Posted on 07/06/2006 5:49:43 PM PDT by Sunsong
The New York and Georgia state high courts have both refused to find a right to gay marriage under their state constitutions. (The New York opinion is available online here.)
I favor gay marriage, though I do think as a practical matter that it's probably better to achieve this goal through the political process than by judicial action....
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Gay "marriage" will make more lawyers wealthier, because along with gay "marriage" will be gay divorces.
"I favor gay marriage, though I do think as a practical matter that it's probably better to achieve this goal through the political process than by judicial action...."
Guess he'd rather not have it rammed down his throat like a .... Well, never mind!
Shock! A liberal against the judiciary acting as a legislature.
(The Palestinian terrorist regime is the crisis and Israel's fist is the answer.)
Well said! And I really don't understand those who want to leave the concept of "marraige" in the hands of politicians, period. It's flat-out, none of their business -- and they are attempting define something that many if not most of them aren't even good at (Teddy Kennedy? Hillary Clinton?). Politicians don't belong in our adult bedrooms, telling us what is or isn't OK, nor should they have the right to tell us who we should choose as a lifetime partner -- or even that we have to accept "gay marriage" if politicans choose to OK it. Defining "marraige" is the job of priests, ministers and rabbis -- not politicians. Here is where there truly should be "a seperation of Church and State" -- and in fact, there really isn't. The only thing that we, as citizens, owe the State and they owe us, is recognition of a "legal partnership" and equal obligation of the partners to care for any offspring. That's it. Otherwise, they should mind their own business! I am a Christian. I am not gay. It is simply a matter of principle -- the principle of freedom!
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Don't know about sunsong's previous post history, but it's hard to see that just by posting an article here by Glenn Reynolds, of all people, as a topic for discussion that anybody's promoting special privileges for homosexuals. You're not trying to say that we are restricted from debating this at all are you? I'll put up my straight, Christian conservative credentials (as I'm sure, from reading her post, that Bokababe could too) against anybody else's on FR, but there's lots of room for rational dispute about the proper extent of any government's role in the institution of marriage. It'd be a real shame if FR became a place where knee-jerk preaching to the choir is all that's allowed anymore. (Beliefs that are never allowed to be challenged aren't really beliefs are they?)
Sounds like we're on the same page but we both forgot something; to the list of priests, ministers, and rabbis being the ones who should have the ultimate say over the definition of marriage, we forgot the most important people: our MOMS & DADS! They are the ones who ultimately should have the final say, after inculcating us with their values & not, thank heavens, those of our politicians) whether or not their kids are "married", regardless of whatever type of legal contract they've got sitting in their top desk drawer!
"I really don't understand those who want to leave the concept of "marraige" in the hands of politicians, period. "
Uh, then you dont understand marriage, period.
Short answer: It's a *legal* definition of a sacred institution protecting real *families*.
Think of it as the legal underpinnings of western civilization and you wouldnt be too far off.
(Too late to explain.)
LOL -- and you're right.
Gay divorces...lol.
Well, I have been happily married for quite a while now, so I think that I have some clue.
"Short answer: It's a *legal* definition of a sacred institution protecting real *families*."
The legality of marriage is not what makes marriage "sacred", nor is the legality what makes "a real family" sacred. The sanctity of marriage and family requires more than a simple legal document to render it so. The legality of marriage just makes it "legal", period -- and this is not irrelevant, but it isn't everything either. In fact, the legality of marriage is rarely even an issue to a member of a couple, until or unless there is a divorce or death of a spouse. Beyond that, it is the active participation in the emotional and spiritual responsibilities of marriage that has the most day-to-day relevance to a couple succeeding as and remaining "a family".
"Think of it as the legal underpinnings of western civilization and you wouldnt be too far off."
Actually, I would agree that "marriage" is one of the most important "underpinnings of Western Civilization" -- but that has been eroding for quite a long time now, independent of it definition as a legal institution.
What I am suggesting is more a "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's". We elect politicians to produces laws, not render things "sacred" or not. Yes, there needs to be a legal container for a personal partnership, but it is simply that -- a legality. Leave its sanctity to those involved and not to politicians.
Otherwise, you may get what you didn't bargain for -- rendering the concept of marriage to include homosexual couples and who knows what else, defiling its true sanctity and further eroding what has indeed been a fundamental pillar of Western Civilization.
I think that Instapundit (Glen Reynolds) is right. Some form of gay marriage – whether civil unions or domestic partnerships or something else will happen. Maybe it will will 20 years from now. Maybe it will only be ten. Maybe it will be less. The Connecticut legislature has already passed legislation. The NY legislature may approve of something. People like yourself who try to control the debate and retreat into the past – won’t know what happened or how it happened if you continue to cover your eyes and ears and only receive information that you agree with.
