You Can't Marry Your Canary

Restricting the definition of marriage is not inappropriate discrimination. As a matter of fact, the word, discrimination, doesn't even apply because there is no such thing legally, culturally, socially or linguistically as a marriage that is not between a man and a woman.

I've got a piece from the LA Times, Tuesday, July 13, and there is an interesting piece written by Joseph Ferra that is entitled "Bias for Gays: Hollywood's Dual Standard." This is something that I want to draw your attention to and it's worth thinking about.

Last November voters in Colorado passed what I call the equal rights amendment which means no special rights for homosexuals. Everybody gets treated the same in Colorado. But apparently there is a court order that has restricted that until they do some more work on it because it may violate the U.S. Constitution. I don't understand that to be honest with you because equal protection under the law, which was the concern of this amendment with regards to the U.S. Constitution, is exactly what this amendment to the Colorado constitution provides for. In any event, part of the argument that conservative thinkers had on this is that the kinds of laws that promote equal protection for homosexuals were in fact special protection with bias on the sides of the homosexuals and against heterosexuals. They said this would never happen.

Right now we're facing a situation in which new rules are expected to be adopted by the Writers' Guild of America West that will extend the health insurance coverage to domestic partners. Sounds great, huh? Health insurance coverage to domestic partners, but with this caveat, if an only if they are homosexuals. In other words, if Joe is shacking up with Mary then his health insurance doesn't cover her, but if Joe is shacking up with Fred it does cover Fred. It seems to me that this is a straight out and out special privilege for homosexuals. And it's not just the Writers' Guild of America West. It's also MCA Universal, HBO and Viacom. They have all recently adopted similar rules and Sony, 20th Century Fox and surprisingly Disney are reportedly jumping on the bandwagon. That is a separate issue. I'm just pointing that out.

What strikes me as interesting is some conversation that I listened to on Steve Edwards' show about this issue. He was actually a bit frustrated about this and he is quite liberal on the general issue of homosexuals in culture. But this bothered him because it's an obvious bias on the side of homosexuals. They get special privileges for health care, which is ironic because they have more health care risks. Those people who are heterosexual are going to have to dig into their pockets to fund the additional risks that these homosexual partnerships are going to add to the insurance policies. Steve Edwards was offended and I understand why.

Well, somebody called into his show and said that this isn't unfair and the reason is that homosexuals have been discriminated against for a long time and this evens the situation a little bit more. It's time for them to have a few things in their benefit. That strikes me as wrong way to resolve inappropriate discrimination, but in any event that's the way he argued. His argument hinged on the notion that heterosexuals had been discriminating against homosexuals in the area of marriage for years and years, and since they were the unfortunate victims of discrimination then it was appropriate for this other action to be taken to protect them.

I thought about this for a while. I'm always inclined to bite off an argument like that and chew on it for a while and see if it really works. I hope you're getting into the habit of that too after listening to shows like this. So I thought about this for a while and there was something about it that bothered me. There was a sense in which there is all kinds of discrimination in the world, and I've talked about this notion of discrimination that it's like a sixteen-letter four-letter word. I don't think discrimination per se is wrong. In fact, it's a vital skill for us to be able to make good decisions about things and it's also a critical aspect of our freedom. We have the liberty to discriminate amongst a variety of different things. There are only a few types of discrimination that we've considered inappropriate. I got to thinking about this whole thing of discriminating against homosexuals in marriage.

The question that I asked myself was this: will the government allow me to marry my canary? Well, no. Of course not. What a bizarre thought. You can't marry a bird. What about my computer? Can I marry my computer? You can't marry a machine. Why not? Couldn't one argue that it's discrimination, that it's discrimination against me from a heterosexual perspective, that heterosexuals narrowly allow marriage just for a man and a woman and they're discriminating against anyone who would want to marry their pet or machine or anyone who would want to marry their computer or T.V. or VCR, or anything else. Why couldn't we do that?

If I were to ask that question and ask it seriously you'd have to give me a reasonable response. You wouldn't just shrug your shoulders and say that it's idiotic. I'd have to ask you why it's idiotic. And the answer would turn out to be something like this. Marriage isn't for men and machines. Marriage isn't for men and animals. That's not what marriage is. So when we talk about marriage, to even think about applying it to machines or animals is a misapplication of the whole concept. This is why the accusation that there is discrimination against people who want to marry their machines simply doesn't fly because it's a category fallacy. It just doesn't work. Machines aren't the kinds of things you marry. Pets aren't the kind of things you marry. So raising this objection is superfluous.

