Posted on 06/04/2014 10:19:50 AM PDT by Iced Tea Party
Cultural civil war can be avoided by getting government out of marriage
There is no question that the media, political, and cultural push for gay marriage has made impressive gains. As recently as 1989, voters in avant-garde San Francisco repealed a law that had established only domestic partnerships.
But judging by the questions posed by Supreme Court justices this week in oral arguments for two gay-marriage cases, most observers do not expect sweeping rulings that would settle the issue and avoid protracted political combat. A total of 41 states currently do not allow gay marriage, and most of those laws are likely to remain in place for some time. Even should the Court declare unconstitutional the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman for federal purposes, we can expect many pitched battles in Congress. The word “spouse” appears in federal laws and regulations a total of 1,138 times, and many of those references would have to be untangled by Congress absent DOMA.
No wonder Wisconsin’s GOP governor Scott Walker sees public desire for a Third Way. On Meet the Press this month he remarked on how many young people have asked him why the debate is over whether the definition of marriage should be expanded. They think the question is rather “why the government is sanctioning it in the first place.” The alterative would be to “not have the government sanction marriage period, and leave that up to the churches and the synagogues and others to define that.”
Governor Walker made clear these thoughts weren’t “anything I’m advocating for,” but he gave voice to many people who don’t think the gay-marriage debate should tear the country apart in a battle over who controls the culture and wins the government’s seal of approval. Gay-marriage proponents argue that their struggle is the civil-rights issue of our time, although many gays privately question that idea. Opponents who bear no animus toward gays lament that ancient traditions are being swept aside before the evidence is in on how gay marriage would affect the culture.
Both sides operate from the shaky premise that government must be the arbiter of this dispute. Columnist Andrew Sullivan, a crusader for gay marriage, has written that “marriage is a formal, public institution that only the government can grant.” But that’s not so. Marriage predates government. Marriage scholar Lawrence Stone has noted that in the Middle Ages it was “treated as a private contract between two families . . . For those without property, it was a private contract between two individuals enforced by the community sense of what was right.” Indeed, marriage wasn’t even regulated by law in Britain until the Marriage Acts of 1754 and 1835. Common-law unions in early America were long recognized before each state imposed a one-size-fits-all set of marriage laws.
The Founding Fathers avoided creating government-approved religions so as to avoid Europe’s history of church-based wars. Depoliticizing religion has mostly proven to be a good template for defusing conflict by keeping it largely in the private sphere.
Turning marriage into fundamentally a private right wouldn’t be an easy task. Courts and government would still be called on to recognize and enforce contracts that a couple would enter into, and clearly some contracts — such as in a slave-master relationship — would be invalid. But instead of fighting over which marriages gain its approval, government would end the business of making distinctions for the purpose of social engineering based on whether someone was married. A flatter tax code would go a long way toward ending marriage penalties or bonuses. We would need a more sensible system of legal immigration so that fewer people would enter the country solely on the basis of spousal rights.
The current debate pits those demanding “marriage equality” against supporters of “traditional marriage.” But many Americans believe it would be better if we left matters to individuals and religious bodies. The cherished principle of separating church and state should be extended as much as possible into separating marriage and state. Ron Paul won many cheers during his 2012 presidential campaign when he declared, “I’d like to see all governments out of the marriage question. I don’t think it’s a state decision. I think it’s a religious function. I am supportive of all voluntary associations and people can call it whatever they want.”
Supporters of traditional marriage know the political winds are blowing against them. A new Fox News poll finds 49 percent of voters favoring gay marriage, up from just 32 percent a decade ago. And among self-described conservatives under 35, Fox found support for gay marriage is now at 44 percent. Even if the Supreme Court leaves the battle for gay marriage to trench warfare in the states, the balance of power is shifting. Rush Limbaugh, a powerful social conservative, told his listeners this week: “I don’t care what this court does with this particular ruling. . . . I think the inertia is clearly moving in the direction that there is going to be gay marriage at some point nationwide.”
But a majority of Americans still believe the issue of gay marriage should be settled by the states and not with Roe v. Wade–style central planning. It might still be possible to assemble a coalition of people who want to avoid a civil war over the culture and who favor getting government out of the business of marriage.
— John Fund is national-affairs columnist for NRO.
:)
This is childish and silly, we have a real political battle on our hands and these closet end of marriage people want to pretend that we can just convince the voters to end marriage as we know it since our creation as a nation.
In other words suddenly marriage and divorce law and benefits ends, and polygamy and gay marriage become normal anyway.
Marriage has always been legal or illegal, whether it was Roman law, or Greek law, English law or law imposed by the Catholic church, or Islam, or the tribe.
