Posted on 12/12/2013 6:50:05 PM PST by ReformationFan
Do our rights come from the government, or do they come from God or from natural law? The founders of the American Republic thought our rights came from God or from natural law. As such, our inalienable rights are the rights of all mankind and are universal, changeless, and applicable to all people, at all times and in all places. In terms of natural law, if man has a nature, then human rights must be in accord with that nature and must be necessary to the flourishing of that nature. If our rights are thus innate and fixed for all time, then the frequent legislation and adjudication of new rights is mischievous.
However, if man does not have an innate nature, but is a social-cultural construct, then man has a fluctuating nature which changes along with forces which mold him. In this case, the determination of human rights is relative, ad hoc, arbitrary, and political.
Enter stage left, the Progressive Movement, which goes back to1890, if not before. Progressive leaders claim that our rights are created by government. As such, human rights vary from time to time and from place to place. As ideological fads and political alliances come and go, legislators and judges will be inventing and abolishing rights all the time. They will be making them up as they go along.
The progressives were confident that magical "forces of history" would ensure that "change" would be beneficial and that the continual creation and abolition of rights by government would lead to a better world. However, if no such mystical cosmic force exists, and if man is not a social construct, then inventing rights which are alien to his nature and abolishing rights which are necessary for the flourishing of his nature is pernicious. When leaders of government misunderstand human nature and act according to that misunderstanding, they do great damage to man and to society.
Legislators, if you really believe that government creates rights, that man is a construct of contemporary society, and that gay sexuality is in accord with what a fluctuating human nature has come to be at this moment in time – you might consider voting to create gay rights. But before you do, ask yourselves if a new constitutionally-protected right can be established apart from an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
However, if you believe that man is not a social construct, but that man has a nature, you cannot logically believe that human rights come from government. Human rights are unchanging because they are based on the nature of man, which never changes. Government might discover and protect those rights, but cannot create those rights. That is what the founding fathers believed, and what the progressives have discarded.
Legislators, if you share the views of the founders regarding human rights, then you must ask yourself whether a sexual embrace between two men or a sexual embrace between two women is in accord with nature or against nature. My opinion is that it is against nature – for if this kind of sexuality is not against nature, then nothing is against nature.
Further, if you believe, as I do, that our rights come from God because He is the creator and designer of our nature, then you must ask yourself whether a homosexual or lesbian sexual embrace is in accord with or contrary to His design for us. It is impossible for me to believe that he designed anyone for this kind of sexuality.
Finally, legislator, if you fear God and wish to obey him, it is not hard for you to find out what his prophets and apostles wrote about this kind of sexuality.
Yes. But they’re not all that approval-demanding, irritating and punitive. Really, I think the fairly low-key ones outnumber the obnoxious ones, just like the general swath of people at, say, Free Republic.
State governments have the 10th Amendment-protected power to establish gay rights, such as gay marriage, as long as such rights don’t interfere with constitutionally enumerated rights, Section 1 of the 14th Amendment prohibiting the states from unreasonably abridging constitutonally protected rights.
On the other hand, the federal government can only protect those rights which the states have expressly protected by the Constitution. This is evidenced by Section 1 of the 14th Amendment in conjunction with Section 5 of that amendment.
Also note that the four voting rights amendments, the 15th, 19th, 24th and 26th Amendments, expressly grant Congress the power to legislatively protect such rights.
Again, the states have 10th Amendment authority to establish rights as long as such rights don’t interefere with constitutonal rights. But Congress is limited to protecting only those rights which the states have amended the Constitution to expressly protect imo.
Finally, just as corrupt federal lawmakers buy votes from low-information voters by promising such voters federal spending programs which are based on constitutionally nonexistant federal government powers, Obamacare an example, Congress likewise buys votes from such voters by promising them “civil rights” which Congress has no constitutional authority to establish. And Congress gets away with doing such things because many patriots themselves evidently don’t know the simple rules of the Constitution.
Sadly, the obnoxious ones are getting their way through the government to persecute those of us who dare to belief in liberty of conscience, a true and natural right.
Placemark
Exactly true. Very dangerous, court-enforced tyranny.
“Is that our future?”
Truth.
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