that incentivized divorce and social welfare systems that incentivized unwed motherhood.

The last bastion of the old value system was the state's approval of traditional marriage. But thanks to a decades-long cultural shift away from marriage, the left is now in position to use the levers of government to redefine the institution once and for all -- and in the process, destroy the American religious culture that under-girds American freedom.

Unlike the movement to retract laws restricting sexual behavior, the same-sex marriage movement has never been about freedom in any real sense. The push for same-sex marriage is not about wanting freedom to copulate; same-sex copulation has been effectively legal in this country for decades, and formally legal since Lawrence v. Texas (2003). The push for same-sex marriage is not about wanting legal benefits available to heterosexual couples; same-sex couples are largely able to make contractual arrangements to achieve those benefits, and in many states, civil unions equate legally with marriage.

The push for same-sex marriage is about placing the power of government in direct opposition to traditional religious viewpoints.

And conservatives cannot stop that push unless they are willing to restrict government power. Conservatism has always been about preventing the power of government from invading the lives of citizens. Leftism has always been about using the power of government to restrict the behavior of others. It is time for conservatives to recognize the reality of their situation, realize the dangers inherent in their insistence on government interventionism and act quickly.

Getting the government out of marriage would mean voluntary lifestyle arrangements governed by contract -- a practice that has roots stretching back millennia. Religious people would not be forced by the state to approve behavior they find morally problematic. They would not have to worry about their children being taught about such behavior. Conservatives would be forced to rebuild a culture of marriage rather than focusing on a crumbling legal bulwark.

Conservatives lost the culture. Then they lost the law. They can only regain traditional values by removing legal coercion and incentivization from the table -- the left will never hesitate to use those means -- and focusing once again on the raising and production of children within a culture of traditional morality.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: civilrights; faithandfamily; gaymarriage; homosexualagenda; libertarians; marriage; socialliberals; trolls
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To: Kaslin
The ruling will offend both common sense and Constitutional law. But it will nonetheless become the law of the land.

Mr. Shapiro has apparently never read the Constitution. Because in Article One, Section 1, law-making power is granted only to the legislative branch. The courts do NOT make law.

This article is part of the mass Republican surrender to the coup d'etat that is attempting to turn our constitutional republican form of representative self-government into a judicial oligarchy.

To put it bluntly, Shapiro and those who are taking this position are Quislings.

21 posted on 03/20/2013 6:42:47 AM PDT by EternalVigilance (Go ahead and violate the laws of nature. But nature and nature's God will have the last word.)
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To: MrB

Well - that’s not what I said.

Government should have no interest in marriage.


22 posted on 03/20/2013 6:44:12 AM PDT by privatedrive
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To: theBuckwheat

I’m not so sure Kennedy will rule that same sex marriage is a basic right.

First, that requires finding that marriage is a right, and by definition, it cannot be since it requires two cooperating individuals. How does a single person demand his/her right to marriage? Does the government find some partner and force that person to marry the other?

Second, that also requires finding that the government has some compelling interest in “marriage” and what that interest is. As this article points out, government isn’t really necessary for marriage to take place. Anyone can pledge undying devotion to another at any time and any place without any government involvement whatsoever.

Therefore, the basis of the government’s involvement must logically provide some benefit to the government. The only benefit involvement in marriage provides to the state has to do with government’s interest in the rearing of the next generation of human beings, and that means its interest is in potentially procreative persons.

That pretty much includes any heterosexual union from teens to 60’s. It is purely convention that elders marrying in their 70’s receive marital concessions from the government.

HOWEVER, it makes more sense to deny that government support to those past any possibility of procreativity than it does to provide it to any couple which totally lacks any procreative potential whatsoever.

Third, children have an absolutely vested interest (a right?) to be reared by their biological parents, since that bonding and that interest has been shown throughout history to be the best working means of providing for the balanced social upbringing of children.


23 posted on 03/20/2013 6:44:36 AM PDT by xzins (Retired Army Chaplain and Proud of It! True supporters of our troops pray for their victory!)
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To: Kaslin

The radical homosexual activists literally stand and cheer when they hear those who have been infected by the Libertarian Ron Paul disease take a “leave it to the states” position on marriage. Because they know without a doubt that their divide and conquer tactics have worked, and that they have won.

The institution of marriage MUST be protected at every level of governance. It’s a fundamental moral matter, but it is also a matter of national, physical survival.


24 posted on 03/20/2013 6:48:07 AM PDT by EternalVigilance (Go ahead and violate the laws of nature. But nature and nature's God will have the last word.)
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To: privatedrive

Traditional marriage is inextricably linked to stable society. Do you care to deny that?


25 posted on 03/20/2013 6:50:16 AM PDT by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
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To: privatedrive
Government should have no interest in marriage.

Nonsense. Natural marriage and the natural family are essential to the very survival of the nation.

That's why the ultimate stated purpose of the United States Constitution is:

"To secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves AND OUR POSTERITY."

26 posted on 03/20/2013 6:50:50 AM PDT by EternalVigilance (Go ahead and violate the laws of nature. But nature and nature's God will have the last word.)
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To: MrB

No sir I do not deny that at all.

My position is strictly regarding the legality or constitutionally of government involvement in marriage.

When we start straying from constitutionality, and make laws because we believe something, without regard to constitutionality - well that’s when we get into trouble (and start sounding like leftists).

I stand by my statement: Government should have no interest in marriage.


27 posted on 03/20/2013 6:54:26 AM PDT by privatedrive
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To: EternalVigilance

To follow your logic: Government should mandate marriage for everyone. Divorce should be illegal. As you say: nonsense.


