Posted on 12/01/2008 7:06:11 AM PST by Publius804
“Same Sex Marriage” and Its Threat to Religious Liberty
November 29th, 2008
by Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Tactics used by gay marriage campaigners confirm believers’ worst fears.
As wildfires blazed in California last week, anger at the outcome of the state’s referendum on marriage blazed across the country. After a hard-fought campaign over Proposition 8, which defined marriage as the union of a man and a woman, a clear majority of California voters endorsed it, and the gay marriage lobby was enraged.
Now, as same sex marriage campaigners take the issue back to the courts, it is unclear what the outcome of this battle will be. Will their demands trump the democratic process? It has happened before.
What is clearer than ever is that same sex marriage threatens religious liberty. Disagreement over the extent of that threat played a key role in the debate over Proposition 8. As an independent consultant to the campaign, I must say that the post-election behavior of the opponents of Prop 8 does not reassure religious believers.
The editor of a new book, Same Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty: Emerging Conflicts, summarizes the general issue this way: “All six contributors (to the book) — religious and secular, left, center and right — agree that same sex marriage is a threat to religious liberty.” The demand for same sex marriage brings in its wake a demand for identical treatment of same sex couples and opposite sex couples. Churches that resist this demand can have their tax exempt status challenged, can be investigated by “human rights commissions,” and can have parts of their operation shut down completely.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicexchange.com ...
In the future, stating that homosexual behavior is wrong or inferior, or maybe even stating that it is not superior to heterosexual behavior,
will be considered a crime punishable by the government.
It is this way in Canada already.
Why do they call it “same sex”? Call it “homosexual” marriages and get it over with. I’m so tired of “same sex” and “gay” being used to describe a disgusting, filthy life style.
Churches may as well get used to the idea of losing tax status. That will cost churches a lot of money. Getting shut down altogether, however is a worse fate. We may have to return to the underground Quo Vadis-type of church.
And then there's AIDS, the disease that we're paying for because of these deviants.
How do you judge something "without religion"? "If everyone did it...what would happen??? "The human race would be wiped out".
some one posted yesterday that in England, civil unions could be had for both homosexual and heterosexual couples.
This elimianates the marriage aspect altogether and lets religions deal with marriage.
Good article. The harassment of others who supported Prop. 8 is also very significant, although not specifically related to the religious liberty issue.
The Sex Positive Agenda as pushed by socialists like Reich, Kinsey, and Feminists seeks to end ALL moral judgements over sexual pairings regardless of sex, age, relation, marital status, number, or species of partner(s).
It is subversion of the culture.
For now we should all be content that we still have same species marriage. The interspecies barrier has been broken in terms of sex partners and now we wait for the courageous individual who will step forward to make the sacrifice for interspecies marriage. We should begin the education process in 1st grade to prepare children to humbly accept the destruction of the interspecies barrier.
“And then there’s AIDS, the disease that we’re paying for because of these deviants.”
It isn’t just aids my friend. There are a dozen other diseases and the biggest threat is the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria generated by the vectors of AIDS. Note the appearance of antibiotic resistant strains of TB, Staph, Strep, Gonorrhea, and Syphilis—courtesy of our great gay community as a gift to the heterosexual community.
Even the word “homo-sexual” is a made-up clinical term from Germany, barely 100 years old, reflecting a theory that there was a “third sex.”
The traditional term has been someone guilty of “sodomy” or older still, a “bugger” who practiced “buggery.”
Thomas Jefferson argued states should rescind the death penalty for such behavior...
That would be the best thing that ever happened to the church in America. It was fear of th IRS that kept the church quiet while the gummint took over it’s social obligation of charity. Now look where we are. The step that can return us to “homeostasis” is the gummint’s overreaching. Get the gummint out of the church and we can start unraveling the rest of the crap that passes for gummint for the last 100 yrs.
I believe the left will go for the removal of stigma (and criminal penalties) for pedophilia before they go for “interspecies” marriage.
