Posted on 05/20/2014 12:34:44 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Common sense and thousands of years of historical precedent firmly put the burden of proof on those who wish to redefine marriage.
Another judge, this one in Arkansas, has struck down a state law banning same-sex marriage on the ground that the ban has no “rational” basis. In other words, the defenders of the law were not able to prove that the discrimination (against gays and lesbians) involved in the law served a useful social purpose.
It is a waste of time trying to prove that a law restricting marriage to male-female combinations is “rational” in the sense that it serves a useful social purpose. Now I happen to think that traditional male-female marriage is useful and that same-sex marriage will in the long run prove to be socially harmful -- very harmful indeed -- but I doubt that I can prove this to somebody who is not already convinced of its truth.
Why not, instead of trying to prove the irrationality of same-sex marriage, simply say that it is a “self-evident truth” that marriage must be a male-female thing? A self-evident truth is a truth that is known to be true without the need for any proof.
After all, we Americans have a very respectable tradition of holding that some truths are self-evident. In the Declaration of Independence our Founding Fathers itemized a number of self-evident truths -- that “all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” If Thomas Jefferson and the other Founders could make an appeal to self-evident moral truths, why can’t we?
Slavery was condemned and eventually abolished on grounds other than “rational” proof of its inutility. While it is true that slavery was not a socially useful institution, this is not why it was abolished. Americans (at least those Americans who lived outside the South) didn’t become anti-slavery because some economist proved to them that it did more harm than good to the GDP. They turned against slavery because they remembered what Jefferson had said in the Declaration and because Harriett Beecher Stowe -- without taking the trouble to give a “rational” proof that there is anything wrong with cruelty -- showed that slavery was a cruel institution.
Likewise when society, many millennia ago, first decided that marriage should be a male-female thing, this wasn’t because social scientists of that primitive society considered the possibility of same-sex marriage and rejected it in favor of male-female marriage because the latter, in their considered and very “rational” judgment, was more socially beneficial. Those primitive societies, along with every human society that ever existed prior to the 1990s, rejected same-sex marriage because it struck them as an absurdity. They rejected it because its irrationality could be seen on its face; it was self-evident; it didn’t require proof.
And if you are somebody who disapproves of same-sex marriage, is this because you have given it impartial consideration and, after much reading and discussion and contemplation, and after weighing up the pros and cons, you have been compelled by your sober and dispassionate rationality to the conclusion that it will be more harmful to society than beneficial? Or did you say to yourself when the idea of same-sex marriage was first proposed, “This is an absurdity”?
So if this is how almost every society that has ever existed on the face of the earth has decided that same-sex marriage shouldn’t be allowed, and if this is how many of us as individuals still decide against it, why when we enter a courtroom must we pretend that have a “rational” proof against same-sex marriage?
We ought to be able to go into a courtroom and say to the judge, “Your honor, you know as well as I that same-sex marriage makes no sense; and so I rest my case.”
-- David Carlin, a professor of sociology and philosophy at the Community College of Rhode Island at Newport, is the author of Homosexualism Versus Catholicism.
Common sense rationally dictates that when you go to a hardware store to buy electrical connections, if you go home with a male-male instead of a male-female you gotta go back cuz the guy behind the counter sold you the wrong equipment and it ain’t gonna work.
That was a surrender statement, not accurate either.
It doesn’t cover the change in the voters of America through immigration and how that has empowered the left, and the modern democrat party, and America, which is what is making American law what it is, as traditional Americans continue to vote mostly as they were voting 200 years ago.
I wonder if you are aware of the first crisis in marriage in America, it was one reason the republican party was formed, in the 1850s.
Their mode of operation is to take the issue away from where it belongs. SODOMY is and always will be a disease ridden state. So when the left talks about "Marriage Equality" they are taking us away from where the issue belongs. SODOMY is condemned around the world for what it is - it is an abomination to God. BUT - we don't even have to make that argument because we know that is going nowhere fast. We only have to refer the lefties to the CDC website and point out the fact that SODOMY is a severe health risk! We can point people to the American Red Cross for blood donation paperwork - SODOMY disqualifies a person from donating blood FOR LIFE. So why is the Federal Govt promoting sodomy through the President and yet his own branch of the Govt instructing people to avoid sodomy?
It's time to bring this topic back to where it belongs Sodomy is a health risk - there can be NO "marriage equality" between "homosexuals" and heterosexuals!
They could be arrested and charged with judicial misconduct.
But realize that the problem isn't the homosexuals, who make up only 2% of the population, or the homosexual "activists," who make up only 2% of that, or even "gay married" couples who make up an infinitesimally small percentage of that already small subset.
The problem is that heterosexuals --- the 98% --- have effectively abandoned natural marriage. We created sterile, self-gratifying, simulated marriage for our contracepted simulated sexuality. We created gay marriage --- no surprise that now the gays want in.
To be tried by other activist judges?
But tell me about the 1850's marriage crisis you referred to: that's of interest to me.
Effect of homosexuality upon public health and social order.
Homosexual sex as harmful as drug abuse, prostitution, or smoking.
Homosexual parents: a comparative forensic study of character and harms to children.
Children of homosexual parents report childhood difficulties.
It's true that "marriage" was always understood to be "one man and one woman for life." But it's also true that it meant that the couple accepted children as a gift of God and that they stayed together for life.
