Posted on 03/20/2013 5:57:00 AM PDT by Kaslin
Within the next few months, Justice Anthony Kennedy will likely rule that same-sex marriage is mandated by the Constitution of the United States. The ruling will offend both common sense and Constitutional law. But it will nonetheless become the law of the land. With it, states will be forced to recognize same-sex marriages; same-sex marriage will enter the public school lexicon; religious institutions will be forced to recognize same-sex marriages or lose their tax-exempt status. Religious Americans will be forced into violating their beliefs or facing legal consequences by the government. The First Amendment's guarantee of religious liberty will largely become obsolete.
There is only one way to stop this development: Get the government out of the business of marriage. Right now.
States and localities originally gave tax benefits and crafted specific legal systems in order to incentivize Americans to get married and have children within the context of marriage. But those legal institutions have been undermined over the past several decades by a culture that degrades marriage and child rearing. Incentive structures that used to provide the cherry on top of good moral decision-making no longer matter enough to drive such decision-making.
That gap between culture and the legal system has led to a cycle of defining deviancy down, with government taking the lead. The view of the value of marriage in American life changed in the 1950's and 1960's; the left used that cultural shift in order to legitimize no-fault divorce laws, legal custody and child support arrangements that incentivized divorce and social welfare systems that incentivized unwed motherhood.
The last bastion of the old value system was the state's approval of traditional marriage. But thanks to a decades-long cultural shift away from marriage, the left is now in position to use the levers of government to redefine the institution once and for all -- and in the process, destroy the American religious culture that under-girds American freedom.
Unlike the movement to retract laws restricting sexual behavior, the same-sex marriage movement has never been about freedom in any real sense. The push for same-sex marriage is not about wanting freedom to copulate; same-sex copulation has been effectively legal in this country for decades, and formally legal since Lawrence v. Texas (2003). The push for same-sex marriage is not about wanting legal benefits available to heterosexual couples; same-sex couples are largely able to make contractual arrangements to achieve those benefits, and in many states, civil unions equate legally with marriage.
The push for same-sex marriage is about placing the power of government in direct opposition to traditional religious viewpoints.
And conservatives cannot stop that push unless they are willing to restrict government power. Conservatism has always been about preventing the power of government from invading the lives of citizens. Leftism has always been about using the power of government to restrict the behavior of others. It is time for conservatives to recognize the reality of their situation, realize the dangers inherent in their insistence on government interventionism and act quickly.
Getting the government out of marriage would mean voluntary lifestyle arrangements governed by contract -- a practice that has roots stretching back millennia. Religious people would not be forced by the state to approve behavior they find morally problematic. They would not have to worry about their children being taught about such behavior. Conservatives would be forced to rebuild a culture of marriage rather than focusing on a crumbling legal bulwark.
Conservatives lost the culture. Then they lost the law. They can only regain traditional values by removing legal coercion and incentivization from the table -- the left will never hesitate to use those means -- and focusing once again on the raising and production of children within a culture of traditional morality.
You don’t even understand the moral basis for the Constitution. If you did you wouldn’t be a Libertarian.
It’s worse than not understanding the moral basis of the Constitution,
it’s not even acknowledging that basis’ existance,
much less its NECESSITY.
(The founders understood this necessity and the inevitable failure of the Constitution if that basis ceased to exist.)
And that's the very reason the left (ie, Satan's unwitting worker bees) is pushing the homosexual agenda first and foremost.
It is a great spearpoint.
Okay I see you have run out of ideas. I know you are a good person EV, and I have thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. This topic has been debated for hundreds of years, so let’s not digress to insults. Let’s part friends and agree to disagree on this one. Have a great day and God Bless.
pd
P.S. I am not a Libertarian. I am a Constitutionalist.
But the Federal government has been making decisions based on societal value and self-preservation its entire existence. Some good things, some dumb. How can it be a slippery slope when YOU are the one talking about making the change?
There seems to be some mistaken belief that it is possible for government to NOT promote social and moral and “worldviewish” values.
It will, and those claiming some sort of “morally neutral” position of government either are unwittingly or purposefully promoting the use of government to remove the Christian foundation of our nation and society.
I’m sorry you lost me. What change am I making?
The “change” of the headline here... ending the Federal government’s involvement with marriage.
“Government has no interest in promoting a stable society?”
The person who defines the meaning of the terms gets to control the outcome of the debate. With 74% of black children being born to an unmarried mother, what is “stability” in this context? Nine out of ten young black men who are murdered die at the hands of another back man.
Indeed, one third of all black males who dropped out of high school are in prison, where society is stable.
Clearly for this demographic, they are going their own way and the fruits are horrible. They clearly don’t care about the institution of marriage. They seemingly have an inverted relationship to it compared to the homosexual demographic. But in the end the result is the same: the institution of marriage is destroyed. Maybe that is the higher goal all along.
Oh sorry - I see. Yes indeed I am advocating that change. My reasoning is that there is nothing in the constitution about marriage. And that is because the founders recognized that marriage is a religious state, not a legal one.
The real ‘change’ was enacted over the years by politicians who disregarded the constitution in favor of their own beliefs, for things like money, taxes, benefits, and their own personal beliefs.
So - my proposed ‘change’ is not really change at all - just going back to the way it was, and the way it should be (if one believes in the constitution).
Many would say that the “social safety net” has no influence on marriage,
but those who actually examine the issue know that it indeed does, as you point out with the bastardity rate among the welfare class.
Yes, their goal is pretty clear - destroying marriage.
Homos “marrying” doesn’t “expand” the freedom, it just destroys the institution as it exists and makes it meaningless.
“The homosexual movement is a threat to the very existence of the United States, of American liberty, and of Posterity.”
I completely agree. However, you cannot defeat it by passing laws pretending you have the authority of God to make or dissolve marraiges. You will only defeat it by actively trying to bring about a SPIRITUAL change in individual citizens. Passing laws does NOTHING for the character of men. In a Constitutional Republic, all the matters is the character of those who make it. Our framers knew this to be the case.
In short, you are trying to treat a symptom of the disease with voodoo law, claiming your voodoo law will force evil men to be good. Treat the disease. The disease from the very beginning was men thinking themselves to have the power of God to serve their own desires, no matter how laudable.
Thank you for your excellent posts on this thread.
If our side will fight, we will win.
The other side’s got nuthin’. The only way they can win is by default.
Thank you, my friend. You have managed to pull it all together in a way that I have tried but failed to convey.
I also have to respond to this:
“But, it is more that that.”
NOTHING is “more than” a Holy Mystery except the Holy Trinity. No law. No economic policy. If you claim your legal system is above the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God, you presume something the founders did not. Your endeavor will fail, as did Cromwell’s and the Scottish Covenanters. Your nation of “laws above God” will turn us into Britain.
Your first sentence in a nutshell is correct. The government/IRS control behavior with the tax code.
Laws defending the natural family and marriage are not “voodoo” anything. Sorry.
The Republican Party, for example, was founded to defend one man, one woman marriage. They called polygamy, like slavery, a “relic of barbarism.”
Four states were only allowed into the Union if they would forever foreswear plural unions.
The right and duty of self-defense is intrinsic. Sam Adams rightfully called it the first law of nature.
You admit that the homosexuals will destroy our country, and yet your view of things makes you think that we have no choice but to stand with folded hands and die.
But it’s simply not true. We have every advantage, if we will only find the will to exercise those advantages.
So, according to you, marriage has absolutely no earthly, physical significance. Okey-dokey then.
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