Posted on 11/24/2003 8:38:19 AM PST by xzins
Rogue court activism, and messed-up people with (evidently) far too much time on their hands and far too rich resources, have once again set out to push America in a direction in which it ought not go.
I speak, of course, of "gay" (homosexual) marriage.
My intent here is not to focus on the whole issue of homosexuality. I have a more modest aim. I want to address one argument which is heard frequently from the pro-"gay"-marriage faction: "Nobody has ever explained to me how 'gay' marriage threatens the institution of marriage."
While I find this claim initially hard to believe, I'm not sure I've ever seen a direct response. So here is my own modest effort. I phrase it in the form of a question: "Does counterfeit money threaten genuine currency?"
The answer to that is that, of course, counterfeit money does threaten genuine currency. It devalues it. If a $1 bill bearing picture of Bill Clinton on it, run off on someone's HP printer, suddenly is accepted as being as legitimate as a genuine $1 bill, then all currency is devalued. The broader the acceptance, and the greater the proliferation, the more devastating the blow to currency.
For this reason, a man shall forsake his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh
(Genesis 2:24, my translation)
Here are the elements, in a nutshell:
That is marriage, in God's eyes. All variations are offensive to Him, and destructive to man.
Marriage has already taken serious blows. It is easy to get into, and easy to get out of. A man stands before God and everyone else, and swears the most solemn oath imaginable that he will be faithful to his bride alone. But if he then turns into a serial adulterer, he is protected from consequences. As far as I know, he cannot be jailed nor sued for breach of contract. In fact, he might become a very popular figure. Even President.
Or, if the wife in this solemn relationship gets bored, or finds marriage more demanding than she anticipated, she can get right out of it. Any reason will do, or none at all. Just fill out the paperwork, hit the legal "reboot" button, and she's back on the market.
All of this damages marriage. All of this lowers the estimation and value of marriage. All of this cheapens the institution.
And yet, even amid all that, society for centuries has been clear on at least one element: marriage involves a woman and a man.
That is what today's moral nihilists are trying to change.
Of course it does.
It harms many other things as well -- the individuals involved, society, any poor children who get caught up in any way in the resultant monstrous abomination. But marriage is harmed by the redefinition of a basic word. "Marriage" by definition cannot be homosexual. If it is broadened to include one sexual perversion, there is no rational reason why it should not be broadened to include every sexual perversion. Advocates don't like this point very much; I think that is because it is irrefutable.
And so, if "marriage" means everything, then it necessarily means nothing. A word with no fixed definition has no definition. A word that can mean anything at all means nothing at all.
This is just a little glimpse at a teensy bit of the harm this insane notion involves.
It all goes to prove the point made often in Scripture, and summed up nicely in Jeremiah 8:9b. The prophet says: "behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD, so what wisdom is in them?" The slightest rejection of God's Word necessarily and unavoidably moves one just that far in the direction of insanity.
And so we see here.
No one is arguing that churches must recognize gay marriage. Some churches already do, some might recognize them down the road, others never will. Whether or not gay unions are LEGALLY recognized will not make one bit of difference to the religious aspects of marriage. The two aspects, legal and religious, are quite distinct and separate.
Uhuh, just like when the State decided to abolish school prayer and all public expression of religion it didn't have any effect on our religion or faith.
Actually, since the beginning of this assault on public expression of religion America's churches have suffered a tremendous attendance decline, crime has gone up, drug abuse went from nearly zilch to a national epidemic, abortion was legalized, the divorce rate soared from fifteen percent to fifty two percent, "shacking up" became a pre-marital rite, homosexuality was embraced and given special rights, AIDS was born, child abuse skyrocketed, all societal controls over radio, tv and movie pornography evaporated, and......... need I really go on?
You still think that homosexual marriages or 'unions' won't affect religion?
I wish that were true.
Some churches already do, some might recognize them down the road, others never will. Whether or not gay unions are LEGALLY recognized will not make one bit of difference to the religious aspects of marriage.
Yes it does to those involved and the children they adopt.
The two aspects, legal and religious, are quite distinct and separate.
I disagree because there is not a separation between church and state. We are seeing a shift in the religious values of the state away from a biblical basis to an anti-biblical basis.
No, because religion is a personal choice issue. Whether or not you believe in God, or live your life in a Christian manner, is in no way going to be impacted by the fact that two guys next door get married.
It seems to me that people who allow their religious faith to be affected by the fact that the secular authorities recognize gay unions were probably not very faithful to their religion in the first place.
Adoption is a separate issue that is a purely legal question. As far as I know, there is no religious aspect to adoption.
I disagree because there is not a separation between church and state.
