Posted on 06/04/2014 10:19:50 AM PDT by Iced Tea Party
Cultural civil war can be avoided by getting government out of marriage
There is no question that the media, political, and cultural push for gay marriage has made impressive gains. As recently as 1989, voters in avant-garde San Francisco repealed a law that had established only domestic partnerships.
But judging by the questions posed by Supreme Court justices this week in oral arguments for two gay-marriage cases, most observers do not expect sweeping rulings that would settle the issue and avoid protracted political combat. A total of 41 states currently do not allow gay marriage, and most of those laws are likely to remain in place for some time. Even should the Court declare unconstitutional the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman for federal purposes, we can expect many pitched battles in Congress. The word “spouse” appears in federal laws and regulations a total of 1,138 times, and many of those references would have to be untangled by Congress absent DOMA.
No wonder Wisconsin’s GOP governor Scott Walker sees public desire for a Third Way. On Meet the Press this month he remarked on how many young people have asked him why the debate is over whether the definition of marriage should be expanded. They think the question is rather “why the government is sanctioning it in the first place.” The alterative would be to “not have the government sanction marriage period, and leave that up to the churches and the synagogues and others to define that.”
Governor Walker made clear these thoughts weren’t “anything I’m advocating for,” but he gave voice to many people who don’t think the gay-marriage debate should tear the country apart in a battle over who controls the culture and wins the government’s seal of approval. Gay-marriage proponents argue that their struggle is the civil-rights issue of our time, although many gays privately question that idea. Opponents who bear no animus toward gays lament that ancient traditions are being swept aside before the evidence is in on how gay marriage would affect the culture.
Both sides operate from the shaky premise that government must be the arbiter of this dispute. Columnist Andrew Sullivan, a crusader for gay marriage, has written that “marriage is a formal, public institution that only the government can grant.” But that’s not so. Marriage predates government. Marriage scholar Lawrence Stone has noted that in the Middle Ages it was “treated as a private contract between two families . . . For those without property, it was a private contract between two individuals enforced by the community sense of what was right.” Indeed, marriage wasn’t even regulated by law in Britain until the Marriage Acts of 1754 and 1835. Common-law unions in early America were long recognized before each state imposed a one-size-fits-all set of marriage laws.
The Founding Fathers avoided creating government-approved religions so as to avoid Europe’s history of church-based wars. Depoliticizing religion has mostly proven to be a good template for defusing conflict by keeping it largely in the private sphere.
Turning marriage into fundamentally a private right wouldn’t be an easy task. Courts and government would still be called on to recognize and enforce contracts that a couple would enter into, and clearly some contracts — such as in a slave-master relationship — would be invalid. But instead of fighting over which marriages gain its approval, government would end the business of making distinctions for the purpose of social engineering based on whether someone was married. A flatter tax code would go a long way toward ending marriage penalties or bonuses. We would need a more sensible system of legal immigration so that fewer people would enter the country solely on the basis of spousal rights.
The current debate pits those demanding “marriage equality” against supporters of “traditional marriage.” But many Americans believe it would be better if we left matters to individuals and religious bodies. The cherished principle of separating church and state should be extended as much as possible into separating marriage and state. Ron Paul won many cheers during his 2012 presidential campaign when he declared, “I’d like to see all governments out of the marriage question. I don’t think it’s a state decision. I think it’s a religious function. I am supportive of all voluntary associations and people can call it whatever they want.”
Supporters of traditional marriage know the political winds are blowing against them. A new Fox News poll finds 49 percent of voters favoring gay marriage, up from just 32 percent a decade ago. And among self-described conservatives under 35, Fox found support for gay marriage is now at 44 percent. Even if the Supreme Court leaves the battle for gay marriage to trench warfare in the states, the balance of power is shifting. Rush Limbaugh, a powerful social conservative, told his listeners this week: “I don’t care what this court does with this particular ruling. . . . I think the inertia is clearly moving in the direction that there is going to be gay marriage at some point nationwide.”
But a majority of Americans still believe the issue of gay marriage should be settled by the states and not with Roe v. Wade–style central planning. It might still be possible to assemble a coalition of people who want to avoid a civil war over the culture and who favor getting government out of the business of marriage.
— John Fund is national-affairs columnist for NRO.
About polygamy, held by Mr. Reynolds to be a tenant of his religion. SCOTUS rejected the argument, fundamentally on the basis that government is superior over religion when it comes to practice of an action. But the case is interesting for what it says about polygamy, per se. And anything it says about polygamy it would have said IN SPADES about homosexual "marriage."
