Posted on 08/12/2010 9:53:56 AM PDT by Kaslin
When one judge overturned the will of more then seven million Californians last week in Perry vs. Schwarzenegger, he listed 80 supposed “findings of fact” (FF) as evidence that Proposition 8 violates the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Many of those 80 findings are not facts at all. They’re lies or distortions.
Before we address the top ten false “facts” asserted by Judge Vaughn Walker, there is one real fact in his opinion that defeats the entire case for his opinion. Here it is:
“The evidence at trial shows that marriage in the United States traditionally has not been open to same-sex couples.”
Since that fact is unquestionably true, how can Judge Walker honestly declare that Proposition 8 violates the Fourteenth Amendment? Certainly no one in 1868 intended the Fourteenth Amendment to redefine marriage. Only the most tyrannical form of judicial activism can get Judge Walker to his conclusion.
Second, Prop 8 doesn’t violate the Fourteenth Amendment because every person in America already has equal marriage rights. We’re all playing by the same rules—we all have the same right to marry any non-related adult of the opposite sex. Those rules do not deny anyone “equal protection of the laws” because the qualifications to enter a marriage apply equally to everyone—every adult person has the same right to marry.
What about homosexuals? That leads us to Judge Walker’s first false “fact.”
1. “Sexual orientation is fundamental to a person’s identity and is a distinguishing characteristic that defines gays and lesbians as a discrete group.” (FF 44) This is the most important of the false facts because Walker’s entire case collapses without it. The “fact” is false because it ignores the difference between desires and behavior.
Having certain sexual desires—whether you were “born” with them or acquired them sometime in life—does not mean that you are being discriminated against if the law doesn’t allow the behavior you desire. Good laws discriminate against behavior. They do not discriminate against people. If Walker’s false “fact” was a real fact, we’d have to redefine marriage to include not just same sex couples, but also relatives, multiple partners, children or any other sexual relationship people desire. After all, those are “sexual orientations” too.
In other words, there should be no legal class of “gay” or “straight,” just a legal class called “person.” And it doesn’t matter whether persons desire sex with the same or opposite sex, or whether they desire sex with children, parents, multiple partners or farm animals. What matters is whether the behavior desired is something the country should prohibit, permit or promote. And that’s a job for the people, not judges.
2. “California has no interest in asking gays and lesbians to change their sexual orientation or in reducing the number of gays and lesbians in California.” (FF 47) Other than helping them avoid disease and live longer, absolutely no reason. As I document here, health problems are higher and life spans shorter for homosexuals. This has touched me personally (and perhaps someone you know as well)—a childhood friend of mine died from AIDS at the age of 36. How is it wise public policy to endorse behavior that leads to such tragic results? That’s exactly what same-sex marriage does—it endorses homosexual behavior, which results in serious health problems and shorter life spans. Permitting unhealthy behavior is one thing, but endorsing it is quite another.
But won’t same-sex marriage help reduce gay health issues? Not likely. See Judge Walker’s next false fact.
3. “Same-sex couples are identical to opposite-sex couples in the characteristics relevant to the ability to form successful marital unions.” (FF 48) What does “successful” mean? It has nothing to do with children according to Judge Walker. In his “the stork brings children” universe, marriage is merely about coupling; procreation is just incidental to it. He thinks a “successful” marriage is merely about commitment, but he can’t even support that case.
In another instance of special pleading, Judge Walker ignores the evidence that at least half of committed homosexual relationships are open as even the New York Times reported. (Other studies found even higher rates of promiscuity and infidelity.) This is so well known it’s a travesty that Judge Walker claims exactly the opposite is true. The Times reported, “None of this is news in the gay community, but few will speak publicly about it. Of the dozen people in open relationships contacted for this column, no one would agree to use his or her full name, citing privacy concerns. They also worried that discussing the subject could undermine the legal fight for same-sex marriage.” Maybe Judge Walker was worried too, and that’s why he didn’t bother mentioning this real fact with his false facts.
4. “Permitting same-sex couples to marry will not affect the number of opposite-sex couples who marry, divorce, cohabit, have children outside of marriage or otherwise affect the stability of opposite-sex marriages.” (FF 55) Judge Walker cites just four years of data from Massachusetts to make that sweeping conclusion about the most important relationship in human civilization. The truth is that evidence from other countries over a much longer period shows a mutually reinforcing relationship between same-sex marriage and illegitimacy. And the disastrous results of 40 years of liberalized divorce laws show how monumentally important marriage laws are to the health of marriages, children, and the nation.
