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The problem with the gay marriage issue
townhall.com ^ | 3/02/04 | Thomas Sowell

Posted on 03/01/2004 9:39:06 PM PST by kattracks

The problem with the "gay marriage" issue is that the more fundamental issue is not gay marriage. The real issue is who should decide such issues -- that is, what kind of country and what kind of government do we have or want to have?

What does democracy mean if any headstrong minority can violate the laws passed by a majority and enshrined in centuries of legal precedents?

Some headstrong minorities have taken to the streets and some have violated the rule of law in the very courts of law, while wearing their judicial robes. In San Francisco, a mayor is openly defying state law, and both the judges and the state attorney general are too scared to do anything, for fear of angering homosexual voters.

Even those who incessantly repeat the mantra of "diversity" do not follow up the logical implications of that diversity. A diverse society can degenerate into a fragmented society and an internally warring society unless the various groups and interests agree to respect some over-arching principles and authority.

The history of the human race around the world shows how hard it is to create and maintain a national unity when different segments of the society think that what they want over-rides what everyone else wants and justifies violating the very accord that makes a society possible.

Race riots, military coups, anarchy and civil wars have erupted again and again, for centuries on end and in countries around the world, because some group decided that what it wanted was all that mattered. It has happened from the Balkans to Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Rwanda and a seemingly endless list of others.

History has told us repeatedly what is at the end of that road -- and we don't need to go there.

Gay marriage is an issue solely because a few headstrong judges in Massachusetts and an opportunistic mayor in San Francisco decided that they were above the law. Even in two ultra-liberal states like California and Massachusetts, the voters do not want gay marriage.

To those for whom their own goals over-ride everything else, this just means that the voters and the law must be disregarded. But if those on the left feel free to violate the law, why not those on the right? And where does that lead?

After years of tolerating lawlessness and violence by liberal and radical groups, especially since the 1960s, some were shocked when someone on the other end of the spectrum bombed a building in Oklahoma City.

Some blamed it on conservative talk radio -- which neither advocated nor condoned such acts -- while remaining utterly silent about the liberal media's sympathetic treatment of lawlessness and violence by those espousing the causes of the left. The New York Times, for example, ran a sympathetic account of one of the radical domestic bombers of the past on the very day when a more horrendous act of violence occurred -- September 11, 2001.

Gay marriage is not a local issue but a national issue because maintaining the rule of law -- or what is left of it -- is a national issue of historic importance if we are not to see America degenerate into the world's largest banana republic, or worse.

The time is long overdue to start impeaching judges who think their job is to veto laws they don't like or condone lawlessness that they agree with. The time is also long overdue to re-examine lifetime appointments of judges, which allows them to act like little tin gods, at the expense of our freedom and the country's elected government.

An independent judiciary does not mean judges independent of the Constitution from which they derive their power or independent of the laws that they are sworn to uphold.

When voters go to the polls this November, they need to consider not only what particular candidates will do in office but, at the federal level especially, what kinds of judges those candidates will appoint or confirm. There is no point complaining about judges -- or about taxes or any other laws or policies -- if you go into that voting booth on election day and vote on the basis of how candidates look or talk.

©2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

Contact Thomas Sowell | Read Sowell's biography



TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: activistjudges; civilunion; gayactivistjudges; homosexual; homosexualagenda; judicialactivism; marriage; prisoners; thomassowell

1 posted on 03/01/2004 9:39:06 PM PST by kattracks
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To: *Homosexual Agenda; EdReform; scripter; GrandMoM; backhoe; Yehuda; Clint N. Suhks; saradippity; ...
Homosexual Agenda Ping.

An excellent article by Thos. Sowell. He writes so cogently, clearly, and rationally. It's funny how so many liberal/leftists write in a nasty over-educated intellectu-babble style. Sowell writes simply and to the point.

I just wish he woldn't use the word "gay". It means carefree and joyful, not sodomy practitioners.

Let me know if you want on or off this ping list.
2 posted on 03/01/2004 9:47:04 PM PST by little jeremiah (...men of intemperate minds can not be free. Their passions forge their fetters.)
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To: kattracks
We need to jerk the rope on legislators whose job it is to jerk the rope on out-of-control judges.
3 posted on 03/01/2004 9:56:08 PM PST by edger (he)
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To: kattracks
When voters go to the polls this November, they need to consider not only what particular candidates will do in office but, at the federal level especially, what kinds of judges those candidates will appoint or confirm.