Separation of church and state is also a separate issue. Even today, there is no requirement that a marriage have any religious aspect to it. You can fill out the proper paperwork and have a justice of the peace do your ceremony for you. If you choose to get your marriage performed by a clergyman, that's certainly your right, but you are not required to do so (nor should you be).
I'm sorry you feel this way, but as more and more religious traditions and practices get banned or redefined by secular government, the more and more our young people will lose their faith in religion. This is the plan and the hope of religion's Enemy. You call religion a "choice", I call it the essential ingredient to our future as a nation.
pax Christi
That's a very dangerous attitude, and it's beginning to appear in the gay marriage debate as well. The attitude is, "Hey, it's none of my concern if two gay guys want to marry, so it won't bother me a bit if unelected federal judges invoke federal power to force gay marriage on every state in the union."
Two different things there. The sodomy ruling I believe was spot on. What occurs in the bedroom between consenting adults is no business of the government. Laws that impose on rights should be removed. That's not a power grab; that's reversing a power-grab by the government.
The marriage law is a different proposition. Marriage is a three-part proposition -- the personal aspect, the religious aspect, and the legal aspect. While government should not interfere with the first two aspects, there is a question of to what extent they should be allowed to control the legal aspect.
Thing is, in a legal sense, a marriage is a contract (again between consenting adults) to share a household. I don't think that the government has a place in forbidding such a contract to any pair (or group, for that matter) of people. Though perhaps it should be called a civil union or agreement to share a household, instead of a marriage.
The problem is that the government has created a package of benefits and responsibilities that go with its marriage contract. Those were, indeed, created with the traditional male-female married household in mind. The problem is, once such a contract has been made available, complete with benefits package, can the state limit the benefits to specific subsets of that contract?
Well, I'm not sure it's logical, but you are exactly correct.
The three pillars of "traditional marriage" are:
1) It is permanent. Divorce is either forbidden or very difficult to obtain.
2) It is sexually exclusive. Adultery is a felony, grounds for imprisonment, and entails lifelong damages to the wronged party.
3) It is between a man and a woman.
When I have posted this here before, I've been surprised at the vehemence of the attacks, from freepers, over how obsolete and wrong #1 and #2 are.
Well, if you happily give up #1 and #2, it is no surprise that other, non-pair bonded non-heterosexuals want in on the party. Gays don't want traditional marriage, as many on these threads have correctly pointed out.
The thing is, neither do we.
Your reasoning is a good rebuttal to the weak arguments of the essay at the top of this thread. Let me attempt to rebut your rebuttal.
I hope you agree first of all that the state should not attempt to stamp out religion. That should be a no-brainer.
Religion is a social institution: it inherently involves communities of persons, not isolated individuals. There is a culture of Christianity in this country that extends even to skeptics. Again, the state emphatically should not be attempting to dissolve this healthy state of affairs.
Even though many who take part in civil marriage are not religious, the government intervention is intended to reinforce and benefit from the traditional and cultural practices.
When you explain to a five-year-old child what marriage is, what are you going to say? There is a common understanding of what marriage is that will be harmed by divorcing its civil meaning from its fundamental, cherished, thousands-of-years-old existence as a sacred union of one man and one woman.
But the analogy doesn't hold with currency. There is no fixed amount of marriages in circulation.
When the government prints more money, it devalues the money already in circulation, even though that money is legitimate. That is, adding a dollar to circulation devalues, if by a miniscule amount, all the other billions of dollars in circulation.
If that analogy were to hold, an additional, traditional heterosexual marriage would devalue all the other traditional marriages already existing. But it doesn't; the values of previous marriages are unaffected by new traditional marriages.
Indeed, marriage is almost the opposite of money in that what devalues it, if anything, is the removal of marriages from circulation, i.e., divorce. If the author's analogy were to hold, divorce would strengthen the marriages that remain. Of course, it doesn't.
If homosexual marriage does devalue traditional marriage it is not because through an economic analogy.
The one exception to that is that, where government gives out money to married household, that money would have to be given to a larger number of households, which would result in higher taxes and/or decreased benefits going elsewhere. But that is a function of the government involving itself in marriages, not a function of the legitimacy of marriage, itself.
| 1660 The marriage covenant, by which a man and a woman form with each other an intimate communion of life and love, has been founded and endowed with its own special laws by the Creator. By its very nature it is ordered to the good of the couple, as well as to the generation and education of children. Christ the Lord raised marriage between the baptized to the dignity of a sacrament (cf. CIC, can. 1055 § 1; cf. GS 48 § 1). |
| 1625 The parties to a marriage covenant are a baptized man and woman, free to contract marriage, who freely express their consent; "to be free" means: - not being under constraint; - not impeded by any natural or ecclesiastical law. |
Well put.
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