US Constitutiona Amendment to Save Marriage...NOW!

Self | 11-18-03 | Always Right

[Always Right]

Now that the Mass. Supreme Court has acted to force the legislature to adopt gay marriage, the time is now for Republicans to act to save this most basic institution of this country. We need a US Constitutional Amendment to save us from activist courts who assult religion and basic family values. The public will be outraged over this and the GOP must capitolize on it. The GOP must put the Democrats in a bind. Oppose the Amendment and lose their base, or support it and expose themselves as the radicals they are.

Now is the time to act. Put this issue at the forefront for the next election. Don't just make it an issue, make it a real topic with real Amendments that are gonna be passed.

[Looking for Diogenes]

hmm, possible refutation of your comment: Check out Eagle Forum (Phyllis Schlafley) -

No need to find the link, I've seen Schlafley's even-handed remarks. Unfortunately she is rare. There are a few others like her and you.

But on the flip side you'd be surprised how many divorcees there are who think it's the other folks who are ruining marriage. Yes, even here on FR.

[apackof2]

A statement for the ages.

Of course you totally misunderstand

[Zack Nguyen]

Are you intentionally ignoring the 50% divorce rate, or just oblivious to it? Priorities, people.

The amendment has nothing to do with the divorce rate. That is a separate problem altogether, and I cannot judge which will be more damaging to our culture long-term.

What you are asking is the equivalent of ignoring a car theft because houses are being burglarized. One may be a bigger problem right now, but both are wrong and must be acted against.

[richtig_faust]

'Course, limiting the authority of government over the individual is impossible for the leftist utopians, and even impossible for many so called conservatives who wish to legislate their own morality.


Ahhh, yes, the "legislating morality" strawman argument again. so you have no problem with me: marrying my mother, sister or daughter. Marrying a 12 year old boy or perhaps even murder??? ALL are based on moral judgements you know. Are you lefties actually capable of logical thought or are you simply driven by your crotch?

[richtig_faust]

BUMPS. well said.

[richtig_faust]

Free the people, and the forces of social normalcy will win every time

Like in Denmark where if you are a registered drunk with the government you can pull down more free money than an engineer with PhD can legitimately earn. (and I work with a PhD in engineering from Denmark).

[NutCrackerBoy]

See my earlier posts on this thread on this subject.

Right. I was glad to read them. I have tried to debate this before and have had a hard time getting traction.

[Scenic Sounds]

so you have no problem with me: marrying my mother, sister or daughter.

You know, if you had asked me that several months ago, I would have said that I have a problem with it. So long as you're all adults, I'm not sure if I really care anymore.

Really, why should I care if you marry your adult sister?

[Windsong]

"I assure you, any neutral observer will find your arguments flimsy at best"

I am a "neutral" observer..and I don't find them "flimsy". Incidentally, you are aware that this is a Conservative forum, yes?

[Always Right]

bump

[MichelleSC]

I haven't posted in a long while but I thought I'd add my 2 cents.

I really don't see why people are so up-set over this. I mean marriage is just a civil contract between 2 individuals regardless of their sex. A man and a woman exchanging their vows in a church before God and family is the traditional marriage. And I doubt that will change.

What this basically boils down to is the separation of church and state. Marriage law in this country is dictated by man's interpretation of what the bible states is a marriage: one man one woman. If we are to amend the constitution why not say that marriage has to be between a white man and a white woman or black man and black woman only -- no interracial marriages. Men can't marry Asian or Latin woman. And women can't marry Latin men or any other outside their race -- sounds a bit like Hitler but that's the can of worms that will be opened if this goes far enough. And who will suffer? Republicans. Why? Because a larger majority believe that republicans are racist, homophobic bigots. So, if you mandate that marriage is only between a man and woman based on God's law then the constitution will have to state that a legal marriage can only take place in a church -- who's going to win that argument?

The solution is to just let the issue alone. If Adam wants to have a legal, binding civil contract with Steve like John and Mary -- what's the harm? After all, in the eyes of the courts it's just a contract. And those people who wish to marry in a church can still do so, and the world will still turn and the sun will still shine.

It's like the Catholic church saying that a catholic man and woman who aren't married in a catholic church aren't married in the eyes of the church; but the courts say different because they have entered into a civil contract that is legal and binding.

I think the issue would be a lot different if Gay's were demanding to be married in churches. And my stance would be different. But as it stands Gay man and women have the same right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness the same as any other American. Whether you like it or not is your own personal choice.

