Posted on 10/08/2003 6:26:08 AM PDT by presidio9
Edited on 04/22/2004 11:50:04 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
It didn't take long for many social conservatives to ponder the long-term implications of the Supreme Court's recent decision to strike down all antisodomy laws in the U.S. Moves are afoot to advance a constitutional amendment that would bar any state's legalization of same-sex marriage; next week is "Marriage Protection Week," in which the alleged danger of Lawrence v. Texas will be highlighted across the country. This push toward blanket prohibition, however, sidesteps a basic point about the post-Lawrence world. Whatever you feel about the reasoning of the decision, its result is clear: Gay Americans are no longer criminals. And very few conservatives want to keep them that way. The term "gay citizen" is now simply a fact of life.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Couldn't have said it better myself. Thanks.
Marriage is a part of our social construct. It has been for centuries. What Sullivan suggests is that we change that construct to include a behavior that is abberant and destructive to the human race. Are you for that?
We don't agree, but that's OK. You can go bash gays all you want. It's a free country.
Just don't use the power of the state to do it.
Just don't use the power of the state to do it.
Protecting the sanctity of marriage is not "gay bashing."
If people want to accept the legal rights and responsibilities that go along with committing themselves to another person, I think it should be a simple thing to get a "standard package" domestic partnership.
But that should have nothing to do with marriage. Marriage is a social and religious institution, and should have nothing to do with the government. The words "And now, by the power granted to me by (Blankety-blank) State, I now pronounce you...) should never escape a religious officiant's lips.
If two people want to marry without a domestic partnership, they should be allowed to do so, but I don't think you will find a lot of established churches willing to bless such a union.
If two people want a domestic partnership without marriage, that should be none of the state's business.
I could not agree with you more. But the sanctity of marriage should be protected by social institutions that are at least geared toward protecting sancitity, like churches.
The government does a terrible job of protecting the sanctity of anything. In fact, government involvement will pretty much guarantee the de-sanctification of just about anything.
For somebody who doesn't bash gays, you seem to have a colorful choice of terms...
There are a whole lot of things society might like to do that are destructive of personal freedom and the notion that all men are created equal. Racial segregation was wildly popular in the South in 1950, but that didn't make it right.
The mechanism of having the state in the middle saying that certain people can be married and certain others can't is just corrosive. It does nothing for the sanctity of marriage and gives the people who want an expansive definition of marriage a mechanism to achieve their ends.
If you know you are destined to lose on a certain playing field, why play there? Why not get government out of the marriage business?
Getting the government out of marriage strikes me as the proper libertarian position.
Over the millennia, promoting, encouraging, and rewarding the traditional marriage of one man and one woman have proven to be the best way to maintain the society. All of a sudden this is no good?
"If this allows some homosexuals to gain the benefits of domestic partnership, I fail to see the harm in that."
What you fail to see is that recognizing "domestic partners" or even "homosexual marriage" is not the goal. The goal is to add legitimacy to that lifestyle choice. It's saying that we, as a society, make no distinction between the two. And that's not correct.
Shaped and molded and honed as such in my lifetime by Bob Bartley and now has Paul Gigot at the tiller
AL Hunt has a opinion weekly piece which is regularly far wackyer and more infurioating than anything written here by Andrew Sullivan ...... who unlike Hunt is a bright man
The Journal has oaways offered a forum to positions oposite to that of its editorials
That's what this OPINION piece is by Sullivan
This is not the opinion of the WSJ. -- it's an OP-ED
the Journal was fair and balanced long before it became fashonable
To Paraphrase Bob Bartley: ' It's the only Editorial page in the world which actually sells papers'
He's quite correct
Just read those two pages each day and you will be a better person .... IMHO
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I think promoting traditional marriage is great! We should all do it!
My point is that government involvement will, in the end, be destructive to traditional marriage. Our government is incapable of protecting an institution like marriage by saying it should be open to some and not to others. It will default to the inclusive position, time and time again.
So if one supports an inclusive definition of marriage, getting the government as intertwined as possible is the one sure way guarantee that the definition is expanded. Once the government hangs a whole lot of legal rights, responsibilities and goodies onto marriage, there is no way to restrict it to certain people.
The FMA will never happen. It is a losing rear-guard action based on the notion that government activism can have any result other than the opposite of what is intended.
Since government will inevitably destroy the institution of marriage, I propose keeping government and marriage as far as possible away from one another.
Agreed, and I realize that from time to time the Journal has been known to run op-ed pieces from the likes of Al Gore and Martha Stewart. And I'm sure that most intelligent readers understand that Hunt lost his sanity and any pretext of camoflaging his liberalism the day his son was paralyzed. But Sullivan is something different. He masquarades as a Conservative, and I find that dishonest. At the very least, if the WSJ is going run an op-ed piece by Sullivan defending gay marriage from a so-called "Conservative" standpoint, the author needs to acknowledge his own homosexuality within the article.
he is also consevative
It's rare but quite possible
Sullivan is usually quite honest in his opinions .... as is conservativism
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