Well said, Leilani!
I am beginning to think that there is big difference between a "Constitutional Conservative" and a "Social Conservative".
Constitutional Conservatives debate the issue from the standpoint of protecting the freedoms of choice that our Founding Fathers gave us and limiting the government's right to interject themselves into our personal lives, even when we actually don't approve of some of the individual choices that these freedoms allow.
Social Conservatives debate the issue from the standpoint of getting the government to do what they want them to do, as long as it limits freedoms in a way that they choose it to and not in ways they choose it not to -- with little consideration for how to accomplish this without dimishing the freedoms that both God and our Founding Fathers intended us to have.
I am a Constitutional Conservative, as I believe that you are. Perhaps that, at times, makes us "further Right" than many here on certain issues and at other times, makes us sound "further Left". That is a matter of perception based on the issue and on which kind of Conservative the reader is.
And I also agree that there is a big difference between "granting special privelidges to homosexuals" vs. recognizing that "they have basic rights as taxpaying citizens" just like the rest of us, and what they do in their bedroom is none of our business -- because if the government can make their behavior its business, then they can make our private behavior its business, too.
If all of us here agreed on everything, then there would be no "debate" -- we'd just be a mutual admiration society in this little corner of the cyber-space that wouldn't mean a rat's ass. But the point here is to debate issues of importance to our country and society -- and I fail to see how just trashing homosexuals on the board -- which is what happens most of the time that something like this is posted -- accomplishes that. If we have nothing more to do than that, then we are no better than a bunch of schoolchildren hurling taunts across the playground! And that isn't "conservatism" of any kind -- it's immaturity!
Some will try to paint this as a liberal or religious issue. I am a conservative Republican, but I believe in democracy and the separation of church and state. The conservative movement is founded on the simple tenet that people have the right to live life as they please, as long as they don’t hurt anyone else in the process. No one has ever shown me how being gay or lesbian harms anyone else. Even the 1992 Republican platform affirms the principle that “bigotry has no place in our society.”
I am proud that the Republican Party has always stood for individual rights and liberties. The positive role of limited government has always been the defense of these fundamental principles. Our party has led the way in the fight for freedom and a free market economy, a society where competition and the Constitution matter—and sexual orientation shouldn’t.
Now some in our ranks want to extinguish this torch. The radical right has nearly ruined our party. Its members do not care enough about the Constitution, and they are the ones making all the noise. The party faithful must not let it happen. Anybody who cares about real moral values understands that this isn’t about granting special rights—it’s about protecting basic rights....."
A quote from a "Liberal"? No, think again! these were the words of BARRY GOLDWATER!!!
"What I am suggesting is more a "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's". "
Marriage has been defined as a legal institution since the time of Caesar, in Western civilization as between one man and one woman. We can at least render some thanks that the Justinian Law of 500AD and every law since then defined marriage clearly in the West as one man and one woman.
The sanctity of marriage and family says something about its inherent goodness, but getting politicians involved is not about sanctifying anything, but about according it *legal protection*, which it needs to thrive. This is no different from saying that since religion is important, that we need a "freedom to worship" and tax exemption for churchs.
Only a fool would insist that a legal tax exemption 'sanctifies' a church!
It is sophistry, used often by those intending to weaken marriage's protections, to suggest that since something other than legality 'sanctifies' marriage, that therefore the legal underpinnings of marriage are unimportant.
That is a very wrong, very un-conservative or even anti-conservative argument to make, that thoroughly miscomprehends the role of law in this case. It's not an imposition of the law, its a matter of protection of something already understood as sacred in our culture. As we all know, legal structures undergird our public morality and incentivize our behavior. Read up on Edmund Burke and his 'little platoons' and the concept of Government as covenant between different generations.
Or in sociological behaviorist terms: Make marriage less palatable and less protected, and non-marriage thrives; allow polygamy/gay-unions as marriage, and culture decays; make divorce easier, and families get broken more. We see it already, as 'partners' get goodies once reserved for spouses, where the cultural inhibitions on sex, child-rearing, even family formation outside of marriage have fallen. etc. The negative consequences of the breakdown of family are too obvious and too legion not to notice.
"We elect politicians to produces laws, not render things "sacred" or not." Correct, and the most important laws they can pass or not pass are those that protect or not protect the vessels of our civilization. The people making the laws are like the curators at a great museum, and we entrust our important institutions to their temporary care to make sure the valuables of civilization not get stolen or damaged.
A definition of marriage in our laws is like repainting the Sistine Chapel ... in tangerine color.
You want to know the REAL meaning of Marriage, try going through a Divorce.
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