Posted on 08/14/2006 11:00:29 PM PDT by pissant
Now that a number of state courts have refused to redefine marriage to include same-sex unions, cries of "discrimination" are being heard.
The "equal protection of the laws" provided by the Constitution of the United States applies to people, not actions. Laws exist precisely in order to discriminate between different kinds of actions.
Lesbian couple Sue Wilkinson (L) and Celia Kitzinger leave the High Court in London after losing their legal battle to have their Canadian marriage legally recognised in Britain July 31, 2006. REUTERS/Stephen Hird (BRITAIN) When the law permits automobiles to drive on highways but forbids bicycles from doing the same, that is not discrimination against people. A cyclist who gets off his bicycle and gets into a car can drive on the highway just like anyone else.
In a free society, vast numbers of things are neither forbidden nor facilitated. They are considered to be none of the law's business.
Homosexuals were on their strongest ground when they said that the law had no business interfering with relations between consenting adults. Now they want the law to put a seal of approval on their behavior. But no one is entitled to anyone else's approval.
Why is marriage considered to be any of the law's business in the first place? Because the state asserts an interest in the outcomes of certain unions, separate from and independent of the interests of the parties themselves.
In the absence of the institution of marriage, the individuals could arrange their relationship whatever way they wanted to, making it temporary or permanent, and sharing their worldly belongings in whatever way they chose.
Marriage means that the government steps in, limiting or even prescribing various aspects of their relations with each other -- and still more their relationship with whatever children may result from their union.
In other words, marriage imposes legal restrictions, taking away rights that individuals might otherwise have. Yet "gay marriage" advocates depict marriage as an expansion of rights to which they are entitled.
They argue against a "ban on gay marriage" but marriage has for centuries meant a union of a man and a woman. There is no gay marriage to ban.
Analogies with bans against interracial marriage are bogus. Race is not part of the definition of marriage. A ban on interracial marriage is a ban on the same actions otherwise permitted because of the race of the particular people involved. It is a discrimination against people, not actions.
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said that the life of the law has not been logic but experience. Vast numbers of laws have accumulated and evolved over the centuries, based on experience with male-female unions.
Lesbian couple Sue Wilkinson (L) and Celia Kitzinger leave the High Court in London after losing their legal battle to have their Canadian marriage legally recognised in Britain July 31, 2006. REUTERS/Stephen Hird (BRITAIN) There is no reason why all those laws should be transferred willy-nilly to a different union, one with no inherent tendency to produce children nor the inherent asymmetries of relationships between people of different sexes.
Despite attempts to evade these asymmetries with such fashionable phrases as "a pregnant couple" or references to "spouses" rather than husbands and wives, these asymmetries take many forms and have many repercussions, which laws attempt to deal with on the basis of experience, rather than theories or rhetoric.
Wives, for example, typically invest in the family by restricting their own workforce participation, if only long enough to take care of small children. Studies show such differences still persisting in this liberated age, and even among women and men with postgraduate degrees from Harvard and Yale.
In the absence of marriage laws, a husband could dump his wife at will and she could lose decades of investment in their relationship. Marriage laws seek to recoup some of that investment for her through alimony when divorce occurs.
Those who think of women and men in the abstract consider it right that ex-husbands should be as entitled to alimony as ex-wives. But what are these ex-husbands being compensated for?
And why should any of this experience apply to same-sex unions, where there are not the same inherent asymmetries nor the same tendency to produce children?
two men and two women getting together is not "marriage" and they need to find their own word
This is the best take on it I've yet seen.
Alan Keyes has an interesting point of view, not wholly different from this.
He maintains that it is a question of 'incidence' and 'essence', that is to say that it is incidental that one of the benefits of marriage is physical pleasure. Of course on that point heterosexual and homosexual unions are equal. That heterosexual unions- and heterosexuality being the essence here- are the only unions physically capable of producing life is precisely what makes them unique.
Try explaining THAT to a liberal.
Sowell reasoning is impeccable and correct. The only problem here is the correct reasoning means nothing to liberals.
One if you want it!
But then does that mean we can deny "Marriage" to people too old to have children? Or if one member of the couple is infertile?
If gay marriage is ever recognized in the U.S., I want three wives. No husbands. If I only had two, then they would gang up on me. With three, I stand a better chance with a divide and survive strategy. One too many beers tonight.
For your list . . .
Sowell ping...
This same, tired argument used by the homoadvocates is really getting to sound as stupid as their other arguments against obvious reality.
Man/woman unions, on the whole, ALWAYS produce children. Unions of homosexuals NEVER produce children.
Ewwwww Powell is soooooo hateful --- LOL
Interesting points - his contention that marriage is a limitation of the individual's freedom in relationship to others is a useful perspective.
Lesbians have artificial insemination.
Although 'marriage' is an intermediate goal for homosexuals, my belief is that their real goal is complete social acceptance. Since they have been unable to achieve that through social contact they now wish to forcefully achieve it through courts and the law by route of 'marriage'.
Their 'end run' for acceptance is through the public education system, in which they seem to be making moderate, but steady, progress.
Whether they will achieve that is still a point of discussion.
Yah, but the sperm ain't coming from her "partner"
And, before you start w/ the some couples using sperm donors, the majority of us didn't use anything but plain old man/woman sex to get our kids.
Men and woman are very different creatures who are designed to function together for the best of themselves and society as a whole.
As usual, Dr. Sowell is presenting the arguments and exposing the rational and logical fallacies found therein. He doesn't tell what he thinks of the government being involved in marriage, but the body of his writing would probably indicate he wouldn't approve. He's not a complete laissez faire libertarian, but he has strong sympathies toward the Austrians.
All this is lipstick on the pig, though. The government needs to be out of the business of managing and sactioning marriage. This would then become a non-issue as it would be something handled completely within the realm of the church.
society rewards the INSTITUTION not the individual. Society has a future interest in rewardig an institution which most ensures the future of the society.
Homosexuals seek to reward the individual based on achieving an orgasm. Homosexuals do NOTHING for the future of society.
It is still a mother and a father.
The fact the homosexual woman intentionally and contumaciously denies the child a father is an afirmative decision to distort and destroy the child's up bringing.
(this says nothing of the irresponsibility of the natural father)
Yeah, that explains the 50% divorce rate.
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