Posted on 12/01/2011 11:18:07 AM PST by Retro Llama
If the Republican presidential contenders wish to remain truthful to their rhetoric of decentralization of power in Washington, they should take a break from wooing social conservatives and stand for states' rights in regard to gay marriage.
Because many likely Iowa caucus-goers describe themselves as very conservative on social issues such as gay marriage and abortion, many candidates feel they need to reach out to the far-right if they plan to get the presidential nod. However, a staunch, conservative position on social issues will likely hurt them in the long run, because it undermines their more-appealing small-government policies....
The three Republican candidates who seem to understand the states' rights concept are U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, and, surprisingly, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. At the Family Leader Forum, Paul said to the large crowd, "The family dealt with marriages... We have deferred to the federal government. We have too much government. We should go in the other direction."....
...In 2004, [Paul] said to then-Speaker of the House Denny Hastert, "Mr. Speaker, while I oppose federal efforts to redefine marriage as something other than a union between one man and one woman, I do not believe a Constitutional amendment is either a necessary or proper way to defend marriage."
He has the decency to oppose same-sex marriage personally for religious purposes and support it politically for legal reasons.
Johnson and Romney, while not in attendance at the forum, opposed the Marriage Vow Pact that was developed by the Iowa Family Forum in July. Johnson called the pledge "offensive and un-Republican," while Romney's campaign has said, "Mitt Romney strongly supports traditional marriage. But he felt this pledge contained references and provisions that were undignified and inappropriate for a presidential campaign."...
(Excerpt) Read more at dailyiowan.com ...
The redefining of the two sexes from male and female to omni-gendered beings is no small thing. When a male is also a female and a female is also a male, confusion reigns.
Under Trotsky/Lenin, the Soviet Union trod the fast-track to hell with gender-bending, destruction of the family, forced fornication-education (gender bending, if it feels good do it), free abortions, etc. America is falling into the same abyss.
A really small government position would hold that the government shouldn’t interfere with you when you are robbing a convenience store.
There are limits to the validity of the small government position. It isn’t a moral absolute.
Speaking of moral absolutes...
Very unlike the belief that kids deserve and need two married parents of different genders. That is a moral absolute.
At its’ inception, our now-dead Constitutional Republic was founded on the idea of small government, a concept made possible by a people who were morally-constrained, that is, self-controlled. Today, increasing numbers of Americans, from inside-the-beltway to the street level are amoral and out-of-control. To them, small government means no rules whatsoever.
I never see the argument that government should stay out of divorce.
It is not just a states rights issue.
When one state legalizes “same sex marriage”, it has an effect on all the other states, business, etc.
What happens when a gay couple claim they were married in one state, but it is not recognized by other states when they try to file state income taxes as “married”, or the cost to businesses by claiming “health benefits” as “married spouses” .... I can go on and on....
Is this the best that your Log Cabin Friends can dream up?
Government should get out of marriage, period. It’s religious institution.
However,the problem even with state’s rights on this is that one state will be forced to recognize gay marriage in another state with Full Faith and Credit provision of the constitution. DOMA is in a precarious situation both from a judicial and legislative point of view.
This will lead to government sanctioned and enforced gay marriage.
Actually, what is needed is for small-government conservatives to explain why opposition to “gay marriage” is a small government position. Specifically, government’s legitimate interest in marriage derives from supporting socially beneficial, natural, non-state institutions, to wit, marriage and the family. It is an expansion of government power for the government to arrogate to itself the purported authority to redefine the nature of a non-state institution simply by virtue of the fact that it had for socially beneficial reasons registered marriages and established laws regulating them (age of consent, laws governing divorce settlements and the like).
In the case of abortion, one can be consistently small-government, by supporting the return of the question of which instances of abortion are justifiable homicide (none, saving the life of the mother, saving the mother from severe disability, not obliging the mother to continue enduring the effects of violation by rape or incest, . . .) to the several states as the matter was before Roe v. Wade.
