Gay marriage 'rights'

www.townhall.com ^ | December 31, 2004 | Thomas Sowell

[DirtyHarryY2K]

In all the states where gay marriage was on the ballot this year, the voters voted against it -- as they should have.

Of all the phony arguments for gay marriage, the phoniest is the argument that it is a matter of equal rights. Marriage is not a right extended to individuals by the government. It is a restriction on the rights they already have.

People who are simply living together can make whatever arrangements they want, whether they are heterosexual or homosexual. They can divide up their worldly belongings 50-50 or 90-10 or whatever other way they want. They can make their union temporary or permanent or subject to cancellation at any time.

Marriage is a restriction. If my wife buys an automobile with her own money, under California marriage laws I automatically own half of it, whether or not my name is on the title. Whether that law is good, bad, or indifferent, it is a limitation of our freedom to arrange such things as we ourselves might choose. This is just one of many decisions that marriage laws take out of our hands.

Oliver Wendell Holmes said that the life of the law is not logic but experience. Marriage laws have evolved through centuries of experience with couples of opposite sexes -- and the children that result from such unions. Society asserts its stake in the decisions made by restricting the couples' options.

Society has no such stake in the outcome of a union between two people of the same sex. Transferring all those laws to same-sex couples would make no more sense than transferring the rules of baseball to football.

Why then do gay activists want their options restricted by marriage laws, when they can make their own contracts with their own provisions and hold whatever kinds of ceremony they want to celebrate it?

The issue is not individual rights. What the activists are seeking is official social approval of their lifestyle. But this is the antithesis of equal rights.

If you have a right to someone else's approval, then they do not have a right to their own opinions and values. You cannot say that what "consenting adults" do in private is nobody else's business and then turn around and say that others are bound to put their seal of approval on it.

The rhetoric of "equal rights" has become the road to special privilege for all sorts of groups, so perhaps it was inevitable that gay activists would take that road as well. It has worked. They have already succeeded in getting far more government money for AIDS than for other diseases that kill far more people.

The time is long overdue to stop word games about equal rights from leading to special privileges -- for anybody -- and gay marriage is as good an issue on which to do so as anything else.

Incidentally, it is not even clear how many homosexuals actually want marriage, even though gay activists are pushing it.

What the activists really want is the stamp of acceptance on homosexuality, as a means of spreading that lifestyle, which has become a death style in the era of AIDS.

They have already succeeded to a remarkable degree in our public schools, where so-called "AIDS education" or other pious titles are put on programs that promote homosexuality. In some cases, gay activists actually come to the schools, not only to promote homosexuality as an idea but even to pass out the addresses of local gay hangouts to the kids.

There is no limit to what people will do if you let them get away with it. That our schools, which are painfully failing to educate our children to the standards in other countries, have time for promoting homosexuality is truly staggering.

Every special interest group has an incentive to take something away from society as a whole. Some will be content just to siphon off a share of the taxpayers' money for themselves. Others, however, want to dismantle a part of the structure of values that make a society viable.

They may not want to bring down the whole structure, just get rid of the part that cramps their style. But when innumerable groups start dismantling pieces of the structure that they don't like, we can be headed for the kinds of social collapses seen both in history and in other parts of the world in our own times.

[DirtyHarryY2K]

How many times do people like the author of this Column have to spell it out before our elected officials and media talking heads get it?

[DirtyHarryY2K]

Homosexual Agenda Ping.

If you want on/off the list let me know.

[PaxMacian]

"Marriage is not a right extended to individuals by the government. It is a restriction on the rights they already have."

Marriage is a right of passage pre-existing governments as a sacrament instituted by the church, not the state. No government possesses the power to bestow a sacrament upon people for swearing to perpetually live in sin.

[Ed Current]

The federal courts have become the law breaking branch of the federal government. Congress can remove appelate jurisdiction of the USSC and jurisdiction of lower federal courts We the People Act(HR 3893 IH) and leave this issue with the states.

Article III, Section 2 - The Washington Times: Editorials/OP-ED In the 107th Congress (2001-2002), Congress used the authority of Article III, Section 2, clause 2 on 12 occasions to limit the jurisdiction of the federal courts.