What is marriage? Marriage is defined according to the U.S. Supreme Court in Jones v. Hallahan like this: "Marriage was a custom long before the state commenced to issue licenses for that purpose. In all cases, marriage has always been considered as the union of a man and a woman, and we have been presented with no authority to the contrary." If you look in Black's Law Dictionary it says this: "Marriage is defined as the civil status, condition or relation of one man and one woman united in law for life for the discharge to each other and the community of duties legally incumbent upon those whose association is founded on the distinction of sex." Webster says this: "Marriage is a state of being married or being united to a person or persons of the opposite sex as husband and wife. Also the mutual relation of husband and wife abstractly, the institution whereby men and women are joined in a special kind of social, legal dependence for the purpose of founding and maintaining a family."

Here's the point that I'm making, my friends. As a category, by definition, culturally and linguistically and legally, marriage involves not a man and a pet, not a woman and a machine, but a man and a woman. Restricting it as such is not inappropriate discrimination. As a matter of fact, the word doesn't even apply because there is no such thing legally, culturally, socially or linguistically as a marriage that is not between a man and a woman.

One could change the institution and the legal definitions and we're always open to that theoretically. But keep in mind that if you're goal is to reconstruct an institution, reconstruct a legal definition, redefine the meaning of a word, then the burden of proof is on the reconstructionist and it's not really fair to point the finger at the person who simply holds the legal, social and linguistic meaning of a word that the word has always had. The burden of proof is on the reconstructionist. That's why it's an unfair objection to say that it is discriminatory if the state won't allow a man to marry his machine. It's unfair to say that it's discriminatory if the state won't allow a woman to marry her canary. And it's also unfair to claim that it's discriminatory if the state won't allow a man to marry another man or a woman to marry another woman. That's not what marriage is pure and simple.

Many of us are married to our jobs. And some of us are married to bitcXs. The ex sez I was a dog, running around with a pack of other dogs and pissin on tires. So, I am as confused as you are adamant about marriage between a man and a woman. If the point is to promote marriage as a structure of social order, then marriages betwixt gays and lesbians is a good thing. It promotes stable social order and harmony in the world unless you see it from the perspective of the fundamentalist Taliban Christian. Go away. And by the way your ankles aren't covered.

We see you too engage in twisting the truth with words. Homosexuality is a sin in the eyes of God. As long as you engage in this sinful activity you will receive pain, suffering, and death instead of everlasting life. You can try to make out like it is I who is the evil one but I am not. You follow the evil one into death by practicing these unsavory activities.
(1 Corinthians 6)
9 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders
10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. Food for the stomach and the stomach for food"--but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
12 "Everything is permissible for me"--but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible for me"--but I will not be mastered by anything.
14 By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also.
15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never!
16 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will become one flesh."
17 But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.
18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.
19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;
20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

You have free will but not everything you can think of to do is good for you or others. You’re being mislead by your sexual feelings and becoming a slave to your desires and they have mastered you and you not them. Your body is not meant for your use it is meant for Gods use. When you defile the body you defile God. He has no use for those who would do such things. You will be discarded like the trash you are as long as you do not honor your Father our Lord.

God has no purpose for your type of social order but does have a purpose for the social order of nature. A Man and Woman have roles in nature and they are outlined in small part here.

1 Corinthians 7
1 Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry.
2 But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.
3 The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband.
4 The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife.
5 Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
6 I say this as a concession, not as a command.
7 I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that.

Notice the use of "Him" and "Her" in denoting the gender specific aspects of marriage and the conditions of responsibility. This denotes that marriage betwixt Gays (Sad people) and Lesbians (More sad people) are not a good thing.

Bottom line: Homosexuals have a right to choose whatever lifestyle they wish. They have a right to enter into living arrangements of their choosing, and live without harrassment or discrimination.

What they want, and what they DO NOT have a "right" to do, is to change the definition of what "marriage" is, to suit their particular purpose.