Good topic. Marriage is a state issue, not a federal issue. Thus, if Massachusetts wants gay marriage, let them have it. The federal government should not define marriage, but should put laws in place to prevent a gay couple from getting married in one state and then forcing another state to recognize the marriage.
No, actually marriage is a natural social institution, which exists independent of any religion. It is not, however, a state institution, simply because the various states and the Federal government have adopted laws for the registration of marriages, placing limits on the natural institution (for instance establishing minimum ages for the parties entering marriages, forbidding consanguinous marriages of various degrees and the like), supporting the institution with favorable tax treatement, and regulating the dissolution of marriages. Rather marriage, like the family, is part of the non-state civil society. Which is, of course, why the left wants to arrogate to the state the power to redefine it, thereby shrinking the non-state civil society and expanding the state.
Falling? —Being led by the Gay Democratic Party “progressives”? —or being Pushed by the social engineers the result is the same.Marriage is the foundation to our society
and the enemy knows if they can destroy “marriage” they can drive a wedge between the Moral and religious people and the Useful idiots and we will be another step closer to perdition.
really pathetic.
90% of the federal government is unconstitutional and these people want promote gay marriage as a conservative thing.
Simply pathetic.
To some perv libertarians the answer to everything is drugs and sex without restraint. They are not worth listening to as serious people.
I can live with states making their own rules, so long as I can have a constitutional amendment at the federal level denying “full faith and credit” for these marriages in other states where the citizens want to prohibit them.
Otherwise, a single state can in fact dictate to all states what Marriage is, circumventing the rights of over states through the federal constitutional full faith and credit clause.
Also, clearly it should be prohibited for the federal government to grant any recognition of gay marriage. That’s not against limited government, but is in fact FOR limited government, in this case limiting the government from recognizing something most people still find undesirable.
Americans must live through all time a nation of freemen ,or die by suicide.”as Mr.Lincoln said in 1837,Religion,Morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind,schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.”twice passed Fundamental LAW Northwest Ordinance Article III.Reflected a sermon by Elizur Goodrich
Preached in Hartford Conn. May 10,1787—Political sermons of the American founding era 1730-1805 Ellis Sandoz ed.vol I
The Principles of Civil Union and the Happiness of mankind Considered and recommended.”We have forgotten from when we came.
a federal marriage amendment IS smaller government.
homosexual based marriage is a government created construct.
the same as adoption is a government created construct.
by eliminating the construct of anything goes marriage, government is smaller.
Marriage had been a state issue up until the time that the left-wing sought to undermine it as such and to use the court system in order to do so. Marriage, the age of consent, public decency laws, and all laws relating to sexuality in the public sphere have been handled at the state level.
The premise of limited government in American life has always included the ‘right to representation’ whereas these issues would be handled directly between the people and the representatives thus limiting the power of some unappointed judge from another state ordering you to accept some perversion such as homosexuality in your state without having any say on the matter.
It is the libertarians who have sided with the all out fascist left-wing in trying to force everyone to accept their perverted morality through use of the courts and an all out campaign of smearing anyone who disagrees with them.
The true limited government position is to support the people’s right to representation on the issue of marriage and to do whatever it takes to oppose the leftist fascist agenda of removing our right to representation through the courts. Even a federal marriage amendment is a small limited government position if it is being done to stop a fascist agenda that removes our right to representation on the issue.
Back when clear thinking and speaking was the norm, ‘gay’ democrats and social engineers were called pleasure-seeking hedonists and god-men.
It is the case, as Pascal observed, that when men reject their transcendent Creator they become subject to megalomania in varying degrees.
The federal government HAS put in place a law so as not to force other states to recognize homosexual marriage. This is the Defense of Marriage Act, which even as we speak, has gay activists in court trying to overturn.
Massachusetts never got to vote on gay marriage. It was forced on them by court order.
I hear what you are saying, but the fact is, the gay activists are NOT content to just have same-sex marriage allowed in some liberal states. Their eventual goal is 50 state same-sex marriage through court order, not through any legislative process.
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