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.
The data says otherwise. Thousands have left the homosexual lifestyle (totally) see scripters database. As to being a disease, see DSM III it was dropped in IV due to political pressure Again see the database for articles detailing this
2. what constitutes public or private behavior
If someone else can see it, it's public
3. what constitutes recruiting
Any attempt to show 'homosexuality' as normal, healthy, fun, cool, hip or otherwise to be accepted is recruiting. Sexual molestation is recruiting. (see scripters database. most SADs were recruited that way).
me->...you can only quarantine them away from the healthy population
you->I'm afraid you've once again stepped way out of line, in my opinion.
We used to quarentine lepers and TB patients. Both deadly contagious diseases. What's wrong with quarentining SADs, also a deadly contagious disease? How is stating that fact stepping over the line?
Not when the category is based on behavior. We can, for example, paint murderers with a broad brush. They are a self-selecting group.
You have confused a behavior for a trait.
Shalom.
Marriage has changed in practice, but not in essence.
It has always been between men and women.
Care to cite another "tradition" so fundamental which has been thrown away?
You can't because marriage is a uniquely fundamental building block to any healthy society. Even the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are not as fundamental to the health of a society as a strong family.
Again, note the history of the blacks in America. If you didn't read that post, let me know and I'll repeat it.
Shalom.
Marriage is not a right. It is a licensed privelege.
Idjits screaming about rights is way overused, IMHO.
It is reasonable for us to discuss whether the state should license marriages and what marriages it should license, but we should not be wasting our bandwidth on the non-issue of equal rights.
Shalom.
As I have pointed out before, I feel sorry for many who suffer from the unholy and dysfunctional tendencies, now being mislabeled as "gay." I am not for breaking down the doors of private residences on a witch-hunt to catch and destroy adults who voluntarily engage in deviant practices with other (consenting) adults. But this issue is coming to the fore, not because of aggressive enforcement of moral codes by the defenders of the American tradition and values. This issue has been brought to the fore by the connivance of those with a totally perverted agenda--an effort to confuse the population generally in some of its most basic concepts.
Under these circumstances, it is important that those who care about the future; those who honor the past, and understand how Western Society came to be the vehicle that has made our lives so pleasant and consistent, and mean to preserve it for the next and future generations; nay, it is mandatory, if we be not mad, that we take proper umbrage at these outrageous excesses, and make it very clear--clear to every adolescent in the land--that this is, in fact, a double oxymoron, and will not be accorded any credibility at all.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
I agree with you but unfortunately we do not have that luxury based on what the Massachusetts SJC has done. It is a given that the concept of equal protection under the law has been interpreted to apply ouside the scope of rights protection, e.g. Bush v. Gore
If equal protection is asserted, which is what the SJC has (preposterously) done, then Luis Gonzalez unfortunately is correct.
The data says otherwise. Thousands have left the homosexual lifestyle (totally) see scripters database.
You make a chain of reasoning, based directly on unprovable claims that you claim to be proven, leading to the most preposterous of conclusions.
I do not accept your pronouncements and I refuse to engage them. Take that as you will.
There is no "fundamental right" to homosexual marriage Luis. For a scholarly opinion on that statement, read Standhart v Superior Court of Arizona, Nov 2003.
By the way, my wife and I both loved Master/Commander. We have a hetero-political marriage (she is a liberal). We talked a little about how many men in those days bought their commissions.
Then we moved into university admissions. In the early 20th century, entry to the finest universities such as Harvard depended far more on breeding than intelligence. Related to that, we discussed the policy of legacy-preferred admissions (like George W. Bush getting into Yale). We also discussed how the fierce competition among the finest schools for the finest students leads these schools to invest in lavish accomodations to attract them, driving up tuition costs in these most elite of schools.
I asserted that legacy-preferred admissions benefited the universities not only in terms of donations received from legacy families, but also from the quality of the people they are admitting from those families.
I don't know if that is right, but it sure turned out to be politically incorrect to say.
