Posted on 08/31/2014 11:58:15 AM PDT by Kaslin
In all the bad days that opponents of same-sex marriage have had lately, few compare with the one they had this past week in a courtroom in Chicago. Lawyers defending the bans in Wisconsin and Indiana were buried in an avalanche of skepticism and incredulity.
The judges demanded to know what worthy goals the prohibitions serve, and the attorneys had terrible trouble coming up with any. Perhaps the low point for their side came when one was asked why Wisconsin makes it so hard for same-sex couples to adopt and ventured to say, "I think tradition is one of the reasons."
At that, Judge Richard Posner did not slap his forehead and exclaim, "Of course! Why didn't we see that? Everything makes sense now!" Instead, he retorted: "How can tradition be a reason for anything?"
Many states, he noted, had a hallowed tradition of forbidding interracial marriage until 1967, when the Supreme Court said they couldn't. Posner couldn't see how entrenched practice, no matter how ancient, mattered in that case or this one. The argument, he said, amounted to: "We've been doing this stupid thing for a hundred years, a thousand years. We'll keep doing it because it's tradition."
His rebuff betrays a fatal problem for opponents of same-sex marriage. One of their central arguments is that we should limit marriage to male-female couples because that's been the norm in Western cultures for millennia. It's an argument deeply rooted in conservative political philosophy. But conservative political philosophy has never really had much influence in the United States, even among those who call themselves conservative.
In his 1953 book "The Conservative Mind," Russell Kirk expounded a view peculiar to the right. "Even the most intelligent of men cannot hope to understand all the secrets of traditional morals and social arrangements," he wrote, "but we may be sure that Providence, acting through the medium of human trial and error, has developed every hoary habit for some important purpose." It's not an argument often heard in our debates.
Americans do pay homage to our past by invoking the Declaration of Independence, the framers, the Constitution, Abraham Lincoln and so on. But the idea that we should be afraid to make changes in our laws for fear of rending the organic fabric of society doesn't command much allegiance on either the left or the right.
Liberals have never made a fetish of obeisance to the past. They agree with the revolutionary pamphleteer Thomas Paine that giving primacy to tradition unjustly places "the authority of the dead over the rights and freedom of the living."
American conservatives largely share that premise. The New Deal has been in place for some 80 years, but conservatives don't believe in conserving that. Their feeling is it was a bad idea then, and it's a bad idea now.
None of this means Americans have no use for traditions. We have all sorts of favorites, from fireworks on the Fourth of July to football in autumn. But we feel entitled to alter and embellish them at our whim. The fireworks we see are bigger and better than the ones Americans saw a century ago. Football now starts in August and goes till February.
Marriage morphed repeatedly long before gays got it. Women acquired more rights, divorce became available to anyone who wanted it, and alimony grew less common. People of different races can now marry each other even in places where it was once cause for lynching.
Longstanding arrangements that make sense endure without controversy, and that's just the point: They make sense. Tradition and a good reason will win an argument, just as tradition and $2 will get you a ride on the bus. Americans don't keep doing things unless they serve our purposes, even if they suited our grandparents to a T.
The 20th-century Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. spoke for most of us: "It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply persists from blind imitation of the past."
The prevailing ethos in this country is that we are the masters of tradition, not the servants. We treasure the customs and practices passed down from our ancestors. And we change them anytime we want.
IMO marriage is the cornerstone of civilization. It is the central thread that holds society together. Remove or damage that thread and society comes unraveled. Redefining marriage to mean something other than what it means only makes the term - and what it represents - worthless. It weakens the integrity of the thread and hastens its destruction.
You can call an apple a grape but it will still be an apple. If you call an apple a grape people will get confused and look at you like you’re crazy - unless they are liberals - in which case they ARE crazy.
Those who choose to accept the “inevitability” of change can take comfort that they are in the front of the boat that is heading for the falls. I may get dragged over the edge but I will never go willingly.
I don’t know where to begin. I guess I will just shake my head and move on...
