Posted on 08/22/2011 10:21:04 AM PDT by HerbieHoover
A contract is a contract. Treating marriage like a corporation instead of a state sanctioned status simplifies things.
So, if two men want to buy a home together under the same conditions that a man and woman do, let them sign and bear the burden. Inheritance law, same thing. If Gary and Bruce want to have their property and interests treated as a similar contract between Joe and Sue in the event one of them dies, then so be it.
The thread of government over-involvement runs through all these things, twisting private enterprise to have rules, exceptions or biases they doesn't actually want, which complicates the marriage issue exponentially.
The only difference between a traditional marriage and a business is exactly where I'd draw the line, and without negotiation. I don't think gay couples should adopt children. That's not to say that most of gays aren't nice people who are financially stable. I think that homosexuals are generally good people with bad wiring. While I'm happy to live and let live with them as individuals in a free society, collectively, they need to realize that it's harmful to children to raise them in an environment that it takes an adult perspective to understand properly. That's a biological and evolutionary fact that is rather easy to demonstrate on the face of it, without needed to resort to a religious argument.
(All that said, I'm talking about an ideal state, there. I also realize that we're so far down the statist road that the only way to stop state enforced gay marriage, along with it's free speech restrictions and gay adoption of children, is a DOMA type constitutional amendment. While I feel that's not the right thing to do in the grand scheme of things, it's also probably the lesser of the two evils before us.)
“I said this before but civil marriage has absolutely nada to do with love.”
Well, I perhaps wouldn’t go so far, but I can see where you are coming from. I will say that the determination of whether or not two people are married isn’t decided with a piece of paper from the state, just like a law saying the moon is made of cheese isn’t the deciding factor as to what the moon actually is made of. Although the statists and homosexualists love that state recognition of marriage is actually the deciding factor for many if two people are married.
Freegards
Your point about untying the knot is exactly right. As I was finishing post 101, it occurred to me that the state is so deep in so many places it should not be, it often makes doing the right thing dangerous.
The welfare state is ending, precisely because the government took it up in the first place. It tinkered with forces it should have left alone, and now has created a demand of dependency that it can't possibly satisfy.
Whenever the state chooses to hand out free stuff for votes, it starts the timer on it's own destruction. That's fine if you're not going to be around for when the bomb goes off (Thanks, LBJ), but, as you mentioned, we're now inextricably bound to the problem. It's a structural defect, and one that is destroying us.
So, I don't know that there is a solution, on than to make the problem clear enough for whoever manages to reboot America 2.0 to look back on and see as a warning. "Thou shalt not use the power of the State to remake the Family.", or some such.
I can only laugh, in light of the fact that the first talking point of the Ron Paul Libertarians is always "it should be left up to the states."
Before they move on to the next talking point, of course, which is the utter destruction of the civil marriage contract.
Right...in Birmingham Jail though—MLK was invoking Supra Positive Law—the same idea that Cicero and Locke had-—that “Just law” has it’s basis in Natural Law Theory which believes in a Supreme Law—God’s Law. Laws that go against God’s Law—which is the basis of our Natural Rights—can not be enacted—because they will be unequal, unjust law if they have no basis in “right and wrong” “good or evil”.
At Nuremberg trials....we invoked Supra Positive Law in declaring Hitler’s laws which deprived the Jews of life and property-—null and void. We invoked the idea of Supra Positive Law for the Civil Rights legislation.
We can’t use this idea on occasion—when it suits us—we have to have it underlying all legislation—that was the point of the Constitution. A guide of Right and Wrong—Just Law. Homosexual marriage makes a farce of “Just Law” and God’s law.
Man-made laws—Positive Law (like Hitler’s —which were “legal” in Germany, because Hitler had no god over him, but Odin and Satan. There was no “higher” law—arbitrary law not established by the standard of “God’s law” —which deny or conflict with God’s law ==can (and should) be null and void.
Homosexual marriage not only denies Natural Law and God’s law and therefore, Just Law—it creates cognitive dissonance in children which fundamentally destroys their ability to make sense of the world.
Well put.
I completely don’t understand the big L libertarians saying they want “gay marriage”. Seems to me a real libertarian would not want gov’t recognition of any marriage.
“which is the utter destruction of the civil marriage contract.”
If the gov’t refused to give marriage licenses to my faith in punishment for not accepting the statists and homosexualist version of marriage, there would still be marriages in my faith. We already don’t accept some forms of gubberment marriage anyhow, namely remarriage after gubberment divorce.
Freegards
You’ve thought this all through to an extent that, unfortunately, few have.
Of course. But this isn't just about you. It is about the survival in liberty of the whole society.
If they destroy the meaning of marriage, and destroy the moral foundations of this republic, believe you me, it will effect you.
I agree, only individuals have rights. A right is an absolute that exists because that person lives and breathes. Governments have powers.
