How legalizing gay marriage undermines society's morals

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."

me->"Homosexuality" is a pattern of behavior (which BTW is indulged in only by the mentally ill)"

you-> Bullsh%t...

I have the facts on my side. read scripters database.

Now, all you have to do is convince anyone that same-sex marriage can cause damage to the "general welfare"...none of your arguments will hold up, ...

All my points have already been proven. Read scripters database.

I have no doubt that we have damaged marriage more than the perverts have. However that is not a good reason to let them damage it too. Rather than throw up our hands in defeat and let perversion rule let's defend marriage and roll back the bad law that damages it (no-fault divorce etc)

Irresponsible sexual promiscuity is dangerous for everyone, marriage being an agreement between two people to be exclusive to one another sexually, is the logical solution to the deadly side effects of that promiscuity.

Except for the fact that 'homosexual' marriage does not cure 'homosexual' promiscuity. In countries where 'h' marriage is legal the average duration of a monogamous 'h' marriage is about 2 years. Most 'h' marriages are not closed, that is, the 'spouses' frequently and routinely have sex with others outside the marriage.

'Gay' marriage is no more a cure for 'h' promiscuity than letting priests marry is a cure for molestation in the church. (and both these problems have the same common cause, the disease called homosexuality)

This "promote the general welfare" argument of yours is as big a pantload as anything I've ever read in here.

You've never read the constitution? See the cited paragraphs. It's really in there and it's a duty that congress should take more seriously.

Homosexuality is not something that "popped up" a few years ago, and it's not going away, so it's not something that's dangerous to that "general welfare" you are so concerned with.

In the 40's and 50's someone who was known as a 'homo' was shunned by polite company. He had exceedingly limited exposure to children (and thusly could not recruit) and STD's were limited due to his limited exposure. Now that 'h' is more tolerated recruiting is proceeding at a breakneck pace (fortunately anti-recruitment efforts proceed as well) and STDs are killing vast numbers of the sexually irresponsible.

If we stop them from recruiting more victims, 'h' as it is known today will go away. If we treat it as a disease (as it was before the early 70's) it will go away quicker. (of course there are some social issues that we have to correct also, getting fathers to be good fathers etc)

Heterosexuals set in motion the "sexual revolution"; we swing, free-love, divorce by the tens of millions, spouse swap, cybercheat until we get the guts up to "really" cheat, fornicate, and give birth to nearly as many illegitimate babies as we kill in the name of "choice" yearly...and please, don't insult my intelligence and blame all those actions on "liberals" alone.P> With the exception of divorce I know no one who has done any of that. But then I live in a mostly Christian small town, so speak for yourself, you cannot speak for me on this.

And you don't seem to concerned with all those actions as a danger to that "general welfare" you are so concerned with, and spend your energy trying to convince others that people who have never been allowed to marry at all, will be more responsible for marriage being destroyed, than those who truly DID destroy it!

Actually I rail against all of those with the same vitriol that I rail against other perversions. The difference is that wife swappers aren't actively trying to destroy my way of life and corrupt my children. They try to keep their adulterous perverse activities out of the public's eye, not rammed down the public's throat

If you're truly so concerned about the general welfare of this society, why don't you spend your time trying to stop heterosexuals from destroying marriage, and killing one million fetuses a year to hide their irresponsible sexual behavior?

I am a financial supporter of my local right to life and the national right to life organizations. I am actively involved in my local church reaching out to bring people into a right relationship with God which will result in stronger marriages etc. So in short I am working against the evils in our society, not laying down and letting them have their way as is the habit of some.

You want deadly consequences to irresponsible sexual behavior?

We already have deadly consequences to irresponsible behavior. Haven't you read any of the health links from Scripter's database? (Ever hear of AIDS? more correctly called GRIDS.) While these results are very sad at least those people will hopefully learn from the lesson and not repeat the damaging behavior. And hopefully they will serve as a lesson to others.

God has a way of weeding out the irresponsible ones. Read Romans 1:27 among other verses. God takes sexual immorality very seriously.

