How Astute of You to Notice that, California Supreme Court
Value Judgments are for Voters, Hmmkay?
By Leon H Wolf Posted in Culture | Judicial Activism — Comments (345) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
I spent a little time last night reading the California Supreme Court's opinion (.pdf) in the gay marriage case. To be honest, I didn't make it all the way through (it's quite lengthy - 172 pages, in fact), primarily because I found the money shot relatively early on. You see, one of the arguments raised by the State was, "Look, Supreme Court, the way the law is set up here in California, gay couples already get all the civil benefits of marriage. Literally the only thing they are denied is the right to use the word 'married.' Therefore, there's absolutely no potential harm that comes to gay people based on the way the law is set up." This argument elicited the following response from the court:
Second, retaining the traditional definition of marriage and affording same-sex couples only a separate and differently named family relationship will, as a realistic matter, impose appreciable harm on same-sex couples and their children, because denying such couples access to the familiar and highly favored designation of marriage is likely to cast doubt on whether the official family relationship of same-sex couples enjoys dignity equal to that of opposite-sex couples. Third, because of the widespread disparagement that gay individuals historically have faced, it is all the more probable that excluding same-sex couples from the legal institution of marriage is likely to be viewed as reflecting an official view that their committed relationships are of lesser stature than the comparable relationships of opposite-sex couples.
More below...
And now at last we see the argument laid bare. For all the high-minded talk about constitutional rights, what informs the Court's decision is a value judgment that all sexual choices are equal. This is, of course, what motivates all activists on this issue, since it is logically and legally nonsensical to insist upon "equal rights" when the defining thing that separates one class of persons from another is not some innate visual characteristic but rather a behavior. All people are equal under the law. This is the meaning of the phrase "equal rights." No serious person argues that all actions are equal under the law - and even if they did, this would not be called "equal rights." It would be called instead "anarchy."
It is often argued (although never proven) that there is a biological basis for homosexuality. For a moment, I will concede the point. Those who argue along this line generally also accept that there are biological bases for alcoholism, drug addiction, and a whole host of other behavioral tendencies. This does not lead to the conclusion under the rubric of "equal rights" that the alcoholic and drug addict may not be held accountable for the fruits of their biologically-based addiction. This illustrates with clarity that "equal rights" is not the driving force behind the gay marriage movement; it is instead a desire to impose the value judgment that homosexual sexual activity is a value-neutral choice, akin to the choice between Pepsi and Coke (all sane people will of course choose Coke, but that is beside the point).
Of course, the decision as to whether this is a value-neutral choice is inherently a value judgment, not a legal one. In other words, it is for the voters to decide this question, not the courts. Inevitably, some earnest person will respond, "Yes, but Leon, what if the voters of your state outlawed Coke? Shouldn't the Court step in?" Of course, the very laughability of the question illustrates the breathtaking arrogance of the California Supreme Court. One simply couldn't imagine any realistic scenario in which the majority of voters in a given state outlawed Coca-Cola; it is positively outside the bounds of plausibility. And yet, voters across the country (and indeed in the State of California, whose laws the California Supreme Court claims to follow) have, by overwhelming margins, gone to polls and made value judgments that homosexual relationships are not, in fact, entitled to the same stature as the institution of marriage, which has stood for millenia of human history as an institution involving man and woman.
Four Justices of the California Supreme Court disagree with this value judgment, and because they are allegedly brilliant lawyers, the value judgments of millions of Californian voters are swept aside with the carelessness of a pen stroke. California no longer lives under the rule of law - it lives under the rule of lawyers. And the California Supreme Court understands what it is doing - it is attempting to force the hoi polloi of California to adopt their enlightened standards concerning the value of homosexual sex, despite the fact that less than five years ago, those "enlightened standards" were rejected by large margins. It is at least refreshing that they had the stones to flat-out declare that the judgments of the voters must be rejected as unenlightened because it has forced us as a citizenry once again to increase our resolve that we will use whatever means are necessary to prevent men and women who possess this level of arrogance and disrespect for the law from taking the bench - especially in our nation's Supreme Court.
Thanks for the reminder, California Supreme Court. We needed it.
« Hating James Dobson: To Heck With His Qualifications, He's a Meanie — Comments (14) | Higher Education, Affirmative Action And The Sword Of Damocles in The Hands Of The ABA — Comments (1) »
How Astute of You to Notice that, California Supreme Court 345 Comments (0 topical, 345 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
Even if you're in favor of gay marriage (and, while I can't call myself a supporter, I think it's a stupid issue to go to the mat over), this is the WRONG way to do it.
Every time in US history that the court has taken it upon itself to enforce a change in attitude on the nation, the result has been a disaster. Slavery, school bussing, abortion, even when it's the right thing to do, you can't just expect that nine learned men and women can decree that we will all love and respect one another BECAUSE IT'S THE LAW, and expect anything other than a backlash.
I just really, REALLY hope that this doesn't become a central issue in this election. There's much more important things to worry about (and that's coming from an expert worrier; my family comes from Italy).
__________________________________________
"You can't save the Earth unless you're willing to make other people sacrifice" - Scott Adams (speaking through Dogbert)
Gay marriage did pass through the legislature. The governor vetoed it, deferring the issue to the courts.
He's just a girly man. He should have vetoed it because it was wrong, period.
HTML Help for Red Staters
"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater
And that's the kind of man he is. He wanted to take a swing at marriage, but passed the buck to his fellow leftists on the Supreme Court.
HTML Help for Red Staters
"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater
True, only 1 of the seven judges was appointed by a Democrat (By Gray Davis) 2 of the 3 judges appointed by Pete Wilson favored the majority (including the chief justice) 1 of the 2 Judges appointed by George Deukmejian voted with the majority, and Schwarzenegger's lone appointee was among the dissenters.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/15/BA3G10N325.D...
HTML Help for Red Staters
"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater
Judges need to be held accountable. It's obvious that voting for Republican governors here in the Golden State has not protected us from having liberal, pro-gay judges on the State Supreme Court.
Perhaps we need a ballot initiative to make bad judges more easily recalled.
Proudly supporting John S. McCain for President (McCain/Romney?)
The dems in Sacramento knew that Arnold was running for re-election in 2006 and that he has gay friends from his Hollywood days.
Which is precisely why they approved the SSM measure for Arnold that they wouldn't approve when it was one of their own (Grey Davis) in the gov's mansion.
Arnold did the right thing for the wrong reason. He should have vetoed the measure because it is wrong for the state to encourage unhealthy lifestyles by condoning SSM, not because "the courts" are the proper venue for determining the issue.
This idea of deferring all important social issues to the courts is the #1 problem in America today. If we're going to give judges more power than elected officials, let's force judges to run for re-election every 2-4 years. Then they can be held accountable just like legislators and other elected officials.
Proudly supporting John S. McCain for President (McCain/Romney?)
I'm against gay marriage and I'd put money on the argument that gay marriage will still be illegal in at least 30 states in 15 years.
The only thing that can force Alabama, Utah, Texas, Arkansas, Ohio, Michigan, West Virginia, and Mississippi to start solemnizing gay unions is a couple more liberal judges on the U.S. Supreme Court. As long as liberal Democrats keep pushing gay marriage on the rest of us, the issue will remain alive.
Proudly supporting John S. McCain for President (McCain/Romney?)
Instead it is based on a strict constructionist approach to the Californina Constitution. I could try to explain myself, but this Blog post from Prof Arthur Leonard is much more detailed and eloquent than I could ever be.
http://newyorklawschool.typepad.com/leonardlink/2008/05/california-supr....
The court used Perez vs Sharp as a precident which stuck down the interracial marriage ban in California from the 1940s.
If Californians want to make same-sex marriage explicitly illegal, they have that chance by amending their constitution.
Just because the court can't tell the difference between an innate characteristic and a behavior doesn't mean that the difference doesn't exist.
------------
You are insistent that homosexuality is a behavior and not an innate characteristic. I don't think we are going to change each other's minds on that issue.
However, I think we may be able to eventually agree that the voters of California have an opportunity to define marriage in their constitution if they wish. I don't think it will happen, but I don't live in California and I defend their right to try.
Just the same as I didn't say any such thing about alcoholism or drug addiction. I granted that it might have a biological basis.
What I contend, and what is actually beyond question, is that homosexual sex is a behavior, just like drinking is a behavior and taking drugs is a behavior. You argue against this proposition at the risk (certainty) of beclowning yourself.
------------
Is heterosexual sex a behavior?
If the answer is no, I would *LOVE* to hear the explanation why.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
The statement "homosexual sex is a behavior" is true, but uninteresting.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
constrained to repeat even uninteresting facts, and repeat them strenuously in the face of more interesting falsehoods.
______________
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
"Lawrence v. Texas was decided correctly"?
"The State has the right to 50% of the net worth of a dead homosexual in a life partnership despite a will giving everything to his partner"?
"Griswold v. Connecticut does not infringe on society's right to sustainability"?
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
that a man may marry another man, or a woman another woman. No matter what out judicial oligarchs say, it is a falsehood.
________________
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
All people are equal before the law. All behaviors are not. This observation undermines the entirety of the court's opinion.
------------
Or is it about two dudes sharing some measure of civic protection?
While I am lucky enough to be able to tell this joke, Rodney Dangerfield, rest his soul, said something about not assuming sexual relations are part of a marriage. It was funny, I recall. Probably the delivery, now that I think about it.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
As I gather the movie "I Now Pronounce you Chuck and Larry" (or whatever it was called; I didn't see it) was intended to show, "two dudes sharing some measure of civic protection" is not, in fact, what the push for gay marriage is all about. No one is agitating for the idea that a guy should be able to carry his male best friend on his health insurance. The entire point is the attempt to force the public to bless a sexual relationship between two men, and to elevate that relationship into equal standing in society as that of a marriage.
------------
As I understand it, doesn't say "society must bless sex between two guys!" but merely "you know what, it's none of society's business".
Marriage, as far as society is concerned, is nothing more than a handful of privileges extended.
Tax breaks (in some cases). Inheritance rights. Hospital visitation.
Society doesn't have the competence to give, or take away, much more than that.
Individuals, of course, can offer their approval or disapproval...
But we're back to Loving v. Virginia and the echoes found in the counter-arguments again.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
said is that the people of Texas, acting through their duly-elected representatives, are not capable of governing themselves. They must be lead by their betters.
_____________
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
and today's opinion. You are correct that Lawrence did not say that society must bless a sexual union between two guys - today's opinion did.
Quite properly, Lawrence also did not say that it's none of society's business, as there are many alleged constitutional (generally court-created) "rights" that are properly the subject of a great deal of regulation. But we're wandering afield.
But we're back to Loving v. Virginia and the echoes found in the counter-arguments again.
We're back to disregarding the difference between states of being and behaviors again? I thought we had moved past that.
------------
I'm not comparing being gay to being black.
I am, however, comparing counter arguments to gay marriage to counter arguments to "interracial" marriage.
And there *ARE* echoes.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
is a state of being. But falling in love with someone of a different race is a behavior. Nobody NEEDS to marry someone of a different race. People make that choice, though, presumably in the pursuit of happiness.
What a concept.
What you say about marriage is incredibly small-viewed.
Society views marriage in VASTLY larger, more significant, and more nuanced than you suggest.
is nothing more than a handful of privileges extended.
Baloney. And I don't mean fried Oscar Meyer baloney dipped in mayo. That's a delicacy in the parts I hail from. I just mean stinking store-brand baloney unfit to serve my dog.
Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated. -- IMAO
"Society views marriage in VASTLY larger, more significant, and more nuanced than you suggest."
I'm not certain that's true, looking at the numbers.
Looking at the numbers, it seems that the rates of divorce within the church are the same as without.
It seems to me that society sees Marriage as divorced from its procreative functions, divorced from its unitive functions, and is a handful of civic protections given to people who like sleeping together but merely haven't divorced yet.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
You said 'no more significant than a handful of privileges extended'. I said no, it's HIGHLY significant. Now you are saying 'hey look at the divorce rate' in church people.
Nah. Not flying dude. Why then do we have large, expensive ceremonies then, for an insignificant exchange of privileges? Why then do about 50% of married couples NEVER divorce?
That last paragraph has nothing whatsoever with what I said.
Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated. -- IMAO
There are two things that people mean when they say "marriage".
The first is "Marriage In The Eyes Of God" (henceforth "MEG").
The second is "Marriage In The Eyes Of The State" (henceforth "MES").
MEG is what many people talk about when they talk about "Defending Marriage". Generally, when they make a mention of marriage at all, they're talking about MEG.
The State, however, doesn't have the competence to deal with MEG. All it is capable of dealing with is MES.
What MES is, is a handful of civil protections. Inheritance rights, hospital visitation rights, lawyer stuff, manilla envelope stuff.
Now, it is very possible for a couple of guys to go to a Unitarian Church and have a ceremony in the basement and proclaim, henceforth, that they have a MEG. Of course, there are a handful of people that explain that they do not, in fact, have a MEG.
Which brings us to MES. When enough people get together to explain that these two people do not, in fact, have a MEG, they pass laws explaining that a MES should be denied them as well.
As such, any discussion of Marriage jumps back and forth between MEGs and MESes.
I have both a MEG and a MES.
There are homosexuals out there who have a MEG as well. I, personally, think that they are entitled to a MES. I know of a great many heterosexual couples who had MESes but nothing even close to a MEG.
I also think that denying MESes to people who have MEGs is exactly what is going on with Loving v Virginia.
And it was wrong.
And what is going on now is wrong too.
(exhale)
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
Bird, that's an interesting essay, that I would agree certainly with portions of, not so much in toto. But completely not responsive to what we are arguing over.
You said marriage, in a societal sense, was an insignificant swapping of a few privileges. I said NO, highly significant societally. Nothing you've said in two reaponses seems to attack that point -- while meanwhile I've buttressed it by pointing out that (1) people spend tons of money on extravagant ceremonies to inaugurate these "insignificant swapping of privileges", and (2) 50% of people who get married never divorce.
I'll add to it. In a societal sense, it is considered "cheating" to share some of those privileges with someone other than the one who married.