28 posted on 03/20/2013 6:57:38 AM PDT by privatedrive
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To: theBuckwheat
Curiously, when advocates of gay marriage are asked if their policy also would allow polygamy or polyandry, they recoil in horror and insist that it does not. However, logic demands that it does.

Absolutely correct. And if you look at sheer numbers, polygamy is far more prevalent (in most of the Muslim world) than gay unions (in isolated whack-job pockets of the liberal west).

I don't know how common polyandry actually is, but there would be no legal recourse to disallow it either in an equality uber alles society which sanctions gay marriage.

This reminds me of an old joke. A sociologist decides to maroon three sets of nationalities, British, French and Russian on separate deserted islands to see how they behave.

Each set consists of two men and a woman in their mid 20s.

He checks back six months later to see how they are doing.

The Brits are living in separate sections of the island. The scientist asks what is wrong. "We haven't been properly introduced," they reply.

The French are living in the same grass hut with nothing but a curtain dividing the single guy from the living quarters of the fornicating couple. The scientist is intrigued and asks how they decided which man got the woman. "Oh, we share her on alternating nights", reply the men. "The arrangement works wonderfully and both of us are needed to satisfy her frequent sexual needs!"

Last stop is the island with the Russians. Both the men are in the hut, drunk as skunks on homemade liquior and busy making more. The woman is hitched up to a plow outside in the heat cultivating a vegetable garden. Neither of the men is sober enough to talk about sex, or anything else for that matter. And the woman refuses to do so.

29 posted on 03/20/2013 6:59:17 AM PDT by Vigilanteman (Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
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To: theBuckwheat
The fact that this will be an issue will show yet again that gay “marriage” is not about marriage at all it is about forcing the rest of us to approve of repugnant sexual immorality, something that LDS polygamists never demanded.

I keep asking everyone, on this forum and in my professional and personal life. What do they really want?

I think you have hit it, they want us to denounce 6,000 years of one man and one woman with God being the only true marriage. They will not stop with their homosexual "marriage" victory. They will spend the next decades cramming it down all of our throats, forcing our churches to accept them , marry them, celebrate them and most importantly they want to hear us denounce God and His commands on homosexuality.

30 posted on 03/20/2013 6:59:47 AM PDT by thirst4truth (www.Believer.com)
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To: privatedrive

The Constitution is not a suicide pact.

Make no mistake: The homosexual movement will completely destroy this country. Spiritually, morally, governmentally, and ultimately, physically.

Constitutional republican self-government cannot co-exist with the abrogation of the laws of nature and of nature’s God.

It’s one or the other. Can’t be both.

So, pick a side.


31 posted on 03/20/2013 7:06:00 AM PDT by EternalVigilance (Go ahead and violate the laws of nature. But nature and nature's God will have the last word.)
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To: privatedrive

That’s just silly. A government founded upon the moral basis that makes liberty possible, and still operating thereby, isn’t going to force anyone to marry. Even though it is in the existential interest of that government that people do so.


32 posted on 03/20/2013 7:13:16 AM PDT by EternalVigilance (Go ahead and violate the laws of nature. But nature and nature's God will have the last word.)
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To: EternalVigilance

Verrry Interesting....

Pick a side: God or the Constitution?

Hmmmmm......

Well - when it comes to the LAW - I’ll pick the Constitution.

When we start to make laws based on our personal beliefs, rather than our Constitution, then we go down the road of Lefties, Dictators and Terrorists.


33 posted on 03/20/2013 7:15:23 AM PDT by privatedrive
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To: sickoflibs

I don’t think that Maryland is the only state were taxes are going up when both husband and wife work. I remember when both my husband and I were younger and I worked also, we ended up having to pay instead of getting a refund.


34 posted on 03/20/2013 7:15:31 AM PDT by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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To: privatedrive

Government should have no interest in marriage,
as long as those consenting to be governed by said government

have no interest in promoting a stable society.


35 posted on 03/20/2013 7:15:48 AM PDT by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
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To: EternalVigilance

Sounds like you agree with me: Government should have no involvement in marriage. You can’t have it both ways.


36 posted on 03/20/2013 7:17:44 AM PDT by privatedrive
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To: Responsibility2nd
This is satire to you?

WTH?

37 posted on 03/20/2013 7:20:02 AM PDT by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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To: MrB

So therefore: Anything that the government believes will “promote a stable society” is Legal and Constitutional?

Again - this is the thinking of The Left.

Is that a 32oz Coke on your desk?


38 posted on 03/20/2013 7:21:57 AM PDT by privatedrive
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To: privatedrive
Without God there is no Constitution. There is no America. You're gravely mistaken.

“While our country remains untainted with the principles and manners which are now producing desolation in so many parts of the world; while she continues sincere, and incapable of insidious and impious policy, we shall have the strongest reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned us by Providence. But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation [that is, hypocrisy] towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation while it is practicing iniquity and extravagance, and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candor, frankness, and sincerity, while it is rioting in rapine and insolence, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world; because we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

-- John Adams, "letter to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, October 11, 1798," in Works of John Adams, vol. 9 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1854), 228-229.


39 posted on 03/20/2013 7:25:31 AM PDT by EternalVigilance (Go ahead and violate the laws of nature. But nature and nature's God will have the last word.)
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To: Kaslin

Satire. Or Stupidity. Your call.

But read Shapiro’s first paragraph again. This “We have to destroy the Village in order to save it” rhetoric is absurd.


40 posted on 03/20/2013 7:26:46 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd (NO LIBS. This Means Liberals and (L)libertarians! Same Thing. NO LIBS!!)
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