Here's another:
Posted on 07/16/2004 8:09:37 AM PDT by Voice in your head
Government recognition of marriage has largely removed all meaning from the institution. A couple that is legally married does not need to enter into a union of holy matrimony. They only need to get the government’s permission to marry and take the necessary steps to complete all formalities associated with the marriage. That there is greater outrage over the government recognition of “same-sex marriage” rather than over clergy members agreeing to conduct the ceremonies is an indication of how far the nation has sunk in its view of marriage as a union of holy matrimony versus a legal contract.
The government is an entity that serves the purpose of, among other things, enforcing contracts. Among the most common contract is the contract that is entered into by couples when they marry. By getting legally married, every couple in the same state enters into a similar contract. This should change. The assumption that any two people from any social and economic class can enter into the same legal contract is absurd. Each couple should have its own contract for its specific circumstances. Some couples already do this via pre-nuptial agreements.
As an action that is half corrective and half symbolic, I think that government should discontinue the issuing of one-size-fits-all, marriage “contracts”. Discontinuing this recognition would be corrective in that any contracts formed would need to be specifically tailored to each couple, because each couple would need to draft their own contract. Discontinuing the recognition of current marriage contracts would be symbolic, in that it would send the message that marriage is a religious union that is inappropriate for government to have any involvement in. I can think of no more effective way to pervert a religious ceremony than to taint it with a stamp of approval from the government. For those who marry for spiritual reasons – love and commitment – the marriage will take on greater meaning as a solely religious and spiritual endeavor. For those who seek to form a union for the purpose of shared benefits and legal protections, the marriage will be more of a legal arrangement.
From the perspective of the government, a contract should be just a contract, whether it applies to a man and a woman committing themselves to one another or between a bank and a customer agreeing to the terms of a loan. It is insane to use government as a tool to morally sanction a couple’s lust or love or as a moral compass for our society. There is nothing that so easily gets manipulated for the advancement of our vices as government. To let it continue to have a role in marriage will only further erode the bedrock institution of our society. The surest way to retain the sanctity of marriage is to emphasize the religious and spiritual aspects of it, by giving full responsibility for the recognition and ceremonial procedures to the church.
To take this approach would seem to have many unintended consequences. For example, does this allow “same-sex marriages” or bigamy or polygamy? If there are religions that recognize such unions and will carry out the ceremonies, then the answer is yes. However, the government would not recognize those unions as marriages, because there would be no such thing as a government-recognized marriage. Marriage would be between the family and the church. Would this encourage polygamy, bigamy or “same-sex marriage”? The answer is no, because people who choose those lifestyles already live them, but they do so without government recognition. Nothing would change, because government would still not recognize those arrangements as marriages. There would be no more government-recognized marriages; only religious institutions would recognize marriages. Will this encourage “marriages” between adults and children or people and animals? The answer is no, because those are already forbidden by laws regarding child abuse and animal abuse.
Some would say that my recommendation would further erode marriage, because it would “expand” the definition by opening it up to everyone. I say the exact opposite is true, because it would leave the definition of marriage up to the church. I have infinitely greater trust in the ability of religious institutions to make moral and ethical decisions than I do in the government. Some would also say that this issue needs to be fought and won as we currently debate it, because allowing “same-sex” couples to enjoy the same benefits as traditional couples would only be an entitlement money grab and/or a further encroachment of political correctness upon our society. I say that this point of view is incorrect, irrelevant and ignores the fundamental problems that underlie our society today. Most government entitlements (social security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, most notably) are nothing more than legally sanctioned thievery that people participate in, because they were forced to contribute to them. In simple terms, entitlement programs are government actions whereby your money is taken from you and given to other people who did not earn it, on the assumption that their “need” entitles them to the money. To accept this assumption and use it as the basis for opposing “same-sex” unions (the opposition being that those couples will share in the money grab) is yet another step towards surrendering to an increasingly statist society – and it illustrates the point of view that worries not about the spiritual and religious aspects of marriage, but rather the bottom line: money and control. The future of marriage is too important to be weighed on the basis of money and politics.
To truly ensure the preservation of marriage we must rescue it from the political arena and place it under the watch of our religious institutions. As government and politics are further dominated by more extreme communist elements, we need to separate government from matters related to morality. Otherwise, morality will be redefined (legally) by the likes of the Klintons, the Kerrys, and the other Dasch-holes in congress.
