Posted on 03/27/2013 8:34:29 AM PDT by smoothsailing
March 27, 2013
By DAN CALABRESE - The Office of the Public Spouse.
I can't totally take credit for this one because it came about in a discussion between Rob and me yesterday. Those discussions, if you were to read them, would often present a rather disturbing look inside our two brains.
Anyway, we both agree that gay marriage cannot be an equal rights issue for the simple reason that no one has a right to get married. Marriage is a union freely entered into between two parties. Gay or straight, no one can be married unless another person freely agrees to enter into the union with them. That means, by definition, marriage is not a right because a right is something that cannot be denied to you.
Otherwise all these single people who are looking but coming up empty could claim that their rights were being violated, and could petition the government for redress of their grievance. And the government would have to provide redress - if marriage were a right.
How would that work? Well, it was decided in Gideon v. Wainright (as highlighted in the book Gideon's Trumpet by Anthony Lewis, who just died a couple of days ago), that defendants in criminal cases have the right to an attorney. And if they lack the means or the methods by which to get their own, the government will provide one for them.
Same diff, right? Some might say the options available to you in the Office of the Public Defender are not as desirable as the lawyers you could get on your own if you had the money, but it's something. You rely on the government to provide you with what you need, you take what you can get.
So if marriage is a right, then the government will have to start hooking some people up via the Office of the Public Spouse. Now Rob and I think some guidelines are in order here. This is the government, after all. If you snare a mate via the Office of the Public Spouse:
1. No one gets a spouse that's too good looking. That's not fair to those who married homely people of their own volition.
2. No discrimination based on sex. That means you don't get to specify that your spouse must be male or must be female. You take what you can get. "You mean you're providing me with a dude to marry?" "What are you, a hater?"
3. No one brings up Ephesians 5:22. Ever. This is not some theocracy. Take that backwards, preachy crap to church and leave us out of it.
4. No vows, other than promising to avoid judgmentalism, to respect differentness and to be accepting of all choices, blah blah blah . . .
5. Everyone joins the government employee union. Not just the public spouses. You too. Solidarity!
The more I think about it, the more I think this really needs to happen. I will not rest until marriage is equal because government sees to it. Of course, I'm already happily married and my wife is a knockout. But I'm just looking out for you.
Exactly. A “right” can’t be infringed.
like my brother says, you go to a church to get married and the state to get divorced, doesn’t make sense. So guess what? Those of you who weren’t divorced by the church are still married in the spiritual world to your first spouse from the church, better get back home
Nationalize match.com and charge a penalty tax on any single adult that doesn’t sign up!
I was wondering that when Justice Kennedy went on his tangent about those poor 40,000 children who are being discriminated against because there gay parents can’t marry. Wow! I never new the government cared so much about the sanctity of marriage, perhaps they should force all those single welfare mothers to get married or lose their children since marriage is so vital to a child.
Welfare Queens are married to the Federal Government.
Isn’t that enough?
If it is a right, does that mean the Mormons can reinstate polygamy? If sex makes no difference, neither should numbers! Didn’t the government make outlawing it a provision for statehood?
One of many frightening things is that Bloomberg is likely to start “helping” people in NY to choose the right spouse, since our ruling class can make better decisions than the little people would make on their own. Is that substantively different from Bloomie choosing whether we smoke, what we eat and with how much salt, if and how we are permitted to defend our homes, or how much soda we drink?
If we continue going the way we are, we will get to where we're headed, and when we get there, where will we be ?
Extending this (perhaps bong induced) argument to right of peaceable assembly, I don’t have a right to it because I can’t force people to assemble with me, therefore it is not a right because I can’t engage in it by myself, and by some twisted definition that means it is infringed. If it were a right, the government would be obliged to round up people and contain them with me on my whim.
I would like to apply this logic to the second ammendment though. Government issued guns for everyone!
Oh good Lord, don’t give them any ideas. The feds would love the opportunity to assign spouses to us all as a means of redistributing the wealth.
Bloomie is an evil little half pint piece of squishy bovine feces with a Bon-Aparte complex, only worse...Napoleon had more stature than Bloomie by 7 inches...
Try to marry your mother or someone that is already married and you will find out if it is a “right”.
I’m poor so I get a rich wife. Maybe they’ll hook me up with Michelle Obama which won’t be as bad as it sounds since she’s always on vacation.
Don’t forget, gender is not a factor. Perhaps your rich wife will be Michael Moore!
/8^)
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