[Jim Noble]

The walls of traditional marriage were breached 40 years ago; what we are witnessing now is the storming of the last bastion.

This is exactly correct, and it's why the "traditional" marriage movement as presently defined is not going anywhere.

Saying that traditional marriage is defined as "one man and one woman", full stop, is so misleading as to be fundamentally false. Traditional marriage has three essentials:

1) It is permanent.

2) It is sexually exclusive, with penalties, both legal and social, for breach.

3) It is between one man and at least one woman. Many cultures limit marriage to one man and one woman, but not all.

When our society removed #1 and #2 from the definition of marriage, marriage was abolished.

What's left is a social welfare program. Who can blame the gays for wanting in?

[IronJack]

bookmark

[ClearCase_guy]

When society decided--and we have decided, this fight is over--that society would no longer decide the legitimacy of sexual relations between particular men and women, weddings became basically symbolic rather than substantive

I think this is very true. If the trend is ever to be reversed, society must become more open about bastard children being an embarassment, divorce a matter of shame, single motherhood (other than widowhood) a cause for public humiliation, and "shacking up" a cause for scandal.

I don't think our society wants to go there. But until these "non-marriage" choices are openly criticized, we will just see more and more extreme examples of them.

[StonyBurk]

Problem with this article is the author ignores the fact
that in the United States -marriage licences were not
granted ,nor marriage recorded except by the church as a
religious duty. And this fact remained undiluted until
about 1853 --It was not until 1987 that a court divided
amongst itself declared the civil institution had value to a State system that had walled God out.But that same body
when it was true to the language and intent of the Constitution declared in 1858 that "the basis of the family consisting of and springing from the union for life
of one man an done woman in the Holy estate of matrimony."
Oh what atangled web we weave when we tolerate courts that
erect walls to decieve.

[LadyDoc]

all of this was predicted in the greatly maligned essay: Humana Vitae, which pointed out that once you ignore the link between sex and procreation, and you take the procreation of children out of the implication that children are a gift of God and make them a chosen commodity, then the result is a cascade of problems that lead to a culture of death...

But of course no one wants to point that out...

[wai-ming]

So the economics of sex evolved into a win-win deal.

There is no way that marriage could have "evolved" naturally, and it is not a win-win situation biologically or economically. What normal, red-blooded caveman would give up the prospect of multiple sex partners and sacrifice half of his resources for one nagging cavewoman and her whiny kids?

[brbethke]

The proper question is, if marriage is a covenant between a man, a woman, and God, then why is the state in the business of regulating marriage in the first place?

I find it ironic that the same people who claim the 2nd Amendment takes precedence over state law, and therefore states have no business regulating firearms ownership, are usually the first people to demand that the state "do something" about gay marriage, when clearly the same argument can be made invoking the 1st Amendment.

Marriage is a covenant between a man, a woman, and God. The 1st Amendment protects religious expression and takes precedence over state law. Therefore, the state has no business licensing and regulating marriage.

[KantianBurke]

"Sex, childbearing and marriage now have no necessary connection to one another, because the biological connection between sex and childbearing is controllable. The fundamental basis for marriage has thus been technologically obviated. Pair that development with rampant, easy divorce without social stigma, and talk in 2004 of "saving marriage" is pretty specious. There's little there left to save. Men and women today who have successful, enduring marriages till death do them part do so in spite of society, not because of it."

Megabump!

[EdReform]

Bump & Ping

What We Can Do To Help Defeat the "Gay" Agenda

Homosexual Agenda: Categorical Index of Links (Version 1.1)

The Stamp of Normality

[Ole Okie]

Weddings ceremoniously legitimated the sexual union of a particular man and woman under the guidance of the greater community.

'legitimated'?

Call the po-lice. Call Sherlock Holmes!

Somebody stole 'legitimized' whilst I wasn't watching!!

Where, oh where, did ligitimized go?

Legitimated aside, what better plan for the conception and rearing of children could be conceived?

One thing's for sure; the gubmint won't do it better.

[NutCrackerBoy]

This column is very well reasoned and written. It draws the bleak conclusion that the cultural mayhem will not be stopped. I am not prepared to accept that, but I am willing to engage in a thought experiment which assumes it.

