Posted on 05/20/2014 12:34:44 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Common sense and thousands of years of historical precedent firmly put the burden of proof on those who wish to redefine marriage.
Another judge, this one in Arkansas, has struck down a state law banning same-sex marriage on the ground that the ban has no “rational” basis. In other words, the defenders of the law were not able to prove that the discrimination (against gays and lesbians) involved in the law served a useful social purpose.
It is a waste of time trying to prove that a law restricting marriage to male-female combinations is “rational” in the sense that it serves a useful social purpose. Now I happen to think that traditional male-female marriage is useful and that same-sex marriage will in the long run prove to be socially harmful -- very harmful indeed -- but I doubt that I can prove this to somebody who is not already convinced of its truth.
Why not, instead of trying to prove the irrationality of same-sex marriage, simply say that it is a “self-evident truth” that marriage must be a male-female thing? A self-evident truth is a truth that is known to be true without the need for any proof.
After all, we Americans have a very respectable tradition of holding that some truths are self-evident. In the Declaration of Independence our Founding Fathers itemized a number of self-evident truths -- that “all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” If Thomas Jefferson and the other Founders could make an appeal to self-evident moral truths, why can’t we?
Slavery was condemned and eventually abolished on grounds other than “rational” proof of its inutility. While it is true that slavery was not a socially useful institution, this is not why it was abolished. Americans (at least those Americans who lived outside the South) didn’t become anti-slavery because some economist proved to them that it did more harm than good to the GDP. They turned against slavery because they remembered what Jefferson had said in the Declaration and because Harriett Beecher Stowe -- without taking the trouble to give a “rational” proof that there is anything wrong with cruelty -- showed that slavery was a cruel institution.
Likewise when society, many millennia ago, first decided that marriage should be a male-female thing, this wasn’t because social scientists of that primitive society considered the possibility of same-sex marriage and rejected it in favor of male-female marriage because the latter, in their considered and very “rational” judgment, was more socially beneficial. Those primitive societies, along with every human society that ever existed prior to the 1990s, rejected same-sex marriage because it struck them as an absurdity. They rejected it because its irrationality could be seen on its face; it was self-evident; it didn’t require proof.
And if you are somebody who disapproves of same-sex marriage, is this because you have given it impartial consideration and, after much reading and discussion and contemplation, and after weighing up the pros and cons, you have been compelled by your sober and dispassionate rationality to the conclusion that it will be more harmful to society than beneficial? Or did you say to yourself when the idea of same-sex marriage was first proposed, “This is an absurdity”?
So if this is how almost every society that has ever existed on the face of the earth has decided that same-sex marriage shouldn’t be allowed, and if this is how many of us as individuals still decide against it, why when we enter a courtroom must we pretend that have a “rational” proof against same-sex marriage?
We ought to be able to go into a courtroom and say to the judge, “Your honor, you know as well as I that same-sex marriage makes no sense; and so I rest my case.”
-- David Carlin, a professor of sociology and philosophy at the Community College of Rhode Island at Newport, is the author of Homosexualism Versus Catholicism.
If a person does not want to “help” evolve the specie, I don’t see any right or wrong thing at all.
It simply *IS*. That’s the point I’m getting at.
That’s what I mean by anything goes.
Your preference to evolve is no better than a another’s preference to stop evolving.
Arguing that legal marriage should exist simply because it existed prior to the formation of the union is silly. Many things existed prior to the formation of the Union.
Look, anywhere you give government power is bad and that extends into even the more traditional social concepts. The execution of marriage as it exists today in greater society is ridiculous on its face. And that is primarily a result of the interference of government and it’s rules. Rules that are defined and manipulated by politicians.
Your thinking is ridiculous, goofy, in your efforts to destroy marriage, now you want to pretend that your thought out position is that the people of America will just eliminate marriage, and marriage law and divorce law.
According to your fantasy, we would always have had polygamy and gay marriage, and somehow marriage, families, and divorces would be invisible to society and law.
Stop the silliness.
I said no such things. The tactic to get me to defend something I clearly did not say is not going to work.
I’ve made a clear argument on why government should have no role in what is supposed to be a union of two people before God. Under what circumstances do you believe government enforcement of this union before God complete with subsidizes and tax breaks and special rules is beneficial to marriage? Or do you put a marriage at the justice of the peace on equal footing as that of one before the church?
You are as unclear as can be, it is almost impossible to even figure out what your thinking is it is so silly.
Something about some internal fantasy of yours, but I'm not even sure what the fantasy is.
You can have any private religious "marriage" you want, as long as you don't care about it being recognized by the government and don't openly flaunt the laws against polygamy, for instance, so what is your complaint?
Understanding another point requires intellectual honesty of which you seem to have none. This is the 2nd time you’ve put words on my mouth amd dodged my direct question. Either you are incapable of reading comprehension, incapable of rational discussion, or incapable of responding to a simple question. Which is it?
I can’t make sense of nonsense.
Why would you waste people’s time by making silly statements about not wanting a legal, a society wide recognized relationship called marriage?
America has never had such a thing, and never will, it can’t, that is why all societys have marriage laws, whether it is a democracy, or a tribe, or atheist, or a Monarchy or a place where a religion is the law, like in sharia law, or whatever.
I’ll ask the question again. What is the legitimate role of government with concern to the union of a man and a woman before God?
Contract law.
Would you try to bring your marriage rants into reality and the United States, and politics, especially on this news/activism thread related to an important conservative political battle?
I don’t even know if you are a Muslim, or Mormon, or a member of a gay church, practice Apache marriage, or what, and I’m not interested in your personal religion or church.
Bravo. A person of intellectual honesty. Wouldn’t contract law be just as valid without the “marriage ceremony?”
Since when is a 2 sentence post with a simple question a rant?
And if you don’t care what my religious beliefs are then why did you bring it up? It’s hardly relevant to the subject matter.
Good Lord, do you ever make sense?
Would you try to bring your marriage rants into reality and the United States, and politics, especially on this news/activism thread related to an important conservative political battle?
How about G-d’s or G-dly marriage?
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