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Same-Sex ‘Marriage’ and the Persecution of Civil Society
NCR ^ | jUNE 6, 2008 | JENNIFER ROBACK MORSE

Posted on 06/06/2008 8:54:34 AM PDT by NYer

Advocates of same-sex “marriage” present the idea as a step forward for tolerance and respect. But recent developments place that interpretation very much in doubt.

Legalizing same-sex “marriage” is not a stand-alone policy, independent of all the other activities of the state. Once governments assert that same-sex unions are the equivalent of marriage, those governments must defend and enforce a whole host of other social changes.

Unfortunately, these government-enforced changes conflict with a wide array of ordinary liberties, including religious freedom and ordinary private property rights.

It began with the persecution of Catholic Charities in Boston. The archdiocese eventually closed down its adoption program, because the state of Massachusetts insisted that every adoption agency in the state must allow same-sex couples to adopt.

Recently, a Methodist organization in New Jersey lost part of its tax-exempt status because it refused to allow two lesbian couples to use their facility for a civil union ceremony. In Quebec, a Mennonite school was informed that it must conform to the official provincial curriculum, which includes teaching homosexuality as an acceptable alternative lifestyle.

At last report, the Mennonites were considering leaving the province rather than permit the imposition of the state-sponsored curriculum on their children.

And recently, a wedding photographer in New Mexico faces a hearing with the state’s Human Rights Commission because she declined the business of a lesbian couple. She didn’t want to take photos of their commitment ceremony.

The underlying pattern is unmistakable. Legalizing same-sex “marriage” has brought in its wake state regulation of other parts of society. The problem is sometimes presented as an issue of religious freedom, and so, in part, it is. But the issue runs deeper than religious freedom.

McGill University professor Douglas Farrow argues in his book A Nation of Bastards that redefining marriage allows the government to colonize all of civil society.

If same-sex couples can marry each other, they should be allowed to adopt. Anyone who says otherwise is acting against the policy of the state. If same-sex couples can have civil unions, then denying them the use of any facility they want for their ceremony amounts to unlawful discrimination. When the state says that same sex couples are equivalent to opposite-sex couples, school curriculum will inevitably have to support this claim.

Marriage between men and women is a pre-political, naturally emerging social institution. Men and women come together to create children, independently of any government. The duty of caring for those children exists even without a government or any political order.

Marriage protects children as well as the interests of each parent in their common project of raising those children.

Because marriage is an organic part of civil society, it is robust enough to sustain itself, with minimal assistance from the state.

By contrast, same-sex “marriage” is completely a creation of the state.

Same-sex couples cannot have children. Someone must give them a child or at least half the genetic material to create a child. The state must detach the parental rights of the opposite-sex parent and then attach those rights to the second parent of the same-sex couple.

The state must create parentage for the same-sex couple. For the opposite-sex couple, the state merely recognizes parentage.

In her essay in The Meaning of Marriage, Seana Sugrue argues that the state must coddle and protect same-sex “marriage” in ways that opposite-sex marriage does not require.

Precisely because same-sex unions are not the same as opposite-sex marriage, the state must intervene to make people believe (or at least make them act as if they believe) that the two types of unions are equivalent.

Public schools in California are soon going to be required to be “gay friendly.” A doctor has been sued because she didn’t want to perform an artificial insemination on a lesbian couple. A private school is in trouble for disciplining two female students for kissing. All in the name of supporting the rights of same-sex couples to “equality” with straight couples.

The fact that opposite- and same-sex couples are different in significant ways means that there will always be scope for the state to expand its reach into more and more private areas of more and more people’s lives.

Perhaps some people think it is okay to shut down Catholic adoption agencies, because the Catholics have it coming to them: The Church’s enemies are many. Perhaps some people don’t care for Methodists, and don’t care whether they lose their tax-exempt status.

But the Mennonites? These are the most inoffensive people on the planet. They have been pacifists for centuries. Their continued existence here in North America is a testimony to the strength of our ideals of religious tolerance and pluralism, in all the best senses of those terms. But now, in the name of equality of same-sex couples, the Mennonites are being driven out of Quebec.

Perhaps you think people have a natural civil right to marry the person of their choosing. But can you really force yourself to believe that wedding photography is a civil right?

Maybe you believe that same-sex couples are entitled to have children, somehow. But is any doctor they might encounter required to inseminate them?

Advocates of same-sex “marriage” insist that theirs is a modest reform: a mere expansion of marriage to include people currently excluded. But the price of same-sex “marriage” is a reduction in tolerance for everyone else, and an expansion of the power of the state.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: gay; homosexual; homosexualagenda; samesexmarriage; samesexunion
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Jennifer Roback Morse is the senior fellow in economics at the Acton Institute and the author of Love and Economics: It Takes a Family to Raise a Village, newly reissued in paperback.
1 posted on 06/06/2008 8:58:03 AM PDT by NYer
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To: Salvation; narses; SMEDLEYBUTLER; redhead; Notwithstanding; nickcarraway; Romulus; ...
Catholic Ping
Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list


2 posted on 06/06/2008 8:58:47 AM PDT by NYer (Ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ." - St. Jerome)
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To: NYer

Good article.


