Posted on 06/04/2014 10:19:50 AM PDT by Iced Tea Party
Cultural civil war can be avoided by getting government out of marriage
There is no question that the media, political, and cultural push for gay marriage has made impressive gains. As recently as 1989, voters in avant-garde San Francisco repealed a law that had established only domestic partnerships.
But judging by the questions posed by Supreme Court justices this week in oral arguments for two gay-marriage cases, most observers do not expect sweeping rulings that would settle the issue and avoid protracted political combat. A total of 41 states currently do not allow gay marriage, and most of those laws are likely to remain in place for some time. Even should the Court declare unconstitutional the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman for federal purposes, we can expect many pitched battles in Congress. The word “spouse” appears in federal laws and regulations a total of 1,138 times, and many of those references would have to be untangled by Congress absent DOMA.
No wonder Wisconsin’s GOP governor Scott Walker sees public desire for a Third Way. On Meet the Press this month he remarked on how many young people have asked him why the debate is over whether the definition of marriage should be expanded. They think the question is rather “why the government is sanctioning it in the first place.” The alterative would be to “not have the government sanction marriage period, and leave that up to the churches and the synagogues and others to define that.”
Governor Walker made clear these thoughts weren’t “anything I’m advocating for,” but he gave voice to many people who don’t think the gay-marriage debate should tear the country apart in a battle over who controls the culture and wins the government’s seal of approval. Gay-marriage proponents argue that their struggle is the civil-rights issue of our time, although many gays privately question that idea. Opponents who bear no animus toward gays lament that ancient traditions are being swept aside before the evidence is in on how gay marriage would affect the culture.
Both sides operate from the shaky premise that government must be the arbiter of this dispute. Columnist Andrew Sullivan, a crusader for gay marriage, has written that “marriage is a formal, public institution that only the government can grant.” But that’s not so. Marriage predates government. Marriage scholar Lawrence Stone has noted that in the Middle Ages it was “treated as a private contract between two families . . . For those without property, it was a private contract between two individuals enforced by the community sense of what was right.” Indeed, marriage wasn’t even regulated by law in Britain until the Marriage Acts of 1754 and 1835. Common-law unions in early America were long recognized before each state imposed a one-size-fits-all set of marriage laws.
The Founding Fathers avoided creating government-approved religions so as to avoid Europe’s history of church-based wars. Depoliticizing religion has mostly proven to be a good template for defusing conflict by keeping it largely in the private sphere.
Turning marriage into fundamentally a private right wouldn’t be an easy task. Courts and government would still be called on to recognize and enforce contracts that a couple would enter into, and clearly some contracts — such as in a slave-master relationship — would be invalid. But instead of fighting over which marriages gain its approval, government would end the business of making distinctions for the purpose of social engineering based on whether someone was married. A flatter tax code would go a long way toward ending marriage penalties or bonuses. We would need a more sensible system of legal immigration so that fewer people would enter the country solely on the basis of spousal rights.
The current debate pits those demanding “marriage equality” against supporters of “traditional marriage.” But many Americans believe it would be better if we left matters to individuals and religious bodies. The cherished principle of separating church and state should be extended as much as possible into separating marriage and state. Ron Paul won many cheers during his 2012 presidential campaign when he declared, “I’d like to see all governments out of the marriage question. I don’t think it’s a state decision. I think it’s a religious function. I am supportive of all voluntary associations and people can call it whatever they want.”
Supporters of traditional marriage know the political winds are blowing against them. A new Fox News poll finds 49 percent of voters favoring gay marriage, up from just 32 percent a decade ago. And among self-described conservatives under 35, Fox found support for gay marriage is now at 44 percent. Even if the Supreme Court leaves the battle for gay marriage to trench warfare in the states, the balance of power is shifting. Rush Limbaugh, a powerful social conservative, told his listeners this week: “I don’t care what this court does with this particular ruling. . . . I think the inertia is clearly moving in the direction that there is going to be gay marriage at some point nationwide.”
But a majority of Americans still believe the issue of gay marriage should be settled by the states and not with Roe v. Wade–style central planning. It might still be possible to assemble a coalition of people who want to avoid a civil war over the culture and who favor getting government out of the business of marriage.
— John Fund is national-affairs columnist for NRO.
That post didn’t make any sense, what did you say that will help conservatives actually save marriage law and defeat the democrats and libertarians on the issue?
For instance reverse Obama’s marriage changes at the federal level?
Pretty much since Buckley died, unfortunately. It's been Democrat Lite or RINO ever since.
You’ve done wonderfully, lj. I don’t know what we would have done without you!
Yes.
There's just a lot of confusion about 1) what our rights and freedoms are (they are not granted nor necessarily spelled out by any government) & 2) who enforces those right and freedoms (not the feds except by individual cases in federal court).
So I'm saying marriage is certainly a right. So is doing back-flips. But these days, things have become so convoluted that when you say something is a right, many people and certainly the federal government, think you've just expanded their power to interfere with ("enforce") that right. I get that feeling from reading this article.
Obama changed marriage policy at the federal level, politically we can reverse him with a conservative president.
We do that on abortion, Obama also reversed policy on abortion at the federal level.
Better yet, don’t marry perverts, monitor them, especially queers with access to children.
The government outlawed the practices of polygamy and homosexuality, much as it now outlaws bestiality. A subtle difference from defining legal marriage, but a difference just the same; and a difference that, if enforced, would prevent private polygamy and homo-marriage agreements.
Separate from that, I have been of a mind that the rationale used by these robed clowns, to find a right for homos to marry, is equal protection found in the constitution. Do you know if my thought on that are in fact correct? I haven't studied the various decisions, but cant think of any other basis for striking down laws that prohibit homosexual marriage, polygamy, etc.
I would never take the advice or accept the opinion of someone who has already thrown in the towel.
What is most bizarre is that they don't even try to hide it. It's an us vs. them mindset.
"Us libertarians are right - you conservatives are wrong"
Evidently the constitution does allow the government to decide on marriage issues for itself, since the Congress was passing laws regarding marriage, from the beginning.
“Gay Church of Christ” Unfortunately, I think a rogue sect of the COC already performs that atrocity, along with rogue Episcopalian sects-if I had belonged to either church, I’d have left over that...
That’s how it was handled by the Pilgrims in Plimoth/Plymouth. They believed marriage had nothing to do with religion and shouldn’t be connected with a church. Marriage was strictly a legal contract.
These are the same people who were running around 160 years ago saying that slavery was the "law of the land" and everyone should just accept it.
I think you aren't reading it.
Law isn't the arena wherein the issue of marriage needs addressed; your post indicates that you are thinking purely and strictly in terms of law and politics.
(Besides that, your political portion shows a laughable nativity: that the Republican goal is at all different from the Democrat. Everything on the Republican party platform is a lie: they have no intention of pushing for any plank.)
Only the people who want their marriage recognized by law, comply with the laws, nobody forces you to do that, and in fact many Americans do have their own private marriages, without com[plying with law.
If you don't care if it is recognized by the government, then don't, do what you want.
Perhaps you’re thinking of the United Church of Christ. A demonination such as Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United COC.
No “Church of Christ” fits the definition you mention.
> ...defending LBJ.
>
> Any more libertarian talking points against us conservatives you wanna come up with?
*cough, cough* — What?
Defending LBJ a LIBERTARIAN talking point?
Yes.
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