First came divorce, instituted by King Henry VIII and the Church of England. No more together for "life". Marriage became more and more terminable at will. King Henry and his Church of England were the first "re-definers" of marriage.
Then, in 1928, this same Church of England broke with thousands of years of Judeo-Christian tradition by allowing artificial birth control for married couples. By placing artificial barriers to conception, it was Christians who left the "marriage" contract.
Both divorce and contraception involved the wholesale disposal of an enormous tradition. And it was done by Christians. First the Church of England (who is directly responsible for the decay of our civilization), and then by other Christians - Catholic, Orthodox and Lutheran. Luther condemned contraception in no uncertain terms.
For our God, this is the equation:
(HETEROSEXUAL SEX) + (CONTRACEPTION) = SODOMY.
There is no fundamental spiritual difference between a "married couple" that is engaging in artificial birth control and two men having at it. Spiritually, it's essentially six of one, half dozen of the other.
And that's essentially what the courts are recognizing here. Homosexuals have sterile sex with more than one partner. Their relationships are general characterized by their sterility and less-than-lifetime duration - just like most of us Christians.
So homosexuals are just saying to the courts "hey, our relationships look an awful lot like contracepting heterosexual couples. They get benefits for getting married that we can't access because we're same-sex, even though in essence our relationships are the same. We pay our taxes. We're citizens. We have a right to the equal protection of the laws. So please make this institution of "marriage" as it's come to be defined by heterosexual Christians open to us." And the courts are compelled to agree.
As am I.
And I'm as guilty as any. I sinned and grievously.
I am the one who killed marriage.
My fellow Christians, the fault is ours. This will not get better until we start with a frank admission of our own sin.
Very good. Another way we destroyed marriage?
By declaring it was of no business to the government. That it was only a religious concern and the State should butt out.
I think the 1850s marriage issue referred to was the issue of polygamy. The writer mentioned the Republican party being involved with marriage. When the Republican Party started, the party opposed two “barbaric” issues: slavery and polygamy.
OH! Thanks, interesting.
“We” didn’t create gay marriage, democrat voters did, and everything that has fed the creation of ever more leftwing democrat voters, for instance JFK’s immigration law, and modern immigration and groups who vote democrat today, some of who have been voting democrat since the 1850s, and never changed.
Republican Platform of 1856 “”Resolved: That the Constitution confers upon Congress sovereign powers over the Territories of the United States for their government; and that in the exercise of this power, it is both the right and the imperative duty of Congress to prohibit in the Territories those twin relics of barbarism — Polygamy, and Slavery.””
Marriage is the joining of unrelated heterosexual members of different families through public profession of commitment to fidelity and support. To secure this commitment and to provide reasonable resolution to issues of inheritance, property division and family responsibility, as well as to ensure that the force of law can be applied to these concerns, Civil Marriage was instituted by human societies many centuries ago. It had nothing to do with love or emotional attachments, nor should it. Government must not be given the power to define, legitimize or legally characterize love relationships in any way!
If, however, society insists on such redefinitions as are required to authorize homosexual marriage then it is opening the Pandora’s box of just such governmental intrusion into the affairs of mankind. By saying that loving someone should be enough of a prerequisite to civil marriage we cannot restrict, for long, any union that two, three or more individuals may desire.
Marriage would be better off, in such a case, being “privatized” and taken away from the corrosive power of the state!
I have to respectfully disagree. The argument was lost when government got involved and was made the ultimate authority on marriage. This is the perfect example of social conservatives gone wrong.
Supposedly small government “conservatives” set up a system of government authority using laws and rules derived by politicians to provide special benefits to those who engage in what is essentially a special interest activity. And now that the authority is used by opponents of marriage to destroy it, “conservatives” cry foul.
Government should have no role in marriage. Why does one need the blessing of government for the joining of two people before God?
The domestic court system and the rules and laws the govern marriage in this country are corrupt. And like all corrupt systems they eventually fail.
That is a silly post, when do you think formal "legal" marriage first emerged in America, or in history, or in all societies everywhere?
Rome? Greece? Tribes whether European, or Indian, or Asian?
You are right about America being created by social conservatives, they are the only humans that could create such a free nation, but when do you think that they didn't have the concept and practice of a "legal" marriage?
the reply to the “love” tards -
- you going to marry your mom? you love her’don’t you? hoq bout your dad? sister? brother? dog? you love your dog? why not, if love is all it takes? what’if you love them but they’re already married? why now’put limits on it? all you say is that’s most’important islove. and what if you love someone else later, but you’re married? what to do then? marry themtoo or be in a constant marry/divorce scenario? i mean follow your heart right? follow your crotch is more like it.
Completely agree on all counts...and would add, we destroyed the reverence for natural marriage by forgetting that law is based on morals, not “fairness”. And, the morals the US was founded on came from the Scriptures...not Darwin.
The idea that something could be called “socially useful” is a concept of subjective political values. I ask how is it that ANY judge other than a tyrant can have authority to dictate what is and what is not “socially useful”.
That is after all dictating Social policy goals.
Weather or not marriage is a socially useful institution, is a political judgement on the desirability of product of marriage. A product technically impossible to achieve without a man and a woman.
This article exemplifies the attitude of the quitter. We should not cease making good arguments just because they will face resistance and rejection. We need to let everyone know that there IS another side, even if many, if not most, will not listen. Also, the defenders of real marriage need to work the supporting arguments deep into their own minds, and hearing them made by those who can make them best will help them to do this.
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