If the queers want to get married, let them. They will NEVER be married in the eyes of God. And that's all that counts.
Queers: "We are the 2.3%". 07/15/2014 192kb.pdf
It amazes me that such a small percentage of the population can waste so much of our time.
Ah, the old prove a negative canard. Author is a blowhard...no pun intended.
What I fail to understand is what he is doing on Townhall? What on earth is he “conservative” about?
Not tradition. Homosexual marriage has never existed in 10,000 years of human history. It does not exist and has never existed. You can pass all the laws you want, it will not exist even by decree of kings.
Any law creating such a thing merely exposes the corruption and lawlessness and empty vanity of the power that proposes to establish such a law.
Google offerings: .5% - 1.5% of our population is homosexual.
Dennis Prager (excerpt)
Societies that did not place boundaries around sexuality were stymied in their development. The subsequent dominance of the Western world can largely be attributed to the sexual revolution initiated by Judaism and later carried forward by Christianity.
This revolution consisted of forcing the sexual genie into the marital bottle. It ensured that sex no longer dominated society, heightened male-female love and sexuality (and thereby almost alone created the possibility of love and eroticism within marriage), and began the arduous task of elevating the status of women.
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/homosexuality/ho0003.html
He stated the obvious, they just wanted to "train" a sex toy, not provide a home for a child!
It was very enlightening to see the "Gay" world in its variations while very protected by my "Gay" Uncle who was never going to have children and was very much a second Father to me...
Here’s the best “reasoned” argument why gay marriage is wrong by Princeton Professor of Jurisprudence Robert George. Sad, that counsel against gay marriage came into court so unprepared.
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2010/12/2217/
Idiot lawyers.
Marriage is between a man and a woman for the same reason that up is up and down is down. God made it that way. End of story.
That one should be easy.
Every child has a right to a male father and a female mother.
Same-sex couples cannot support that right.
The prohibitions serve to prevent confusion, perversity and the spread of social disease. The prohibitions also serve to prevent encroachments on Judeo-Christian religious expression as an alienable right under the 1st Amendment.
Homosexual ‘normalization’ leads to normalization of polygamy, pedophilia, beastiality, sodomy, prostitution, pornography and other unnatural sexual behaviors.
All of the above are activities of human spiritual and behavioral sewage that spread spiritual and behavioral disease to all of society at large. In this sense it is a public mental health hazard to be avoided, treated and minimized.
All of human spiritual sewage is regulated by law and/or minimized or treated by society. There is a historical basis for these laws rooted in the maintenance of a social order conducive to health and healthy families.
Homosexuals are not allowed to foist their standards of conduct on society at large. Their standards do not meet the historical test of enhancing social order and preserving religious rights under the Constitution.
And no one at all is even the slightest bit interested in the lessons to be drawn from the fate of the Cities on the Plain.
I left out that it also leads to normalization of incest.
I agree with you, but it’s already unraveled without gay marriage. Look at welfare, at no fault divorce, at palimony, free porn, birth control, unwed births, homosexuality being accepted even without gay marriage: marriage was hanging by a thread anyway. Half ending in divorce? Half of kids born to singles?
The town hall article has a point. The only reason something like gay marriage made such inroads to acceptance so quickly was the current state of marriage.
The lawyer doesn’t sound prepared, and Chapman doesn’t understand the meaning and importance of tradition. Football and fireworks? Sheesh. That’s one of the problems with America too, as well as a lot of conservatism.
> As an anecdote... 50+ years ago a friend of my “Gay” Uncle (they openly referred to themselves as “Queer” at that time), a Psychologist, had a very long humorous discussion about the numerous guys in his acquaintance who longed to “adopt” children. Of course they all wanted to “adopt” young males aged 11 to 15 since “they were not wanted by the majority of couples seeking adoptees”.
He stated the obvious, they just wanted to “train” a sex toy, not provide a home for a child!
Funny how the homos always seem to adopt their own kind isn’t it?
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