Posted on 07/13/2004 8:11:13 AM PDT by presidio9
Two recent developments have returned same-sex marriages to center stage. At one pole lies the conservative effort to steer a Family Marriage Amendment, banning same-sex marriages, through Congress; and at the other, the implementation of the Massachusetts decision in Goodridge v. Department of Health, which requires equal treatment for same-sex marriages.
These two parallel episodes offer powerful evidence of an unhappy wedge between the majoritarian and libertarian wings of conservative legal thought. Generally -- and here the illiberal FMA is a jarring exception -- conservatives insist that most important structural questions in the U.S. should be decided through the democratic political processes, in the separate states. The libertarian wing regards democratic government as an imperfect means in service of the larger end of personal liberty, and thus strongly pushes the guarantees of individual rights to their logical conclusion. Both sides struggle to accommodate the rival impulse: All majoritarians recognize some limitations on government. All libertarians recognize that there are some inherently political decisions that no personal rights can trump. But how to draw the balance?
Conservatives regard the Goodridge decision as unprincipled meddling of the worst sort. After all, current canons of constitutional interpretation require judicial deference to legislation. The courts must uphold any statute, however unwise, as long as a rational basis can be discerned. But after Lawrence v. Texas last year, in which the Supreme Court struck down a longstanding Texas antisodomy law, social conservatives are right to ask why -- if such laws are struck down as unconstitutional -- the prohibitions on same-sex marriages won't be next on its agenda, notwithstanding the Court's own disclaimers on this explosive question.
Constitutional libertarians hold that the state must always put forward some strong justification to limit the freedom of association of ordinary individuals. Those justifications might include stopping pollution and cartels, but they cannot include the offense that the majority takes to practices they regard as contrary to public morals. Their remedy is to refrain from participation in the practices they dislike, not to stop others from doing as they please.
When President Bush, for example, talks about the need to "protect" the sanctity of marriage, his plea is a giant non sequitur because he does not explain what, precisely, he is protecting marriage against. No proponent of gay marriage wants to ban traditional marriage, or to burden couples who want to marry with endless tests, taxes and delays. All gay-marriage advocates want to do is to enjoy the same rights of association that are held by other people. Let the state argue that gay marriages are a health risk, and the answer is that anything that encourages monogamy has the opposite effect. Any principled burden of justification for the ban is not met.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
If you make "gay" marriage legal, you strip religions of some fundamental rights and have a government that promotes moral relativism.
You further destroy the religious institutions, as you make the institution of marriage meaningless.
What is the real crime?--You legally can brainwash children in the schools to take "pride" in something that is dangerous to health, etc., and pits them against parents who will no longer be able to "indoctrinate" their children into their religion. Parents could be saddled with "hate" crimes by teaching their religious beliefs to thier children.
Many "gays" were abused sexually while children. A high percentage of gays are mentally disturbed. Many were induced into a lifestyle by older men. By making the lifestyle legal, government sanctions the behavior and will make it illegal to discourage the lifestyle in the public school. The European countries who endorse the lifestyle also reduce the age of consent to sex to 12 years, because the homosexuals mostly lust for young males and want legal access to them.
Gay lifestyles are not about love, they are about lust. Legal rights are not denied to gays. They want special rights which is illegal under the constitution.
Hey, Sam the Sham, April 1, 2004.
Marriage is a mutually agreed to contract between a man and a woman.
I have never said that, please clarify that you were mistaken.
OK is a value judgement. That is an individual determination that can only be legitimately made by an individual. If the society as a whole determines that is what the majority have decided, then that will be what they have decided. A minority, or the reps of the majority do not have the right, or the priviledge to make any such decision.
If everyone else determines marriage is "OK" between any human and a pig, I will disagree and have, maintain and exercise the right to openly disagree.
Not in the least.
Marriage is a broad based institution that exists to protect people who could potentially create and raise children, i.e. a man and a woman, and to protect those children. It is an elevated status that represents the special responsibilities of that social unit. Society has this broad institution because it's a big picture concept.
If a tiny percentage of people are unable to produce children, they shouldn't be punished for it. Doctors have known to be wrong, and they could wind up with a child. They could adopt, and raise a child in a male / female family unit. The potential for healthy childraising still exists.
This is fundamentally different from a group of sexual hobbyists who are by definition unable to procreate, and on the whole could not raise well adjusted children. No matter how big or small a picture you look at, gay society does not reproduce, and has no need for an institution that protects children.
If they want to 'go steady' then that's fine. Behind closed doors, it's their business. We shouldn't have to finance it, or give it our sociatal stamp of approval.
