Posted on 08/14/2006 11:00:29 PM PDT by pissant
Now that a number of state courts have refused to redefine marriage to include same-sex unions, cries of "discrimination" are being heard.
The "equal protection of the laws" provided by the Constitution of the United States applies to people, not actions. Laws exist precisely in order to discriminate between different kinds of actions.
Lesbian couple Sue Wilkinson (L) and Celia Kitzinger leave the High Court in London after losing their legal battle to have their Canadian marriage legally recognised in Britain July 31, 2006. REUTERS/Stephen Hird (BRITAIN) When the law permits automobiles to drive on highways but forbids bicycles from doing the same, that is not discrimination against people. A cyclist who gets off his bicycle and gets into a car can drive on the highway just like anyone else.
In a free society, vast numbers of things are neither forbidden nor facilitated. They are considered to be none of the law's business.
Homosexuals were on their strongest ground when they said that the law had no business interfering with relations between consenting adults. Now they want the law to put a seal of approval on their behavior. But no one is entitled to anyone else's approval.
Why is marriage considered to be any of the law's business in the first place? Because the state asserts an interest in the outcomes of certain unions, separate from and independent of the interests of the parties themselves.
In the absence of the institution of marriage, the individuals could arrange their relationship whatever way they wanted to, making it temporary or permanent, and sharing their worldly belongings in whatever way they chose.
Marriage means that the government steps in, limiting or even prescribing various aspects of their relations with each other -- and still more their relationship with whatever children may result from their union.
In other words, marriage imposes legal restrictions, taking away rights that individuals might otherwise have. Yet "gay marriage" advocates depict marriage as an expansion of rights to which they are entitled.
They argue against a "ban on gay marriage" but marriage has for centuries meant a union of a man and a woman. There is no gay marriage to ban.
Analogies with bans against interracial marriage are bogus. Race is not part of the definition of marriage. A ban on interracial marriage is a ban on the same actions otherwise permitted because of the race of the particular people involved. It is a discrimination against people, not actions.
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said that the life of the law has not been logic but experience. Vast numbers of laws have accumulated and evolved over the centuries, based on experience with male-female unions.
Lesbian couple Sue Wilkinson (L) and Celia Kitzinger leave the High Court in London after losing their legal battle to have their Canadian marriage legally recognised in Britain July 31, 2006. REUTERS/Stephen Hird (BRITAIN) There is no reason why all those laws should be transferred willy-nilly to a different union, one with no inherent tendency to produce children nor the inherent asymmetries of relationships between people of different sexes.
Despite attempts to evade these asymmetries with such fashionable phrases as "a pregnant couple" or references to "spouses" rather than husbands and wives, these asymmetries take many forms and have many repercussions, which laws attempt to deal with on the basis of experience, rather than theories or rhetoric.
Wives, for example, typically invest in the family by restricting their own workforce participation, if only long enough to take care of small children. Studies show such differences still persisting in this liberated age, and even among women and men with postgraduate degrees from Harvard and Yale.
In the absence of marriage laws, a husband could dump his wife at will and she could lose decades of investment in their relationship. Marriage laws seek to recoup some of that investment for her through alimony when divorce occurs.
Those who think of women and men in the abstract consider it right that ex-husbands should be as entitled to alimony as ex-wives. But what are these ex-husbands being compensated for?
And why should any of this experience apply to same-sex unions, where there are not the same inherent asymmetries nor the same tendency to produce children?
<< But then does that mean we (may) deny "Marriage" .... >>
Only if for some perverse and/or perverted urge one insists upon seeing "marriage" as a favor to be dispensed by some owning authority and not as what it actually is: a means of formalizing a normal (As distict from an abnormal and/or sexual-identity-deranged) couple's acceptance of responsibility toward any issue of a normal relationship between a man and a woman.
But we've never denied the rights of the Las Vegas Britney Spears quickie.
Years ago, I visited the island of Yap - in the Caroline islands near Guam - and in their "primitive" society they had developed very strict laws regarding sex and marriage. They had figured out that stable families were crucial to their existence as a group on some very small islands.
Families lived outdoors, but slept in tiny houses. When brothers and sisters reached a certain age, they did not sleep together, but went into separate homes with cousins. Each village had a huge Men's House, where the men hung out when they were not fishing. Women did the garden work and childminding. They even had a separate island stocked with a form of prostitute for the men's use.
This was the island of Stone Money. These people had developed an amazing set of rules for living together. I'm afraid it probably is not the same now. It was beginning to change when I was there because the introduction of gasoline and outboard motors and cold beer also introduced the need to work for cash. Add to that TV/VCRs and their traditional civilization had no chance.
There's that good old slippery slope. Adding government regulation to human social interaction is always the biggest step on the road to tyranny. I'm just constantly amazed at the number of self-professed "conservatives" who scream bloody murder at all sorts of other government intrusions into their lives, by when it comes to cultural fascism, they turn into cheerleaders.
Self-professed "conservatives" who scream bloody murder at all sorts of other government intrusions into their lives, by when it comes to cultural fascism, turn into cheerleaders.
You just called the Founding Fathers "cultural fascists." It has proven effective over hundreds of years for the state to enforce a modicum of protection for those cultural institutions that preserve liberty. Over those hundreds of years, government intrusion was at a respectable minimum.
'Costing them something', like a re-evaluation of adoption rules and regs in states that currently allow adoption by the sexually confused. Or banning artificial insemination by lesbians. Or a re-evaluation of laws/rulings regarding 'descrimination' against perverts, so as to uphold people's basic freedom to not associate/rent to/employ etc. people with whom they'd rather not associate.