The case is also interesting as a window into an era when Western Civ thought itself superior (it is, in fact) rather than just one civilization among equals.
Polygamy has always been odious among the northern and western nations of Europe, and, until the establishment of the Mormon Church, was almost exclusively a feature of the life of Asiatic and of African people. At common law, the second marriage was always void (2 Kent, Com. 79), and from the earliest history of England polygamy has been treated as an offence against society. ...But, todays federal judges find homosexual marriage to be a constitutional right, not even in a penumbra wehre the right to abortion resides.Marriage, while from its very nature a sacred obligation, is nevertheless, in most civilized nations, a civil contract, and usually regulated by law. Upon it society may be said to be built, and out of its fruits spring social relations and social obligations and duties, with which government is necessarily required to deal. In fact, according as monogamous or polygamous marriages are allowed, do we find the principles on which the government of the people, to a greater or less extent, rests. Professor, Lieber says, polygamy leads to the patriarchal principle, and which, when applied to large communities, fetters the people in stationary despotism, while that principle cannot long exist in connection with monogamy. Chancellor Kent observes that this remark is equally striking and profound. 2 Kent, Com. 81, note (e). An exceptional colony of polygamists under an exceptional leadership may sometimes exist for a time without appearing to disturb the social condition of the people who surround it; but there cannot be a doubt that, unless restricted by some form of constitution, it is within the legitimate scope of the power of every civil government to determine whether polygamy or monogamy shall be the law of social life under its dominion.
I’m not sure where your continuing confusion comes from. I suggest that the only involvement the state should have is to issue, certify and file the license. After that if you want to hire a Hutoo medicine man, a Mongolian Shaman or the clerk from the local Elks club to officiate at the celebration of your choice and design, it’s okay with me.
I don’t want to be involved (even by proxy by thecstate) in what marriage has become for the fringe.
Zot is now in the Title.
Who’s getting burned? The newbie OP?
He’s Dead Jim.
***************************
That was quick.
Wagglebee is back
(With a vengence - Woo Hoo)
And newbie trolls are frying like before.
My political goal is more realistic than yours, I only want to stop gay marriage, and fight it in the next presidential election, and win voter support for conservative candidates.
Your political goal is to somehow persuade America to vote to end marriage as we know it, remove it from all laws and government, including military service, and let religions, mosques and cults control marriage, which means that literally anything goes.
A political movement that we all know isn’t going to happen.
Your pretend political goals are not very convincing, especially since they are being used to oppose the important political issues we conservatives need to be discussing for the next election.
Might be-if so, I stand corrected. The person who told me about that is a LEO who belongs to the COC, and was really steamed about it, but he isn’t fond of Catholics, either so he might have been trying to shock me...
You couldn't possibly be more wrong.
The Pilgrims landed in 1620, spent the next several years figuring out how to stay alive and then passed the FIRST marriage license laws in America in 1639.
As you can see on this thread, the libertarians have switched to the “religion argument” to promote gay marriage and polygamy.
As though Mosques, Mormons, and gay churches are the answer to preserving marriage, and the even sillier pretense that Americans will vote to end marriage as we know it and remove it from law.
I haven't help get a troll zotted in a year and a half and I can't tell you how much I've missed it!.
But in that time there were also ecclesiastical courts, so not everything was handled by the State: this is the root of the disagreement between myself and Ansel12 — I do not believe that the government should be involved in defining marriage, he does; I do not believe that making a law
will solve the problem, he does; I believe the best way to remedy this is for Christians to act like marriage is sacred (something disproved, in general, by divorce-rate statistics [and accepting divorce for any-old-reason]) and Ansel [apparently] does not.
:)
Hey, I'm not that old! LOL.
If I am understanding your position, or at least that of ansel12, once we change the president, society will get all better (at least respecting homosexual marriage)? If I reject that proposition, them I am saying we should accept homosexual marriage?
Well, I reject it homosexual marriage as legitimate, even though "the law" says I am wrong. I reject the law. It is an ass. But I don;t see politics as a solution until and unless the politicians start talking about tossing the judges out; and then actually taking them out. The judicial decisions are wrong on so many levels, but "the law" has great power to mold people's minds/ Heck, some people follow the law because they see the alternative as anarchy.
At any rate, the only advice I offered was to pass Western Civ on to your children. Beyond that, I offered my opinion that Western Civ is doomed. It is decadent, its power brokers have little or no attachment to tradition.
Your winner has already been zotted.
I was merely a stand in.
:-)
With my own flavor.
Thank you, wagglebee. I thought that had to be wrong, but I couldn’t find anything online.
:)
Excellent. See you then! :)
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