Posted on 12/08/2003 7:12:17 PM PST by Kay Soze
How legalizing gay marriage undermines society's morals
By Alan Charles Raul
WASHINGTON - The promotion of gay marriage is not the most devastating aspect of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's recent decision. The more destructive impact of the decision for society is the court's insidious denial of morality itself as a rational basis for legislation.
This observation is not hyperbole or a mere rhetorical characterization of the Goodridge vs. Department of Public Health decision. The Massachusetts justices actually quoted two opinions of the US Supreme Court (the recent anti-anti-sodomy ruling in Lawrence vs. Texas and an older anti-antiabortion ruling, Planned Parenthood vs. Casey) to support the proposition that the legislature may not "mandate (a) moral code" for society at large. The courts, it would seem, have read a fundamental political choice into the Constitution that is not apparent from the face of the document itself - that is, that individual desires must necessarily trump community interests whenever important issues are at stake.
These judicial pronouncements, therefore, constitute an appalling abnegation of popular sovereignty. In a republican form of government, which the Constitution guarantees for the United States, elected officials are meant to set social policy for the country. They do so by embodying their view of America's moral choices in law. (This is a particularly crucial manner for propagating morality in our republic because the Constitution rightly forbids the establishment of religion, the other major social vehicle for advancing morality across society.) In reality, legislatures discharge their moral mandates all the time, and not just in controversial areas such as abortion, gay rights, pornography, and the like.
Animal rights, protection of endangered species, many zoning laws, and a great deal of environmental protection - especially wilderness conservation - are based on moral imperatives (as well as related aesthetic preferences). Though utilitarian arguments can be offered to salvage these kinds of laws, those arguments in truth amount to mere rationalizations. The fact is that a majority of society wants its elected representatives to preserve, protect, and promote these values independent of traditional cost-benefit, "what have you done for me lately" kind of analysis. Indeed, some of these choices can and do infringe individual liberty considerably: For example, protecting spotted owl habitat over jobs puts a lot of loggers out of work and their families in extremis. Likewise, zoning restrictions can deprive individuals of their ability to use their property and live their lives as they might otherwise prefer. Frequently, the socially constrained individuals will sue the state, claiming that such legal restrictions "take" property or deprive them of "liberty" in violation of the Fifth Amendment, or constitute arbitrary and capricious governmental action. And while such plaintiffs sometimes do - and should - prevail in advancing their individual interests over those of the broader community, no one contends that the government does not have the legitimate power to promote the general welfare as popularly defined (subject, of course, to the specific constitutional rights of individuals and due regard for the protection of discrete and insular minorities bereft of meaningful political influence).
Even the much maligned tax code is a congeries of collective moral preferences. Favoring home ownership over renting has, to be sure, certain utilitarian justifications. But the fact is that we collectively believe that the country benefits from the moral strength growing out of families owning and investing in their own homes. Likewise, the tax deduction for charitable contributions is fundamentally grounded in the social desire to support good deeds. Our society, moreover, puts its money (and lives) where its heart is: We have gone to war on more than one occasion because it was the morally correct thing to do.
So courts that deny morality as a rational basis for legislation are not only undermining the moral fabric of society, they run directly counter to actual legislative practice in innumerable important areas of society. We must recognize that what the Massachusetts court has done is not preserve liberty but merely substitute its own moral code for that of the people. This damage is not merely inflicted on government, trampling as it does the so-called "separation of powers." It does much worse, for when judges erode the power of the people's representatives to set society's moral compass, they likewise undercut the authority of parents, schools, and other community groups to set the standards they would like to see their children and fellow citizens live by. Indeed, it is a frontal assault on community values writ large.
It is thus no wonder that many feel our culture's values are going to hell in a handbasket. Yet, neither the federal nor Massachusetts constitutions truly compel such a pernicious outcome. Indeed, to this day the Massachusetts Constitution precisely recognizes that "instructions in piety, religion and morality promote the happiness and prosperity of a people and the security of a republican government." It cannot be stated better than George Washington did in his first inaugural address: "The foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the pre-eminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens and command the respect of the world."