I repeat: highly significant in a societal sense. Either surrender, or drop the argument, or give me SOMETHING to refute it, but PLEASE do not run on and on matters not germane to the argument.
Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated. -- IMAO
"You said marriage, in a societal sense, was an insignificant swapping of a few privileges."
Allow me to rephrase, then.
The only thing that society has the ability to do is extend or withhold privileges. If two people are married in the Eyes of God, there is *NOTHING* that society could possibly do to make them be unmarried. Moreover, any attempt to make two people married in the Eyes of God be unmarried (see Loving v. Virginia) is deeply, deeply immoral.
As for your argument that: "(1) people spend tons of money on extravagant ceremonies to inaugurate these "insignificant swapping of privileges"", I will point out that this is due to the cheapening of marriage as a whole.
Once upon a time, two teenagers could go find themselves a boat captain, hold a small ceremony... and change their lives forever. Until Death.
Now... well, there's a 50% shot that you'll get divorced. How to communicate that your marriage is a big deal? Well... you can throw a big party! You can invite a million friends! You can have 14 bridesmaids! I have an acquaintance whose older sister got married. The planning for the wedding took longer than the marriage ended up lasting.
Why is this? I argue it's not because marriage is considered such a big deal by society. It's because people think that they ought to consider it a big deal, but don't know how to communicate that... and throwing a big party is a lot easier than changing one's life.
Once upon a time, two teenagers could go find a ship captain and change their lives.
"50% of people who get married never divorce."
Do these people want a medal? That's what marriage is supposed to do. I think that we need to argue that marriage is something for two people to do and do forever. It's important. Until death. Don't do it lightly.
I think that gay people are more than capable of entering into such a covenant.
I'd like to hear an argument as to why they cannot that does not rely on special knowledge of the Mind of God.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
"What MES is, is a handful of civil protections. Inheritance rights, hospital visitation rights, lawyer stuff, manila envelope stuff."
Your right we as a society have extended certain privileges to protect and strengthen the traditional families within our society. What you and others want to do is redefine what constitutes a traditional family. Can you not see the Pandora’s Box that will be opened once the traditional family unit is redefined to be inclusive of homosexuals? All other forms and types of families will solicit the government for the same rights to be extended to them, and it want stop there, all types of sexual orientations will as well. It makes no sense to me how you can not see the societal damage that all of this will lead too. Look at the backlash that this has already caused in our society, and you think you have the solution that will remedy it. Your solution will only make it more complex, which in turn will lead to the need for more government solutions. I’m sorry you feel these people are being deprived of something that you think they have a right too, but they knew it when they entered into the relationship.
I'll ask you how your argument does not apply to that.
Then I'll ask you why I should see an argument that applies fully well to Loving v. Virginia being wrong as particularly persuasive.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
in the California constitution.
bird, you don't like this answer, but this is the answer.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Homosexual acts between consenting adults are already legal, so aren't we dealing exclusively with the people?
Last time I checked, homosexual sex, in and of itself, didn't carry with it the problems the other possible genetic predisposition behaviors you mentioned carry.
Membership in a religion is also a behavior, protected as a suspect classification, despite the fact it is not an immutable characteristic, and certainly without biological component.
Interesting to note the legislature of California has voted twice since the referendum to legalize gay marriage. It's not as if this happened in Nebraska.
Still, points to team red. One wonders what our good blue collar white voters in the rustbelt and south will make of this, and how Obama will handle it. Sigh.
but homosexuality is an innate characteristic. Also by comparing homosexual sex to alcohol or drug abuse, you are making clear that you oppose same sex marriage on a moral and not legal basis. The California constitution requires that the state have a compelling reason (strict scrutiny) for denying marriage rights to same sex couples. That's the same criteria used in the Perez case. The court was following the law as written in the California Constitution and the precedent of Perez.
you are making clear that you oppose same sex marriage on a moral... basis
More or less the point of the entire post, shooflyguy68. Nice of you to finally catch on.
The California constitution requires that the state have a compelling reason (strict scrutiny) for denying marriage rights to same sex couples.
I read the poorly-reasoned opinion as well.
That's the same criteria used in the Perez case.
I have already explained twice why the ruling in Perez was inapposite and easily distinguished on the fact (ditto Loving). I won't waste my time doing it again.
The court was following the law as written in the California Constitution and the precedent of Perez.
I have also already explained twice why this is malarkey. Or rather, it is false unless you accept the premise that the Supreme Court was "following the precedent" of Griswold when it decided Roe v. Wade. In which case, we are simply never going to see eye to eye because you are apparently of the belief that lawyers should be able to make law, as long as they have made a previous law that is within spitting distance of the one they are currently making.
------------
individuals do. that the Supreme Court conflated the two without batting an eye is striking and starts us down the path towards group rights.
________________________________________________________
Halls of Justice Painted Green, Money Talking.
Power Wolves Beset Your Door, Hear Them Stalking.
Those who argue that society has the right to deny marriage to couples who they don't think ought to be married.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
We do live in the US of A, right? I thought corporations already had rights here - we're so far down the path of group rights that many people consider it a bit crazy to suggest that corporations deserve very few and very limited rights.
When I hear arguments against gay marriage, I am reminded of the arguments against (pardon the vile term) "interracial" marriage.
This is, of course, not saying that being gay is anything like being black.
But the arguments given against both are familiar to the point where... well. I'm repeating myself.
Society is more resilient than you think, Leon.
The vile, immoral things going on in society may not be the things you think they are.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
"impose appreciable harm on same-sex couples and their children." Uh, last time I checked, homosexuals are incapable of procreating, which is how families are created. Did they really think through what they wrote?
Now, you could argue that with modern technology anything is possible, however, because this is a choice they make, not a right, then we must deny "such couples access to the familiar and highly favored designation of marriage is likely to cast doubt on whether the official family relationship of same-sex couples enjoys dignity equal to that of opposite-sex couples."
They are purely not operating at the same level as heterosexuals.
books. Homosexuals are not incapable of procreation. While it's true that homosexual couples cannot create a baby that is a genetic offspring of both of them. However, they can adopt, they can have a baby from a previous heterosexual union or they can have children through a surrogate or IVF process. Gay folks have children.
You just lectured someone to consult 5th grade biology for the proposition that adopting a child and/or having a child from a previous union constitues "procreation," and I don't respond to clowns.
------------
See my response to Dan below. I was simply supplying a sarcastic answer to what seemed to me a purposefully ignorant post. Of course homosexual couples cannot procreate. However, they can have children (in several different ways as I noted) and they raise children.
I assumed he meant that homosexuals could not have or raise children. I think we all know that homosexual couples cannot procreate but then, neither can senior citizens who get married nor can some young heterosexual couples in which one or both parties are infertile.
which is rather a significant distinction, if one starts from the premise that the public interest in marriage is mainly - not exclusively, but mainly - about its role in bearing, begetting and raising the next generation.
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill
and I tried to make that clear in my snarky post above. However, in my defense, El Hombre either misread or purposefully mischaracterized the court's comment about the children of homosexuals. Homosexuals do have children. And since they do, I think that including them in this traditional child-friendly, government protected institution is a good idea.
It doesn't matter if they have children or not. Because they are not able to genetically create their own children, they are not equal to heterosexual unions/marriage. Now if you want to say that marriage is only the government's blessing of your sexual choice, then I guess I'm wrong and apologize.
My Grandmother was unable to get pregnant for many years. Doctors told her that it was not possible. She ended up adopting my Mother. Now my question is should my Grandparents marriage license be torn up since she was not genetically able to create her own children?
If the argument for marriage is based strictly on whether someone is able to create a child, it would only seem fair that those who can't would be treated the same as homosexuals. That would include those with genetic defects or over the age of being able to procreate.
___________________________________
Just like PayPal, except it's free and a $25 bonus to sign up!
Is that $60 piece of paper I got from the State of Colorado "allowing me" to get married. Yep, my marriage would be for nothing if it weren't for the government. Thank God government was there with me - in the church, before God, in the presence of my friends and all my family.
I just wouldn't have felt like I was really "married" without that piece of paper.
Okay, (removes tongue from cheek) why don't we agree that the government (at any level) has absolutely no business involving itself in the institution of marriage? Marriage is a religious ritual. It is significant (to me) because, before God and in the presence of my family and friends I swore to love, honor and cherish my wife. Amen.
All the other implications of "marriage" from the state's point of view are simply questions of bad policy, arising from generations of governments involving themselves in things which are none of their d@mn business. Examples: inheritance, tax policy, heath care benefits etc.
I can live with a woman, love, honor and cherish a woman - have children with a woman - all without being "married." I can also get heath care for my non-spouse, leave my worldly posessions to my non-spouse, my non-spouse can legally change her name to match mine etc etc. If none of THOSE things are any of the state's business (which they apparently aren't since they are all legal) then why, suddenly, do I need a license to enter a CHURCH and add the word: "married" to this arrangement?
It's absurd. And, frankly, so are the arguments from so many so-called conservatives that the government should not be forcing moral judgements on its citizens - unless it's the moral judgement that I like.
Wonder why our party is losing seats in Congress and has a high probability of losing the white house as well? You are looking at it.
If two homosexuals want to call themselves "married." Fine. I don't care. Doesn't affect my marriage or life in the slightest. Neither does your bad marriage, or anyone elses (since 50% of them end in divorce anyway.) I know my church will not "marry" two homosexuals, they aren't "married" in my eyes and beyond that I don't care.
If homosexuality is a choice that you don't agree with and find repugnant - then you and I are on the same page. However, you are projecting harm on yourself from the actions of others that simply doesn't exist.
Go get a job with the EPA, I hear they are trying to blame possible future polar bear deaths on cow-flatulence.
OBTW - life long Republican. Small govermnment, Jeffersonian Republican. Will some of you please switch sides so we can get the party back on track?
Government is best that governs least...
why don't we agree that the government (at any level) has absolutely no business involving itself in the institution of marriage?
We cannot agree on that, because it is implausible in the extreme that government of the size and scope that we have, could ever disentangle itself from so public an institution as marriage.
Wonder why our party is losing seats in Congress and has a high probability of losing the white house as well? You are looking at it.
Total nonsense. Few legislative actions have been more popular over the past five years or so than gay marriage bans. They have carried overwhelming support in the South, Midwest and Southwest, and strong majority support in such bastions of Conservatism as Oregon and California.
government should not be forcing moral judgements on its citizens
Again, it is utopian folly to imagine that government so large and extensive as the modern nation-state can stay out of moral judgments. It is hardly possible to write a law that does not impose moral judgments.
________________
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
Previous generations of Americans have changed the world - but apparently, attempting to hold our government accountable to the limited government principles the founders intended is just "too hard" isn't it?
Well, the party of "it's too hard" begins with a "D" and they are accepting applications.
The going in position for a conservative, when asked "should the government fix this 'problem' should not be: 'no'"
It should be: "HELL NO."
Few legislative actions have solved a bigger non-problem than these. Again, explain to me how you have been harmed by 2 homosexuals being married? They have been married in Massachusetts for a couple years now.
Please - explain to me how you were harmed and your rights violated. Then you can convince me that the government has a compelling interest.
Government is best that governs least...
will bring enforcement actions to make insurance companies, employers, organizations etc. recognize same sex spousal partners... oooo I think so. The day government allows me, my company, my neighborhood and my grocery store to refuse to serve gays because their gay...is the day they can have legal status as married individuals. Until then your smoking some serious crazy if you think a decision like this somehow creates an environment with "less" government intervention.
Again, my basic argument was that government has no business in marriage - period. The only arguments anyone ever presents as to why government should involve itself in marriage are - as I previously mentioned - simply examples of bad government policy, and none are a good excuse for the government's involvement in marriage.
Rattling off a list of bad government policies isn't going to change my mind. Sorry.
Government is best that governs least...
When you ask for the legal definition of marriage to be changed from the current state you are calling for more government intervention -- not less -- Doesn't sound particularly libertarian to me.
First of all, even atheists get married. By a Justice of the Peace.
Secondly, it's possible for a couple to marry, even if one or the other is a member of a church that bans marriage outside that religion.
Thirdly, if the State didn't help define rules for inheritance, property settlement, etc., what does society do to adjudicate disputes between people of different religions?
"Thirdly, if the State didn't help define rules for inheritance, property settlement, etc., what does society do to adjudicate disputes between people of different religions?"
They do have rules - it's called a "last will and testament" which last I checked had nothing to do with marriage. Single people have these as well (so I'm told.)
Second - my wife and I are from different religions. If the Catholic church had not agreed to marry us (and they have a variety of reasons for not doing so) - then we would have been married in the Baptist church. If both churches refused - then I would have found a new church. That's just as stupid as my church refusing to perform a bi-racial marriage, I wouldn't stand for that.
Finally, yes athiests get "married" by a JOP, but they aren't "married" in my eyes either. The state has sanctioned the union but it doesn't make it a marriage. I'm not disparaging them - I'm sure they love and care for each other just as much as I love and care for my wife, but it's not a marriage anymore than a homosexual marriage is. Sorry. I already told you that marriage is a promise made to your spouse and God (IMO.) If you don't believe in God, then you have yourself a civil union which is just a promise to your significant other.
If people choose to be athiest - I don't care. If atheists choose to "marry" by the JOP I also don't care. Neither of these things harms me or my marriage in any way.
Ergo, they are not the providence of the government at any level.
Government is best that governs least...
"Finally, yes athiests get "married" by a JOP, but they aren't "married" in my eyes either."
As an atheist married by a JOP, I'll ask you to please look up what Cheney said to Pat Lehey on the Senate Floor in 2004.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
Well, sorry you feel that way. Actually, not. I really could care less.
I believe "marriage" is an religious ritual. I don't remember saying (or even alluding) that your relationship is any different, or somehow inferior to mine - other than the use of the word "marriage".
However, I'm not going to consider you baptized if a JOP dunks you under water either.
Government is best that governs least...
If you two are going to go at each other's necks, take it off here. We don't need this threadjack.
HTML Help for Red Staters
"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater
I'm going to ditto what birdmojo said.
___________________________________
Just like PayPal, except it's free and a $25 bonus to sign up!
