Posted on 07/16/2004 8:09:37 AM PDT by Voice in your head
Thus the governement has to have the central role of record keeper."
If we make a distinction between "marriage" and "legal contracts" then we do not need government to annull a marriage. If we let churches handle the marriages, then records are of little to no importance.
"Laws such as inheritance, incompetency, medical surrogacy are all dependent on a consitent and uniform rule of marriage."
I wrote that "[e]ach couple should have its own contract for its specific circumstances. Some couples already do this via pre-nuptial agreements." I wrote this to address the point that you raise. The purpose of the contract is to legally "form a union for the purpose of shared benefits and legal protections" such as those you cited.
"Additionally as a society we reward the insitution not the individual."
I'm a fan of limited government, rather than a state that engages in social engineering, no matter how well intentioned.
I have infinitely greater trust in the ability of religious institutions to make moral and ethical decisions than I do in the government.
Do you? What about Gene Robinson, the gay Bishop in the Episcopalian church? What about the pedophile-shuffling within the Catholic church? Pedo-priest commits a sexual crime - he is shuffled off to a different parish. These are the first two that come to mind. I'm sure we can add to the list of "moral and ethical decisions".
agree mostly
The first sentence does not answer my question, nor does it contradict my point. So, I don't understand your frustration. What we wrote is in agreement, but you apparently misread what I wrote.
"And while courts are part of the government, they are not the entire government. So if the other branches, executive and legislative, would get off their duffs and do their jobs to rein in there out of control colleagues, we would not have a problem."
So are you retracting your earlier assertion? "we can trust the government to uphold that standard because no people has ever voted for homosexual marriage."
"Because government's job is to protect our people and out cultural institutions."
I disagree. Government's purpose is to serve as a body in which we vest our rights to self defense from force, fraud or coercion and we vest our rights to determine rules regarding use of public property.
That is half of it, yes.
I have infinitely greater trust in the ability of religious institutions to make moral and ethical decisions than I do in the government.
"Do you?"
Yes.
"What about Gene Robinson, the gay Bishop in the Episcopalian church? What about the pedophile-shuffling within the Catholic church? Pedo-priest commits a sexual crime - he is shuffled off to a different parish. These are the first two that come to mind. I'm sure we can add to the list of "moral and ethical decisions".
We can "what-if" this issue to death on both sides. Bill Klinton, Gary Hart, Barney Frank, Gary Condit. Do you think that fewer scum inhabit Washington DC and our state capitals than inhabit our churches and synagogues? I have greater faith in the religious institutions to handle marriage.
"Your argument would only work if religious institutions were the paragons of moral and ethical virtues that they should be, but, sadly, are not."
I disagree. So long as the vast majority are moral and ethical, then it works.
You are refereing to cohabitation agreements which already exist. You can just educate people to enter into those "mere contracts" rather than getting married.
As an institution rather than just a contract Marriage is afforded certain priorities that are not available in mere contracts.
For example, despite what a will has, many states have mandatory widow's/widower's shares.
For example, child supoprt would be fixed under a mere contract concept rather than as the cost of living adjusted system now.
Those the want only contracts have been free to do so for decades. cohabitation contracts are readily available from various form companies.
However as a institution marriage as a means of producing and raising children is paramount to the continuation of a society. This is not to be left to the haphazard contracts any more than one would want to privatize the US navy to france.
Have you notice how the PC police no longer say "mother" or "father" only "parent"
This is to newter the genders in order to make it two whatevers. I would like to see the next course after FMA to be making homosexual adoptions illegal. A child should have one mother and one father. A homosexual recreational sex partner does not equal a mother/father.
We better start soon because the courts have become a Kafka-esque joke.
(this is from a lawyer)
I was trying to explain to you that "government" as it was orginally defined did not mean the state. The word government meant self-government of the Christian man, and it it very closely and almost inseparably linked with this, government meant the family. Every family is a government. Every church is a government. Every school is a government, and yes every the state is a "form" of government, but it was orginally defined as civil government. It's purpose is to pass laws that restrain man in a system of morality. If it does not do this it is only because we have been subverted. This can only happen when the "ministers of justice" are spiritually and morally delinquent. In order to have "free" civil government you are going to have to have free men whose greatest desire is self-government under God.
Redefining marriage is not an issue that I raised.
Sure it is...you want to take the institution of marriage away from the state so that they don't define it. What you are saying is that you want to seperate from civil government, but in essence you would be telling civil government that you no longer wish to have "self-government" and then they win (politicians). They could impose their rule over us. On the flip-side of this what will really happen is that sodomites will create their own churches to define it any way they see fit.
"Homosexuality and obscenity were illegal at America's founding."
Yeah, and slavery was legal, blacks were 4/5ths of a person, and women couldn't vote. Things and times change.
"The Fonders recognized that it had to be a nation of moral people in order for the Republic to work."
If that's true, we're in big trouble, as morality is impossible to force or enforce. Stopping gay marriage will not stop immorality.
If the government no longer defines marriage, then does it not follow that mandatory widow/widower laws and the like will be void and thus able to be replaced by contract?
On public property, it would prefer that it be illegal.
"What about my question on the animal cruelty laws?"
I do need to occasionally pull myself away from the computer and get some sleep.
Throughout this thread, "government" has referred to the state. Thus, when I asked how government has protected marriage, I was asking how the state has protected marriage. Sorry for the confusion.
"you want to take the institution of marriage away from the state so that they don't define it. What you are saying is that you want to seperate from civil government, but in essence you would be telling civil government that you no longer wish to have 'self-government' and then they win (politicians). They could impose their rule over us."
I do not understand your point. If the state no longer defines marriage, then it can impose upon us its rules regarding marriage?
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