Tell me, do you remember the exact moment you chose to be a heterosexual?

Interesting question as most heterosexuals never consciously decide to be heterosexual as that is the default (natural) behavior for humans. Our physiology drives it. We are the default until we choose otherwise.

I never consciously decided to not be a murderer either. But not being a murderer is the default for humans. You need to look at the maladapted ones and figure out why they chose to be maladapted

If you turn the question around you will discover truth.

Ask the homosexuals when they first decided to be homosexuals and most of them will say "after I had sex with Mr X". After they are molested they 'discover' that they are 'gay'. It's a common psychological defense mechanism, identify with your attacker. It's commonly taken advantage of in brain washing scenarios. (How did Patty Hearst join the SLA?) If these people were never molested they'd never be 'homosexual'. Homosexuality is a disease caused by trauma and one of the great underlying traumas is molestation. (And as shown earlier in the thread as many as %73 percent of male 'homosexuals' admit to having sex with (molesting) boys)

Government is limited. Concretion is the friend of limited government. Marriage is defined as the union of one man and one woman. -NutCrackerBoy, #301

[Limited government is] not what you are arguing for however.

You didn't deny my assertion that concretely defining things is a good way to reduce government's role. As an example, Article I Section 8 concretely enumerates the federal government's powers. Do you agree that that is a good thing?

You want government to have the ability to pass judgement on the matrimonial wishes of a segment of the citizenry.

Pass judgement on wishes?? No, the law must define what configuration of persons are eligible for this state-defined legal status.

Limited government would not micro-manage this issue.

Micro-manage?? Again, at this point we are just talking about the definition. Do you think the framers of the Massachusetts Constitution intentionally left it ambiguous whether or not the two participants in marriage must be of two genders?

The SJC - creating a judicial doctrine - substituted its concrete definition for the original (implicit) concrete definition. Should a judicial doctrine be so different from the plain meaning of the Constitutional text?

The US Constitution currently has no text at all pertaining to marriage. If it did, it would undoubtedly make reference to gender. Those references will be made in the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment, which will be used as a political football to help elect Republicans.

We conclude that the marriage ban does not meet the rational basis test for either due process or equal protection. -Chief Justice Marshall

Applying that deferential [rational basis] test in the manner it is customarily applied, the exclusion of gay and lesbian couples from the institution of civil marriage passes constitutional muster. -Justices Sosman, Spina, Cordy

This case is not about government intrusions into matters of personal liberty. It is not about the rights of same-sex couples to choose to live together, or to be intimate with each other, or to adopt and raise children together. It is about whether the State must endorse and support their choices by changing the institution of civil marriage to make its benefits, obligations, and responsibilities applicable to them. While the courageous efforts of many have resulted in increased dignity, rights, and respect for gay and lesbian members of our community, the issue presented here is a profound one, deeply rooted in social policy, that must, for now, be the subject of legislative not judicial action. -Justices Cordy, Spina, Sosman

Which opinions do you find show more judicial restraint?

"If it did, it would undoubtedly make reference to gender."

"If it did" holds no legal water...it does not. As a matter of fact, the Constitution males no mention of gender at any point that comes to mind, it does use the term "person" or "persons" about 22 times.

"Those references will be made in the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment, which will be used as a political football to help elect Republicans."

You all never cease to amaze me.

Most people spend their time in here bitching about how government is the problem and not the solution, and how the Feds are taking powers that do not belong to them, but the moment a problem arises, the first thing you all think of doing is growing the power of the Federal government.

You think that the solution to this issue you have with the definition of marriage is to give the power to define marriage to the Federal government?

Remember the 18th. Amendment?

Give the Feds the power to define marriage, and eventually, they will use that power to do the exact opposite of what you want done.

I believe that the judicially correct decisions are those made with individual "persons" in mind. The decision that ended the recount nightmare in Florida was called Judicial activism by many, and the dissenting opinions pointed out that fact, however, everyone in here praised the activism, and poo-pooed the dissents.

"We are the default until we choose otherwise."