5. “Proposition 8 does not affect the First Amendment rights of those opposed to marriage for same-sex couples.” (FF 62) It’s too bad Judge Walker didn’t look to evidence from Massachusetts for this false fact. If he had he would have seen that court-imposed same-sex marriage has severely affected First Amendment rights. Same sex marriage may not affect heterosexual marriage behavior quickly, but it certainly affects the free exercise of religion very quickly.
Parents in Massachusetts now have no right to know when their children are being taught homosexuality in grades as low as Kindergarten, neither can they opt their kids out (one parent was even jailed overnight for protesting this). Businesses are now forced to give benefits to same-sex couples regardless of any moral or religious objection the business owner may have. The government also ordered Catholic Charities to give children to homosexuals wanting to adopt. As a result, Catholic Charities closed their adoption agency rather than submit to an immoral order. Unfortunately, children are again the victims of the morality that comes with same-sex marriage.
“But you can’t legislate morality!” some say. Nonsense. Not only do all laws legislate morality, sometimes immorality is imposed by judges against the will of the people and in violation of religious rights. There is no neutral ground here. Either we will have freedom of religion and conscience, or we will be forced to adhere to the whims of judges who declare that their own distorted view of morality supersedes our rights—rights that our founders declared self-evident.
Think I’m overreacting? If this decision survives and nullifies all democratically decided laws in the 45 states that preserve natural marriage, religious rights violations in Massachusetts will go nationwide. In fact, it’s poised to happen already at the federal level. President Obama recently appointed gay activist Chai Feldblum to the EEOC. Speaking of the inevitable conflict between religious rights and so-called gay rights, Feldblum said, “I’m having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win.”
Part 2, with five more false “facts,” tomorrow.
This is an excellent article that is doing exactly the right thing about Walker’s so-called “facts’ that are supposed to be the heart of his case.
If a judge can arbitrarily declare it a fact that a zebra is a donkey, does that make it so?
God does not look kindly on nations which proactively embrace abomination. They are left to the worst devices, which always come to pass. No need for purging evangelicals, no need for inquisitors. Nations that intentionally become perverted destroy themselves, at a pace they are not quite likely to notice, though those watching will be quite able to tell what is happening.
Will the Catholic Church close their doors to gays rather than submit to a government order that gay marriages be performed within? Their first responsibility is to be to a particular flock
Whatever happened to "separation between church and state" ? ;)
Civil marriage is the legal concept or contractual agreement into marriage within a governmental institution. Marriage within a church should be determined by that religious affiliation to whether or not the union can be blessed as in Roman Catholics define Marriage as a sacrament ordained by God, signifying the mystical marriage of Christ to his Church.
Bishop Ignatius of Antioch writing around 110 to bishop Polycarp of Smyrna exhorts, "[I]t becomes both men and women who marry, to form their union with the approval of the bishop, that their marriage may be according to God, and not after their own lust."
Leave it to John Calvin and his Protestant colleagues who reformulated Christian marriage by enacting the Marriage Ordinance of Geneva, which imposed "The dual requirements of state registration and church consecration to constitute marriage for recognition (personal status change, owning property, chattel - the little wife)
A union between persons that is recognized by custom or religious tradition as a marriage- mar·riage n.
bttt
-4. “Permitting same-sex couples to marry will not affect the number of opposite-sex couples who marry, divorce, cohabit, have children outside of marriage or otherwise affect the stability of opposite-sex marriages.”-
___________________________________________________________
Defining Marriage Down . . .
is no way to save it.
BY DAVID BLANKENHORN
April 2, 2007, Vol. 12, No. 28
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/451noxve.asp?page=2
When it comes to the health of marriage as an institution and the legal status of same-sex unions, there is much to be gained from giving up the search for causation and studying some recurring patterns in the data......
Take the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), a collaborative effort of universities in over 40 countries. It interviewed about 50,000 adults in 35 countries in 2002. What is useful for our purposes is that respondents were asked whether they agreed or disagreed with six statements that directly relate to marriage as an institution:
1. Married people are generally happier than unmarried people.
2. People who want children ought to get married.
3. One parent can bring up a child as well as two parents together.
4. It is all right for a couple to live together without intending to get married.
5. Divorce is usually the best solution when a couple can’t seem to work out their marriage problems.
6. The main purpose of marriage these days is to have children.
Let’s stipulate that for statements one, two, and six, an “agree” answer indicates support for traditional marriage as an authoritative institution. Similarly, for statements three, four, and five, let’s stipulate that agreement indicates a lack of support, or less support, for traditional marriage.