• Justice Brennan said in 1982: "[O]bviously we Americans must accept that . . . upon judges, and particularly justices of the Supreme Court, rests a great share of the delicate responsibility of deciding what must be preserved and what must be changed, what we shall protect and what we shall abandon."- William Brennan, Address at Park School, Baltimore, Maryland (Nov. 21, 1982)
• Most members of the Court seem to be gnostics, firmly believing they have access to wisdom denied the rest of us" (i.e., those citizens who are not justices on the Supreme Court). The question arises as Justice Antonin Scalia has said: "What secret knowledge, one must wonder, is breathed into lawyers when they become Justices of this Court? . . . Day by day, case by case, [the Court] is busy designing a Constitution for a country I do not recognize." - Robert Bork, Our Judicial Oligarchy , First Things , Nov. 1996, at 21.
• The People's Constitution is no longer the "supreme law of the land" binding upon the judges, as well as the people. - Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803).
• Even Justice William O. Douglas admitted late in his career that "due process, to use the vernacular, is the wildcard that can be put to such use as the judges choose." William O. Douglas, quoted in W. Forrester, Are We Ready for Truth in Judging? 63 A.B.A. J. 1212 (1977)

1. If the U.S. Supreme Court was intended to break as many laws as they have, why does the Constitution prohibit them from being involved in the law making process? Why did Marshall have to derive the doctrine of judicial review? Why wasn't it explicitly stated in the Constitution?
2. If the U.S. Supreme Court was intended to amend the Constition, why does the Constitution prohibit them from being involved in the amendment process?
3. If the U.S. Supreme Court was intended to enforce their own opinion, why does the Constitution leave that option with the President?
4. If the U.S. Supreme Court was intended to be equal to or above the written Constition, why does the Constitution state, "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land…. and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution."

• The Avalon Project : Federalist No 78 The judiciary, on the contrary, has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments. It proves incontestably, that the judiciary is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power 1 The celebrated Montesquieu, speaking of them, says: "Of the three powers above mentioned, the judiciary is next to nothing.'' "Montesquieu: The Spirit of Laws.'' vol. i., page 186.

The Fourth Choice:Ending the Reign of Activist Judges

• Limiting Federal Court Jurisdiction To Protect Marriage For The States
• Limiting Federal Court Jurisdiction To Protect Marriage For The States (Charles E. Rice)
• Limiting Federal Court Jurisdiction To Protect Marriage For The States (PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY)

H.R. 3313passed 233 - 194 7/22/2004 3:50pm: (Roll no. 410).

[gidget7]

I wish I knew the answer to your question. I sign every petition that comes my way to stop it, and contibute what I can to these organization who are try ing to stop it. I don't know what else to do. I swear if I ever win the lottery, I would become a huge donor, which is one thing unfortunately, these organizations don't have, which the communist/progressive/liberal side do. Massive amounts of money pours in and lobbyists along with it, for their agenda.

[blakep]

Take notes!!


"""The issue is not individual rights. What the activists are seeking is official social approval of their lifestyle. But this is the antithesis of equal rights."""

[blakep]

""""They may not want to bring down the whole structure, just get rid of the part that cramps their style. But when innumerable groups start dismantling pieces of the structure that they don't like, we can be headed for the kinds of social collapses seen both in history and in other parts of the world in our own times.""""


HERE HERE

[bubman]

bump for later read

[infidel29]

Our local radio guy was on vacation this week (Jim Quinn). His sub was a libertarian who spent the week bashing conservatives for denying gays their civil rights. I assume he did this, since I turned the channel Tuesday and didn't go back.

I was wondering which 'rights' are we keeping from them? I'm not allowed to marry a man either. Granted I don't want to, but that's just a technicality. As far as I'm concerned (and science as well), there is no "gay gene", it's a chemical imbalance. Too much female hormones in gay men, too much male hormone in gay women. This qualifies as a birth defect.

Where is the harelip caucus? Why don't fat people get a focus group? People with too many digits deserve a rainbow sticker of their own don't they? What about bald people? Hairy people?

[gidget7]

Where are all these acts submitted to congress? Still in committee? What is their status, I see the dates they were presented and other information.

[gidget7]

it's a chemical imbalance. Too much female hormones in gay men, too much male hormone in gay women. This qualifies as a birth defect.


While that may be true of a few, most were introduced, either visually or physically (abuse, pedophilia) at a very young age to this lifestyle. Once in the lifestyle it more like a compulsion, an obsession. A lot stay in the lifestyle out of fear of shame that they are sure would come were they to seek a "normal" lifestyle and the this "exposure" were to become known. Without to tools to get well, they run the risk of becoming abusers themselves, and thus the chain reaction continues. These days, doctors, clergy who attempt to help, are called bigots.