Posted on 06/05/2015 8:35:19 AM PDT by wagglebee
Few commentators on either side of the ongoing marriage debate would deny that individuals possess a fundamental right to marry. To do so seems ridiculous today. Marital relationships are, as the Supreme Court first affirmed in Meyer v. Nebraska (1923)—albeit in obiter dictum, an aside unnecessary to the decision of the case—an important part of the happiness that individuals have a natural right to pursue.
It may be a surprise to modern Americans to realize that the Meyer case represents the first notable appearance of the “right to marry” language in the American political tradition or its antecedents in liberal political philosophy. It played almost no role in the Civil Rights Movement beyond its invocation by Chief Justice Earl Warren in the 1967 case of Loving v. Virginia (neither King nor Malcolm X made mention of such a right to my knowledge), it was entirely absent from the anti-slavery movement (Lincoln’s Republican Party was formed, in fact, with the twin policy goals of ending slavery and outlawing polygamy), and it was similarly absent from the revolutionary conflict with Great Britain.
The idea of a fundamental right to marry—not just someone of the same sex, but anyone at all—is a relatively new one. Among those who didn’t think anyone—not just homosexuals, but heterosexuals as well—possessed such a right are John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Abraham Lincoln, to name only a prominent few. Why not? Didn’t they see the enormous importance of marriage to individuals and society? And if this is the case, don’t people have a right to it?
(Excerpt) Read more at thepublicdiscourse.com ...
Perfectly stated!
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Freedom of association.
A core problem in this discussion is complete lack of WHY the state has any interest whatsoever in certifying marriage. There is a reason, that reason inherently limits who can, and the certification guarantees certain benefits intended to balance & facilitate the responsibilities & consequences of that reason. The current issue is due to people utterly incapable (based on literally two bits of information) of invoking that reason, but demanding the government-provided benefits without any possibility whatsoever of producing that which the government is taking an interest in and establishing the sociopolitical institution to facilitate.
Even with something as basic as "life," we have to be careful using "rights" language, because every asserted right is the imposition of a duty on others. A "fundamental right to stay alive" would impose upon the rest of the world a duty to keep you alive. This is impossible, to start with.
In addition, the duty of others to safeguard your life is actually quite limited. They have a duty not to kill you except in immediate self defense. They have a duty to exercise care in activities that might harm you (or others), such as driving, shooting, or setting off fireworks.
However, they do not have a duty to take you for regular medical checkups. They do not have a duty to stop you from skateboarding, skydiving, or motorcycle-riding. They do not have a duty to force you to eat a healthy diet and get sensible exercise. And so on.
Before the Catholic Church created the sacrament of Marriage, men owned women, just as they owned cattle. Well at least real men did. I’m not sure how the lavender crowd acted back then. lol
The state’s role is in recognizing marriage, not in creating it. That was where the problem began, and extended further when the state started ending marriages as well.
Again, Mitt Romney did the US a terrible disservice when he refused to reply to the state supreme court that ‘fine, then all marriages are unconstitutional.’
The state’s interest is in recording, not in making. And just like any government produced product, it is now full of defects and hardly worth the paper it is printed on.
They owned women, too; they just had sex with boys unless they were prioritizing producing a son.
I agree, and many of us have actually been saying this for years now, wags.
If I have a “right” to marry, then the authorities have the power to force someone to marry me. After all, it is a right.
But, the truth is that marriage is a contract with another. I no more have a right to a marriage contract than I have a right to a mortgage contract. With a mortgage, I must meet certain conditions to qualify.
With a marriage, I must find a willing partner with whom to contract.
Additionally, the word “matrimony” speaks not only to the idea of children, but it also speaks to the idea of the social contract into which the parties enter.
Can we expect wisdom from the supremes? Some of them, maybe. Also, this article is ‘libertarian’ enough that Kennedy might agree with its premise. Hopefully, he’s been prepared enough to have encountered the idea.
At least under Anglo-American law, there is not even a duty to assist someone who is sick or injured or otherwise in peril (unless you caused that situation). If you are drowning in a lake, and I am standing on the shore holding a life preserver, I have no legal obligation to throw it to you.
Perfectly stated—provided you believe that natural rights are granted to humans by the Supreme Court, or John Locke, or Martin Luther King, Jr.
Every man has the natural right to marry some woman, and every woman has the natural right to marry some man. The right to marry some particular person is contingent on that person’s consent. The right to marry is called a “right” because no one other than the parties to the marriage has the authority to dictate that it may not take place.
Rather than saying that I have a right to life, or that “every baby is precious,” or “life is sacred”—all of which may be perfectly true—it is more coldly precise to say that no one should ever be permitted to commit murder. All acts of murder should be prevented, or, failing that, punished.
I have solid reason to suspect that a rock in my backyard garden is in love with an avocado on my tree. Wedding bells, anyone?
True, but I was talking about moral rather than legal duties. I have a moral duty to make every reasonable effort to save another person's life, but not a duty to make uselessly sacrificial gestures such as jumping in the lake after you if I can't swim.
The author errs both in asserting there is no human right to marriage and in asserting there’s such a thing as self-ownership.
They should be punished or prevented because they are unjust. They are unjust because they deny or withhold what is due to another by right. The existence of a right is what creates the claim in justice. I do not see what’s gained by your negative formulation of the basic principles of justice.
If men have the ‘right to marry’ then men must have the right to marry themselves and therefore claim this ‘union’ independently of any other individual.
As the author pointed out claiming there is an individual right to marriage is like claiming the color blue is 10 feet long.
Marriage is not an act or object any individual is capable of and therefore entitled to by the laws of nature. Marriage requires other individuals. Therefore if it is to be said to be a right at all it is not a union.
The only other logical possibility that ‘groups’ may be proclaimed to have rights as the author pointed out is illogical nonsense that would preclude the possibility of individual rights. Being that ‘groups’ must be formed of individuals existing ether at their expense(in the case of forced union) or their consent(in the case of consensual union) in either case as a group they have no rights or existence of their own, apart from the separate and distinct rights and existence of its members which are of course individual rights.
Nor is their formation a product of the group not yet existing but the consent or force of the parties between which it is formed.
“The state’s interest is in recording, not in making. And just like any government produced product, it is now full of defects and hardly worth the paper it is printed on.”
This may be true as many in government see the power of recording as the power of making, as if to say something is true is to make it true.
This of course is a presumption regularly mocked by the nonsensical legal code just as the state now attempts to mock the institution of marriage. Experience has shown that it is better to leave that which is important outside of the hands of the State less it be made useless.
“Even with something as basic as “life,” we have to be careful using “rights” language, because every asserted right is the imposition of a duty on others. A “fundamental right to stay alive” would impose upon the rest of the world a duty to keep you alive. This is impossible, to start with.”
This once again starts from a false presumption of the nature of rights again given to us by the leftist attempts at redefinign that concept.
A right is not a service or that which is garroted by others but rather that which one has independent of others and is protected from the usurpation of others.
The key difference between a right and an entitlement is a right stands on its own just as you live without interference.
Having a right to life, liberty, or property does not mean others must provide for your life, liberty or property merely that you have theses things and others should not act to take them away.
That is the very point I was attempting to make.
The whole terminology of “rights” is modern. It works okay for political speech, but less well in moral theology.
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