By the way, for those who rail at the idea that the national government has any business defining marriage, you should know that the U.S. Code already does that:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/01/usc_sec_01_00000007——000-.html
TITLE 1 > CHAPTER 1 > § 7
§ 7. Definition of marriage and spouse
“In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the word marriage means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word spouse refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.”
Cute. But I’m already reading one book today.
I voted for the pro-marriage amendment in my state. It passed by 57% in 2006. I don’t think it is going to matter eventually, either by our black robed masters or popular vote, I think “gay marriage” is going to come.
My point is the more folks look to their faith to define and protect marriage and less on the gov’t, the better off the institution will be. Just like education and charity. And no, I don’t think the state is ever going to get out of the institution, it provides too much control in the culture. Plus, there are too many on both sides that don’t want it out.
And government can’t destroy the meaning of marriage, just like they can’t change the colour of blue or 2+2. They can condition folks that marriage comes from them, so folks will accept any impossibility they put forward as marriage. If folks relied on their faith, this “gay marriage” garbage would have never got the toe-hold it has.
The good news is that some faiths aren’t ever going to change on marriage, no matter what the gubberment does to them, although I think it’s a shame they have the power to punish if one doesn’t accept their ever mutating versions of marriage.
Freegards
retread zot.
And it really wasn’t very hard. Just in reading parts of Cicero’s writings makes it really clear about what “Just Law” is. It is NOT arbitrary law. All study of political philosophy in Locke tradition is immersed in Cicero’s ideas of a higher law—God’s law—which was put into our Declaration of Independence and throughout our Constitution using terms from Natural Law Theory, like Natural Rights.
This Legal Positivism which Solzhenitsyn said was every bit as evil as the “laws” of Stalin when he addressed Harvard in 78.....is evil, when there is no standards of right and wrong....when those standards of Absolute Truth are denied—like Communism does, since there is no God.
Absolute Truth is included in our documents—it is that idea of Natural Rights which come from God. It is obvious....it can NEVER be eliminated from our legal system—otherwise, we have NO Natural Rights. Our legal system would be non sensical—but which Marxists and Holmes, Jr. have been trying for a century to destroy.
This is a philosophy that our Founders would have NEVER adopted—this idea that the Nature of Man “evolves” .
That whole idea means you can adopt any fashionable idea on “good” and “evil”—it is arbitrary and is only “Might makes Right”. The Powerful can impose their worldview and morality on the masses—whatever it may be-—even that a horse and man can be “married” and “recognized” as good by government.
It is a farce—Only our Constitution can save us from arbitrary law—it was designed with one standard of right and wrong—not Marx’s standard or Andrew Sullivan’s just because he has “urges” that go against Natural Law we are supposed to dump our logic, reasoning and science?????
Stossel’s reasoning is pathetic in this case. He is great sometimes but he is denying the philosophy that is embedded in our Constitution. The meaning and intent of our Founding Documents which have to be respected—it was designed to create Just Law and have Objective Truth. Stossel is saying there is no Objective Truth—no right and wrong—no God—no standard in the Constitution—no reason—no logic—no science, etc.
It’s amazing how, in the end, it always comes down to the simple difference between right and wrong.
My assertion had little to do with "property rights" by which people usually mean the "right" to acquire, dispose of or exclude others from using or abusing one's property whether real, personal, evidences of debt or things-in-action. Libertarians and Marxists simply differ as to who will hold title.
Libertarians and their use of the term property are usually ignorant and/or superficial. For example, the usual Libertarian rejection of pure food and drug laws and the Libertarian profession of allowing the "market" to determine what to do with someone selling a toxic substance added to food. Ridiculous!
No sane man has ever denied that property use requires regulation.
Where have we heard your retread tripe before? IATZ. Buh Bye Herbie.
Correct....but what is really proven through philosophy over thousands of years—is that human nature never “evolves”. That belief only became popular with the Postmodernist movement which included Marx and we saw the result of THAT philosophy which was enacted by Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pot....etc. and was tried to be used HERE with the Progressive movement.
Why would we ever decide to adopt Marxist ideology (no absolute right or wrong) which has been our path in the 20th century is beyond me. To use a “value system” different from the Christian paradigm which was the most successful in the history of man? Why? Unless they want a totalitarian state. But then, I read and study history, so I understand Machiavelli and power and the power of Christian ideology.
There is a reason why Marxist destroyed our education system with lack of Classical knowledge—it is because logic, reason, and science always makes their ideas look so silly and stupid—which they always are. But they are also really evil, always!!!!—they kill and destroy all which is good in the end. They can’t allow the freedom of thought and ideas because it makes them look stupid.
That's what I mean about politicians learning from their 'mistakes'.
Undermining the Constitution takes time, but apparently there was enough to get from there to here.
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