3 posted on 06/06/2008 9:06:43 AM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: NYer
The Gay Agenda folks are not really seeking equality. What they really want to do is outlaw your beliefs and your right to express them in society. That's what is behind the drive to impose same sex marriage upon the American people. Its not about extending a right; it about denying it to others.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

4 posted on 06/06/2008 9:08:03 AM PDT by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: trisham

Same Sex Marriage was used as the precedent to overturn Parental Notification Laws in MA.


5 posted on 06/06/2008 9:11:04 AM PDT by massgopguy (I owe everything to George Bailey)
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To: NYer

Pinging myself. Thanks for posting this, it’s good!


6 posted on 06/06/2008 9:13:07 AM PDT by republicanequestrian
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To: NYer
Related thread: Battling for America's Soul: How Homosexual "Marriage" Threatens Our Nation and Faith
7 posted on 06/06/2008 9:14:04 AM PDT by Pyro7480 ("If the angels could be jealous of men, they would be so for one reason: Holy Communion." -M. Kolbe)
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To: NYer

ping for later collection!


8 posted on 06/06/2008 9:14:19 AM PDT by rlmorel (Clinging bitterly to Guns and God in Massachusetts...:)
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To: NYer
Oops, bad link. Here's the real one: Battling for America's Soul: How Homosexual "Marriage" Threatens Our Nation and Faith
9 posted on 06/06/2008 9:15:13 AM PDT by Pyro7480 ("If the angels could be jealous of men, they would be so for one reason: Holy Communion." -M. Kolbe)
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To: goldstategop

You see the big picture.

Destruction of our society and traditional values,

starting with the destruction of the traditional family.

It is purposeful on the part of many of the left, and the rest are either lying or useful idiots.


10 posted on 06/06/2008 9:17:42 AM PDT by MrB (You can't reason people out of a position that they didn't use reason to get into in the first place)
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To: massgopguy
What was the justification? Do you know?
11 posted on 06/06/2008 9:23:25 AM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: NYer
the price of same-sex “marriage” is a reduction in tolerance for everyone else, and an expansion of the power of the state.

Quote of the week!! And spot on of exactly what it is all about.

12 posted on 06/06/2008 9:51:17 AM PDT by gidget7 (Duncan Hunter-Valley Forge Republican!)
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To: goldstategop

“Its not about extending a right; it about denying it to others.”

Amen!


13 posted on 06/06/2008 9:56:54 AM PDT by demshateGod (the GOP is dead to me)
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To: NYer
Because marriage is an organic part of civil society, it is robust enough to sustain itself, with minimal assistance from the state.

I agree. That's the way it should be.

Unfortunately, that's not reality. Marriage is a state institution. Participants must be licensed by the state, officiants must be certified by the state, and all ceremonies must be pre-approved by the state.

Even when performed in a church, by a man of the cloth, it is done "by the power vested in me by the state of ______".

I'd love to see it taken back from the state. But until then, it is a wholly secular institution, in which the participation of churches is allowed but not required.

14 posted on 06/06/2008 10:22:27 AM PDT by highball ("I never should have switched from scotch to martinis." -- the last words of Humphrey Bogart)
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To: MrB; goldstategop; trisham; massgopguy
You see the big picture. Destruction of our society and traditional values, starting with the destruction of the traditional family.

Absolutely! Archbishop Fulton Sheen used to say that a truth is still a truth no matter how many people deny it. The Catholic Church has always recognized this with regard to homosexual unions.

Vatican Document on Homosexual Unions

Homosexual unions are totally lacking in the biological and anthropological elements of marriage and family which would be the basis, on the level of reason, for granting them legal recognition. Such unions are not able to contribute in a proper way to the procreation and survival of the human race. The possibility of using recently discovered methods of artificial reproduction, beyond involving a grave lack of respect for human dignity,(15) does nothing to alter this inadequacy.

CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING PROPOSALS TO GIVE LEGAL RECOGNITION TO UNIONS BETWEEN HOMOSEXUAL PERSONS

15 posted on 06/06/2008 10:50:59 AM PDT by NYer (Ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ." - St. Jerome)
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To: highball
I'd love to see it taken back from the state. But until then, it is a wholly secular institution, in which the participation of churches is allowed but not required.

In addition to being a religious institution marriage is a legal contract between two people that involves issues concerning money and property ownership, among other things involving legal issues in which government has a legitimate interest. Without some degree of government regulation marriage could be defined by any religious group, including those which believe in multiple marriage partners or anything else that some self-styled "messiah" such as Jim Jones or David Koresh decided would be appropriate.