HTML Help for Red Staters
"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater
First of all, since when does a 'small govt, Jeffersonian Republican' support judicial activism? We always hear this from people like John Danforth when they are telling us how the evil Religious Right has destroyed the GOP. They tell us that they want to get the GOP back to what it used to be, and in doing so they always put the blame for the divisisve Culture Wars on social conservatives, never on those who really deserve it; i.e. the Left and the Courts.
But anyway, how does having a few judges hijack and set social policy fit in with small govt? How does a 'Jeffersonian' person support the very type of judicial supremacy that Thomas Jefferson feared and warned us was to come?
How is someone who rails against the 'govt forcing moral judgments' okay with the judicial branch doing it? I mean, which is a worse imposition of values; when the people and/or their elected legislatures enact a definition of marriage that reflects the values of most in the society, or when a just few judges substitute their will for sound judgment?
The bottom line is that there is absolutely no Constitutional right for homosexuals to have their relationships recognized by the state. The decision of society to grant public recognition to traditional marriage may or may not be a good thing, but doing so in no way compels the state to do the same (or similar) for homosexuals. Therefore, the courts should play no role whatsoever in setting policy.
You want to end the national Culture War as it relates to federal elections? Then you should support reigning in our black-robed masters.
If the government had never involved itself in marriage to begin with - there would be no reason to have this discussion.
I don't support judicial activism, and I don't remember saying that in my post.
Here's a better question - do you believe the government should recognize your baptism? Should you have to pay $60 to get a baptism license? If you lose your faith and decide to leave the church - or join another - should you have to go before a judge and explain why?
And, since I'm rapidly becoming a pariah here - I'll ask again: can any of you explain how some stranger's marriage has negatively impacted yours? Can any of you explain how the homosexuals who have become "married" in Taxachussets have impacted your marriage?
Show me real harm - some way in which your natural/ God-given/ Constitutionally protected rights have been infringed by a homosexual marriage (or a heterosexual marriage) and then I'll acknowledge that the government has a role here.
Until then I guess you'll just have to be p.o.'d at me.
Government is best that governs least...
The first point is that California has already provided a parallel relational structure for two people who want to have a committed relationship, called domestic partnership. And in creating domestic partnership, the state has given equal treatment in terms of legal rights that it gives to marriage.
The only difference is that one is called domestic partnership and the other is called marriage. What the court has done is to go beyond legal equality of rights and state that a certain value system must be imposed on the citizens of the state by judicial edict against an election process. It's values because of the language of "dignity" and "their relationship not being valued equally" and the only way to remedy this is to force the state to title domestic partnerships as marriage.
The slippery slope is the set of emanations and penumbras that ensue once the judiciary has apporinted itself as the governmental agent that alone can define subjective values such as dignity and respect detached from the legislative process (except the one-way logic of relying on favorable statues [such as established domestic partnership] as the foundation for defining the societal values and thereby creating a constitutional right for these values while denying any validity to statutes that express a opposite societal value, one which that the court disagrees with.)
Having set up the state as the arbitrer and defender of certain values, the problem is that there is no logical or legal basis to prevent the court restricting individual rights to sanction opposing values when such action(s) challenge certain protected individuals "dignity" or these other values. To say that every court mandate can only be overturned by constitutional initiative becomes an undue burden - and (in terms of legal reasoning) what about states that don't have an initiative process to amend the state constitution.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
In other words, to turn your argument the other way, if indeed the state's interest in intimate relationships has to do with regulating contractural elements of those relationships (e.g. inheritance, property ownership), once the state provided equivalent structures for the rights with domestic partnership, why should the court go further beyond regulating the legal rights and demand as a matter of fundamental, constitutional rights that domestic partnership has to be called marriage.
No additional legal right ensue from this decision; rather the impact is that people will feel more dignity, will feel more approval. But why should one insist on government imprimature of approval - unless it is to ostracize those whose beliefs are different. What business does the court to act as a self-appointed vanguard of the public morals?
I am not a big fan of the court's decision in this case. However, I still believe that we are reaping what we have sown.
If the government had not seen fit to involve itself in marriage, domestic partnership, civil unionship etc - then the courts would have no leg to stand on would they?
This is exactly why mixing government and religion is a bad thing. Now, I am not talking about banning religion from the public square or "separation of church and state" - those are fallacies promoted by the left.
However, the founders realized that government and religion each have their own "lanes" - sometimes those lanes overlap, and sometimes they do not. However, as soon as you open the door to mixing the two - like government defining marriage, for example - you invited the courts into the mix.
My example above about the state recongnizing your baptism was tongue-in-cheek, of course, but no sane Christian would want the state to sanction or regulate baptism. Pretty soon you might have 51% (or 75%) of Californians saying that homosexuals shouldn't be baptized. Maybe people who aren't US citizens shouldn't be allowed to be baptized in CA? How far down into your religious beliefs would you like the government to delve?
Although I disagree with the court's decision, and its reasoning - I submit that there are places and times where the "will of the people" can and should be overturned by the courts. We are not a democracy; democracy is two wolves and one sheep voting about what's for dinner.
Reading many of the posts above I perceived (and I may be wrong) an undercurrent of: "what right do the courts have to overturn the will of the people?" The court got it wrong in this case, but if 51% of the people of CA voted that black people must sit on the back of the bus - you'd expect a court to overturn the law, correct?
But, again, back to my point - the government should have never involved itself in marriage.
Government is best that governs least...
First of all, I didn't make the 'will of the people' vs judges argument.
For me it is simple as it comes down to how one interprets the Constitution. I support Originalist interpretation; it is vastly superior in part because it actually compels judges to restrain themselves.
So for me it is simply a question of whether any part of the Constitution was ever conceived of and passed with the intent, and most importantly with the understanding, that it in anyway requires the state to grant homosexual unions the same or similar (or any) recogntion that it grants to heterosexual marriages. The answer is cleary 'No', therefore any decision by the Court imposing such recogntion is judicial activism.
The will of the people only comes into play after this consideration (though I don't believe that the other two branches must obey the Sup Court). Since there is no legitimate Constitutional claim for gay unions to be given the status accorded to traditional marriage, then yes, it is entirely a matter for the people and/or their elected legislatures.
The most disturbing part of that ruling is that they declared the "right to dignity" an overwhelming fundamental right ... and that that right eminates from government action.
This means that individual rights can be trampled by these faux rights because these faux rights have to do with shaping society...and that societyought to be shaped.
Very chilling indeed.
Getting married is a behavior, protected by law.
Gender, sexual orientation, are both innate characteristics.
Now, where was this line of thought going?
"The partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own assertions." - Plato
Folks in the long run (well the medium run) this decision is a very good thing for the conservative movement.
Firstly, the sodomites' victory is merely ephemeral. There are ballot initiatives banning homosexual marriage in November. Conservatives and evangelicals are extremely dissatisifed with the poor choice of candidates on offer.
However, these ballot measures will draw social conservatives to the polls in droves.
In 2004, I am not convinced that President Bush would have beaten Joh Kerry (who served in Vietnam) were it not for these pro-family ballot initiaves. They drew social conservatives to the polls. They came to vote infavor the the homosexual marriage bans, and wilst there they oh by the way voted for W while at the pols.
I see a repeat in 2008. I know the seven geniuses on the California SC who think they know more than the people of California did not intended this. However, there is the law of unintended consequences. Thank you California Supreme Court.
Bush supported a Federal Marriage Amendment; McCain does not. (BTW, Fred Thompson did not either, on similar grounds--it's a violation of federalism.)
McCain isn't going to be of much help to the opponents of same-sex marriage.
The Federalism argument only goes so far because Federal law allows (I think insists)the laws of one state to apply to another. That's why proponents of the Family Marriage amendment thought it was required.
by showing once again their collective disdain for the will of the people.
May Allah, in all his wisdom, move all the wild hogs from east Texas to Iran.
akin to the choice between Pepsi and Coke (all sane people will of course choose Coke, but that is beside the point).
Sane and intelligent people will chose whatever is on sale.
that the logic of your argument requires that Redstate come out against Loving v. Virginia, whose plaintiff just died? I ask because allegedly a strong majority of white voters (i.e. the voters who could reliably vote everywhere) opposed mixed-race marriage and supported its ban in Virginia and throughout most of the country when Loving was issued. One can just as easily define same-sex marriage and mixed-race marriage as both conduct and an immutable characteristic. I am male, and though I desire neither to be a female nor to marry a male, my immutable characteristic (surgery aside) of being male means that I cannot marry a male.
Similarly, are Brown v. Topeka and its progeny another set of hideous examples of the federal judicial activism that continues to wreck the will of the majority?
I read this piece hoping to finally understand the logic behind the anti gay marriage position but it still is not clear to me. Please explain:
1) How two people you dont know marrying each other affects your life or your marriage.
2) How you can logically claim that marriage needs to be about procreation and ignore the fact that senior citizens marrying is not about procreation, sterile hetero people marrying is not about procreation and the reality of the fact that homosexual people do raise children together.
3) Do you feel that the judicial activists that imposed Loving on the state of Virginia (my home state i'm proud to say) were wrong?
4) How you can honestly claim to be protecting the sanctity of marriage in this modern age of no fault divorce, Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire, green card marriages, etc
5) At one time, yes, marriage was about procreation. But clearly in modern America, you can procreate without marriage and marry without procreation.
The state wants to encourage stability, investing in people, families and communities. Therefore it is involved in the marriage business (the MES vs MEG discussion above, which I liked). Why then would it deny this small percentage of the population this same stability? To me its like saying left handed people are not allowed to marry other left handed people. Who are we to say? Why is it our business? Why is the republican party so interested in peoples love lives? As was mentioned above, don't we have bigger problems in this country? To argue that this is great for political reasons, to bring people to the polls, youre just saying people are too dumb to come out and fight for the things that matter, so lets recruit their support with their bigotry. Which I find insulting. We can do better.
I just don't think anyone -- whether gay, straight or whatever -- should be allowed to marry someone of the same sex.
*****
Unrepentant Black nationalist, Unapologetic Black conservative!
HTML Help for Red Staters
"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater
One gold star for your Mancard...good job...carry on
Just looks like six of one kind, and a half dozen of the other.....moijea
HTML Help for Red Staters
"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater
I am absolutely serious when I say that gays should be allowed to marry just like anyone else but, just like everyone else, they should not be allowed to marry people of the same sex.
*****
Unrepentant Black nationalist, Unapologetic Black conservative!
I think it's kind of creepy and all but it's never affected me in ANY way.
I've been to many gay 'weddings' and had very many gay couples as tenants.....It's normal here in Cali..they have their parade once a year...otherwise no big....
Just dont belly up to a bar in certain parts of Hollywood.
Jeff Bishop up thread says it good.
Personally, I believe men and women are different; which despite a few major news articles confirming that age-old suspicion still seems to surprise a lot of people these days. Moreover, I think those differences complement one another for the benefit of society. Same-sex marriages do not engender (I love using that word in this contet) those complementary roles which benefit society. As such, same-sex marriage adversely affect me. Therefore, I am opposed to same-sex marriages.
To recap an argument I had many years ago with a friend who supported same-sex marriages. He argued that, "Marriage civilizes men." My counter argument was "No, women civilize men; marriage is simply the institution best used to do it."
A simplification but it does illustrate my point of view.
*****
Unrepentant Black nationalist, Unapologetic Black conservative!
"Same-sex marriages do not engender (I love using that word in this contet) those complementary roles which benefit society."
You are right..but All the Gay couples I know just dont make a big deal out of it...
They dont want everybody at, or even to know about their 'wedding' or for that matter their relationship in general.
The only couples you see Parading around are up in Frisco or Hollywood..young libs...otherwise they are just like anybody else.
And yes ...you can always tell who the 'Guy" is...just like any relationship.
"Moreover, I think those differences complement one another for the benefit of society."
So you want to impose your personal opinions on gender and relationships on the entire population of this country. You are unable to accept the possibility that someone out there might think differently than you? And you are really unable to abide that person, who you don't even know, behaving differently as a result?
" I think those differences complement one another for the benefit of society. Same-sex marriages do not engender (I love using that word in this contet) those complementary roles which benefit society. As such, same-sex marriage adversely affect me. Therefore, I am opposed to same-sex marriages"
Thats a bit of a stretch. You want to deny stability and happiness to this small segment of our society because their relationship doesnt fit your general idea of "complimenting one another"and"benefiting society"? Well, it would benefit society if no one drank alcohol wouldn't it, but we're not trying to ban that behavior. Because the majority of us like it and consume it responsibly. You are using your position as a member of the majority to deny legitimacy to a member of this small minority. It just seems like bullying.
As a happily married person, it just seems like such an easy thing to just move on from. I'm still trying to find logic in this position.
I'm sorry jeff bishop but your argument is just a silly canard. ALL LAW is the imposition of personal opinion against those who do not necessarily abide by it.
The reason I am against pedophilia, incest and bestiality is because, in my personal opinion, they are not good for society. And yes, I support laws prohibiting pedophilia and incest even as it discrminates against members and supporters of NAMBLA.
What about you?
Seriously, given your evident opposition to "deny[ing]stability and happiness to this small segment of our society because their relationship doesnt fit your general idea of "complimenting one another"and"benefiting society," on what bases do you oppose NAMBLA?
That is, if you oppose it.
What, because they support the abuse and molestation of children. But they say that they don't molest children and their personal happiness and fulfilments require that they do what they do. And it's only your opinion any way that a child cannot give consent. When you disagree with NAMBLA, aren't you simply imposing your own opinion on them?
Indeed, some are arguing that a 13-year-old girl cannot be prohibited from getting an abortion against her parents' consent; why can't a 13-year-old boy not have sex with an adult, regardles of their parents' (or society's) consent.
I'm sorry, jeff bishop, but if there is an argument in support of gay marriage, you definitely did not make it. Whether you realize or want to admit it or not, your argument argues against ALL LAWS.
Try again.
*****
Unrepentant Black nationalist, Unapologetic Black conservative!
You are so correct in your assessment that words fail me!!!!
I have no problem banning NAMBLA because we have decided that people need to be of a certain age before they drive, drink, join the military or have sex. Just like I am glad we require people to stop when the light is red. These laws are to protect individuals from harm, not to promote someones general idea of benefiting society"
I appreciate your trying to explain this position to me with logic, but I still fail to see how an individual is harmed by gays getting married. There are plenty of em married in Massachusettes right now. How has that hurt you or your marriage?