People are not machines, there is no "default" in us. If there is, then that "default" applies equally, and to some, that "default" is different than to others.

Now, if homosexuality is a choice, then you need to convince me that you can make yourself chose to be attracted to other men (I am assuming you to be a male based on your FR name)...I can't, but apparently, you think that you can.

"Ask the homosexuals when they first decided to be homosexuals and most of them will say "after I had sex with Mr X".

That's an incredibly ignorant statement, you obviously again believe that a heterosexual can make the choice of having sex with a member of the same sex without first being a homosexual.

If that man had sex with "Mr. X", then obviously he was a homosexual.

I have asked that question, and the answer has always been, "I have always known that I was a homosexual".

I was hoping for a more closely reasoned debate. You are going off on tangents all over the place. First example:

I want the definition to pertain to persons, as the Constitution does twenty two different times, never defining the gender of those persons. -Luis Gonzalez,326

The US Constitution currently has no text at all pertaining to marriage. If it did, it would undoubtedly make reference to gender. -NutCrackerBoy,328

Your response is like Spinal Tap - these go to eleven! The fact that the US Constitution does not mention gender is completely obliterated by the fact that it does not mention marriage. Duh!

Second example:

[Reference to gender] will be made in the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment, which will be used as a political football to help elect Republicans. -NutCrackerBoy,328

You think that the solution to this issue you have with the definition of marriage is to give the power to define marriage to the Federal government? -Luis Gonzalez,330

I was simply sealing my point about references to marriage in Constitutions mentioning gender, and alluding to the popularity of the existing definition - one man, one woman.

I believe that the judicially correct decisions are those made with individual "persons" in mind.

OK, finally something on point! But you need to dig deeper. This is not as simple as gender-neutral language versus gender-specific language in a Constitution. Every rational person including the SJC majority knows that marriage has been strongly associated with actual biological procreation. (Not so say there aren't happily married couples with no children). In order to justify finding the Massachusetts marriage law unconstitutional, the court asserted that there is no rational basis for defining marriage as one man and one woman. The rational basis test is required to be pursued deferentially. If Marshall selectively squeezed the test just to make this decision, she is guilty of gross judicial overstepping. And that is in fact what happened.

The decision that ended the recount nightmare in Florida was called Judicial activism by many, and the dissenting opinions pointed out that fact, however, everyone in here praised the activism, and poo-pooed the dissents.

Tangent alert: I think it would be a waste of time to debate that aspect of Bush v. Gore. But let me say this: the central issue here is that the Massachusetts SJC usurped legislative power. The onus is on you to prove that they did not.

Well Luis, you are a judicial activist on steroids. What I take it you are saying is that drawing a distinction between laws that pertain to the marriage of two of the opposite gender versus two of the same gender, lacks a rational basis, and that therefore drawing such distinction is indeed unconsitutional. Wow. The court on only a couple of instances has ever stuck a law down as lacking a rational basis, and in both instances, it was because the court was being dishonest (shocking I know), and what they really meant, but didn't have the guts to say, is that the distinction being drawn was being viewed as a suspect class by the court. (One was a decision striking down a zoning law that restricted the use of private homes as old age homes, or for homeless youth, or for nutters, or something.)

Other than that, when SCOTUS or a federal appellate court applies the rational basis test, it means that the law is going to be upheld. That is because almost every legal distinction that is incorporated into law has some rational basis, because the folks that pass laws are not irrational nutters (nutters in the sense that they have no idea about what means are potentially connected to intended ends).

If you start using the rational basis test everywhere as a tool for striking laws down, then the legislature really does have an attenuated role, or should have, in our governance, on your planet.

There are of course all kinds of rational bases for one to draw a distinction between opposite sex versus same sex marriages - cost, tradition (we have always done it that way is a rational basis), the need to foster procreation in a good environment along with the attendant impracticability of sorting out the fertile from the non fertile, a concern that giving legal sanction to marriage of same sex couples might encourage homosexual behavior that is a health risk, and empirically leads to less happy lives, etc. One does not need to endorse any of these rationales for the distinction as being persuasive from a policy standpoint (and I do not), to admit that they are clearly a rational bases for the polity to draw the distinctions.