And for those who will rip me apart and call me names -- don't bother as I'm not so sensitive I can't take a little name calling :-)

[WOSG]

"But on the flip side you'd be surprised how many divorcees there are who think it's the other folks who are ruining marriage. Yes, even here on FR."

Flipside yet again are the gay bishops who lecture on social fabric and the need for a greater 'social responsibility'; apparently setting a good example is not part of it, sending your money to the church is.Robert J Ringer in his books talked about the moral line-drawers. Everybody wants to do what they want to do and in our "pro-choice" moral environment, you can concoct whatever set of rules that suits you fine, and damns others. And then there is the line from our local Sammy and Bob talking about the kind of baptists who think "Jesus loves me, he just cant stand you".

Let me make an extended rant on the wider and deeper import of this trend. I am of the 'live and let live' stripe regarding the so-called 'gay lifestyle' and sexual behaviors . Yet something in this ruling feels violative. Why?

In the end, nobody individually is 'ruining' anything, viz. marriage or otherwise. That's how sin works - it begs to be let through the cracks. for the alcohlic, 'just one drink', for others "It's just a (fill in theblanks)". This is an accumulative and collective phenomenon, where the institution is degraded through negative action and built up through positive action. So with marriage too. This latest degradation is a part of a many-decades-long process of destroying the concept of many things, including marriage, as sacred promises held above even strictures of law. Now, if it is legal - it is good; and everything you can do is by definition 'good' since it supresses your 'expression' to be bound by any limits. Result? there is no good nor evil nor distinctions - the goal of cultural socialism is acheived.

And the constant drive by the enablers who want to 'define deviancy down' and force the rest of society to accept some wider and stranger set of rules that must be acceptable to society. Those who dont accept the 'new morality'? They are ostracized. Witness the recent attacks on the boy scouts over not allowing gay scoutmasters. Attempts to broker true 'live and let live' fail, because in this culture war, one side wants dominance not a peace. The organized vanguard of the new morality once wanted 'tolerance', then 'acceptance'; now niether tolerance nor acceptance is given to those who dont agree to the new PC morality of the sexual libertines.

Yet moving to the result of amorality defies human belief. We know in our hearts there is a right and there is a wrong and there is a difference. Even to those who see the world in grays know that there is a dark and a light. Every heroic act is an act of creation, and ennobles who we are as well as our world. And without that nobility, that sense of pursuing the best in what we can do, we feel ourselves cheated even as we cheat the world of our best.

If there are those who claim you can just patch up sexual morality by pretending homosexuality is just heterosexuality with different targets, I say - good luck! I dont think the tattered remnant of sexual morality can be repaired when anything to any other consenting adult is considered acceptable. The Bishop who is the gay Gene offends not merely because he is homosexual, but because he divorced a wife to do it and it living in an arrangement and has done things that all of scripture denotes as sinful. What would he call sinful? What is left? The kids and sheep are safe - for now.

Lost in the shuffle then is morality. Morality is about the duties we owe to ourselves, to eachother and to God. Those duties flow from our habits and habits from our thoughts and intentions. To the Christians of Western culture at one time, the stuff of everyday living was the stuff of sin: Gluttony, envy, greed, lust, pride, etc. Every aspect of these seven deadly sins was about control of our basic impulses - about self-denial.

Nowadays our cafeteria-morality collides with our self-help-rationalism and consumerism to deny sin its place. This is partly a good thing. Guilt aint all its cracked up to be, and the practical and psychic rewards of treating our internal mindstate as basicly healthy but needing "self-improvement" seems better than the path of overbearing sin. Some need to know that God is there when life overwhelms them and they 'hit bottom'. But for others, the 'sin' is not gluttony but being a bit overweight and the penance is aerobics; the 'sin' is not lust, but not having the right pickup lines to succeed. Self-denial? We deny its existence and its utility.

Materialism and rationalism have spun a web that externalizes every problem even while it locks in our internal desires and justifies them as healthy. This is why the narcissistic "Gay Lifestyle" cant be supressed by our culture, which is wholly narcissistic from the fad-conscious to the keeping-up-with-the-jones materialists; it's as if Todd and Gregg just picked a different 'lifestyle choice' off the racks at the mall - who are we to argue, busy making our own choices in the material world that accepts everything and denies nothing? It seems unfair that a culture so attuned to gratifying all sorts of desires would deny the basic impulses of a small subset ( 3% is small in demographic terms, but big enough in the 'narrowcasting' marketing world; big enough for "Gay Tourism" to take off.)