You say you have "no problem banning NAMBLA because we have decided that people need to be of a certain age before they drive, drink, join the military or have sex."
Then why do you have a problem with banning gay marriages because we the people (as opposed to judges) have also decided that people should not be allowed to marry people of the same sex.
Your personal opinion is that same-sex marriage does not adversely affect me. My personal opinion is that it does. Why should your personal preference take precedence over mine?
As a hypothetical but serious question, do you oppose law that prohibit someone from busting the head of puppies open with a brick for their own personal pleasure and self-fulfillment?
Personally, I do. It is my personal opinion that such behaviour is immoral and not in the best interest of society. However, if you are going to be honest and consistent with your position that my personal opinion -- or perhaps more accurately, the "personal" opinion of the majority -- should not and/or cannot be duly enacted into law.
Truth be known, you are not opposed to enforcing personal opinion as law. You just want it to be your personal opinion that is enforced as law.
*****
Unrepentant Black nationalist, Unapologetic Black conservative!
They said that about no-fault divorce. They said that about homes with two working parents. They said that about easy welfare for single mothers.
HTML Help for Red Staters
"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater
Easy Welfare for single mothers is the only one that takes skin from my nose.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
You know why people call libertarians selfish and loving of money? Comments like this are why. That's how you sound. You don't care about anything government does unless your wallet is involved?
HTML Help for Red Staters
"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater
Let's look at the "homes with two working parents" sentence.
What laws do you think ought to be passed to prevent a person who wants to work from working?
What enforcement do you think would be appropriate?
If the family in question has a mom who gets a job despite it breaking the law mentioned in the first question, do you feel it appropriate to have the police go to the family's house? If they say "We're going to continue working", would you feel it appropriate for the police to pull their guns if she resisted arrest?
If she went quietly with the police, how long of a jail term do you think would be appropriate?
Or do you think the family in question should just pay a fine?
If the family refuses to pay the fine, what do you think the government should have the right to seize? The house? The car? Merely the bank account?
If they don't have a bank account, would it be appropriate to send some repo men over to the house to take items of the approximate worth of the fine?
Or should the police go over there and arrest one or the other parents for failure to pay the fine?
If one or the other parents resists arrest, do you think it would be appropriate for the police to pull a gun?
Remember, we're talking about the evils of two people HAVING JOBS.
Or was your statement merely moral opprobrium for the shame of more than one parent working and you don't think that the police need to get involved at all?
As for the "quick and easy divorce" thing, I've written a "MEG" vs. "MES" essay a half-dozen times in my two years here. This time instead of arguing for the state denying a MES to people who have a MEG, you're asking that the state enforce a MES on people who argue that they don't have a MEG?
As for the easy welfare for single mothers... I'm sure we agree that Ending Welfare As We Know It was a good thing.
I look like the mockery of libertarianism?
What is the proper categorization for someone who screams "SOMETHING OUGHT TO BE DONE!" whenever people engage in a lifestyle choice that you don't agree with?
Such as divorce.
Or having both parents work a job.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
HTML Help for Red Staters
"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater
Ok, but would YOU want to marry a gay woman? (i'm assuming you are male, forgive me if I am wrong about that).
Why would you want to marry someone who wasnt attracted to you? Thats what you are proposing gay people do.
What difference does it make TO YOU who that person over there in another town, city, state is married to?
A covenant created by God that causes folks to say "hey, if they want to have a legal contract, it should be for a relationship that will prove to be neither Unitive nor Procreative".
This is called "Defending Tradition".
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
Marriage is a sacrament To You. See the MEG and MES discussion above. We aren't talking about Religious Sacraments. We are talking about civil rules and order of society. I'd appreciate it if you kept your religion to yourself. Or do you think we should live in a society governed by your religion, you know, like they do in Iran, Saudi Arabia etc?
What if your tradition isnt my tradition? What if your tradition is morally wrong? It was standard American Christian tradition to enslave people up until recently. Not all traditions should be defended. Especially those from a foundation of denying rights enjoyed by the majority to a minority.
HTML Help for Red Staters
"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater
who was having trouble getting a green card and stood to lose everything she had worked for--and I was still single--I would consider it, but probably reject it. In fact, my sister almost did the exact same thing for a straight male friend of mine, but she ultimately chose not to, because she did not want to risk punishment for participation in a marriage of convenience aimed at circumventing the law for personal benefit.
My sister lives alone, and is not so enthusiastic about gay marriage anymore. Her ex has had a partner for about ten years, and they have a 6 year old son. They worry about father figures for him, bad schools and high taxes in Atlanta, but they don't worry about the INS--or any other government entity--knocking down their door because of their relationship.
They passively support government-sanctioned gay marriage, but they recognize it as window-dressing on what they already have, and they concede the unintended consequences such a law might have.
The whole gay marriage debate will be a short term winner for the GOP but in the long run its going to be a loser. I don't think even those against it believe in 15 years that gay marriage will not be legal.
I think its going to become a generational thing. The younger generation doesnt care about this issue, but it still fires up older folks who fear change.
I kinda figured I'd fall into this thread...
You are so right..The kids DONT CARE..but I can tell you one thing...
My son likes Girls....and my daughter likes boys...
there is No confusion.
That's why we don't let people under 30 be President, heh.
HTML Help for Red Staters
"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater
First, it's gay "marriage", as it takes a standard word that has a particular meaning, and gives it *another* , not-same, meaning.
Second, it will be a winner for the GOP as long as the GOP has any vestiges of conservatism - which I predict we're good for the next 60 years on that front. If the GOP ceases to have conservative roots, this issue will continue to be a winner for conservatives WHATEVER party they dwell in.
Third, *I* am against it, and in 15 years it will be legal only in (1) a handful of moonbat-left states, and (2) wherever leftist activist courts have imposed their will by fiat - and I predict only a handful of those. In toto, no more than 7 states max, either way.
Even OREGON (speaking of moon-bat left states) passed their gay-"marriage" ban by a 57-43 vote in 04. If it can't pass in freakin' Oregon, I don't see where it's gonna pass much of anywhere that matters.
Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated. -- IMAO
He will not nominate someone to the SCOTUS who is not dedicated to making a Roe v. Wade-type decision forcing homosexual marriage on all 50 states. He has stated such in his private meetings in San Francisco and has "hinted" as much in what he is looking for in SCOTUS nominees. So, this issue won't be about moonbat-left states, it will be about the other 40+ states who are strongly against homosexual marriage but will have no choice when it becomes the "law of the land" thanks to Obama's Supreme Court.
The sooner we (and McCain) recognize that is Obama's priority, the better.
I always thought marriage was defined as a union of two people. Businesses use the term to describe a union of two companies. Advertisements use the term to describe items, textures, scents etc. The specific gender roll meaning embedded in the word marriage is not necessary to understand the meaning of the word.
Its a winner for the GOP yes, but in a lazy, go for people's prejudices kind of way. Not much different than the politicians fighting against civil rights for blacks.
Third, I have no problem with *you* being against it. So dont go and have one and leave other people alone!
McCain is right to leave this matter to the states. If you live in a state with policies you dont like, you can always move to one less "moonbat". I'd call you a quitter but there you go.
So don't take this as combative.
(1) the #1 definition of marriage in a dictionary, if you can find one written before say 1995, therefore NOT corrupted by hopeless PC pandering, says something like this(and I quote Merriam-Webster): the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law.
Those examples you cite are from secondary uses of the word, and it's not correct to carry over the non-gender aspects of secondary meanings to attempt to water down the primary meaning. Marriage throughout history always meant that one thing -- except perhaps in pockets of weirdness like the post-Nero Roman emperors who were into all sorts of bizarre self-indulgent fetishes.
(2) Why it's a winner for the GOP -- not because of in a lazy, go for people's prejudices kind of way. That's unfounded, wrong, and an uncalled-for insult to conservatives. Conservatism teaches that (paraphrase) we should not frivolously tamper propose significant societal changes when we have not considered the long-term consequences of unravelling the enduring social and moral order. Now, the thing you said about politicians fighting against civil rights for blacks - well, ah, which party was that? Look it up if you do not know. A little hint: it was the O-T-H-E-R T-E-A-M. If you try to hang that around the necks of the SoCons, you are a low-class jerk-off. You are not trying to do that, right?
(3) that business about *I*. I was merely responding to dld1717, who said:I don't think even those against it believe in 15 years that gay marriage will not be legal. So I was pointing out that *I* am one of those who is against it, yet I do not concede that in 15 years it'll be legal in a widespread way.
Anyway, tata - and I wish you'd give that like a decent read.
Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated. -- IMAO
I read everyones comments. And I respect everyones opinions. I'm not being partisan, I dont care what party did what when or to whom, I'm more interested in debating issues and learning why people think the way they do. You're right, of course, that is how the dictionary defines the term. I'm sorry I went down that threat. The dictionary is not the focus of the debate imho, the focus is real people living real lives and the things we do to respect or disrespect them.
I just think that goverment should only concern itself with the things that harm people, and limit government and laws to those things and stay out of peoples love lives (and wallets etc). I don't believe conservative means legislating morality. I believe it is keeping government to a minimum and out of our lives. It should fix the potholes and keep the army staffed and supplied and otherwise stay out of the way. So if I dont want the government restricting my right to own a gun, nor do I think it should restrict the right of a few people in this country to be able to enjoy the happiness of being married to the person they love. I enjoy that right, and dont feel its the place of government to take that right away from anyone else. We may not understand why people are gay, we may find it unpleasant etc, but its really none of our business.
Anyway, I may just give up trying to understand this. Clearly its emotion that leads to these opinions and not logic. The position remains indefensible to me logically. All folks seem to be able to do it point at the dictionary and the bible to defend there position. I'd rather use the constitution as a basis for argument when it comes to our rights and freedoms.
Upthread, I meant, "give that link a decent read", not "give that like a decent read". Sorry, that must have sounded odd. By the way, please read the Kirk Center essay I have linked to, it will illustrate and kind of "flesh out" what I'm saying below - as well as put my rather outlandish subject line in its proper context.
Jeff, I can appreciate your "live and let live" mentality, and as a personal philosophy that works fine - as a governing philosophy, however, it serves to allow a society's loudest agitators to flourish at the expense of "regular people" who are just living their lives and trying to raise their children.
The truth is, conservative governance sometimes weighs competing interests - freedom of individual expression, freedom to do whatever I want, freedom to change societal mores, versus the need for society to operate above a chaos level.
The homosexual rights agenda is anything but just a certain class of people wanting to live their lives free of harassment and discrimination. That might have been true 25 years ago. No........they are specifically about imposing their values on other people. They want *special* rights, not equal rights.
In this case, it is actually the homosexual rights agenda that wants to "legislate morality" [and "impose morality by fiat" alternatively]. It is SoCons who are trying to maintain a value system that has operated just fine for thousands of years. Remember, all the state "one man, one woman" amendments arose as a RESPONSE to judicial fiats imposed on an unwilling populace.
Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated. -- IMAO
Thank you for the Kirk Center link. As I expected, I find myself agreeing with most but now all of the items listed. I've never been one to willingly get put into an idealogical box.
Of course, by these definitions, the Founding Fathers were radical liberals!
Item 10 suggests we seek to balance progression with permanence. And I think that could be the jist of this debate. This is a progression rejected by most people for emotional reasons.
I don't know. Whenever I hear "homosexual rights agenda" I think "women's rights agenda" and "civil rights agenda". We've accepted some progression on these other groups. Who for sure had (have) an agenda.
If we were discussing proposals to give gays tax breaks, free college tuition, first choice of seats on airplanes, ok, then yeah, theyd be seeking special rights. But these poor guys and gals, who I dont think have life easy for themselves (who would Choose to be societal pariahs?) just wanna get married, buy a house, raise a kid, go on vacation, take care of each other when they are sick, put away some money for retirement... You know just like us.
I just don't think they are that different. And sure, you see gay folks being outrageous in their parades and stuff, but have you seen how outrageous heterosexual people are on basic cable? I mean what with this tia tequila person? Some chick wants to make out with every one in the room and thats a TV show? And Girls Gone Wild? I mean, we're ones to talk... Gay people must think we're just as crazy...
As is the way of debate and life, I agree on some and disagree other points. Regarding Kirk, let me note that Principle 10 does not stand alone - the 'progression' that we balance with permanence must survive the test of principles 1-9. In this case it does not.
Pretty much all of the things you say the homosexual agenda wants (get married, buy a house, raise kids, vacations, etc) they can already do (and mostly have been able to for time immemorial. But THIS is the special right they want. They want to "marry" people of the same sex. They want to use the word that has used for millenia and coopt it.
I gotta tell you something I bet you don't know. Most of the opponents of gay "marriage" offer no opposition to civil unions. If the homosexual activists stopped there, they would get what they want. This accords them EVERYTHING they could legitimately want - all the property things, all the power of attorney, inheritance, rights to custody of children, and most important, that permanent bond, enforceable contract, and the social recognition of being a permanent couple with full legal rights.
But noooooooooooooo, they don't settle for that. Let me ask you this, why do they want that word "marriage", when they can have everything else?
Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated. -- IMAO
Good point. I don't know why they feel they need to use the term. My guess is that they want to feel like part regular society and be able to use the same words their parents used to talk about their relationships. Perhaps they are just as interested in "permanence" in some ways as well. But I don't know. I think if the whole country allowed them to have each and every right as a married couple, but with a different term, they'd be ok with that.
I'm not sure if the current rights they have equal married peoples rights....
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
extended to it (Period!). If our society extends rights to homosexuality where will we draw the line for all the remaining illicit sexual acts? What about prostitution, pornography, pedophilia, polygamy, incest, adultery, etc, etc, etc?
There are certain traditional norms that society must set forth when it comes to sexual relations. The norm for sexual relations within our society should be between a man and a woman, which takes place within the bounds of marriage. While many would argue that that is too strict of a norm, I'm sure well over 50% of the successful marriages in this nation would agree with it. Unfortunately there are those who wish to convince the majority to loosen this norm to include the illicit sexual act of homosexuality. I for one will have nothing to do with it!
