Posted on 04/15/2005 4:56:59 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
What law school issues degrees to students who don't understand the meaning of words? Let's take the word "result" this time. What are the results, both immediate and far reaching, of the Lawrence holding Counselor and how could you possibly assert that I would agree with them after our little tete a tete here?
I apologize if I've misrepresented your views.
Not misrepresented, just mildly misstated (and certainly not deliberately). No need to apologize; this has been a busy thread and a long discussion.
I'll let you have the last word if you'd like to take a minute to correct that.
Nope, no need, but thanks. This discussion has already wandered rather far from its title topic; the link between legal definitions of marriage to Christian views of marriage was the last thread tying it in.
I'm attempting to bridge the gap between Americans who only know how to talk about law in terms of their own religious ethics, and the restrictions we have placed in the interest of representational government on our motivations for law.
Yep, and you're doing an excellent job of it. The same-sex marriage discussion was a sidetrack; it got started because I was asked what I thought about it and I answered. We're not going to resolve the issue here and it's a distraction from your primary argument.
That families have an interest in protecting the limited resources government offers them, that Americans are committed to natural family structures, that there are good arguments in favor of encouraging natural family structures are all rational arguments against diluting or corrupting our official view of the marriage relationship.
Yes, they are. I continue to disagree that recognition of same-sex civil marriages will in fact dilute or corrupt that view. But I certainly don't think that anyone who disagrees with me is automatically foolish or evil, and you are neither.
What are the results, both immediate and far reaching, of the Lawrence holding Counselor and how could you possibly assert that I would agree with them after our little tete a tete here?
I wrote 'result in', not 'result of'. If you agree that other people's private consensual sexual acts are none of your business in this Constitutional republic, you agree with the Court's result in the Lawrence case.
LOL, you just can't help yourself.
On the contrary. Even if we can't apply religious doctrines in our laws per se, we do not want to force Americans to pay for, or honor practices which violate their beliefs. It's even more important to respect the culture and tradition represented in marriage law when religion isn't available to justify it. If Moore can't point to the 10 commandments and say that they are the moral underpinning of our laws, all that says is that we have to bring rational arguments to explain them. If this becomes an excuse for mob rule or anarchy, which the latter I claim the marriage modification effort has become, then it only plays into the hands of the religionists who argue that without the 10 commandments we become lawless. In other words, if we can't refute the argument that without legal application of the 10, we're subject to the 10,000 (often conflicting) laws, then where is the victory in that? Freedom is not license. Freedom requires even greater responsibility.
I think the special interest groups on the left are trying to say that because Christians believe in marriage, it's unconstitutional. Christian ethics lead to laws that are arguably common with a fair amount of American law, but that doesn't mean that we'll reject them. But if our arguments about which laws are constitutional or not appear to suggest that any law that may be Christian is subject to such scrutiny, then the cries for theocracy will only get louder.
I continue to disagree that recognition of same-sex civil marriages will in fact dilute or corrupt that view [of marriage]
If marriage is defined as a sacred and traditional bond between man and woman based on religious doctrine common to most Americans and western civic tradition common to most other cultures, it really has no bearing on other relationships. If we change its meaning on our lawbooks, it still becomes something else. A simple change of law cannot redefine the meaning Americans confer on marriage by culture, tradition, religious faith, and by economic blessing. But if we do continue to allow this, we will be saying to children, "The traditional family unit is not special; it has no particular advantage over any other family unit." Marriage will in effect, cease to be useful to America. I'll be the first to demand that tax breaks given to married couplings (or tripplings, or quadruplings) be rescinded.
that it would be altogether inappropriate for the Noahide Laws to be posted in schools...
----
Funny, It's being promoted as an educational Law...
But I will tell you one thing: mothers will still have to raise children in demolished homes because of adultery, no matter how hard the state works to abolish the natural law of matrimony. Fathers will still abandon their natural responsibilities. Adultery and abuse will still break up natural families. But the law will become less and less helpful as an instrument in our country for assisting natural families by requiring personal responsibility. That empty place on the school walls where the 10 commandments used to be and the new "no such rule by fiat of the goddess" religious law will still tell children: there is no such thing as natural marriage.
is the holiday; the resolution seems to require that it get voted on every now and again so that the day continues to be a holiday every year.
---This Seems BS to me....
IT was enacted as a Law... Forever until.. It's on the BOOKS.... Forever... I don't get it. President's day, etc.. were enacted (not re-voted every year) and established as a National Holidays, people regard it. What's Next.. National Jewish 7 Noehide Commandment's Holiday? Could Be...
I don't know why it has to be re-done all the time, but apparently it's not designated as a recurring annual holiday like President's Day and so on. And I don't know any more about it than that.
Even if we can't apply religious doctrines in our laws per se, we do not want to force Americans to pay for, or honor practices which violate their beliefs.