Then divide the countries surveyed into four categories: those that permit same-sex marriage; those that permit same-sex civil unions (but not same-sex marriage); those in which some regions permit same-sex marriage; and those that do not legally recognize same-sex unions.
The correlations are strong. Support for marriage is by far the weakest in countries with same-sex marriage. The countries with marriage-like civil unions show significantly more support for marriage. The two countries with only regional recognition of gay marriage (Australia and the United States) do better still on these support-for-marriage measurements, and those without either gay marriage or marriage-like civil unions do best of all.....
A similar exercise using data from a different survey yields similar results. The World Values Survey, based in Stockholm, Sweden, periodically interviews nationally representative samples of the publics of some 80 countries on six continents—over 100,000 people in all—on a range of issues. It contains three statements directly related to marriage as an institution:
1. A child needs a home with both a father and a mother to grow up happily.
2. It is all right for a woman to want a child but not a stable relationship with a man.
3. Marriage is an outdated institution.
Again grouping the countries according to the legal status of same-sex unions, the data from the 1999-2001 wave of interviews yield a clear pattern. Support for marriage as an institution is weakest in those countries with same-sex marriage. Countries with same-sex civil unions show more support, and countries with regional recognition show still more. By significant margins, support for marriage is highest in countries that extend no legal recognition to same-sex unions.
Well, we do know God's position on the matter.
Leviticus 20:13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
Let me guess - Muslim countries? Oh, I forgot, Iran has no gays..
The main point that unites ALL Conservatives is that this is an issue for the people, through their legislators, not judges, to decide.
The people of California had already provided the most expansive Civil Union law in the nation, specifying that it provided all rights of such civil partners as equal to the rights of married spouses, in every regard.
The California Supreme Court dictators attempted to invalidate that law on the basis that it did not establish “gay marriage” as a right.
So “equal rights” were not, in fact, at stake.
The Prop 8 vote, following that ruling, was as much a vote against judicial dictatorships as it was anything else.
the homosexual judge was setting this up for a full faith and credit attack.
civil unions and the like are only valid in THOSE states.
Marriage is valid in all.
This homosexual judge wants to impose by his will of sexual fetish the anything goes marriage on all states.
“Judge Walker ignores the evidence that at least half of committed homosexual relationships are open...”
Walker was constrained to consider the evidence offered by the two sides at the trial. The defense screwed this thing up royally by calling only two witnesses, neither of whom was well-qualified for what they were testifying about, and introducing virtually no evidence. They will have to do better at the Supreme Court.
Yep, that would be the stance I was thinking God would take, then and now.
As I said, judicial dictators are THE issue in ALL this.
Left to the people, there will be different approaches to this issue, but no single approach should be dictated to everyone, just because some judges say so.
Why, like Roe-V-Wade have the radical “progressives” taken the judicial route?
Because, they know they don’t have the votes - just as they didn’t on abortion - not like the votes that were found for Womens’ Suffrage (right to vote).
The difference is - as in the case with Womens’ Suffrage, and unlike with abortion and “gay marriage”, when “Constitutional change” is instituted BY THE PEOPLE, then the people quickly become satisfied with the result and move on, and the divisions are no longer active in political life.
When the judges dictate change without Constitutional foundation and specifically to impose their idea that it is simply time for the people to change, the divisions in society remain, the issue remains divisive and our politics continue to be animated by those divisions, often to the detriment of getting other issues resolved.
How about the idea that a "gay marriage" is a marriage just because a judge says it should be?
Quite right. At the federal level, Article I, Section 1 grants all legislative powers to Congress. Judge Walker made law, an unconstitutional act for which he should be removed.
Wait and see what the author has to say in part II. Don’t be so impatient
Ignatius, Polycarp, and John Calvin never got over on English common law, which requires nothing of the sort -- and, in a free society, shouldn't.
Nevertheless, this is a good article that refutes the activist, crooked judge and refutes his inventions of both jurisprudence and "fact". Wings strapped on a horse do not a mythical Pegasus make, and calling homosexual shack-ups and copulations "marriage" never made it so.
Bump for clarifying the stakes. The gays won't stop until they're burning down Baptist churches with the congregants locked inside.
This is all about forcing believers to recant the divine abomination of homosexuality. They won't, and the homosexuals will go nuclear in their vindictiveness.
Who didn't see this coming a long time ago, if gays win it all?
This is just the foam on top of over 30 years of human sacrifice.
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