Oh, by the way, what's love got to do with this issue? Absolutely nothing, other than to try to convince people who are against homosexuality that they are somehow uncompassionate with a couple who is only in love! I'm sorry, I have no pity for the couple who decides to go against the norm of society and then feels unaccepted by it. As a matter of fact I think it’s extremely selfish of these individuals to demand acknowledgement from society that their relationship is somehow normal. I don't see heterosexual couples, who are living with one another, fighting for these rights to be extended to them, but they will be!
What do you care what homosexual people do? They dont care what you do in bed, neither do I.
Besides, as many a comedian has mentioned, since when is marriage about sex?
If you'd stop dwelling on homosexual sex and focus on a society of stable relationships, this would be less of an emotional issue.
Of course the popularity of lesbian porn in this country leads me to believe that most hetero people really just Cant Stop Thinking About It!
If homosexuals were content to just do their thing in bed, this would never come up.
But it is radical homosexual activists, not us, who chose to pick a fight overm arriage.
Give it up. Your argument is completely grounded in falsehood and misrepresentation.
HTML Help for Red Staters
"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater
You haven't even addressed my argument! Which started as a challenge. I just want to understand the logic behind this position. I even numbered my questions and everything!
HTML Help for Red Staters
"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater
Call me whatever you want. I know I'm new here, though Ive been reading the site for a while. But I honestly wanted to try to understand the basis behind this. I do lean more left then most folks here no doubt, but am strongly libertarian and somewhat old fashioned about a lot of things. So thought this might be an ok place to hang out. I dont care much for the partisan nature of right or left wing blogs, but I enjoy the ideas behind the issues....
your political compass
Go find out real quick...
" his success/I attribute it to good looks, smooth oratory skills/Al Gore not running/an evil, hard-bitten witch with a toxic last name/and Silky Pony, the pretty ambulance chaser."....EPU
That explains why you were Loud and proud when I first met you.
Mass Mouth would have been a 10.5 10.5...lol
I'm about as close to the crossing as you can get..it's all good...as long as you vote McCain...Got It?..lol
"It was located on the msnbc.com webpage late yesterday".......ilitigant
With the 'leftie' tag.. I guess I'll sleep on it!! G'night! As far as voting for McCain, once the had the nomination locked up it was a no brainer. I'm trying to figure out how to get a conservative guy elected in our not-quite-as-liberal-as-San Francisco-but-slowly-getting-there district!!!
5.25 is to the 'Right'...Come on!..Dont let me call you a 'leftie'...
You almost called me on it...then you went to bed..next time.
|
"He was sleepy!" |
I dont like how everyone assumes they know your position on every new issue based on your position on the last issue. I find it lazy. Thats why I ignore all the partisan BS on political blogs. So sorry, not gonna take this test just so i can have some label stamped on my forehead.
I do find it interesting how you want to change the subject of my post which is about the illicit sexual act of homosexuality.
There is only one way for a society to be stable, and that is to have foundational norms that never change. One of those foundational norms must be that sexual relations take place only between a man and a woman within the boundaries of marriage (period)! All other sexual activity must be illicit! A person’s love relationship with their sex partner is not relevant to this discussion, while I am very aware that many want it to be. I am not under that same delusion. This issue is about sex, not relationships.
By extending rights to this currently illicit sexual act (as defined by a majority of Americans who vote against homosexual marriage), and thereby changing our foundational norm, society will be obligated to grant all other sexual activity the same rights as well! So you tell me which society would be more stable, the one you espouse or mine?
I guess I changed the subject because I dont care about homosexual acts. I don't care what they do in bed. I don't care what heterosexual people do in bed. I could care less. Its none of my business. What happens in bed between two adults is no ones business but theres. I dont know how many ways I need to say this.
Until recently in my home state oral sex between married heterosexual people was against the law. Virginians at one time felt strong enough about this that it was made punishable by jail time. That was a "foundational norm" of our community. Well, since then our community has evolved to accept that, you know what, it will not bring about the fall of society if Mr and Mrs Jones down the street vary their sexual behavior to include things that dont always carry the possibility of procreation. The "foundational norm" was changed. And this was the right change Because Who The Heck Cares What Other People Do In Bed!!
It's very short sighted to not see the damage that all of this will cause the future of our society. Again, this issue is not about relationships it's about illicit sexual acts whether you like it or not, that is the fact, just no one wants to say it because it's not politically correct.
And oral sex was an illicit sexual act until a few years ago. Allowing it to take place in America has caused any damage to our society.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
negative for the voters of California right now, but as stated will prompt a vigorous backlash throughout our land.
Thanks, for the gift horse, justices.
Great exposition!
So let me see if I get this right, you believe that sexual orientation should have equal protection rights under the law in regards to marriage? Sounds like you want to open Pandora's Box to me, but hey I know you just want to open it just a little so only homosexual couples can get married. Do you honestly think once sexual orientation has marrital rights under the law that it will stop with homosexual marriage? How will you stop all the other sexual orientation groups from claiming equal protection under the law?
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
It's not that I believe that sexual orientation should have equal protection rights under the law in regards to marriage.
It's that I believe that the legal protections that marriage offers should be available to any two consenting adults who wish to take a lifetime vow akin to marriage.
You know the Loving v. Virginia thing?
Read the Judge's "dicta". He offers an exceptionally odious justification for ruling that, nope, Whites and (other) should not be married. Part of this is based on his special knowledge of the Mind of God.
In the arguments against gay marriage, they all seem to come down to a foundation of special knowledge of the Mind of God on the part of the person opposing.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
He was also hiding behind State's Rights, The Right Of The People To Define Marriage As They Choose, and any number of arguments that you see above.
Including "If White people want to get married, they can! They just have to find a white person to marry."
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
Is there *ANY* reason these anti-miscegenation laws ought not have existed other than the 14th Amendment?
Any at all?
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
I didn't reach the conclusion that supporting The Law was the more important of the two subsequent options however.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
Anti-miscegnation laws classified individuals in a Constitutionally suspect (indeed, I say unconstitutional) manner. Anti-same-sex laws treat all indicduals the same; they simply proscribe an activity.
Like I wrote before, gay people should and do have the same rights to marry as everyone else. But just like everyone else, they have no rights to marry someone of the same sex.
*****
Unrepentant Black nationalist, Unapologetic Black conservative!
and ignoring the reason the 14th amendment was passed is getting old.
didn't know avians had such thick skulls
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
I'm wondering if the laws regarding misegenation that existed prior to the 14th Amendments (remember, these laws were very, very old) were bad *BEFORE* the 14th was passed.
I argue that the laws were.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
until after the 14th amendment was ratified.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
I do not oppose opposition to gay marriage because I think the bans of gay marriage it are unConstitutional.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
Why should marriage be "limited" to just two consenting adults? Once you open that Pandora's Box the next argument in line is heterosexual couples who just want to live together with extra protections under the law, and then the polygamist, and then all other forms of sexual orientation will demand government protection under the law. All of this will spring forth from the seed of homosexual marriage because our nation extended legal marital protection rights to a particular group of sexual orientation, and once this seed is planted it will grow and infest all of our society: “A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump!”
I think it could be argued that our government should not have even extended legal protection rights to marriage. If any one group in our society should have them, should it not just be the traditional family?
We've got an existing template now. It's "Two People Who Pretty Much Promise To Not Get Divorced, For Sure, Anyway, It's About Being In Love".
Now that Heterosexuals have redefined marriage to be not particularly procreative nor particularly unitive, I take the attitude that moving it back toward a particularly unitive ideal would be a good thing.
"If any one group in our society should have them, should it not just be the traditional family?"
Sure.
But you should be aware that there are many who say stuff like "if two lesbians want to get married, they should just find a gay couple and then they can". You may want to explain the the whole "traditional family" thing to them and how marriage should only be extended to people who meet the definition.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
I do not want to see polygamy become legal. Networks of consenting adults becoming married or unitive or ancillary reasons is not appealing to me. Citizenship, ,edical insurance, estate tax avoidance, guardianship rights, etc. will become an absolutely mess.
If you had a persuasive argument for the line could be definitively drawn at 2, you might be able to make a persuasive case. Otherwise, I am inclined to draw the line where it is.
Why should society prohibit five roommates from getting married to each other? Consenting adults should be allowed to do what they want to, right?
It's possible, however unlikely, for 5 roommates to all be Married In The Eyes Of God to each other.
I don't see how a MES needs to be applied to any more than 2 at a time of these folks, though.
I mean, plural marriage can mean a lot of things.
You've got A, B, and C.
A and B are married. A wants to also marry C.
Do B and C have a relationship? What if B and C don't want to be married to each other but each wants to be married to A and doesn't mind A's plural marriage?
What if B and C want to get married to each other too and then, later on, A and C get divorced but A and B want to stay married and B and C want to stay married?
This is a jumbled mess.
I see no reason that the state should sanction such a spaghetti bunch of relationships... that said, if the folks in question want to have MEG relationships with each other, I don't know that the State should work against it.
But if the State says "Sorry, only one tax break per, only one inheritance rights per, etc, etc, etc...", that's exceptionally workable in our framework.
It's called "be married and have a mistress".
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
what consenting adults can do.
What is the basis for the limitation of 2?
Besides:
(1) its traditional and
(2) its less complicated
I don't see you putting forth any basis for the door to be opened for a whole lot of mischief.
"I see no reason" is not a reason. Traditional conservatives see no reason to expand marriage at all.
You are essentially admitting that once the door is opened, the only limitation is based on your intuition of what is problematic. Not exactly a principled stand for limiting the activities of consenting adults engaging in a unitive activity.
I see the creation of laws that cover spaghetti level relationships as an undue burden upon the state and creates, effectively, an unfunded mandate.
We have a template for two consenting adults to enter into a consensual lifetime relationship. Let's use that.
The only templates we have for laws covering polygamy are of the form "A marries B, and marries C (without B's input), and marries D (without B or C's input)" and that is a power dynamic we do not want established and, moreover, seems indicative of less than full consent on the part of the adults involved.
Consenting Adults is the cornerstone of any contractual arrangement. Polygamy, as practiced in 95% (if not more) of the world does not involve Consenting Adults.
So I don't support it.
And I look forward to the next time I post why I don't support polygamy in response to someone asking me if I support gay marriage, why don't I support polygamy.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
I am with gay marriage.
We've now seen what a mess government makes when it invades people's homes and takes their kids away based on the state's concept of what marriage should and shouldn't be.
I don't see any victims when consenting opposite-gender adults enter into a marital covenant.
Obviously, with medical insurance, etc., it can get expensive. Which is why I believe that polygamy should be restricted to those men who can afford to support their wives.
But that's just my two cents.
Proudly supporting John S. McCain for President (McCain/Romney?)
society and need me to explain what "traditional family" means then their mental capacity must be brought into question. It's obvious that 99% of our society sees the traditional family as the more stable standard in regards to marriage and sexual orientation for a whole host of reasons, the lest of which is what legal protections our government extends to it.
But I understand that the best way to ensure that you know, you really know something, is to be able to explain it to someone stupid.
Without appeal to the Mind of God, can you explain to me why the civic protections of marriage should be denied to a couple of gay guys who have a life partnership?
Please use small words and assume that I am really, really stupid.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
Did you or did you not bring up the fact that some people need it to explained to them what "traditional marriage" means?
For the record I think you’re a very highly intelligent libertarian, and I also think that your intelligence is blinding you (or you know the outcome of all this and desire its end, I do not!) to the consequences of extending civil protections to a particular sexual orientation group under the guise of homosexual marriage. See, I've already explained to you above, without an appeal to the Mind of God, "why a couple of gay guys who have a life partnership should not be allowed civic protections of marriage", and all you do is change the subject every time someone confronts you with it. This discussion is not about societal relationships and the free exercise of man to establish whatever type of relationship he/she wants, homosexuals already have that within our society (it's not enough however). It's about extending civil protections to a particular sexual orientation group which is only 1% of all couples in our society.
Please explain to me, in small words, exactly why it is a good thing, a beneficial thing, a desirous thing to deny these civil protections to people in a life partnership?
I'm not denying that society has the power to do so.
I argue that it is wrong to exercise the power.
I'm not denying years and decades and centuries and millenia of precedent.
I argue that precedent is not sufficient reason to do something.
I'm not even denying that society has a fairly broad consensus over whether it's a good thing, a beneficial thing, a desirous thing to deny these civil protections.
I'm just asking you to explain to someone for whom the concept is alien, completely alien, why it is a good thing, a beneficial thing, a desirous thing.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
First, we're all adults. Second, our constitution does not guarantee us everything we want. Third, sexual orientation is a personal preference. Lastly, in order to maintain a limited government your request is denied.
"First, we're all adults."
Sure. I don't see how this is an argument against gay marriage, though.
"Second, our constitution does not guarantee us everything we want."
Sure. I don't see how this is an argument against gay marriage, though.
"Third, sexual orientation is a personal preference."
Sure. I don't see how this is an argument against gay marriage, though.
"Lastly, in order to maintain a limited government your request is denied."
Ah, limited government. You'll forgive the arched eyebrow.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
Please explain to someone for whom homosexuality is not particularly offensive in and of itself why gay marriage is so awful.
It strikes me that the foundation of such opposition is special knowledge of the Mind of God rather than anything else.
The arguments against gay marriage all remind me of the arguments against misegenation which were Morally Wrong even though they may have been Constitutional. (That is to say, even before the 14th Amendment was ratified, anti-misegenation laws were Morally Wrong).
It strikes me that the opposition to gay marriage is also Morally Wrong.
I find your arguments that laws opposing gay marriage are not wrong (e.g., we're all adults here. e.g., limited government powers) exceptionally unpersuasive.
I'm trying to get people (if not you, the other people reading these arguments) to reassess their reasons for opposition to extending civil protections to gay couples.
I hope that, eventually, guys who want to be married to each other will be granted, among other things, the right to visit each other in the hospital even over the objections of parents... in the way that marriage grants such a right.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
My post was a narrative between the government and a homosexual couple because you asked me to explain in very simple words why our government should deny homosexuals marriage. The last statement was my whole point. Our government will not be able to grow big enough to handle the backlash that extending civil protections to homosexual marriage will ensue.