Government-recognized/regulated/licensed marriage of any kind is a threat to religious liberty. Remember mandatory blood tests with “bad” results used to deny a marriage license? And miscegenation laws? And in China, the government only recognizes/regulates/licenses one-man-one-woman marriage, but it has set the minimum age to conform not to a government interest in protecting children, but to serve the government’s population control program. And here in the US, government-marriage is a key part of socialist schemes to control taxation and inheritance, and to coerce employers into providing medical insurance (itself heavily government-regulated) for more people than they employ.
“This elimianates the marriage aspect altogether and lets religions deal with marriage.”
Below find 2 different postings addressing the faulty idea that marriage can be JUST a religious doctrine, separated from the state. No matter what you call it, marriage IS a civil union—which is why remaining states should not even consider granting “civil union” status to homosexuals, let alone marriage. Both are legally the same....since Law itself is a great teacher—both confer state approval—and social privileges on an inherently immoral, destructive lifestyle.
The reason church-only marriages were viable in the past, is that the church itself had legal authority—which today—by constitutional necessity in America, it does not.
Legal authority is involved in all kinds of issues (most issues) in which anyone in (or formerly in) a marital relationship is involved. These issues are more profound and affecting of us all than any mere contractual relationship....Yes, marriage is a secular (and sacred) contract, (or really compact), but it is a special kind of contract.
There is no benefit to society at large in homosexual “marriage” (as they produce no children) and, actually health of children is an issue—since recognition of homosexual partnerships (be they called married or not) means homosexual adoption—and the vast majority of studies indicate childrens’ psychological health is best in a traditional male/female married family. Also, a stat completly hidden by the homosexual apologists, is that rates of abuse, sexual and otherwise are far (far) more common amidst homosexual couples than heterosexual ones. To everyone’s social benefit, this is not a neutral issue.
This is largely a symbolic argument anyway, especially regarding California. Homosexuals ALREADY had legal recognition for their partnerships—it just wasn’t named “marriage” in law. The reason the sexually perverse have raised such a ruckus there is that they don’t merely want protection of law, they want formal, enforceable legal approval—recognized at all levels (starting in the schools...and churches).
As a student of ethics, I for one, do not see how we can have a stable society when law backs up essentially immoral, unstable, and self-abusive relationships. As Allen Keyes has well said, “there is no right, to do wrong.”
This only makes sense if rights are understood to be created by God, not “given” by the government...as what the government gives, it can take away too. Therefore I oppose all legal recognition, be it in partnerships or not, of homosexual “unions.” However, California at least is one step down the muddy slope past that—and the real agenda is shown—forcing homosexual perversity on all of society—religion, and religious freedom, be d*mned.
I must admit, libertarian philosophy completely breaks down when addressing this topic.
“Privitizing” marriage is about as silly an idea as privitizing drivers’ licenses. Marriage, by definition, always and everywhere in human society, is a PUBLIC, LEGALLY ENFORCEABLE SET OF COMMITMENTS. Like driver’s licenses—but in more profound and subtle ways—these public commitments effect everyone around them—and society as a whole. Responsibilities for children, inheritance issues, support issues, divorce issues—virtually all aspects of life involving money or relationships—all overseen by law—are crafted by the institution of marriage.
The whole reason marriage is today a secular institution, comes out of the ideas of the earliest Protestants—who understood that whether one had a “Christian” wedding or not (as defined by the church), for society to be stable, all marriages were just as valid—and had universally consistant law behind them. Society cannot be stable if one set of rules applied to the Hindus next-door, another for the Moslems across the street, and another for ourselves.
In early America, before marriage licenses, churches and minsters were highly repected essential parts of the community—and most everyone at least professed to be Christian, at least publically. When the minister signed the family bible, that a marriage was performed, all the legal institutions backed that up—and for a number of reasons, divorce (with all its messy property division issues) was also extremely rare.