Later.
That's funny.
When cornered, most conservatives would agree that rights are not granted by a document, nor are they subject to another's opinions...they simply exist, with the Constitution protecting them. That's until the moment that some "right" is brought into question which "offends" our sensitivities, then we immediately launch into all sorts of goobly-gook about whether this fundamental right, or that fundamental right exists or not.
Here's one right you do not have...the right to deny others their right to life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness based on YOUR biases.
There will be some sort of recognized civil union for same sex people, you can't stop it, the Church will not be forced to either recognize these marriages, nor perform them, and the institution of marriage will survive in spite of the best efforts of heterosexuals to destroy it.
It's all happening right in front of your eyes, and wishing that it wasn't will not make it go away.
Nearly every right confered to a legal spouse via marriage can be obtained through an attorney, and contracts, the few exceptions being Social Security benefits, and next of kin privileges in health care and surviving spouse duties. I have no problem with any person willing to enter into those agreements with another, gender arrangement be damned, you seem to have issues.
I also understand that whether gays marry or not in no way cheapen my marriage...I'm not so insecure to fear that. I know one more thing that you are not willing to accept..."they" are not going away.
Now, can you detail by what power the government denies Mormons the right to polygamy as a part of their religious observances?
Or will you continue to avoid answering the difficult questions?
Then, the issue becomes even clearer.
The Court has found fault with the licensing procedures, and has instructed the government to removed restrictions that create inequities in the licensing for a segment of the citizenry.
You have also IMO not really grappled with the argument on which John and I do agree, that "resolving" these matters by judicial fiat lends to the coarsening of the public square, irreconciable bitterness by the losing side, and such downside legacies as making judicial confirmations a partisan food fight, where in time only purported stealth moderates will be confirmable to choke point judicial positions, i.e. nominees whom folks really don't have much of a clue how they will turn out (you know, folks like Stevens, Seuter, O'Connor, Kennedy, Breyer and the like). That strikes me as a risky scheme, furthering undermining the underlying precept that is "fundamental" and "essential to the pursuit of liberty in all its spatial dimensions," that laws should have at least some nexus, however attentuated, with the consent of the governed.
I think it would be helpful to keep the two aspects of this debate (policy versus process) clearly distinct in our minds. John and I do that with each other, which is why we get along so well on this matter, as well as some others (such as the Judge Moore affair), where we are on wholly opposite sides of some aspects of a divisive issue.
Regards, as always. I am just trying to assist in constructive debate.
There is no such thing as a "gay" or "homosexual" citizen in the eyes of the Court, and the same people who argue against the idea of hate crime should not then turn around and argue denial of "rights" based on sexual orientation, by doing that, they give weight to the argument favoring the need for such hate crime legislation.
My argument is that neither States, or the Federal government have the Constitutional power to restrict two able-bodied, consenting adult citizens, from entering into the civil contract known as marriage, performed by government licensed magistrates, because in order to justify the refusal to license the union, either the State, or the Feds must fall back on a reason wholly based on religious beliefs as every other "societal" argument fails miserably to hold up to the light of day.
"You have also IMO not really grappled with the argument on which John and I do agree, that "resolving" these matters by judicial fiat lends to the coarsening of the public square, irreconciable bitterness by the losing side, and such downside legacies as making judicial confirmations a partisan food fight."
We don't mind fiat when the decision favors us.
I don't have a problem with the Court's findings, I believe that there is a need to provide citizens with a legal forum to fight what they view as inequities in the law as they apply to us as individuals. Expecting politicians to enact or overturn laws that are detrimental to a minority of the voters, at the expense of earning the wrath of large voting blocks is simply silly, sometimes fiat is all that's left.
I bet that there would not be a soul in FR arguing against SCOTUS making abortion illegal in the US by fiat.
Nonsense. Massachusetts defined, by default, civil marriage to involve the union of one man and one woman.
A runaway liberal lawless court made a preposterous ruling to the contrary.
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