I must adjourn for the day.
"Our government will not be able to grow big enough to handle the backlash that extending civil protections to homosexual marriage will ensue."
You know, I feel this way about the Farm Bill.
I feel this way about the Prescription Drug Benefit.
I feel this way about No Child Left Behind.
I feel this way about The Drug War.
It would never, ever, occur to me to feel this way about gay marriage.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
one blog per day turned into a debate about the merits or not, of gay marriage (WERE YOU LARGELY RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT ERA?). During that period, I expounded ad nauseum re the objective non-religious reasons history has taught us as to why it is wise not to encourage homosexual activity, or any sex outside traditional marriage.
I doubt I have the energy to get wrapped up in it again, but knowing me, I will. But first I'm going to try and find my previous oracle like expositions, and those of others.
For now, a teaser nightmare scenario:
Mom, Dad and son walking thru the local mall. Son sees his gay teacher and his spouse and says and says: "Mom, Dad, there's my teacher and his spouse. They're married, JUST LIKE YOU."
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
"Mom, Dad and son walking thru the local mall. Son sees his gay teacher and his spouse and says and says: "Mom, Dad, there's my teacher and his spouse. They're married, JUST LIKE YOU.""
This is where we get into how morally obtuse and wicked I must be.
This scenario doesn't cause me any discomfort whatsoever.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
are Fred and Barney.
Bird, read Zoot Suit and meditate.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
I'm not seeing why this is "nightmare" material.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
A serious question. I really want you to tell me why you think anti-miscegenation are morally wrong aside from the 14th Amendment. I really want to know. Please be as detailed as you can be.
And by the way, I oppose same-sex marriages because I think they are detrimental to the function and development of society. I think same-sex marriages degenerate society by obfuscating the differences between men and women and ultimately creates a worse, more crime-ridden, less productive society for all of us.
In much the same way I oppose bashing in the skulls of puppies. You can argue that puppies will never be human and that as long as you own them and I don't have to hear the dying whelps of the animals, someone who gets great joy and fulfillment from killing them should be allowed to do so. But I argue that bashing in their skulls degenerates society and ultimately creates a worse, more crime-ridden, less productive society for all of us.
You may agree or disagree with either or both of my moral positions that I posit above but, as ALL LAW is the imposition of a moral viewpoint or personal choice upon others, and as there is nothing in the Constitution forbidding the imposition of those moral viewpoints into law, I and others who hold the same moral viewpoint are free to enact and enforce our personal choice in these matters into law.
And so that there will be enough column width to read your response, please feel free to reply at the bottom. On the screen of one of my laptops, it becomes annoying to read replies to replies to replies ad naseum where the reply is only a few characters wide.
*****
Unrepentant Black nationalist, Unapologetic Black conservative!
Because if two people want to engage in a contract with each other and they're both consenting adults and they both decide that they want to spend the rest of their lives together, in sickness, health, richer, poorer, love, honor, cherish (perhaps even "obey!")...
Then that is none, absolutely *NONE* of my business.
I make a leap from it being absolutely none of my business to it being absolutely none of yours.
From there I get to it being none of society's.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
unless its one man and one woman..
Are you cool with polygamy?
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
No, not really.
If polygamy is something like two people deciding that they totally both fell in love with a third person, I suppose that that would be something that I'd be okay with in theory.
It strikes me that this accounts for approximately diddly of the polygamous relationships out there.
More often than not, polygamy exists where there is a really spectacularly creepy power dynamic. Moreover, it's not a case where A and B say "we should marry someone else" but where A says to B "Oh, by the way, I'm marrying someone else and you don't have a say in the decision".
The FLDS and Islam is the template for polygamy. Not the theoretical couple that falls in love, both of them, with a third person.
As such, I don't support polygamy.
But, for the record, I was talking with some acquaintances the other day about how I was arguing for gay marriage on Redstate and mentioned the polygamy thing and they started asking me whether I supported polygamy.
When I told them no and gave them my reasons stated above, they unironically called me a bigot and compared my reasons to some of the things Rick Santorum said.
So that may or may not be a point in your favor.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
you will open the door the polygamy.
You personally may not support polygamy, but if the position of "consenting adults can't be constrained in terms of marriage" then polgamy is only a matter of time.
There are plenty of western countries (the UK in particular) where polygamist marriages are recognized for welfare purposes (Pakistani Muslims are a significant minority in the UK).
Have we established that I'm a Libertarian nut?
Do I have to go into my opinions of public welfare or are we good?
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
your "line" which is based on what your sense of creepiness is is more arbitrary than someone pointing to a holy book followed or at least respected by 60% of the country.
Admit that its an arbitrary distinction unlikely to stem the tide, and we are "good."
x into another man's y is not?
great argument
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
I find certain power dynamics far more potentially damaging and far creepier than two guys holding hands at the mall.
Even if children are present.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Democracy is about giving people, not the elite, the power to make law.
You seem to prefer allowing unaccountable judges to make law.
I prefer to see accountable politicians making the law and judges merely interpreting the law. Better yet, just have the judges READ the law. If the law is obvious, there is nothing for them to interpret.
Proudly supporting John S. McCain for President (McCain/Romney?)
Puritan Values.
We are frightened that if we recognize homosexual marriage, our children will be exposed to gay men making out in a public park, and we will have to answer awkward questions.
Homosexuality is just one aspect. Our society is so frightened of sex, that we shelter our children from it at every turn. I'm reminded of a conversation I overheard about the movie The Transformers. Rated PG-13, one parent asked another what they thought about letting their small child watch it. "Well, they do mention masturbating at one point". That was the argument against a child watching that movie. Not the wanton destruction, the terrifying car chase, or the sentient being being literally ripped in two by the antagonist.
Why do I know this? Because this is exactly how I feel, and it is difficult for me to balance what logic tells me is sensible with what my upbringing tells me is awkward or wrong. I can recognize the logic behind your arguments while still being uncomfortable with the idea of my children growing up in a world where homosexuality is not viewed as an abomination.
We are a product of our environment, and as such, it will always be difficult to break from that upbringing, even for the sake of righting inequities. I imagine it will take time. Just as my grandparents' views on women differed from my parents', and as my parents' views on minorities differed from mine, I assume my views on homosexuals will differ from my children's.
I'll leave it an exercise to the reader whether this is a good thing or not, I'm just offering an explanation.
I suppose I can understand that.
On one level, most kids are never, ever, going to see what happens when you take a machete to someone. Most kids are never, ever, going to see what happens when you run through a crowd of people with a weed whacker.
But most kids are, someday, going to be in a situation where they're with someone else intimately and it's somewhat better for them to work their interactions out slowly with much deliberation than for them to go in with a truckload of assumptions picked up from Cinemax Late Nite, AC/DC songs, and CSI.
That said, the stuff that is so worrisome... the guys holding hands in a mall, the guys living together, the guys going antiquing and being very pleased to have found an authentic piece of costume jewelry from the Prohibition Era... these things are all legal.
What's being prohibited are things like automatic inheritance rights.
Indeed, even the legal benefits given by marriage are available to any two people (with a handful of exceptions) if they're willing to spend time on Robert Shapiro's new website, whatever it is.
The unitive parts of the relationship are available and not illegal to any two guys (though some things were illegal until Lawrence v. Texas).
All the state has left in it's "no you can't" is to deny some simple civil protections.
And thinking that it's important for society to continue to deny these protections to two guys just strikes me as so fundamentally alien.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
i.e. why polygammy should be illegal despite the fact that it would involve only consenting adults in a unitive relationship.
Explain why A can't marry B, while B also marries C with or without C marrying A.
Besides "I don't think this makes sense" you should feel free to supply some basis for why consenting adults are not free to structure their own lives as they see fit.
Polygamy, as practiced, does not involve consenting adults most of the time.
It involves teenage girls coerced into plural marriage under threats of hell or threats of physical abuse.
The power dynamic that exists in polygamy, as practiced, does not recognize the Moral Agency of the actors involved.
It's creepy old men taking advantage of young girls and using God as justification for it.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
If this verdict stands, society as we have known it will change. The California Supreme Court and its millions of supporters are playing with fire. And it will eventually burn future generations in ways we can only begin to imagine.
Outside of the privacy of their homes, young girls will be discouraged from imagining one day marrying their prince charming -- to do so would be declared "heterosexist," morally equivalent to racist. Rather, they will be told to imagine a prince or a princess. Schoolbooks will not be allowed to describe marriage in male-female ways alone. Little girls will be asked by other girls and by teachers if they want one day to marry a man or a woman.
The sexual confusion that same-sex marriage will create among young people is not fully measurable. Suffice it to say that, contrary to the sexual know-nothings who believe that sexual orientation is fixed from birth and permanent, the fact is that sexual orientation is more of a continuum that ranges from exclusive heterosexuality to exclusive homosexuality. Much of humanity -- especially females -- can enjoy homosexual sex. It is up to society to channel polymorphous human sexuality into an exclusively heterosexual direction -- until now, accomplished through marriage. But that of course is "heterosexism," a bigoted preference for man-woman erotic love, and therefore to be extirpated from society.
Any advocacy of man-woman marriage alone will be regarded morally as hate speech, and shortly thereafter it will be deemed so in law.
Companies that advertise engagement rings will have to show a man putting a ring on a man's finger -- if they show only women fingers, they will be boycotted just as a company having racist ads would be now.
Films that only show man-woman married couples will be regarded as antisocial and as morally irresponsible as films that show people smoking have become.
Traditional Jews and Christians -- i.e. those who believe in a divine scripture -- will be marginalized. Already Catholic groups in Massachusetts have abandoned adoption work since they will only allow a child to be adopted by a married couple as the Bible defines it -- a man and a woman.
Anyone who advocates marriage between a man and a woman will be morally regarded the same as racist. And soon it will be a hate crime.
Indeed -- and this is the ultimate goal of many of the same-sex marriage activists -- the terms "male" and "female," "man" and "woman" will gradually lose their significance. They already are. On the intellectual and cultural left, "male" and "female" are deemed social constructs that have little meaning. That is why same-sex marriage advocates argue that children have no need for both a mother and a father -- the sexes are interchangeable. Whatever a father can do a second mother can do. Whatever a mother can do, a second father can do. Genitalia are the only real differences between the sexes, and even they can be switched at will.
And what will happen after divorce -- which presumably will occur at the same rates as heterosexual divorce? A boy raised by two lesbian mothers who divorce and remarry will then have four mothers and no father.
We have entered something beyond Huxley's "Brave New World." All thanks to the hubris of four individuals. But such hubris never goes unanswered. Our children and their children will pay the price.
read it all
http://krla870.townhall.com/columnists/DennisPrager/2008/05/20/californi...
more later
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Except we know this is a genuine slippery slope because we've seen the antecedents with the civil rights movement and with "families".
However, I suspect that the jihadists will sweep us away and impose Sharia before we reach the endpoint of your scenario. That doesn't give me much relief, though, I must confess.
Another correlary of your secenario is that the Christian church in the U.S. and Europe will be undergoing lots of purifying fire that may consume a lot of chaff, which needs burning. Whether this fire will come from Jihad or from Western secularists remains to be seen.
It's like forests: you need periodic fires to strengthen the growth of the remaining trees. However, it's been so long in the West since there's been much fire - at least in Protestant circles - that the next fire could burn extra hot and do some severe damage to the trees. Prognosis: uncertain | outcome: the Rock will endure along with what is built upon it.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Mexicans will become just like Blacks who are also very socially conservative, they will become trapped by the race baiters and the handout masters in the Democratic party and end up voting for the more left wing people over and over again.
It is just like my old Uncle who was a big Democrat and labor unionist. He and other like him, were personally very religious and conservative, but campaigned for flaming left wingers who were pro abortion.
The Democrat party is much stronger than most individual's religion or personal convictions. Sorry to say it, but that is what I have observed over and over again.
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle
someone here challenged me on that last year, and given the polls on issues, even in SC before the dem primary, I can't say that anymore.
I pray the immigrants hold on to their values.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
After some of Bill Clinton (especially) kept opening up his big mouth, even my wife and I were rooting for Obama in this year's South Carolina Democratic Primary.
*****
Unrepentant Black nationalist, Unapologetic Black conservative!
for Obama at the time (BEFORE we knew the real Obama) and also wrote a column calling the Clinton campaign as playing the race card.
But I was wrong on the latter. No.
I went back and looked at exactly what Hill and Bill said, and all they did was state facts and treat BHO like any other rival. Now, it is true that THEY and the dems and the msm regularly call treating blacks as equals as playing the race card, and they got their comeuppance.
But no, I blame the problems of blacks on blacks.
Just as I did whites on whites in the 70s.
It is going to be just as painful for blacks to deal with their pathologies as it was for southern whites.
Lib dems and the msm gave lib blacks a pass for decades now, but since Obama wants the nukes, the pass is over.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
in bama for huck
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
"If this verdict stands, society as we have known it will change."
This is true of a great many verdicts in American History. Some of them are ones like "Brown v. Board of Education". Sometimes society as we know it changing is a good thing.
"Outside of the privacy of their homes, young girls will be discouraged from imagining one day marrying their prince charming -- to do so would be declared "heterosexist," morally equivalent to racist. Rather, they will be told to imagine a prince or a princess. Schoolbooks will not be allowed to describe marriage in male-female ways alone. Little girls will be asked by other girls and by teachers if they want one day to marry a man or a woman."
When I was a kid, there were a ton of neighborhood kids. The guys tended to play stuff like ghost in the graveyard or kick the can or tag. The girls tended to play house. Since there weren't any guys around for the girls, some of them had to pretend to play the daddy. Little girls! Pretending to be married to each other! Some of them even pretending to be the butch in the relationship!!! This probably strikes you as being far more distressing than it does me.
As for the role of public schools in this... well, I'm a big fan of vouchers and homeschooling. I'm actually a supporter of getting rid of the Department of Education but when I say stuff like that people tend to mistake me for a Ron Paul supporter so I tend to not bring it up. (I wonder if the whole Heterosexism thing will be helped by the framework set up in NCLB or not... probably not worth thinking about that.)