And there you have it.

Well...

I guess you told me.

In my life, I have traveled down many roads, all leading me to this point in time; along the way, and as we all have, I formed opinions on many subjects. I was not always real comfortable in expressing those opinions for fear that someone glibber, more educated, with more gravitas would put them down, and consequentially me with them; I spent a whole lot of time fretting about how I would be perceived if I chose to voice my opinions.

For a while, I merely parroted others whom I believed to be more qualified; I felt secure in behaving in that manner.

I had a discussion, an argument actually, a few years ago with my younger brother, the one place were I always felt free to express myself being around my family; we disagreed on some political issues as I found him to be too far to the left for my taste, I berated him and he left nearly in tears.

I commented to my father that I was dumbfounded that the son of people who fled Communism could have such leftist ideals, and suggested that he and I needed to bring him to our side of the issues; what Dad said next floored me, it took me months to actually figure out what he meant.

He said that he had no problem with my brother's opinion on politics, and that he was OK with his seemingly leftist leanings, "I brought you here so that you could become a Communist if you so wished".

I was floored.

Like the idiot that I am, I failed to understand that what he actually said was that he had brought us to a place where I had the freedom to choose my political ideology, and left behind a place where your only choice was to become a communist.

In my world, laws serve as an ombudsman to justice, laws without justice are immoral.

In my world, society has no rights, but individuals do. Genderless, colorless, ageless individuals, the weakest fetus to receive the same protection of his rights to life, as the oldest have their right to dignity protected.

In my world, Courts of Justice engage in the "constant and perpetual will to secure to every one HIS OWN right"; "and in a Court of Justice, where there are two parties present, justice demands that the rights of each party should be allowed to himself, as well as each party has a right, to be secure and protected by the Court."

John Quincy Adams arguing that a Court of law has the duty to gauge the impact of laws on the individual, and not on society.

In my world, I would dishonor my father by not freely voicing my opinion because of fear of disapproval from others.

But more importantly, in my world Justice is served however the circumstances require that Justice to be served, and in my world, I would welcome an act of runaway judicial activism that terminated the notion that murdering the unborn is a "right", and make abortion illegal in our country; I imagine most people in here would as well.

In my world, if I welcome Judicial activism when it suits my agenda, then I am required to equally welcome it when it doesn't, because to do otherwise, in mine or anyone's world, would amount to nothing less than monumental hypocrisy

I think certain concepts can be nuisances. My first guess when I encounter a conceptual nuisance is that there might be an excess of abstraction and/or a lack of emphasis for a telling process. Exemplifying this are two concepts present in your post: hypocrisy and judicial activism. They are phenomena, symptoms, elusive categories not descriptive of actionable offenses.

Jonah Goldberg is fond of pointing out the predilection of liberals to cartoonishly raise hypocrisy to a level comparable with genocide. Similarly, cries of judicial activism ring hollow somehow.

I think when presented with an instance where judicial activism is readily identified, to find the truth one must dig deeper than that and find the specific error. As Luis Gonzalez and Robert Bork have pointed out, activism is possible by more than one camp and those decrying it are the ones whose ox is getting gored.

The kind I am currently perceiving as a danger is the antihierarchical kind. Systematically tilting the scales of justice in favor of the perceived weakest is part of an accelerating trend where victimhood trumps all, and judges form a vortex of soft power. The solution, I think is to follow the process of justice faithfully and minimize errors.

Similarly, it is not fruitful to try to minimize "hypocrisy" per se. It is a false target. If two judgements reached by the same person are inconsistent, it will not do to bring them into conformance by arbitrarily flipping over the lighter one. One may have to actually endure the inconsistency.

I recall something else Jonah said about hypocrisy (it might relate to Luis Gonzalez' story). A parent may catch himself giving advice to his child that he himself does not follow. That may have to be endured for the benefit of the child's lesson, and quietly filed for later reflection.

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