Not so in modern America. There are all kinds of wacky, unprofessional ministers out there—and marriage would not be consistent if “just” the church(es) (and Temple, and Mosque, and commune, and sea captain.....) oversaw it. Do you go to the church to get a divorce? Unless you’re Roman Catholic, no. Do you go to the church to sort out a will? Do you go to the church to figure out custody? Do you go to the church if your wife’s father beats you up? Do you go to the church to adopt a kid? Etc. etc. NO! All these things which involve, in one way or another, marriage, also involve the law...and with law enforcement comes government.
You cannot have private, closed, secret agreements, and expect them to be recognized, and backed up by the law...and the government. When people say they want marriage “privitized” that’s exactly what they are saying.
Again, BY DEFINITION Marriage is a set of PUBLIC, LEGALLY ENFORCEABLE COMMITMENTS between ONE MAN AND ONE WOMAN. Make it more complex than that—by making it all varying forms of contract, and you’ll make our courts system—and society at large—explode.
Agreed. Homosexuals in the gay areas have been getting away with pedophilia for decades. This practice is part and parcel to the lifestyle and has been since ancient Rome. .
“I believe the left will go for the removal of stigma (and criminal penalties) for pedophilia before they go for “interspecies” marriage.”
They have already begun. For starters, the term “sexual orientation,” which is the basis for the anti-discrimination and hate crime laws, is NOT limited to same-sex orientation. It can be any sexual orientation. I remember a story out of Indiana (I think that’s the state) a few years ago. A dad assaulted another man who had molested the dad’s daughter. The dad was charged with a “sexual orientation” hate crime.
The homosexuals started the process about 30 years ago by publishing articles in the psychiatric journals to the effect that, if homosexuals were happy with their orientation, there was nothing wrong with it. That was follows by the elimination of homosexuality from the DSM.
A few years ago, an article was published in the journal of the APA saying that, if pedophiles were happy with their orientation, it should not be considered deviant. At that time, there was a bit of a public kerfuffle about the article, but it will be back.
Also, there is a move on the left to promote the idea that kids have a “right” to sexual expression. It is one of the underlying themes of the North American Man Boy Love Association’s propaganda. I have also seen our government, under the Clintons, take the same position at the UN, when they were pushing for lowering the age of consent.
Of course, the only ones who benefit from a lowered age of consent are the adults who want to have sex with minors. Minors can already have sex with each other. The age of consent laws don’t affect that. Age of consent laws just keep adults from having sex with kids. The US was behind a push at the UN to lower age of consent laws, arguing that kids had a right to choose an older sex partner.
The UN treaty has the Orwellian title of “International Rights of the Child”.
It is a very anti-parent, anti-family doctrine.
But of course, what would you expect from people with the worldview that their “reason” in their own individual minds should take precedent over the accumulated knowledge of centuries of human civilization.
You are absolutely right. I remember after the Columbine massacre, when Clinton and Gore were going around giving speeches about how parents needed to monitor and control their adolescents’ internet usage, and monitor and control their adolescents’ associations with others.
At the same time, Clinton and Gore were pushing for ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Their two positions were mutually exclusive, since the CRC give children a “right” to read what they want and associate with whomever they want, regardless of what their parents say.
With one exception, responsibilities for children are not governed by government-marriage; the one exception is that courts will (per common law pre-dating DNA testing by several centuries) hold a married man responsible for financial support of any child born to his government-wife while they were married, regardless of who the actual father is, and continuing until the child reaches adulthood (sometimes even through college) even after a divorce.
Spousal support and divorce terms are determined on a case by case basis by the courts; the existence of a government-marriage license does not guarantee any level of support whatsoever.
Inheritance? So you think the government should control what you do with what's left of your hard-earned money after all the taxes you were forced to pay? Your spouse ran around having affair after affair, while your sibling took care of your elderly parents with Alzheimer's, but the government should be able to dictate that your spouse can inherit $X amount tax free, but every dime you leave to your sibling gets hit with estate tax? Somehow this doesn't sound like freedom to me.
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