"The sexual confusion that same-sex marriage will create among young people is not fully measurable. Suffice it to say that, contrary to the sexual know-nothings who believe that sexual orientation is fixed from birth and permanent, the fact is that sexual orientation is more of a continuum that ranges from exclusive heterosexuality to exclusive homosexuality. Much of humanity -- especially females -- can enjoy homosexual sex. It is up to society to channel polymorphous human sexuality into an exclusively heterosexual direction -- until now, accomplished through marriage. But that of course is "heterosexism," a bigoted preference for man-woman erotic love, and therefore to be extirpated from society."
Especially females? Is it the cuddling thing? The talking for three hours afterwards thing? Then you say "It is up to society to channel polymorphous human sexuality into an exclusively heterosexual direction"... why is this up to society? I mean, if someone said "It is up to society to channel the surplus labor of the proletariat into universal health care", I am pretty sure that couldn't disagree more with their foundational premises.
"Any advocacy of man-woman marriage alone will be regarded morally as hate speech, and shortly thereafter it will be deemed so in law. "
Oh, I'm not a fan of hate speech laws at all. Congress making no law and whatnot. However... there are plenty of places where it's still safe to argue against miscegenation that have not yet been taken down due to litigation using the hate speech laws as justification. I strongly suspect that it will still be possible to argue against homosexuality in general if gay marriage were made legal in, say, Massachusetts.
"Companies that advertise engagement rings will have to show a man putting a ring on a man's finger -- if they show only women fingers, they will be boycotted just as a company having racist ads would be now."
On Bravo (I was a Project Runway fan for a while... Uli was robbed!) they have Orbitz commercials for gay couples. It shows gay people doing travel website stuff. There are still straight people Orbitz commercials. I've no doubt that if gay marriage is legalized, there will be about as many commercials with gay people on the mainstream channels as there are commercials with mixed-race couples on the mainstream channels.
"Films that only show man-woman married couples will be regarded as antisocial and as morally irresponsible as films that show people smoking have become."
Yeah.
Because Hollywood *HATES* money.
"Traditional Jews and Christians -- i.e. those who believe in a divine scripture -- will be marginalized. Already Catholic groups in Massachusetts have abandoned adoption work since they will only allow a child to be adopted by a married couple as the Bible defines it -- a man and a woman."
That Massachusetts law was absolutely idiotic. It strikes me that it completely violates the spirit *AND* the letter of the First Amendment. It strikes me as blatantly unConstitutional.
That said, I stand somewhat surprised that the Catholics would rather not engage in adoption work at all than place 95% of the kids they are placing in straight families (and place a small percentage of children in gay families). From the Boston Globe article talking about this, I couldn't help but notice that it contains the sentence "In December, the Catholic Charities board, which is dominated by lay people, voted unanimously to continue gay adoptions."
I suppose asking a question about what society says and democracy saying whether something is appropriate or not would completely misunderstand the dynamic at work here, huh?
"Anyone who advocates marriage between a man and a woman will be morally regarded the same as racist. And soon it will be a hate crime."
Is being a racist a hate crime yet?
If it's not (and my quick assessment of Ron Paul supporters tells me that this is a safe assumption), I suspect that holding a Levitical view of homosexuality will be safe in the same way.
"Indeed -- and this is the ultimate goal of many of the same-sex marriage activists -- the terms "male" and "female," "man" and "woman" will gradually lose their significance. They already are. On the intellectual and cultural left, "male" and "female" are deemed social constructs that have little meaning. That is why same-sex marriage advocates argue that children have no need for both a mother and a father -- the sexes are interchangeable. Whatever a father can do a second mother can do. Whatever a mother can do, a second father can do. Genitalia are the only real differences between the sexes, and even they can be switched at will."
At will?
Give me a second.
I'm pretty sure that I've falsified the claim that they can be switched at will. Lemme ask the wife.
Okay, I'm back. She wasn't able to do it either.
"And what will happen after divorce -- which presumably will occur at the same rates as heterosexual divorce? A boy raised by two lesbian mothers who divorce and remarry will then have four mothers and no father."
I do understand the concern that this boy would grow up wanting to be gay. Spending 18 years with 4 women would make pretty much any guy think something to the effect of "dude, I just want to sit down and not talk for a year" and, let's face it, a relationship with a woman is not going to allow that to happen.
That said, I'm not sure that the whole two dads, two moms thing is significantly better. I've got a friend who has several half-brothers from several different stepfathers.
This strikes me as something much, much more likely to happen among heterosexuals than homosexuals. It would never occur to me to pass laws to prevent it from happening among heterosexuals, though.
"We have entered something beyond Huxley's "Brave New World." All thanks to the hubris of four individuals. But such hubris never goes unanswered. Our children and their children will pay the price."
I'm so glad I'm a Beta. Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm really awfully glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides, they wear black, which is such a beastly color.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
Now I have a mental picture of that right before I go to bed.
Whaaaaaaaaaaaa!
But I do agree with your position.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Just a typical, small town, white girl...
Sincerely so but I wanted another example that was both "morally hard-hitting" as well as something that didn't have to do with sex or gender. In that regard, I think the puppies were a good example.
*****
Unrepentant Black nationalist, Unapologetic Black conservative!
here.
But why must they even be "consenting adults"?
Aren't you imposing your own personal belief on those who prefer to have sex with the "non-consenting" and/or those who are "not adults"?
birdmojo, your arguments are somewhat circular. People are giving you reasons why they oppose same-sex marriages. You don't agree with them, which you are free to do, but you cannot honestly say we are not giving you a reason for our opposition.
Agree or disagree, I (and I think many others here) think that same-sex marriages are detrimental to society as a whole. And since we think it is detrimental to society as a whole, we would like it to be outlawed. Just like pedophilia, rape and (excuse me again, c17wife), bashing in the skulls of little puppies should be; even if done in the privacy of your own home.
*****
Unrepentant Black nationalist, Unapologetic Black conservative!
I believe that individuals are moral agents.
Removing the moral agency of an individual is generally wrong. If it can be avoided, it ought to be.
The reasons that most people are giving me that they oppose same-sex marriage have included "we're all adults here" and children in a mall saying to their parents that they saw two guys holding hands.
To be perfectly honest, I find these arguments less than persuasive as I see similar arguments have been made for why Loving v. Virginia was decided incorrectly. (Yes, I know that it was decided correctly... but I also believe that the laws that Loving v. Virginia overturned were wrong for more reasons than merely the US eventually passed the 14th Amendment.)
Now you say "Agree or disagree, I (and I think many others here) think that same-sex marriages are detrimental to society as a whole. And since we think it is detrimental to society as a whole, we would like it to be outlawed."
That's great.
If you read the dicta in the argument from the State Supreme Court Justice who was overturned by the SCotUS in Loving v. Virginia, you see that he said that the miscegenation laws existed to help protect God's Natural Order.
I understand absolutely that you guys think that gay marriage is an abomination.
I just think that you guys are wrong and that it's possible for people on the fence to have their minds changed, even if yours won't be.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
It simply does not apply to laws against same-sex marriages. For the last time, the issue with the anti-miscegenation laws was that it categorized people in constitutionally-suspect ways. That is not the issue with laws against same-sex marriages. Laws against same-sex marriages deal with behaviour, unlike Loving v. Virginia.
Indeed, giving your contortion and misunderstanding of Loving v. Virginia, I am flummoxed to see how you don't think the law constitutionally protects a man from marrying his dog.
And please re-read the posts here. Most people are giving you different reasons for opposing same-sex marriages than "children in a mall saying to their parents that they saw two guys holding hands." You're simply overlooking them and not responding.
Indeed, please re-read all of my responses and show me where I said that same-sex marriages are an "abomination." I have said that they are detrimental to society as a whole. You even quote me as stating that. Why then do you go back to saying things like "abomination"?
Please try to read what we are actually writing without putting your own "spin" on it.
But yes, people on the fence can change their minds. On this we agree. Hopefully, those that change their minds will be people like you.
*****
Unrepentant Black nationalist, Unapologetic Black conservative!
I make distinctions between consenting adults and non-consenting adults. Over and over and over I make this distinction.
And the reply comes back... Well, do you support a guy marrying HIS DOG????????
Does it matter what I say and what distinctions I make?
From my perspective, it seems self-evident that while I do have the right to tell a couple of gay guys that they aren't "really" married, I'm pretty sure that I don't have the competence to make that judgment. I'll err on the side of Liberty, thanks. So when it comes to the things that society can and cannot give in response to "marriage" (legal, civil protections like inheritance rights and hospital visitation), these things ought to be offered.
When it comes to the Mind of God, I cannot claim special knowledge and so I err on the side of Liberty.
When it comes to polygamy, you get into issues of stuff like, for example, social security checks. A marries B and then marries C. B reaches Social Security age and then passes away after falling down the stairs. A, presumably, gets some measure of Social Security benefits. Does C get anything? Should C get anything?
The legal stuff for gay marriage has an established template to follow. Polygamy does not.
And to answer your question: A Dog is not a Consenting Adult.
To answer your inevitable follow-up question: Horses are not Consenting Adults either.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
is a template?
Many would define the template to include marriage between a man and a woman.
Who gets to define to what the template is, and what is extraneous to the template?
Polygmany has been legal in many different eras and in mnay different countries. In contrast, I am not aware of any nation or era in which gay marriage was legal.
Are you not using the word "template" as an empty vessel to be filled by . . . birdmojo?
I don't think that "marriage" is a Federal, or even State, issue at all.
I think that the Income Tax is a basic violation of Liberty and a value-added tax or sales tax would be better. Let the Feds ask for money from the States instead of the other way around.
If three people want to live in a house together and they want to tell the world "We're all married!", that neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
But society tends not to do stuff like that. Unfortunately, society tends to not err on the side of liberty (see, for example, the original case that resulted in Loving v. Virginia. "Who is this woman?" "I'm his wife" :points to marriage certificate: "that's no good here").
If we can agree that the state acted wrongly in that case, then we agree. From there I want to move to Lawrence v. Texas and we can discuss whether the state should have the power to arrest people for doing what those guys were doing.
I argue that it shouldn't.
From there, we just get to hammer out whether the handful of civic protections given by marriage ought to be denied to a couple of guys who want to die before they break up their relationship.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
law to support your own view of what marriage is?
How about we let representative government in conjunction with federalism resolve this issue?
Otherwise you seek to replace what some believe to be the mind of God with the mind of birdmojo. While I would certainly pick the mind of birdmojo over the faculty at Harvard, I think you underestimate the likelihood that your view will result in the legalization of polygamy in western countries.
There is already de facto legalization of polygamny in western Europe when it comes to Somali and Pakistani immigrants.
I think we should try to hold the line where it is and not move it to a less defensible position.
You said about yourself:
From my perspective, it seems self-evident that while I do have the right to tell a couple of gay guys that they aren't "really" married, I'm pretty sure that I don't have the competence to make that judgment.
That's the difference between you, on the one hand, and people like gamecock and me. We are "competence to make that judgment."
And if you disagree, what makes you think we are not competent enough?
I'm glad we can agree on something.
*****
Unrepentant Black nationalist, Unapologetic Black conservative!
And when I read the original judge's statements in the court case that eventually made it to the SCotUS, I see similar certainty.
Your certainty does not convince me that you are right.
Any more than Leon Bazile's did.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
Bringing Loving into this argument is a pet peeve of mine.
Being black has never been a sin or immoral and is not against the natural order of life.
If I were black, this would offend me gretly.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Just a typical, small town, white girl...
I am, however, saying that the arguments given in opposition to miscegenation remind me of the arguments given in opposition to gay marriage.
This is not to say that being black is like being gay. Of course it's not!
But the arguments against miscegenation and the arguments against gay marriage strike me as similar to the point where it gives great pause.
Claims to special knowledge of the Mind of God.
Claims to the Natural Order of the Universe.
Claims to State's Rights.
Claims to the Right of Society to sanction (or not sanction) what it will.
So on and so forth.
Being black is nothing like being gay.
But I'm not convinced that the arguments against miscegenation and the arguments against gay marriage don't have more than merely superficial similarities.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
into this discussion.
I'll just say that being black has nothing to do with any of these points-
Claims to special knowledge of the Mind of God.(I don't claim to have any such knowledge. The Bible tells me exactly what God's view on this topic.)
Claims to the Natural Order of the Universe.(The Natural Order of the Universe is what it is. Being black does not violate that order. Being homosexual does.)
Claims to State's Rights.(14th amendment took care of that.)
Claims to the Right of Society to sanction (or not sanction) what it will. So what should society do in this case? No one is telling them they can't have relationships. Society is just trying to tell them that they do not deserve special rights for their abberant behavior.
I absolutely hate it when the homosexual community bring interracial marriage into their cause. The two have nothing in common.
You will never convince me otherwise.
I'm done here.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Just a typical, small town, white girl...
But I've ceased to try to change the minds of those who claim special knowledge of the Mind of God.
Your quote of "You will never convince me otherwise." rings very, very true to my ears.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
Bird, it's very obvious now from our conversations that your intentions are to use homosexual marriage as a catalyst to bring about a more libertarian society. You have been made aware that once homosexual marriage is the law of the land that it will open Pandora's Box in regards to sexual orientation (which you have no problem with because you are for homosexual marriage) and thereby society will be forced to move in a more libertarian direction. We need only to look at LA in California to see the future of the society you espouse.
I see two extreme views within our society trying to solve man’s problems: one is socialism and the other is libertarianism. Socialism believes government is the only solution and libertarianism believes that almost no government is the solution. Both of these extreme views neglect the basic premise that at the heart of man is a four letter word called "lust". There are two basic things that mankind lusts for and they are power and pleasure. When people are given more liberty with only their moral agency guiding them there is only two possible outcomes: anarchy or socialism. The reason this happens is because mankind as a whole does not possess the self disciple to restrain himself from total pursuit of his lust for power and pleasure without conflicting with other people’s moral agency so society plummets into either anarchy or it turns to big government to create order. The only society that gives man the most freedom is one that extends liberty to man while at the same time restraining man’s lust within a defined set of boundaries. One of those defined boundaries must be for marriage to exist only between a man and a woman (period!).
Quite the opposite, really.
We learned nothing from Prohibition.