And as I've said, the only way to accomplish that is to make taxes voluntary. Tax funds are simply not distributed in accordance with the religious beliefs of the taxed. There are people who oppose military force of any kind for religious reasons; nobody makes sure their specific tax dollars don't go to the DOD, or even that tax dollars are allocated to the DOD in proportion to the number of nonpacifists among the taxpayers. I spend a lot of time in a local national park, paid for in part by the tax dollars of people who don't believe the government has any business maintaining such lands. You can think up lots of other examples yourself, I'm sure.
There will always be problems of this sort as long as there are taxes; marriage isn't a special case. (Similar problems infect public education, which can't possibly be performed in a way that pleases everyone who pays for it; the only way to change that would be to privatize the schools.) Either privatize everything -- which in this case would mean getting the state entirely out of the business of recognizing marriages -- or get used to the fact that there's always going to be somebody paying for something of which they disapprove.
This is why I initially suggested that you keep in mind the question whether any positive legal benefits should be conferred on civil marriages at all.
If marriage is defined as a sacred and traditional bond between man and woman based on religious doctrine common to most Americans and western civic tradition common to most other cultures, it really has no bearing on other relationships. If we change its meaning on our lawbooks, it still becomes something else.
Then I'm afraid I have bad news for you: it's already become something else. Civil marriage is not defined in terms of sacredness, tradition, or religion.
Religious marriage is defined in such terms. And private religious organizations don't have to recognize civil marriages as 'religiously satisfactory', as for example the Roman Catholic Church doesn't have to recognize civil marriages or divorces for purposes of its canon law. Civil marriage is already not the same thing as religious marriage.
LOL, you just can't help yourself.
Anybody who still takes you seriously can compare your opinion with Kennedy's easily enough:
[W]hat two people do in the privacy of their home isn't any of my business in this Constitutional Republic of ours. --jwalsh07
[A]dults may choose to enter upon [a homosexual] personal relationship in the confines of their own homes and their own private lives and still retain their dignity as free persons. . . . The liberty protected by the Constitution allows homosexual persons the right to make this choice. -- Justice Anthony Kennedy in Lawrence v. Texas
If you think you disagree with the result in Lawrence, then you're either not reading very well or not writing very well. I don't really care which it is (and it may be both); you're clearly not worth any more of my time.
But I'm done being civil with you. You're simply a liar. My casting a vote to keep my state government out of peoples bedrooms does not equate to the oligarchial federal courts issuing opinions rife with lunacy and abridging powers that rightfully belong to the people through their elected representatives.
Got it Comrade?
I hope that helps. Oh yes, Mr. Walsh is one of the smartest folks on this forum, and a fine writer. Cheers.
Well, at least one lawyer managed to discern that little subtle distinction to which you allude. :)
The only judge I have ever seen this guy be critical of is Roy Moore. He has gone out of his way to justify other judges like O'Connor and Kennedy when they use international law by trying to compare it to Scalia using English common law - the basis for our laws (as if the 2 are even comparable). He's also constitutionally smarter than lawyers like Scalia, Marc Levin, Jonathan Turley, and Orrin Hatch. I've noticed the same arrogance in many lawyers. It must be the law schools that do it to them.
My casting a vote to keep my state government out of peoples bedrooms does not equate to the oligarchial federal courts issuing opinions rife with lunacy and abridging powers that rightfully belong to the people through their elected representatives.
Right. So you agree with the result but you don't think it should have come from the Supreme Court. That's what I said. If you don't want the decision to come from a state court either, this is the first time you've suggested as much in this thread.
I think I am the only poster on this forum who openly favors legalizing gay marriage as a policy matter.
I think you're not.
You'll note well that I wouldn't be here, associating with my fellow right wingers if I too strongly disagreed with them. Usually it's a semantic argument that I'm having with their justification for various positions. I'd sooner blame their utter frustration with post-modernism than any particular bent on infringing on others' rights. Like them, I recognize the legal authority of various American officialdom, but I reserve the right to withhold my approval. We hold certain truths to be self-evident. Mother nature can teach us much more about marriage than a supreme court justice. The same-sexers want something from us that we don't want to give. They don't need it, it's not listed in the bill of rights or even covered under the "pursuit of happiness." But still they want it, they crave it.
The question I have for you is more fundamental. Would you rather have justices appointed who know what I'm talking about, or ones who prefer the Roy Moore point of view. The choice is the left's. The more they press, the more religious the right will become. It's a simple physics: for every action, there is a reaction.
Would you rather have justices appointed who know what I'm talking about, or ones who prefer the Roy Moore point of view.
I think I've answered this long ago. I would rather have justices appointed who know what you're talking about than ones who prefer the Roy Moore point of view.
Good night.
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