An argument that I have heard put forth by people defending the payment of health care benefits to same sex partners, but withholding them from unmarried opposite sex partners, is that the opposite sex partners could get married if they wanted to, as a way to get these benefits, while the same sex partners cannot do that by law. In other words, gay activists, (you know, those people who think they should be allowed to choose whatever lifestyle appeals to them), would dictate that heterosexuals should have to be married to get the same benefits they want for themselves by virtue of simply living together.

What the Disney's of the world have opened themselves up to is a Pandora's Box of sorts. By this logic, health care benefits should be paid to any friend, roommate, or anyone living together. If Fred is a Disney employee and he and Charlie want to live together as platonic (or straight) friends in an apartment, for reasons of cost savings, companionship, or whatever, should Disney be obliged, (or should other companies be forced, as activists would insist)to pay for Charlie's health care benefits?

Is it not a bit bizarre to suggest that Disney should then get into the business of forcing Fred and Charlie to prove that they are in a "sexual partner" relationship, as opposed to just being two straight guys living together, as a method of determining if they will or will not pay health benefits to the non-employee? Will there be "spot checks" to make sure these two guys are having anal sex with each other?

How discriminatory would it be to deny benefits to a platonic roommate or friend, just because they may be heterosexual, and not at all romantically linked...just roommates?

How would or could this policy ever be enforced? More importantly, how or why should government be able to dictate any such policy to private corporations, or any organization, regardless of structure or ownership?

I don't hate gays, I do not hold them up for ridicule, I do not single out gays abuse. I do not agree with the lifestyle, but I believe whatever occurs between consenting adults is between them. As free moral agents we all have a God given free choice to exercise. I do not feel that I nor anyone else should tell others what they can and cannot do in their private lives.

With that said, I HATE the whole gay agenda. I will not recognize them as some special group in need of extra priviledges. I get no perks for being hetero, and as to marrige, I'll NEVER support gay marrige. Marrige is an instituion set up by God (HE does NOT support gay marrige), but to take religion out of the argument, marrige is also a state recognized institution whose purpose is there for : for the purpose of founding and maintaining a family. Homosexuals obviously cannot make a family as such, therefore should not be married or awarded any of the other perks that married people get.

Bottom line: Homosexuals have a right to choose whatever lifestyle they wish. They have a right to enter into living arrangements of their choosing, and live without harassment or discrimination.

No the bottom line is that God tells us to discriminate against Sin and Sinners. When mans law goes against Gods law we are compelled to honor God and not man. The law of God is clear and was explained by Paul.

1 Corinthians 5
I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people--
10 not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world.
11 But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.
12 What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?
13 God will judge those outside. "Expel the wicked man from among you."

Sounds like we are to discriminate to me.

I do not feel that I nor anyone else should tell others what they can and cannot do in their private lives.

If we do not remind them of their sin then we are doing a dis-service to God by not defending his word. By not spreading the word of God then we may as well deny him. Without the feeling of guilt that is brought about by peer pressure on the sinners of this world we by default allow the sins of man to spread and grow. We allow Satan to recruit freely without opposition and that is disrespectful to the teachings of our lord Jesus Christ who set an example by condemning sin.

The questions you should be asking yourself are

(a) why is the gov't in the marriage business in the first place and
(b) what is your obssession with homosexuality that drives you to post this material ad infinitum?

These are very good questions.
First of all I would like to point out that our government is based on Judeo-Christian principles and is in place to protect our God given rights. One of these rights is to engage in marriage. The bible sanctions and describes marriage in no small part as a union between a man and a woman that is made in heaven and ruled over by God. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.

As for your second question. I have been very busy with this topic recently because it is the one I am currently discussing. I have, in the past, discussed other topics like Abortion and adultery however, this is my current topic. I will make an effort to attack other sins in the future and I am willing to consider suggestions.

I appreciate your input about this issue and hope I have answered your questions satisfactorily. If you have questions about other sins then I will try to address your questions as long as they are respectful and intelligent.

I thought homosexuals wanted to be treated equal...NO they don't they want us to bow to their way of life and if we don't, they'll fix us good with their lawyer friends.

Some may this this is an unfair attack on HOMOSEXUALS (Gay=Happy not homosexual deviant), but this is the way things are shaking out. If you are homosexual you get more rights, if you aren't then you get no rights.

Sorry, not what our forefathers had in mind and not what the Bible says.

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