We learned nothing from the War on Drugs.
We will continue to learn nothing forever, I fear.
American Exceptionalism is coming to a close... at the agency of both conservatives and liberals who agree on nothing but the need for a structure that has the power to tell citizens that they'd live better lives if they lived as subjects.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
it will not be because America failed to learn the lesson of letting man be free to do as he chooses, it will be because Americans failed to learn the lesson of humbling themselves before the moral authority of the Creator of the universe who has revealed to us in Jer. 17:9 "The heart [is] deceitful above all [things], and desperately wicked: who can know it?", and in 1st John 2:16 "For all that [is] in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world."! These lusts are why mankind has a need for government to exist, and until they are personally subdued, the ideal of limited government can not exist!
Liberty ceased working.
Time to try something new. Do you really think you'll be better off when the Democrats get their hands on the framework you want established?
Really?
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
"The Constitution of the United States". Bird I think we both want basically the same thing "limited government", but neither of us will get what we want until the America people choose to personally limit their own personal lust for power and pleasure. Until then our government is going to be constantly challenged to grow itself in order to maintain all the things that society wants from it.
It said stuff like "government is the problem" and that sort of thing.
That party went away. It now explains that if it only had just a little more power, everything could be okay.
And if everything isn't okay, well... we just haven't given the government enough power.
You know what Johnson's War On Poverty did to the Inner City?
The government is now doing that to the entire country.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
accepting the fact that mankind has a lust problem. The government is run by man and it isn't doing anything, for the most part, that the American people don't want it to do.
there would be a limit to the damage that human greed could do. That is what the founding fathers understood.
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle
human sacrifice. People must be willing to sacrifice in order for government to remain limited. Once we start demanding things from our government it will more be more than willing to grant us our desires, but in order to do so it will have to expand itself.
can you point out any magical time when Human's were not greedy?
The founders set up a system that worked pretty well at limiting the damage that government can do. But over 200+ years and many crisis we have lost a lot of the previous protections.
I don't know how to restore those constitutional protections, but more strict constructionist judges would be a start.
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle
be willing to start today by sacrificing some of the things they want from our government.
Here are some of those things:
My right to homosexual marriage.
My right to drink and drive.
My right to us cocaine or any other illegal drug.
My right to another women or man.
My right to wellfare.
My right to a college education.
My right to social security.
My right to have God our of the public school system.
My right to have an abortion.
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
you would be just fine and dandy with a draconian government and a police state directing other people not to indulge in all their vices. At least that is sure what it sounds like.
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle
The original government philosophy was "lust all you want, just know that the government isn't big enough to grant your every wish".
Now the government is saying "we can grant your every wish and, if we can't it's because you haven't allowed us to get bigger!"
Maybe if we give the government just a little more power, a little more jurisdiction... we'll be able to take care of those gas prices. Or the health care prices. Or the drug war.
Or gay marriage.
And if we haven't taken care of it yet, it's because we haven't given the government enough power.
Harold, the people who are telling you that they can make you happy and keep you safe if you would only give them more control over your life are lying to you.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
lust all you want; just know that the government isn't big enough to grant your every wish". The original government philosophy was for liberty to be granted or denied through a system of representation. This system is designed to help "restrain man's lust for all that he wants" which is primarily power and pleasure.
I'm reminded of people who don't own guns who argue that the 2nd Amendment doesn't protect an Individual Right.
They're not trading away their own freedom as much as they're saying "I'm willing to give away this freedom I'm not using in order to make everyone else give it up too".
Those politicians who tell you that they'll be able to help restrain man's lust for power and pleasure if you give them more power?
They're lying to you. Pandering to you not one iota less than the politicians who promise free health care or chickens in every pot.
They're lying to you.
They're lying to you.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
by advocating that society should extend rights to sexual orientation in regards to homosexual marriage. Your philosophy is built upon a lie. There's no way everything will be great if we just give people all the liberty they want and just let them self-govern themselves. It's not going to happen, just go to any local playground and watch how children self-govern themselves.
I find that whenever people bring up "The Children" in political arguments, they're talking about "Everybody".
I rarely see it stated so baldly, however.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
Hey, if it makes you feel better go to a little league game and watch the parents it's more interesting.
is not adding rules to the league.
Shame and embarassment are concepts that need to be brought back into our cultural discourse.
"Shame and embarrassment are concepts that need to be brought back into our cultural discourse."
I would have only slight disagree with "the solution to bad parent behavior at a ballgame is not adding rules to the league"
When a person has no shame or embarrassment rules/laws must unfortunately be established to protect the innocent as well as convict the guilty.
Most of the appeals to government being in charge of Marriage skate dangerously close to a violation of the First Amendments estblishment clause (which, according to the 14th Amendment, is now something applied to the states rather than merely the Congress).
The vast majority of arguments regarding the badness of gay marriage use, as their foundation, Religion as the justification for the wickedness of homosexuality and move from there to the wickedness of gay marriage.
Personaly, I'm a 100% Free Speech absolutist so I support, 100%, your right to explain to homosexuals that they are an abomination before the Lord and that they aren't really married in the Eyes of God. Moreover, I 100% support the Right of your Church to say "We Don't Serve Your Kind Here" if a couple of homosexuals said "we'd like to get married" to your pastor.
I do not, however, support your right to cause the government to deny a bundling of a handful of civil protections to homosexuals who want to enter into a life partnership.
I deny the morality of appealing to the "rights" of society to do this.
I deny the morality of appealing to the wishes of the majority to do this.
Furthermore, I suspect that giving the government power over more and more and more of your religion will result in something that you barely recognize.
And yet you listen to the politicians who pander to you and promise you lies because they flatter you.
And you don't even see it.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
Let's say Adam and Steve are in a life partnership after having been "married" within the Unitarian Church.
Let's say that Adam and Steve's parents disapprove strongly. They argue that Adam and/or Steve is going to Hell for all eternity.
Let's say that Steve catches a nasty virus and ends up in the hospital.
Let's say that Steve's parents say that they want Adam to be barred from visiting Steve. They say that, as Steve's parents, they can speak on Adam's behalf.
In recent years... the authorities have listened to Steve's parents. Steve's relationship with Adam is not recognized by the State.
This is one of those things that cannot happen if one is dealing with Steve and Wilhemina.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
in most states, Steve's parents would have no rights to dictate any of Steve's treatment or visitors, unless Steve was dumb enough to do nothing about the issue, even while knowing of his parent's disapproval. In my state (Mich.), all Steve would have to do would be to sign a Designation of Patient Advocate naming Adam as his advocate - and bingo, parents are at the mercy of Adam. Now, I will grant you that not every state may be as enlightened on this point as Michigan (doubtful) - but it seems massive overkill to me to assume that redefining marriage is the best solution to poor planning by gay couples.
People must be willing to sacrifice in order for government to remain limited.
Then I propose a sacrifice: join with me in calling for government to fully disengage from its regulation of marriage. Return the ceremonies of marriage to the private sector, where citizens are free to work with their church to devise mutually acceptable ways of practicing it, and with each other and their lawyers with regards to spelling out the contractual terms that participants will abide by.
This will decrease the regulatory scope of government and require fewer resources in the areas of marriage licensing and officiating. It certainly appears to be the conservative position, given that civil marriage is a relatively new phenomena when compared to the five thousand years or so of civilization that preceded it, when men and women were free to form their own families under their own terms, or within the terms of their chosen religion.
because it still leaves the door open for the same problems that have been discussed earlier. The only acceptable position that would keep government as limited as possible and ensure a stable society would only be marriage between a man and a woman.
|
"Gay rights Baby!" |
Most of the appeals to government being in charge of Marriage skate dangerously close to a violation of the First Amendments estblishment clause (which, according to the 14th Amendment, is now something applied to the states rather than merely the Congress).
The vast majority of arguments regarding the badness of gay marriage use, as their foundation, Religion as the justification for the wickedness of homosexuality and move from there to the wickedness of gay marriage.
Personaly, I'm a 100% Free Speech absolutist so I support, 100%, your right to explain to homosexuals that they are an abomination before the Lord and that they aren't really married in the Eyes of God. Moreover, I 100% support the Right of your Church to say "We Don't Serve Your Kind Here" if a couple of homosexuals said "we'd like to get married" to your pastor.
I do not, however, support your right to cause the government to deny a bundling of a handful of civil protections to homosexuals who want to enter into a life partnership.
I deny the morality of appealing to the "rights" of society to do this.
I deny the morality of appealing to the wishes of the majority to do this.
Furthermore, I suspect that giving the government power over more and more and more of your religion will result in something that you barely recognize.
And yet you listen to the politicians who pander to you and promise you lies because they flatter you.
And you don't even see it.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
This part of the 14th Amendment:
"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
As I understand it (and I'm sure to be corrected if I'm wrong) this has tended to be interpreted to mean that the first 10 Amendments only limited the Federal Government but not the States. So, for example, a State could pass a law shutting down a particularly partisan newspaper, for example. Congress couldn't... but the 1st only applied to Congress. After the 14th, it was generally assumed that the States couldn't pass the laws that the Congress was prevented from passing.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
"Furthermore, I suspect that giving the government power over more and more and more of your religion will result in something that you barely recognize."
This could be said of you as well with your religion being that of your political philosophy, and I would dare say that the primary source of your unrest is with my religion.
"And yet you listen to the politicians who pander to you and promise you lies because they flatter you."
The best I can do as a citizen is vote for someone who will best represent what I believe, and if they fail to come through I'll vote to remove them from office.
"I do not, however, support your right to cause the government to deny a bundling of a handful of civil protections to homosexuals who want to enter into a life partnership.
I deny the morality of appealing to the "rights" of society to do this.
I deny the morality of appealing to the wishes of the majority to do this."
Hey all I can say is go join the Demcratic party.
About as much as the Republican Party believes in the Pro-Life platform.
You can find a handful of politicians who say something about it from time to time in this venue or that one, but when they actually get in power... nothing is changed.
"This could be said of you as well with your religion being that of your political philosophy, and I would dare say that the primary source of your unrest is with my religion."
I daresay your knowledge of my "religion" is limited.
If nothing else, it will likely surprise you how little I say "oh, that part doesn't apply to me but the part immediately after that applies to everybody else."
And, of course, how little I say stuff like "that part that applies to everybody else needs to be enshrined in law because people are like children."
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
"If nothing else, it will likely surprise you how little I say oh, that part doesn't apply to me but the part immediately after that applies to everybody else.
And, of course, how little I say stuff like that part that applies to everybody else needs to be enshrined in law because people are like children."
What doesn't surprise me is how man always wishes to take what is written out of its historical context.
The 1st amendment historical context was written in relationship to religion.
The 14th amendment historical context was written in relationship to slavery.
But we men are good at finding loopholes if we look hard enough and complain loud enough! Hey, we don't even have to have an amendment to the Constitution for the seperation of church and state.
To hire people to tell me how to live my life who then have the power to vote themselves raises.
I'm not disappointed in Government nor in Mankind.
My expectations were not high in the first place, however.
If I did think that voting in someone who promised me that he would take care of me would result in someone who actually took care of me, however, I could see how I'd be fairly disappointed on a regular basis.
Hey! Maybe they didn't take care of me because they didn't have enough power/jurisdiction! Better give them more!
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
"I'm not disappointed in Government nor in Mankind.
My expectations were not high in the first place"
sounds like a good tagline.
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle
someone who will. You may not like my way of life, hey I probably don't like yours, but the majority decides what liberties are granted and which are denied. Sometimes the majority is wrong (i.e. prohibition) and sometimes their right (i.e. slavery).
"Sometimes the majority is wrong (i.e. prohibition) and sometimes their right (i.e. slavery)."
Insanity.
There is no other word.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
You have every right to live however you want so long as you do not harm another. Saying "mean" things does not qualify as harm.
If your lifestyle is so wonderful and so fruitful, you will have people coming to your worldview in droves.
And I should be given the same benefits.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
"If your lifestyle is so wonderful and so fruitful, you will have people coming to your worldview in droves."
Christianity is the #1 world religion and many come to it finding peace and liberty every single day.
As far as you wanting to be left alone in an imperfect world, never going to happen. The rejection of moral authority for more liberty to live life as it is right in one's own eyes has not worked out very well historically for nations. Someone is always going to be trying to lord over you because of their lust for power and pleasure. The only system that gives you as much freedom as possible is one that gives you a say in who that person will be. Can that person be corrupt? Yes, are we not all corrupt (imperfect)! This is why we need a system of many representatives and many divisions of power to restrain, maybe contain would be a better word, man's lust for power and pleasure. It's not a perfect system (that doesn't exist, but some think it can), but our system is built on the foundation of the wisdom of the ages. Until man subdues his lust for power and pleasure the society you want to live in can not exist, but in my Christian beliefs such a society will exist one day because my God has prepared a place for where sin (man's corrupt nature) will be no more.
"The rejection of moral authority for more liberty to live life as it is right in one's own eyes has not worked out very well historically for nations."
It's like you were homeschooled by Pete Seeger.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
But the things you are espousing are so very contrary to the writings of the Fathers that I cannot comprehend upon what basis you are writing them.
They remind me more of the promises of Billy Sunday prior to the passage of prohibition than anything rooted in stuff that actually, you know... *HAPPENED*.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
the answer to that question to someone else here at Redstate, but I do have a very good understanding of what is at the heart of mankind's problems. The problem is you want to live in denial of the truth that lust for power and pleasure is the central driving force within the heart of man, and lust is the primary source of all societal problems.
Your proposal of allowing homosexual marriage will only unlish this lust within our society. Again we have cities within our nation that are preludes for what is to come.
"the answer to that question to someone else here at Redstate, but I do have a very good understanding of what is at the heart of mankind's problems."
You begin by saying it's all about lust for power or pleasure... which is fine as well as it goes...
But then reach the conclusion that the government needs more power in order to protect us all from the people who lust for power or pleasure.
Those people in the government, dude? They're the ones lusting for power.
And you want to hand more of it to them.
The Federalist Papers are all online. They're googleable.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
You make these front-page postings and deny me the pleasure of recommending your diaries. Bummer.
Excellent, and recommended anyway!
The Unofficial RedState FAQ
“You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say. ” - Martin Luther