Posted on 08/19/2010 6:18:04 AM PDT by throwback
Together with my good friend and occasional courtroom adversary David Boies, I am attempting to persuade a federal court to invalidate California's Proposition 8—the voter-approved measure that overturned California's constitutional right to marry a person of the same sex.
My involvement in this case has generated a certain degree of consternation among conservatives. How could a politically active, lifelong Republican, a veteran of the Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush administrations, challenge the "traditional" definition of marriage and press for an "activist" interpretation of the Constitution to create another "new" constitutional right?
My answer to this seeming conundrum rests on a lifetime of exposure to persons of different backgrounds, histories, viewpoints, and intrinsic characteristics, and on my rejection of what I see as superficially appealing but ultimately false perceptions about our Constitution and its protection of equality and fundamental rights.
Many of my fellow conservatives have an almost knee-jerk hostility toward gay marriage. This does not make sense, because same-sex unions promote the values conservatives prize. Marriage is one of the basic building blocks of our neighborhoods and our nation. At its best, it is a stable bond between two individuals who work to create a loving household and a social and economic partnership. We encourage couples to marry because the commitments they make to one another provide benefits not only to themselves but also to their families and communities. Marriage requires thinking beyond one's own needs. It transforms two individuals into a union based on shared aspirations, and in doing so establishes a formal investment in the well-being of society. The fact that individuals who happen to be gay want to share in this vital social institution is evidence that conservative ideals enjoy widespread acceptance. Conservatives should celebrate this, rather than lament it.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
“They are also perversions that will demand rights after having been emboldened by a win of other rights for aberrant behavior.”
-Just like upity blacks if we give them their freedom...next they’ll want to learn to read, then vote, then own businesses...where will it end? (sarc)
“Rome was a Republic that fell because aberrant behavior became the norm. It thrust the world into the Dark Ages for 1000 years. Wanna do it again?”
Hmmm. You summed that up nicely...you forgot that good christians with many of your views actually became the civil order during that 1000 years where we lived in the dark...sounds like we might have a fair shot of reapeating those 1000 years with whomever gets the upper hand in this argument.
And rightfully, so, as they recognized that marriage, as ordained by God, is fundamental for the perpetuation for a civilized society.
What an absurd statement. Moral relativism like this is why the GOP is dying.
If you don't stand up for something you'll fall for anything; Exhibit A.
We don’t want a repeat of the Dark Ages just so deviants can feel good about themselves and force others to accept them. Thanks.
That argument doesn't work. We are talking about a BEHAVIOR.
This is right out of the "Gay Rights" handbook. Quit pushing the gay crap. It WILL get you banned.
They were NOT born homosexual. It is a behavior.
any tinkering with it by man is simply for greed, or to attempt to avoid repentence for their own past & current sexual indiscretions...
today i know that I broke the rules given to me in Spirit, and accept that, because Im an imperfect human, and allow God to repair that damage according to HIS WILL and Plans for the ages...
the folly of man knows no bounds...
I believe Olson is a conservative in his tight interpretation of the original intent of the constitutional and declarational goal of this nation, that all men (and by extension, women)are created equal. I believe Olson makes a solid reasoning for how denial of government sanctioned opportunities and advantages (and disadvantages as in the marriage tax), ought not be denied to one group of people versus another because of how they self identify.
To use situational ethics to overcome the clearest and strongest tenant of the central faith of our great republic reduces us to the civic equivalent of “cafeteria Catholics” picking and choosing which things we truly believe in and rationalizing away which are unsavory to us. It produces things like 1/8 human, or Octaroons or people as chattel or separate but equal...all used by occupants of a particular era to cocoon themselves in denial, deprive their neighbors of dignity and hide their faces from universal truth. Lincoln said it, Olson repeated it and it deserves to be shouted loud enough to echo through history:
IT WILL NOT STAND! IT WILL NOT STAND!
We all had better get used to it.
Denying rights to individuals we deem somehow less than ourselves will not stand.