True, to a point. Federal judges generally wield more power over America, but state judges prove even more important at times. After all, Sowell himself referred to the Missachusetts Kangaroo Court in his piece!

4 posted on 03/01/2004 9:56:09 PM PST by Kryptonite (The Passion - Biggest box-office opening of any non-fiction film ever)
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To: kattracks
As The Shirelles and later Mama Michelle once sang, the darkest hour is just before dawn. Well people, this is the darkest hour. I have been appalled by the do-nothingness as we stand by and watch all we have ever lived for be destroyed.

We set in our comfy computer chairs and tsk-tsk these fortelling events like it has all ahppened before and we know how it's going to turn out, because it's all going to go back to normal and we can get back to our tsk-tsking Hillary Clinton.

What has transpired this past month is unbelievable in it's magnitude. The Rule of Law in this, our country, has been suspended. If no action is taken, even counter-reaction, then we are all nothing more than drawn targets on a sheath.

In other words, this is what the second amendment is all about. It's time the people take matters into hand.

The really sad part is I'm the radical for suggesting such...think about it...please.


5 posted on 03/01/2004 9:59:06 PM PST by whereasandsoforth (tagged for migratory purposes only)
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To: little jeremiah
Get ready to be pissed off, As a consevative you might want gays not to get married, I do !!! They should be allowed to be married!!!

Here is the rub, gays "homosexuals" (whom I have no personal problem with them) can not MARRY the same sex people! They can still get married !!!!


6 posted on 03/01/2004 10:03:40 PM PST by carlson
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To: whereasandsoforth
In Haiti we see the break down that loss of the rule of law can bring. We think we are above such chaos, but we are not

Bump for a resurgence of the rule of law
7 posted on 03/01/2004 10:08:47 PM PST by KC_for_Freedom (Sailing the highways of America, and loving it.)
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To: kattracks
Even those who incessantly repeat the mantra of "diversity" do not follow up the logical implications of that diversity. A diverse society can degenerate into a fragmented society and an internally warring society unless the various groups and interests agree to respect some over-arching principles and authority.

Sorry Mr. Sowell, the Gramscian Cultural Marxists knew precisely what they were doing.

8 posted on 03/01/2004 10:15:25 PM PST by Carry_Okie (There are people in power who are truly stupid.)
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To: whereasandsoforth
The really sad part is I'm the radical for suggesting such...think about it...please.

I thought about and yes, you are a sad radical.

It's time the people take matters into hand.

VOTE!

9 posted on 03/01/2004 10:20:51 PM PST by Kryptonite (The Passion - Biggest box-office opening of any non-fiction film ever)
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To: Kryptonite
VOTE.??..

You are joking, I assume. Where has votes got us? This "sad radical" sees my vote being overturned by even the lowest of peons, and that's just a bump in the road. It's not, dear voter, about your vote anymore.

If me voting was the answer, we would all still be living in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
10 posted on 03/01/2004 10:31:38 PM PST by whereasandsoforth (tagged for migratory purposes only)
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To: whereasandsoforth
I see, you're either gonna vote Kerry, or shoot people who might vote Bush.
11 posted on 03/01/2004 10:49:56 PM PST by Kryptonite (The Passion - Biggest box-office opening of any non-fiction film ever)
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To: Kryptonite
If that's what you "see" from my posts then I gather that your nostrils are your focus point.
12 posted on 03/01/2004 10:56:12 PM PST by whereasandsoforth (tagged for migratory purposes only)
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To: kattracks
'Activist Judges' Phrase Offends Homosexual Advocacy Group
13 posted on 03/02/2004 11:45:05 AM PST by EdReform (Support Free Republic - All donations are greatly appreciated. Thank you for your support!)
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To: little jeremiah
Bump


What We Can Do To Help Defeat the "Gay" Agenda
( www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1076476/posts )


Homosexual Agenda: Categorical Index of Links (Version 1.1)
( www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1026551/posts )


The Stamp of Normality
( www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1085090/posts )

14 posted on 03/02/2004 11:46:21 AM PST by EdReform (Support Free Republic - All donations are greatly appreciated. Thank you for your support!)
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