This is the great advantage of mobile wealth and mobile people -- it breaks up local talibans.
No. I know plenty of people that expressly stated a desire to never have kids.
They had kids.
Thus, marriage exists for the benefit of children, even from people who change their minds.
Well, then, you are saying that marriages that are absolutely confirmed to be sterile should be dissolved by the state.
If a tiny percentage of people are unable to produce children, they shouldn't be punished for it. Doctors have known to be wrong, and they could wind up with a child.
Raising this argument in the case of (for example) a woman who has had a hysterectomy makes you sound like the pet shop keeper in Monty Python's "dead parrot" sketch.
They could adopt, and raise a child in a male / female family unit. The potential for healthy childraising still exists.
"Could" and "potential" don't cut it. Adoption can't "just happen" in the course of events, the way that pregnancy "just happens" when a heterosexual couple goes at it enough times. It requires a series of deliberate actions. Thus, the logic of your argument would make an ironclad agreement to pursue at least one adoption a prerequisite for permitting a sterile couple to marry.
As much as I like libertarian ideas, the people who most consistantly prove that mankind lacks sufficient moral sense to live by them are Libertarians themselves.
Freedom must be supported by responsibility and morality, or it is not viable. Many liberatians worship freedom at the expense of the other two, which is dangerous and irresponsible.
So if mankind can't do it, who?
Hey, Spunkets, Ocober 22,1999
Marriage is a societal contract. Thats why you have a representative of your society preside over it. The man and the woman agree to stay together for a number of reasons, but the reason that the contract exists in the first place is because those two are statistically likely to produce children. Societies can't exist without children, and they need a mechanism to ensure that those children are protected and raised by both parents.
Marriage is a vow that promises to be responsibile for that upon which civilization rests.
So, while a marriage is a mutually agreed contract between a man and a woman, the contract is enforced by society, because society can't exist without it. If the only people that were involved in the process were the man and the woman, we wouldn't need marriage at all.
So if mankind can't do it, who?
God, for one.
There are a number of moral athiests out there, but even they tend to have moral ideas that are rooted in faith.
But to answer what I think your question is, how about this-
We have government because it's a necessary evil. I don't think we need more of it. I think we have far too much. But I also don't think we could get by on as little as the 'L'ibertarians would like. Freedom without discipline is anarchy.
This is true of all contracts. For instance, if people routinely got away with not paying off their mortgages, we would soon end up living in caves because nobody would bother to build houses.
The state may legitimately get involved in people's private agreements when one party fails to live up the deal (or is accused of doing so) -- not otherwise.
You're arguing that if I've had a vasectomy and my fiancee has had a hysterectomy and neither of us want to ever adopt kids and are medically unable to have them, then we shouldn't be allowed by the state to be married.
You're also arguing that people who are too elderly to have kids or adopt them should not allowed to be married by the state.
If you've had a vasectomy, and you're "fiancee" has had a hysterectomy, and you have no intention of adopting kids, I see no reason why the state should endorse your relationship.
That's one. "for one" assumes others. They are????
And who will tell what God wants? Let me know because there is much disagreement among believers much less non-believers.
There are a number of moral athiests out there,
An oxymoron.
We have government because it's a necessary evil.
True, but it need not be evil. It's just that it always has become evil.
I don't think we need more of it. I think we have far too much.
Me too.
But I also don't think we could get by on as little as the 'L'ibertarians would like.
A matter of opinion, but I perfer small L libertarians on that.
Freedom without discipline is anarchy.
True. Governments in a free society exist to defend the rights of the individuals in the society. That is the discipline. The larger problem has been disciplining the governments, not the people.
A government that only defended rights wouldn't be evil, it would be a force for good.
Govm't has no right to define what is fraud whatsoever. The must recognize what the culture determines fraud is.
No it is not. The contract is between the parties involved and they do not include society.
" So, while a marriage is a mutually agreed contract between a man and a woman, the contract is enforced by society, because society can't exist without it."
The contract itself is not enforced. In fact, most States allow disolution w/o cause. One party simply says it doesn't exist any more and the State sides with that party. The State then acts to distribute marital property and gives custody of the children to one of the parties. For that determination, no weight is given to any moral breach of the original contract, or breach of cultureal mores.
I'm a libertarian, so I don't want any relationship of mine endorsed by the state (the example I gave is hypothetical). However, if you go around telling people such as the kind I mentioned in my example that they can't be legally considered married, you'll be deemed a kook, and rightly so....
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