Fast forward 200 years. The demographic nightmare has come to pass, the one predicted by the low birthrates among the descendents of Europeans. Islam is now the dominant religion throughout the world. But most Muslims have by now succumbed to the same aspects of modern life which felled the Christians: birth control, abortion, women preferring careers, couples marrying out of wedlock and having only one or two children if any. A civil war breaks out between the traditional and the modern Muslims.

That's as far as I can see ahead.

[Pietro]

The good revrend seems to have tossed in the towel on marriage and w/ it any semblance of a rational culture.

Certainly marriage has been buffetted by multiple forces, but if Western society has any hope of outlasting this latest assault from w/i then we must stand fast upon the last barracade.

Long and dark will be that night should the forces of satan gain sway.

[Taffini]

bump

[Varda]

"Marriage is primarily a social institution, not a religious one. That is, marriage is a universal phenomenon of human cultures in all times and places, regardless of the religion of the people concerned, and has taken the same basic form in all those cultures. Marriage existed long before Abraham, Jesus or any other religious figure. The institution of marriage is literally prehistoric. "

I've said this many times when defending marriage. First to defend it you have to define it. Unfortunately, most people defending marriage do so from a religious stance which is a sure loser.

[NYer]

Pope Paul VI, took a strong, faith based stance when he wrote the Encyclical Humanae Vitae. Despite the screams from many catholics, he did not endorse the use of birth control.

“Though it is true that sometimes it is lawful to tolerate a lesser moral evil in order to avoid a greater evil or in order to promote a greater good," it is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it (18)—in other words, to intend directly something which of its very nature contradicts the moral order, and which must therefore be judged unworthy of man, even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual, of a family or of society in general.”
HUMANAE VITAE

Catholic Ping - let me know if you want on/off this list

[SuziQ]

If society has abandoned regulating heterosexual conduct of men and women, what right does it have to regulate homosexual conduct, including the regulation of their legal and property relationship with one another to mirror exactly that of hetero, married couples?

Because there ARE some things worth fighting for! Mr. Sensing can give up if he wishes; I don't plan to!

[lentulusgracchus]

Opponents of legalized same-sex marriage say they're trying to protect a beleaguered institution, but they're a little late. The walls of traditional marriage were breached 40 years ago; what we are witnessing now is the storming of the last bastion.

C'mon, Rev. Try to figure it out. The barbarians are inside the gate, and trying to get at us up in the keep. OK, what do we want to do? Give over? Or fight harder? Think for a second about the consequences, and then make up your mind. You part of the problem, or part of the answer?

Just because it gets tough, some people want to throw their hands up and quit.

Wonder if we've got ourselves a little offering from the gay seminarians' cabal here? Helping us to see the impossibility of our position.....helping us to quit?

Comments?

[lentulusgracchus]

Marriage is primarily a social institution, not a religious one.

This statement is unsupported by either physical or documentary evidence. Archaeological anthropologists can point to graves showing evidence of ceremonials going back beyond 100,000 years -- and so how does the writer exclude religious motives from ancient arrangements?

Especially since so much cave art appears to have had some relationship to sympathetic magic? Sounds religious to me!

[lentulusgracchus]

The widespread social acceptance of these changes is impelling the move toward homosexual marriage.

No, it isn't.

The mainspring of the "single-sex marriage" (note: quotes applied to propagandistic formula) has been homosexual vindictiveness and rebellion against the moral judgment entered against them by revealed teachings going back 3000 years, in the Judaeo-Christian tradition (and more recently, the Islamic tradition).

Its engines today are the bohemianism and secularism of Artisan personalities in entertainment and media, and their cultivation by artful and ruthless homosexuals.

"Everybody wants to rule the world." Including people who don't care whether they do it well.

[GeekDejure]

AMERICA WILL NOT BE ABLE TO STOP THE BLEEDING

The LORD has never allowed a society to promote homosexuality or abortion without bringing His judgment - ours is no different: America is even now under the judgment of the LORD. America will not be able to stop the bleeding; foreign armies will occupy this land. Behold, they are already among you, and you see them not. America has refused the LORD’S grace, now she must accept His judgment:

1. Innocent blood has been spilled on the land and the land is now defiled.
2. The blood of over 40 million babies has been shed in this land.
3. The sin has reached unto the throne of the Holy One.
4. Judgment is now upon the land; it will tarry no longer.
5. The blood of the offender has to be appeased.
6. America rejected the LORD’S grace, she will have to accept His judgment.