The Morning After the Same-Sex Marriage Decision

The New York Times ^ | May 14, 2015 | Linda Greenhouse

[2ndDivisionVet]

Let’s assume, as I do, that the Supreme Court finds a constitutional right to same-sex marriage when it decides Obergefell v. Hodges sometime next month. What happens next?

It may be a morning-after landscape of more confusion than clarity, with some rain falling on the victory parades.

Conservative Christians, claiming victimization by the onrushing tide of marriage equality, aren’t like to be deterred in their quest for the right to withhold goods and services from same-sex couples. Indiana’s retreat last month, under pressure from some leading corporations, from a law that would have given businesses a religious excuse for discriminating was a setback for the Christian right, but a relatively minor one.

The disavowed law was basically symbolic, as was its defeat. Because Indiana, like most states and the federal government, provides no statutory protection for gay people against discrimination, discriminators don’t need a religious justification in the first place. I wish I could report that this awkward legislative episode has prompted the state to enact an anti-discrimination law, but that’s not the world we live in.

The banner of religious victimhood is being raised high by Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas now running for the Republican presidential nomination. He warned a group of ministers last month that the country was hurtling down the road toward “the criminalization of Christianity.” Declaring that it was his “biblical duty” to pray for members of the Supreme Court as they consider the same-sex marriage case, Mr. Huckabee told the ministers: “I think it’s fair to say that Christian convictions are under attack as never before.”(continued)

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***My grandpa said when the men become women and the women become men, the country is done. How did he know 75 years ago what would happen?***

Maybe he heard this old song from the 1920s.

Masculine Women! Feminine Men!

Hey! Hey! Women are going mad, today!
Hey! Hey! Fellers are just as bad, I’ll say!
Go anywhere, just stand and stare,
You’ll say they’re bugs when you look at the clothes they wear.

Masculine Women, Feminine Men,
which is the rooster which is the hen?
It’s hard to tell ‘em apart today. And SAY…
Sister is busy learning to shave,
Brother just loves his permanent wave,
It’s hard to tell ‘em apart today. HEY! HEY!

Girls were girls and boys were boys when I was a tot,
Now we don’t know who is who or even what’s what.
Knickers and trousers, baggy and wide,
Nobody knows who’s walking inside.
Those Masculine Women, Feminine Men

Masculine Women. Feminine Men
which is the rooster which is the hen?
It’s hard to tell ‘em apart today. And SAY…
Auntie is smoking, rolling her own,
Uncle is always buying cologne.
It’s hard to tell ‘em apart today. HEY! HEY!
You go and give your girl a kiss in the hall,
But instead you find you’re kissing her brother Paul.
Mama’s got a sweater up to her chin,
Papa’s got a girtle holding him in.
Those Masculine Women, Feminine Men

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***The response by the vast majority of Christians was just a resigned shrug.***

Maybe it is because they know the Courts can declare a dog’s tail to be a sixth leg. No matter how much they pontificate on it, it is still a tail and NOT a leg.

And an imitation marriage is still an imitation marriage, and not the real thing, no matter what the courts say.

[Diamond]

There has been much equating of abortion and homosexual marriage. The objection to abortion is profound and it need not be grounded in religion. Abortion is the killing of a human being not yet born and as such it is indefensible. Moreover, the practice involves the infliction of harm on an innocent victim who in this case cannot defend himself.

Yes, abortion killing is the killing of a human being not yet born and as such it is indefensible, but without God you have no transcendent, universal, unchanging standard of morality upon which to ground its condemnation. None. To paraphrase Solzhenitsyn, without God there is no "ought". Everything is permissible.

That certainly is not true of adult homosexuals desirous of entering into a marriage. There cannot be said to be a victim. To the degree that opponents of homosexual marriage are seen to be invoking the law to impose their objections to private conduct, without a victim, the political party which supports them will not be supported by an increasing number of Americans. To the degree that the opponents of homosexual marriage are seen to be invoking the law to punish activity done in private which subjectively makes them squirm, the political party which supports them will not be supported by an increasing number of Americans.
[emphasis mine]

And what of the harm done to those additional numbers of children (and by extension, the rest of society) who, while they may escape being killed by an abortionist will inevitably grow up without a mother AND father in the home by the perverted definition of marriage? They are every bit as real victims as unborn babies, albeit in a different way.