Lost, then, is the morality of self-denial - if we ever had it. (Perhaps it was just the roughness of life that made it seem like a moral strictness. Prosperity makes it easier to be 'good' but so hard to be ascetic.) Some dont lament this change in mores - 'no boundaries' and 'do what you want' is their motto. Some understand the trade-off and see the loss of propriety as a true loss of innocence; they'll want to strike a moderate bargain. Others stand athwart history yelling "stop!". And the last - in my mind the real dangerous ones - are the cultural socialists who tear down the old and build their own morality on the rubble of the old.

I suggest yet another response. Events change. Technologies change. Languages change. Even what works and what doesnt changes. But the human heart and principles that speak to us are timeless. Find the true rock of timeless principles and stand firm on that.

We need if anything to grab ahold of the *intention* of a moral order and not lose sight of it, no matter how much the 'innovation' of cultural socialism tears down traditional mores. If traditional mores fall, much will be lost, but all is not lost. In the end a "neo-traditionalism" can emerge and defeat cultural socialism, as has democratic (neo)-free-market economics defeated Communism. I just wonder if our fate is to be like Europe, pro-death to the point of cultural, social and physical suicide. The choice, death or life, is always timely yet timeless.

(PS. I dont know if the above is gibberish or wisdom, it's just what I feel in my bones right now.)

[WOSG]

The amendment has nothing to do with the divorce rate. That is a separate problem altogether, and I cannot judge which will be more damaging to our culture long-term. What you are asking is the equivalent of ignoring a car theft because houses are being burglarized. One may be a bigger problem right now, but both are wrong and must be acted against.

Zack, thanks for skewering a logical fallacy. Folks, you simply cannt say "X is a bigger problem, so this is not a problem". that's like those idiot Democrat Senators whining about "how can we have this 30 hours debate when people are without jobs?" as if the debate stopped the senate one iota from doing any of its other business.

We need to defend marriage as an institution in many ways from various attacks on its legal foundation. This is just because marriage as an institution is important for the health of our civilization.

[BOOTSTICK]

I wonder if these idiot judges would agree that marrage between ADULT uncles, and nieces, or brother and sister would be Constitutional as well. Another bizzare, contemptious leftist decision, by irrational judges.

[Quick1]

No, it's not a separate problem. If you're going to make a Constitutional Amendment to save marriage, then you should include something dealing with the high rate of divorce in this country, period. You imply that homosexual marriage is the only thing bringing marriage under fire, and you are completely wrong.

To correct your analogy, it would be like ignoring stereos being burglarized from ohuses because TVs are also being stolen.

[Sam Cree]

"Ahhh, yes, the "legislating morality" strawman argument again. so you have no problem with me: marrying my mother, sister or daughter. Marrying a 12 year old boy or perhaps even murder??? ALL are based on moral judgements you know. Are you lefties actually capable of logical thought or are you simply driven by your crotch?"

You are the rudest poster I have met on FR

Your post makes it clear that you don't know what my political beliefs are, no matter how willing you are to interpolate. Your vulgar and insulting words not only discourage discussion, they discredit whatever views you may hold.

[Always Right]

No, it's not a separate problem. If you're going to make a Constitutional Amendment to save marriage, then you should include something dealing with the high rate of divorce in this country, period.

No, that is ridiculous. The Constitution should only contain principles that don't change. A marriage will always be between a man and a woman in a moral society. A specific fix for divorse is not something that can be put in the Constitution. It is silly that a marriage must be spelled out this way, but when you have judges who insist that black is white, you are forced to override the idiot by going to the Constitution and saying, white is really white.

[Looking for Diogenes]

Interesting essay. I don't know if it's gibberish or wisdom either, but I will say that I think it contains far more of the latter than the former. Thank you for posting it.

[biblewonk]

That qualifies as harsh rhetoric for me. However, who do we blame is an interesting question. I suppose the root cause is secular humanism reaching a critical mass.

As I asked the question a lot of ideas came to mind. The government certainly took a liberal swing after the 19th amendment. A lot of the political progress made over the years was secret. The media has had a lot to do with outing gays. All of these things have added together to the point of giving us gay marriages and gay adoptions and gay politicians and gay teachers. These are some key offices to hold to further a cause.

How should Christians feel about this?

[biblewonk]

In the very beginning of your post you say that anything the government touches gets ruined. I disagree. Good laws are good things. The problem is that we are running out of politicians and voters with the discernment to pass good laws.