• Alan Charles Raul is a lawyer in Washington. This commentary originally appeared in The Washington Post. ©2003 The Washington Post.
"Smoking and eating fatty foods kills a lot more people every year than being gay does."
If the percentage of the population that smokes and/or eats fatty foods engaged in same sex sodomy your arugment would be rational. Since the percentage for the eaters and drinkers is very high, and that for same sex sodomy practitioners very small, your argument is useless.
Why the obsession with homosexuality?
I've been wondering for some time why you are so obsessed with the normalization of homosexuality?
(I've also wondered about your obsessive hatred of religion...)
I HAVE NOT ADDRESSED THIS ISSUE. WHY DO YOU KEEP MAKING UP MY POSITION. YOU DID NOT ADDRESS THE EARLIER PROBLEMS WITH YOUR OWN POSITION. GO BACK TO GOOGLE AND LOOK UP SOME MORE ARTICLES! I WILL NOT ADDRESS YOUR TANGENTIAL QUESTIONS UNTIL AND UNLESS YOU DEAL WITH THE FUNDAMENTAL ERRORS IN YOUR POSITION. STOP STALKING ME!
Why don't you discourage a behavior that results in a deadly and contagious disease? Have you no compassion? Do you hate homosexuals to the point that you encourage a behavior that kills them off?
"Whose "tradition" are you referring to?"
I would assume he's referring to the tradition of human civilization on planet earth, aside from a few forays into polygamy here and there.
Is there another planet's tradition or species' tradition you like better?
I am not a multi-culturalist. I believe some cultures are superior to others. They are usually better due to better choices. I believe Western civilization has benefited greatly from moving to monogamous (heterosexual, it should go without saying) marriage.
What I don't understand is, if two gay people want to get married, why does that offend you so much? How is it any skin off your nose?
I do not mind if any combination of adults have a ceremony and call it, informally, marriage. It is zero skin off my nose.
What is skin off my nose is when judicial activists inject their own prejudices, rejecting centuries old traditions, and rule that the laws are wrong and must be changed.
You ought to go take a cool shower and a long nap and play some soothing music to calm yourself. You are an embarrassment to this thread. Your hatred is poisoning only yourself.
Insidious? It's not exactly a big secret that the liberal, Jeffersonian tradition rejects moralizing when it comes to the law, and prefers a no-harm-no-foul policy.
You have a major problem.
In post 68 I pinged a volunteer subscription list of which you are not a member. In post 70 you responded to my post and called it propaganda. I've asked you to support your claim and you refused. In fact I've asked you to support your claims many, many times and you never do.
You continually try to denigrate the facts without any supporting evidence whatsoever. In my last post to you I said:
I'd stop posting what you call propaganda if you could actually support your claims.So either stop calling what I post propaganda, support your statements or stop responding to my posts.
The great danger in having enemies is not what they may do to us, but in what we may do to ourselves as we allow harsh, bitter and angry reactions to develop.
>>Either the government can regulate marriage or it can't.
Your rights end where mine begin.The right of blood relations to marry end when the rights of the unrealized issue of their union come into play.
By the way, a great number of States OK the marriage of blood relatives as long as there is an agreement, or no possibility, of any issue.
Well which is it now? Blood relations should be barred from marrying or is it okay because some states permit it?
And as to "The right of blood relations to marry end when the rights of the unrealized issue of their union come into play." Some consider bringing up children in a homosexual household causing detrimental harm to kids. This is why some people are for prohibiting sanctioning same-sex marriages and homosexual adoptions.
We can quibble over whether harm is caused in such households but you set yourself up for that one. You DO admit that the government gets a say in "non-traditional" households.
Are you a cold person? Can you not love your grandmother, your brother, or your neighbor without requiring any sort of "marriage" or sexual component to the relationship?
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