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The Court and Marriage
Townhall.com ^ | April 28, 2015 | Bill Murchison

Posted on 04/28/2015 2:08:12 PM PDT by Kaslin

Well. I really can't believe I am saying this. The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to tell us what marriage means. Not speculate; not explain. Tell: as in, "Wipe that smile off your face and listen to what I'm telling you."

We are at a remarkable moment in human affairs: one we would hardly have predicted 50 years ago at the start of our cultural upheavals. Historic understandings that drew, for the most part, support and sympathy no longer have footing, which is fine with the kind of folk -- they are in leadership roles all around us, including judgeships and presidential candidacies -- who think we're in the business of inventing a whole new way of life, atoning in the process for ancient sins.

And what would be considered an ancient sin? Preferring one ideal or mode of conduct over another one. Talking a lot about Truth. Those would be some of the more salient sins.

The court, as it merely entertains arguments for declaring same-sex marriage a civil right, gives countenance to the notion that many concepts evolve, change with the times, put on new garments and flap their wings.

Everybody capable of distinguishing an oxcart from a Lamborghini, a conch shell from an iPhone, understands that nothing stays the same, that -- as Heraclitus, the dolorous old Greek, put it -- you never step twice in the same stream. May we posit that law also changes?

The question underlying the same-sex marriage controversy --which the high court will resolve in its own fashion -- is, do certain large realities lie outside the province of courts and lawyers, hard to approach satisfactorily in legal briefs, far less determine fairly and intelligently?

Human society knows not the likes of same-sex marriage. It knows male-female marriage only. We seem here to be in the presence of deep truths about humanity and its nature. If humanity understands marriage in one way only, what grounds does this provide for broadening the legal -- and commensurately the cultural -- modes of approaching the matter?

Oh, excuse me; it's because various people demand reconsideration of the question, on the grounds that they think, they believe, the ancient estate of matrimony to be ripe for overhaul -- the Christian as well as the pre-Christian forms and approaches.

Yes, excuse us. Let us get out of the way; all who doubt the claims of desire that the justices, like the whole nation, have been listening to.

That marriage is, in Christian terms, a sacrament -- "instituted of God," in the language of the Book of Common Prayer -- cuts no ice with the many today who view marriage less as an institution aligned with divine purposes than a format for human rejoicings. In a fast-secularizing age, it's us first -- you see, don't you?

Well, maybe not. What about the historicity of male-female marriage in all cultures, Christian or otherwise? A mere detail. It's a case of what people want. What people want, once the clamor becomes loud enough, as with same-sex marriage, the courts seem bound to supply.

Before this happens, we might want to think through some of the likelier consequences of authorizing judges to decide the deep questions of human existence.

The first consequence is social division and unhappiness. If fully half the American population supports same-sex unions, what about the other half? The court's going to say, OK, everybody, figure out a way of making it work? What a prescription for social turmoil and complications unspeakable!

The second consequence concerns, shall we say, Reality. If the world never before has seen an alternative to male-female marriage, is it barely possible that God, or Nature, or both, have implanted in the infinitely vast majority of humans the right understanding of how humans should live?

Just asking. The journalists, the judges, the opinion-makers doubtless have this thing figured out. They desire the incorporation of same-sex unions in our understanding of family relationships and the multiplication of the human race. They may get what they desire, courtesy of a legal system often less concerned with outcomes than with grand gestures and historic declarations.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS: gaymarriage; homosexualagenda; judgesandcourts; marriage; ssm; supremecourt

1 posted on 04/28/2015 2:08:12 PM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

2 posted on 04/28/2015 2:10:36 PM PDT by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: Kaslin; All

The states have never amended the Constitution to expressly protect gay marriage. Unfortunately, we’re not hearing anything about 10th Amendment-protected state powers versus constitutionally unprotected, PC “rights” like gay marriage.


3 posted on 04/28/2015 2:12:14 PM PDT by Amendment10
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To: Travis McGee

This Supreme Court hearing is a sham and any ruling in favor of mandatory acceptance of sodomy is arguably void on its face.

First: No federal court has jurisdiction to judge marriage as marriage is neither a right nor a privilege. For proof of this fact try to marry your adult sibling. As such its not covered under the 14th’s jurisdiction, nor is it a civil rights claim.

Second: Marriage is an establishment of religion. The First Amendment bars the government from changing it.