There is no such thing as same sex marriage. Marriage is by nature and in its essence a relation between a man and a woman. There is nothing conservative about ambivalence or concession to the plot to turn the opposite sex nature of marriage into a mere social construct like driving on the right side of the road versus the left. If you see marriage as only social construct then of course you will deem outrage at the sanctification and legal imprimatur of sodomy with a solemn and legal marriage certificate as merely a subjective opinion.

As the ground under the feet of those who object to homosexual marriage continues to erode, it is becoming clearer that they are on the wrong side of history.

History is not some impersonal Hegelian dialectical force as the cultural marxists whom you deplore vainly imagine it. God is the Author of history. A nation, a people resist Him at their own peril.

Cordially,

[VRW Conspirator]

Look! A penumbra.

[spirited irish]

Who but our Lord knows what perversity will be 'legalized' next? However, with respect to His judgment, the pre-flood world and post-flood Sodom and Gomorrah have something to say about the times we are in:

"Rabbi Huna said in the name of Rabbi Joseph, "The generation of the Flood was not wiped out until they wrote marriage documents for the union of a man to a male or to an animal." Genesis Rabbah 26:4-5; Leviticus Rabbah 23:9

"Rabbi Hiyyah taught: The passage reads 'I am the Lord, your God' two times---I am the One Who punished the generation of the Flood, and the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Egypt; and in the future I will punish those who do as they did. The generations of the Flood were kings, and were wiped off the earth when they were soaked in sexual sin." Leviticus Rabbah 23:9

"And what did they do? A man got married to a man, and a woman to a woman, a man married a woman and her daughter, and a woman married...two men. Therefore it is said, 'And you shall not walk in their statutes." Sifra Acharei Mot, Parashah 9:8

God wiped them off the earth when they were soaked in sexual sin. But idolatry preceded and actually paved the way for the rest:

"In this way, even by magic...they were supposed in the first and literal idolatry to become gods." Tertullian Treatise on the soul 57

In the original pre-flood idolatry antediluvians believed the snake's lie that after the death of their bodies they would spiritually evolve into gods. The way was open for them to spiritually evolve by actualizing the god-force within their own hearts. After all, according to the snake the original Creator God no longer existed because He had emptied Himself into creation so that all that existed was a universal divine force. (Ancient Paganism: The Sorcery of Fallen Angels, Ken Johnson, Th.D., p. 35)

God no longer existed, that is until they found out differently---when it was too late:

"And they called to Noah, saying, Open for us that we may come to thee in the ark---and wherefore should we die? And Noah, with a loud voice, answered them from the ark, saying, Have you not all rebelled against the Lord, and said that he does not exist?" Jasher 6:18-19

[goodnesswins]

Yes..
What you said...I just wish people (including pols) would just start laughing at the notion of “gay marriage”..and respond that way until they are no longer asked about it. We should all just smirk and laugh when someone brings it up.

[Mark17]

"Rabbi Huna said in the name of Rabbi Joseph, "The generation of the Flood was not wiped out until they wrote marriage documents for the union of a man to a male or to an animal." Genesis Rabbah 26:4-5; Leviticus Rabbah 23:9

I am not familiar with these different books, but I always thought the primary reason for the Flood, was to wipe out the Nephilim mentioned in Genesis 6. Who knows for sure about all the evil they were up to? I am sure it was only evil continually.

[dp0622]

My goodness. I guess he wasn’t so prophetic after all lol. He would have been about 30 I think when that song came out so he would have known it.

I can’t believe It was written back then :)

[greene66]

Yeah, I have a recording of that as done by Merritt Brunies and his Friars Inn Orchestra. Circa 1925 or 1926, I believe. Although not exactly common, there were a handful of pop tunes that had a similar underlying cultural critique to them. “Anything Goes” and “Loveless Love” being two of the most remembered examples.

[greene66]

Well, it IS a litmus test for me. Maybe it’s just a symbolic demarcation point of a lot of other coalescing issues and cultural trends that have gone on for eons. But once this country crosses this dark and degenerate line, I can state with certainty that I’ll just never look at it the same way again. Already at that precipice. It really renders everything from politics to patriotism rather moot for me.