Unless the Supreme Court says it is, which is likely to happen. That's why we are having this discussion in the first place.
By the way, doesn't it just STEAM you that Utah was forced to ban polygamy before they were allowed to join the Union. I mean to say...what an outrage! Too bad the gov't back then wasn't as "smart" as we are about what the Constitution really means.
Good point, and needs to be repeated.
LOL!!!! The social liberals always say that when pointed out that the founders would never have agreed with them.
Here's another:
Unless the Supreme Court says it is, which is likely to happen. That's why we are having this discussion in the first place.
Did the SCOTUS make marriage a Constitutional institution in 1967, when it struck down bans on interracial marriage? Striking down bans on gay marriage would not explicitly put marriage into the Constitution, but an FMA definitely would.
From my reading of Utah history, Utahans chose to get rid of polygamy, so they could elect their own government, rather than have the US gov't send them leaders that they did not like. They also had to disband a religious party, called the Mormon People's Party, and move toward the Democrat-Republican two-party system to achieve statehood. A plurality of the Utahans chose the Republican Party, and when the Republicans started gaining strength in Congress, they were able to usher Utah in to the Union. It was more than just a struggle over a definition of marriage.
Besides, you should be glad they accomplished it at that point in time. What if Utah had retained territorial status well into the 20th Century, then had made an attempt at statehood in, say, the late 1960's/early 1970's? Would the society of the sexual revolution have allowed them to enter with polygamy having been an established religious principle for over a hundred years? My guess is that it could have been possible. You'd have a nation with two distinctly different notions of what marriage entailed. It wouldn't have been that hard to envision a third. We'd probably have legal gay marriage by this point in time, if things had gone different with Utah.
As for government being "smart" about how it treats marriage, it was the prohibition against selling contraceptives to even MARRIED couples that gave us the Griswold vs. Connecticut SCOTUS ruling in 1965. You might recall that in that decision, the SCOTUS first started playing around with the shadowy notion of "penumbras" "emanating" to create the privacy right that was not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution. If the Roman Catholic Church had not been so forceful in including married couples from obtaining the right to control their fertility, we might not have had this ruling, which spawned Roe vs. Wade a mere eight years later.
Expect the words from Griswold vs. Connecticut: "We deal with a right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights - older than our political parties, older than our school system. Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred. It is an association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects. Yet it is an association for as noble a purpose as any involved in our prior decisions," to find their way into a future decision involving gay marriage.
Yet if your idea of government is no regulation so long as I'm not interfering with your rights, how could kicking my dog ever be illegal?"
I expained my "idea of government" in post #125. "Government's purpose is to serve as a body in which we vest our rights to self defense from force, fraud or coercion and we vest our rights to determine rules regarding use of public property."
In response to your question regarding animal cruelty, I said "On public property, it would prefer that it be illegal." If you view this in light of my position, as stated by me, then this is consistent. I think that animal cruelty is morally wrong and I think that the government is justified in making it illegal on public property. Therefore, I would prefer that animal cruelty be illegal on public property.
What does any of this have to do with the thread?
Either outlaw kissing and holding hands or don't, but it must apply equally to all, since public property is owned by all. If a bunch of homos were routinely making a spectacle, I would vote to ban it.
"It has to do with the fact that I have found most libertarians to oppose moral regulations until you find something they don't like. Dog kicking is usually what gets them."
So it has nothing to do with this thread? If not, we have FReepmail and the ability to start new threads.
Yes, it is permitted. The restriction is that it must apply to all. So if you want to say no kissing, then that means everyone. You can no more legislate that two men cannot kiss than you could legislate that Bob and Jill cannot kiss. Those two homos are sick/immoral whatever you want to call it, but public property belongs to everyone and everyone deserves equal use within equal restrictions.
What are you a lawyer, trying to drum up business?
For the sake of argument, okay.
"That is why it is incorrect to say that homosexuals cannot marry. They, like heterosexuals, simply cannot marry members of the same sex."
I am not proposing a ban on homosexual marriage.
Prove it
Read a book. Better yet, read the Supreme Court opinion in Bowers v Hardwick. Sodomy was illegal during the colonial and post revolutionary period. It's only our modern "enlightenment" that has made things like homosexuality and adultery virtues instead of vices.
The statement was made, I said prove it . It was about Washington. Prove it or go away.
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