Your statement is not correct. Many early civilizations thought the world was round. In fact, in 1491 most scientists thought the world was round. Columbus thought the world was much smaller than it actually was and thought by sailing west he could reach the East Indies. His opponents argued the world was round but much larger than Columbus thought and that a voyage to the East Indies would be too far to undertake.
Your larger point that homosexuality is in some way new and innovative is also false. Homosexuality is as old as Sodom and Gomorrah. It has been widespread in the declining days of the Roman Empire and was widely accepted in modern societies such as Germany in the 1930’s. The Brownshirts were a homosexual organization and many of the top National Socialists were homosexuals.
“Allowing more immorality will make things better? No.”
-Then set your energies to putting your own house in order before you start after the house across the street. You collectively have made a mockery of the sacrament of marriage and now you come before us to defend it. You collectively should all be ashamed of yourselves.
Hardly, since they are using the government's involvement to legitimize their claims. They want government involved to ensure their claims are honored as legal.
When government can define through the force of law what marriage (or any sacred institution) is, that institution has lost its sanctity. Even captains at sea still use bibles to perform marriage and funeral services.
so the other half that succeed can appreciate the Blessing ???
Your beliefs are leftist progressive.
So you are pushing the homosexual agenda. Btw, I have been married for forty years. We still hold hands.
‘Denying rights’ is #1 on the pro-gay-marriage hit parade.
‘Deny’ means that something is being withheld or revoked.
‘Rights’ are, of course, those inalienable (?) things we spend so much time on here and elsewhere. The Constitution and Bill of Rights enumerate some of them but they are far from an all-inclusive list.
This is why the definition of marriage is the crucial item. Playing the game of what is a right and what isn’t and who is being denied and who isn’t does not lead to a binary decision on what constitutes marriage which is the crux of the issue. If we define marriage as being between one man and one woman then nothing is being denied and no rights are being infringed because ‘gay marriage’ in theory and in practice cannot and does not exist.
bfl
You are trying to make a case that because someone thought their religious views justified thinking blacks are lesser humans by birth, (the Bible says all men are of one blood and does not mention the word race), that the norming of homosexuality and the redefinition of marriage is justified.
If you want to redefine marriage as not between a man and a woman, but between 'two individuals', then I would like to know why you would not approve of the marriage between 4 individuals or between a baker's dozen of enlightened individuals?
Even you would draw the line somewhere I assume?
Please don't be shallow in your explanation, and don't be a hypocrite who is wanting to create the perception that fifteen people who want to get married as one cluster and demand moral justification are a 'less legitimate social class'.
Jim,
If you are serious, if you do not want open discourse, if you only want us to pat each other on the back and tell us we are right and the rest of the world is stupid, then close down all the dissenters.
You are free to block my posting privileges. But then, what kind of a forum do you really have? I have been here under two names. I first came to your sight for the truth about what was happening with this young woman at the White House, Ms. Monica Lewinsky. I have been here under one of those two names ever since. I came here for the truth.
There are always three sides to the truth: your version, my version and the actual truth which lies somewhere in between. If you believe that eliminating one of those sides improves our chances at finding truth, then shut me down. However, while I am a strict Roman Catholic and believe in the sanctity of marriage, I do not believe we garner a deeper understanding of what that really means by closing down the opinions of those who disagree with us. Nor do I believe that denying others their dignity and rights under the spirit of the constitution is the root to a stronger celebration of that Holy Sacrament.
As an American, I too believe that individuals should prosper from their inginuity and imagination but not on the sweat and backs of the enslaved. Our deep held convictions do not become hardened through denial of rights or opinions. To love marriage and to love equality are not mutually exclusive and only by spirited discussion will we ever arrive at an accomodation of both (the truth). If you wish to sensor me out of a true discourse, by all means do so. I would gladly become an internet martyr and a minor patriot for this endeavor for I truly believe that without free speech there is no Free Republic anyway.
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