Regulation of marriage by a religious body was right and proper for Israel during the time when Israel's laws were handed down to the people by God through the office of the Levitical priesthood, and through individuals chosen by God during the pre-kingdom era when Israel was governed by divinely appointed judges. But I think most of us can agree that many of the present laws created by our current secular government would not have been approved by God if He had been consulted.

Having said all that, let me say that I am totally opposed to the unGodly corruption of the holy institution of marriage that is being foisted on the vast majority of the American people by an out of control judiciary which is not accountable to the people. The MA and CA judicial rulings are just one more outrage against the moral laws established thousands of years ago by divine decree, and IMHO America will pay dearly for allowing this intolerable insult to God and His beneficence to our nation become the law of even a portion of our once great land.

16 posted on 06/06/2008 11:10:42 AM PDT by epow (The question is not "Is God on America's side." but "Is America on God's side?")
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To: epow
In addition to being a religious institution marriage is a legal contract between two people that involves issues concerning money and property ownership, among other things involving legal issues in which government has a legitimate interest. Without some degree of government regulation marriage could be defined by any religious group, including those which believe in multiple marriage partners or anything else that some self-styled "messiah" such as Jim Jones or David Koresh decided would be appropriate.

True enough, I suppose. Limiting it to recognized religions still opens the door to governmental control of a sort, though it'd be a start.

Still, so long as it's a governmental institution we can't complain when the state decides to redefine the terms of the contract.

and IMHO America will pay dearly for allowing this intolerable insult to God and His beneficence to our nation become the law of even a portion of our once great land.

Now I can't agree with you. That's what Falwell and Robertson said after 9/11, that we brought it on ourselves or God allowed it to happen to us or some nonsense. More blame-America-first crap.

17 posted on 06/06/2008 11:38:17 AM PDT by highball ("I never should have switched from scotch to martinis." -- the last words of Humphrey Bogart)
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To: NYer
Legalizing same-sex “marriage” has brought in its wake state regulation of other parts of society.

This needs to be repeated for libertarian-minded people indifferent to such things. This is a grab for government power by LGBT activists and the progressives for whom they are mascots. Call it a lawyer full-employment program.

18 posted on 06/06/2008 11:52:48 AM PDT by Dumb_Ox (http://kevinjjones.blogspot.com)
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To: MrB

28 Communist Goals

          The following goals of the Communist Party, USA were entered into the Congressional Record on January 10, 1963:

1.  U.S. acceptance of peaceful co-existence with communism.
         
2.  U.S. promises to surrender rather than engage in atomic war.
         
3.  U.S. acceptance of the premise that total disarmament would be a sign of moral strength.
         
4.  “Free trade” with communist nations.
         
5.  Long-term “loans” to Russia and communist satellites.
         
6.  Foreign aid to communist nations.
         
7.  United Nations recognition of Red China.
         
8.  UN representation for each of the Soviet satellites.
         
9.  Acceptnce of the UN as mankind’s “only hope.”
         
10.  The use of court decisions to undermine the constitutional rights of Americans.
       
11.  Using the public schools to teach socialist and communist propaganda, and to “dumb down” students.
         
12.  Communist control of campus newspapers.
         
13.  Use of student riots to trigger public protests against U.S. policies.
         
14.  Infiltration of the press.
         
15.  Control of mass media.
         
16.  The degradation of American culture and art.
         
17.  Controlling art critics and museum directors to promote ugly, repulsive, and meaningless art forms.
         
18.  Repeal of all laws banning obsenity.
         
19.  Promotion of pornography and obsenity in the mass media.
         
20  Establishing homosexuality as normal and natural.
         
21.  Infiltrate churches to replace revealed religion with the “social Gospel” and deny the truths of scripture.
         
22.  Banish all prayer from public schools.

23.  Discredit the Constitution as old fashioned and a hindrance to international cooperation.
         
24.  Discredit the founding fathers as slave-owning aristocrats who despised the common man.
         
25.  Promote all movements aiming to centralize government control over cultural and social agencies.
         
26.  Transfer arrest powers from the police to social agencies and reduce all behavioral problems to matters only a psychiatrist can handle; for example, arresting and imprisoning parents who use corporal punishment or home-school their children.
         
27.  Infiltrate the psychiatric profession and use it to promote “mental health” laws to oppress those who oppose social disintegration caused by the Communist program.
         
28.  Undermine the institution of the family, encourage promiscuity, and easy divorce.


19 posted on 06/06/2008 12:34:48 PM PDT by itsahoot (We will have world government. The only question is whether by conquest or consent.)
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To: itsahoot

There are actually 45 of them, entered into the Congressional record in 1963.

Google:
communist goals 1963 congressional record

Amazing, isn’t it, how many of these are actually being accomplished, especially the social goals.


20 posted on 06/06/2008 12:38:07 PM PDT by MrB (You can't reason people out of a position that they didn't use reason to get into in the first place)
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