[ForYourChildren]

How’s that drought working out in San Francisco and California?

[Sola Veritas]

“There is nothing conservative about ambivalence or concession to the plot to turn the opposite sex nature of marriage into a mere social construct like driving on the right side of the road versus the left. If you see marriage as only social construct then of course you will deem outrage at the sanctification and legal imprimatur of sodomy with a solemn and legal marriage certificate as merely a subjective opinion.”

Amen and well said. I stopped reading when he first being concerned about whether there are “victims” or not. The “victimless crimes” nonsense is libertarian (libertine) foolishness.

Homosexuality unchecked creates victims....the person engaging in it and the culture he/she lives in are victims.

My only reservation about suppression of homosexuality is that we don't equally suppress heterosexual immorality (adultery & fornication) which are equally degrading to those engaged in it and the culture around them, and makes us hypocrites. It was our open acceptance of heterosexual immorality (misconduct) starting in the 60s that has led us to the current problems with homosexuals actually being proud of sexual perversion and wanting to spread it around.

[nathanbedford]

I stopped reading when he first being concerned about whether there are “victims” or not.

That you failed to continue to read is a very great pity because the rest of the post has to do with the reasons why marriage has been reduced to social contract. I beg you to read it but to refrain from shooting the messenger when you do.

The point about victimless crimes, in this case homosexual marriage, is important not because it is inconceivable that there could be a victim resulting, a concept which is also easily conceivable in a heterosexual marriage, but because it's elevates American law to a level above sharia.

One of the things that distinguishes our Anglo Saxon system from the Mohammedens' is that we seek to have a rational basis to deprive liberty rather than consigning transgressors to death by stoning according to divine revelation. If you want to establish a religion, say so and try to get the Constitution changed.

To identify a crime as being "victimless" is to move the debate to consider why the state is justified to take away the liberty of an individual. If there is no victim, and for the sake of this argument we have to assume there is no victim, then those who would deprive sinners of their sin should admit they are doing so from religious scruple. The problem is history shows that simply does not work. It is very unlikely if you go to the voters in your jurisdiction and tell them you want either a law or a constitutional amendment to punish "heterosexual immorality (adultery and fornication)" because they are degrading, that you will be met with anything but ridicule.

But you say, of course there is a victim in the practice of sodomy. If you want to identify homosexuality as a crime because, unbeknownst to the participant he is a victim, I suggest you try that argument out on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village.

We both can deplore the deterioration of our culture but there are limits to the capacity of law to control that culture against some of the factors which were discussed in a reply which you did not read. There are reasons why prohibition failed even though alcoholism has countless victims and those victims were the main justification for the Volstead act. Laws are not a panacea for a cancer of the culture.

[Diamond]

One of the things that distinguishes our Anglo Saxon system from the Mohammedens' is that we seek to have a rational basis to deprive liberty rather than consigning transgressors to death by stoning according to divine revelation. If you want to establish a religion, say so and try to get the Constitution changed.

The common law and the natural law upon which our laws were based presuppose the inherent opposite sex nature of marriage. There is no rational basis for re-defining it by imposing external, arbitrary same-sex criteria upon it. Likening this argument to establishing a state religion or to Mohammedan sharia law is ludicrous.

My main points to you were that homosexual marriage is basically a contradiction in terms, and that the perversion of marriage in this manner DOES have victims other than the participants. It harms the CHILDREN who are brought into these unions, not to mention any of the consequent deleterious effects on society at large down the road. Mothers and fathers are both essential and complimentary in the bearing and rearing of children. Mothers are not fathers and fathers are not mothers. Each have unique and necessary attributes and roles. In cases where both are not present it is a detriment to the child. Sometime it is unavoidable, but to deliberately subvert this norm or ideal of children having a mom and dad is unconscionable.

Cordially,

[Diamond]

p.s. I should add that I do not mean to express by implication or otherwise that you personally have the intent of subverting the norm or ideal of children having a mom and dad.

Cordially,

[nathanbedford]

I've always considered your comments on FreeRepublic to express the soul of circumspection.

For the record I have six children and six grandchildren and occasionally have as many as 11 under my roof at one time.

All the best,

[Diamond]

Thank you for that reply, and you have me bested by one in the grandchild department :^)

Cordially,