Third: Kagan and Ginsberg by publicly advocating for forced public acceptance of sodomy have demonstrated a bias as well as conflict of interest requiring them to recuse themselves from the case. They have not done so.

The absence of the forgoing arguments in front of the court and the refusal to recuse themselves by the two who have shown the most conflict of interest in the case are proof the hearing today is a sham.


4 posted on 04/28/2015 2:14:56 PM PDT by Mechanicos (Nothing's so small it can't be blown out of proportion.)
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To: Kaslin

If the State hadn’t told us what marriage is in the first place (via tax law, estate law, etc.), the Supreme Court wouldn’t be weighing in now.


5 posted on 04/28/2015 2:17:57 PM PDT by Wolfie
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To: Wolfie; All
"If the State hadn’t told us what marriage is in the first place (via tax law, estate law, etc.), ..."

Note that as a consequence of the ill-conceived 17th Amendment, the corrupt, citizen-elected federal Senate has helped the corrupt House to pass a bunch of laws which the states have never delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to make.

The 17th Amendment needs to disappear.

6 posted on 04/28/2015 2:33:26 PM PDT by Amendment10
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To: Kaslin
We are at a remarkable moment in human affairs: one we would hardly have predicted 50 years ago at the start of our cultural upheavals.

Bill needs to read Robert Bork's book Slouching Towards Gomorrah. We could have, should have predicted at LEAST this anarchy after witnessing the barbarism of the late 60's.

Those lawless hippies are now in Congress an on our federal courts.

7 posted on 04/28/2015 3:11:09 PM PDT by fwdude (The last time the GOP ran an "extremist," Reagan won 44 states.)
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To: fwdude

It is the State as God.

They believe humanity is infinitely malleable. They have only to pass the proper laws, and they can make people into what they want.

A very bad misinterpretation of reality.


8 posted on 04/28/2015 3:32:18 PM PDT by marktwain
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To: Wolfie

“If the State hadn’t told us what marriage is in the first place (via tax law, estate law, etc.), the Supreme Court wouldn’t be weighing in now”

More than that - the day we gave states the power to license marriages, we gave them the ability to define it.

I’m complicit as well - has anyone here been married without first clearing it with the state? That’s when we lost this fight.


9 posted on 04/28/2015 4:24:15 PM PDT by highball ("I never should have switched from scotch to martinis." -- the last words of Humphrey Bogart)
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To: Kaslin; sickoflibs; NFHale; stephenjohnbanker; BillyBoy; fieldmarshaldj; GOPsterinMA

I’m not for the flag amendment. But that Rainbow US flag makes me angry.


10 posted on 04/28/2015 9:16:57 PM PDT by Impy (They pull a knife, you pull a gun. That's the CHICAGO WAY, and that's how you beat the rats!)
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To: Impy

They’re declaring their allegiance is not to this country, but their sexuality.


11 posted on 04/28/2015 10:51:48 PM PDT by NetAddicted (Just looking)
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To: Kaslin

Hillary Clinton: 'Deep-Seated Cultural Codes, Religious Beliefs…Have To Be Changed' ( 1:20 )

Let's reverse this !
12 posted on 04/28/2015 10:56:54 PM PDT by Yosemitest (It's Simple ! Fight, ... or Die !)
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To: marktwain
Hmmm, IIRC it was Marx himself who coined the term, “create the new man.” We haven't heard much of it since the fall of the Soviet Union, but it is still a leftist maxim.

I don't care if an affirmative decision in support of fag marriage is 5-4 or 9-0, for the impositions of something that no culture in history dared, will signal the willingness of the American Left to completely upturn our essence, our nature. It will be the victory of state mandated licentiousness over societal virtue. In the near term, churches will lose their tax exempt status for refusing fag marriage. In the long term, they will be found to be such hateful institutions that they must be banned.

Religion is the last institutional holdout. It is the Left’s next target. Religiosity must be destroyed.

13 posted on 04/29/2015 4:18:44 AM PDT by Jacquerie (To shun Article V is to embrace tyranny.)
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To: fwdude
Those lawless hippies are now in Congress an on our federal courts.

And due to the 17th Amendment, they rewrite the constitution at will.

The 17A must go. Article V.

14 posted on 04/29/2015 4:22:07 AM PDT by Jacquerie (To shun Article V is to embrace tyranny.)
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