Ummm, no I didn't, and you can't demonstrate otherwise. And you also cannot demostrate how the government's regulation of marriage preserves liberty. Your "modicum of protection" is a sham. There is no such thing where government and bureaucracy are concerned. Power begets power and the path to tyranny and serfdom is as sure as the first time you sanction the government's power grab for "your" issue. The people who buy that false dichotomy are the very ones who will look around tomorrow, wondering what happened to their freedom.
In any case, the founders had no intention of having the federal government involved in an issue like marriage. If you believe otherwise, you really need to do some studying, because you don't understand the basic principles of federalism.
Whether you like it or not Marriage IS a federal issue.
It is federal because taxation is a federal issue.
It is federal because US citizens have the absolute right to obtain an immigration visa for a "spouse".
Federal estate tax law also affects the issue of marriage.
There are federal laws which address children of divorce and child support payments which now routinly cross state lines.
It is 2006 not 1776 where only churches record marriages and births are just recorded in "ye ol" family bible.
Hedonism based marriage does NOTHING for the future of society. It is just a cheep one night stand that is forgotten with next orgasm. Regulation of marriage is to give society a future. If you don't want to live in a society, the unibombers shack is available for rent.
Whether you like it or not Marriage IS a federal issue.
It is federal because taxation is a federal issue.
It is federal because US citizens have the absolute right to obtain an immigration visa for a "spouse".
Federal estate tax law also affects the issue of marriage.
There are federal laws which address children of divorce and child support payments which now routinly cross state lines.
It is 2006 not 1776 where only churches record marriages and births are just recorded in "ye ol" family bible.
Hedonism based marriage does NOTHING for the future of society. It is just a cheep one night stand that is forgotten with next orgasm. Regulation of marriage is to give society a future. If you don't want to live in a society, the unibombers shack is available for rent.
How about just copying verbatim the FL law prohibiting homosexuals from adopting children. It has already passed muster in both state and federal courts (cert denied by USSC)
It would just be a good first step and make the "two momies" a thing of the past.
It is a Federal issue because of the federal oversight of states recognizing the laws of other states or rejecting same ... which, with the degenerate population trying to actively force their degeneracy upon the entire nation, results in challenges before the SC.
You seem to be good at quoting what is and isn't the case, with complete disregard for what should and shouldn't be the case.
The federal government is involved in a number of things it shouldn't be, simply because some people don't mind it when the grounds on which this country was based are ignored in order to further "their issue." Unfortunately for the rest of us, your acquiescence to the beast of your perceived necessity has an adverse effect on all of our freedoms. Thanks a bunch.
I'm going to assume that your comment on hedonistic marriage was directed at the air, because I haven't written a single sentence to indicate I support any such thing.
Now that a number of state courts have refused to redefine marriage to include same-sex unions, cries of "discrimination" are being heard.
The "equal protection of the laws" provided by the Constitution of the United States applies to people, not actions. Laws exist precisely in order to discriminate between different kinds of actions.
When the law permits automobiles to drive on highways but forbids bicycles from doing the same, that is not discrimination against people. A cyclist who gets off his bicycle and gets into a car can drive on the highway just like anyone else.
In a free society, vast numbers of things are neither forbidden nor facilitated. They are considered to be none of the law's business.
Homosexuals were on their strongest ground when they said that the law had no business interfering with relations between consenting adults. Now they want the law to put a seal of approval on their behavior. But no one is entitled to anyone else's approval.
Why is marriage considered to be any of the law's business in the first place? Because the state asserts an interest in the outcomes of certain unions, separate from and independent of the interests of the parties themselves.
In the absence of the institution of marriage, the individuals could arrange their relationship whatever way they wanted to, making it temporary or permanent, and sharing their worldly belongings in whatever way they chose.
Marriage means that the government steps in, limiting or even prescribing various aspects of their relations with each other -- and still more their relationship with whatever children may result from their union.
In other words, marriage imposes legal restrictions, taking away rights that individuals might otherwise have. Yet "gay marriage" advocates depict marriage as an expansion of rights to which they are entitled.
They argue against a "ban on gay marriage" but marriage has for centuries meant a union of a man and a woman. There is no gay marriage to ban.
Analogies with bans against interracial marriage are bogus. Race is not part of the definition of marriage. A ban on interracial marriage is a ban on the same actions otherwise permitted because of the race of the particular people involved. It is a discrimination against people, not actions.
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said that the life of the law has not been logic but experience. Vast numbers of laws have accumulated and evolved over the centuries, based on experience with male-female unions.
There is no reason why all those laws should be transferred willy-nilly to a different union, one with no inherent tendency to produce children nor the inherent asymmetries of relationships between people of different sexes.
Despite attempts to evade these asymmetries with such fashionable phrases as "a pregnant couple" or references to "spouses" rather than husbands and wives, these asymmetries take many forms and have many repercussions, which laws attempt to deal with on the basis of experience, rather than theories or rhetoric.
Wives, for example, typically invest in the family by restricting their own workforce participation, if only long enough to take care of small children. Studies show such differences still persisting in this liberated age, and even among women and men with postgraduate degrees from Harvard and Yale.
In the absence of marriage laws, a husband could dump his wife at will and she could lose decades of investment in their relationship. Marriage laws seek to recoup some of that investment for her through alimony when divorce occurs.
Those who think of women and men in the abstract consider it right that ex-husbands should be as entitled to alimony as ex-wives. But what are these ex-husbands being compensated for?
And why should any of this experience apply to same-sex unions, where there are not the same inherent asymmetries nor the same tendency to produce children?
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