IF YOU DON’T CARE IF YOUR MARRIAGE IS LEGAL, THEN REMEMBER, NO ONE ELSE DOES EITHER, AND NEVER DID, SO JUST DO WHAT YOU WANT IF YOU DON’T CARE IF THE REST OF US RECOGNIZE IT.
If you had a private gay marriage 30 years ago, or a 100 years ago, so you did, it just wasn’t recognized by law.
Muslims and Mormons have clergy, so do gay churches, and since when do we tell atheists and non-church/mosque members they can't marry?
You make some great points. Glenn Beck has been behind this libertarian idea of getting the gov’t out of marriage. I instinctively disliked it. You have made a great case against it. This is one area state gov’t should be involved in as they are now.
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Agreed.
In your situation, yes, getting marital status out of the tax code would increase your household taxes. For an increasing number of us (two-earner households with both making substantial incomes), however, there is still a marriage penalty in the federal tax code, not a subsidy. So, the tax argument for keeping government in the marriage business doesn't really work for me.
The 14th is a terrible amendment:
Section 4.And besides that little gem, there is the very dubious circumstances of its
The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
passage— THE UNCONSTITUTIONALITY OF THE 14th AMENDMENT.
I left out marriage disputes and divorce, when a married Muslim woman becomes a catholic and then the marriage breaks up, which church decides the law for the couple, estate, and the kids?
The political aspect is small potatoes compared with the "fabric of society" or "civilization" aspect.
One thing that isn't working right, in this social upheaval, is that judges are empowering a radical minority to impose a fundamental social change against the will of the majority.
The judges are also undercutting the legitimacy of their own institution, and one day will find that a substantial fraction of the population views the courts as nothing more than glorified clowns.
in violent agreementfor the most part. ;)
I wouldn't say the first Ten Amendments are not a "bill of rights" but an expressed sampling of God-given rights already there
but something more like The Bill of Rights is reaffirmation of preexisting rights and the codification thereof
because some of them certainly aren't God-given (Amd 7 is about common law suits; 6 is about criminal trials; but 2 is about the Right to protect oneself and others, and a militia is simply the people as a whole armed to protect one another's property/freedom/lives.)
I agree, my parents agreed, and everyone I know agrees that government being in the “marriage” business is not a good thing-it is too open to coercion-after all, look how well big brother manages everything else-not-they’ve done such a fine job so far, right?
Government shouldn’t even be licensing cars or bars, never mind anything like a partnership, business or otherwise-I can hire a lawyer for that and get a better deal anyway-and probably from a lawyer right here on FR...
MrT5 and I bought a civil license-and that is all it was, a document for a partnership-because it was required by the military for benefits. But we were married a week later, when the PRIEST performed the ceremony, and we participated in the SACRAMENT of marriage before GOD and witnesses. Marriage is before God, one man, one woman, and not anything else, I don’t care how much someone says every new circus act is “marriage”, it is not.
That is my opinion, but I will respect anyone else’s, we don’t have to agree, and I don’t call those whose opinions differ nasty names-that is what liberty means to me-liberty for everyone-not just those who agree with me.
I was surprised to see this from a poster, though-”we keep order and protect the population by mandating that people...” and you can fill in the rest of that sentence with pretty much anything, it still sounds like something from the old soviet bloc to me.
And I mean no offense, Waggle, I agree with you more often than not...
Who told you the government, including the federal government wasn’t involved in marriage? It sure wasn’t the founding fathers and the founding Congress.
So. You’ve gone from being critical of conservatives to defending LBJ.
Nice.
Any more libertarian talking points against us conservatives you wanna come up with?
Saving civilization is the reason for the political battle, pretending that marriage will suddenly be voted on by Americans to be disappeared from our society and law, and become a totally private practice by those who belong to religions and cults and Mosques, is beyond silly.
In the meantime, the democrats and rinos/libertarians will be allowing gay marriage, with polygamy next if we don’t get our political campaigns in order.
Reread my post -- the 14th denies the ability to question the validity of any debt assumed.
So, if the Congress decides to assume another trillion in debt to build themselves a giant private amusement-park [for themselves] there is nothing (precisely because its validity cannot be called into question) that we can do once the debt is assumed according to the 14th.
Calling LBJ a son of a bitch is defending him? Okay...he was a baby eating son of a bitch. I suppose that’s bestowing sainthood on him by your standards.
Evidently the Founding Fathers, the Constitition and our laws were wrong. All wrong for 200 years.
LBJ proved them wrong.
/liberal talking points.
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