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Marriage Is Not a Water Fountain
Public Discourse ^ | September 29th, 2014 | Anthony Esolen

Posted on 09/29/2014 7:49:50 AM PDT by rhema

Segregation was based on irrational, peculiar prejudice. By contrast, protecting marriage between one man and one woman is based on universal truths about our human nature.

As readers of Public Discourse know, some proponents of homosexual pseudogamy now assert that argument is no longer necessary. We do not argue with segregationists, they say. We ignore them, we scorn them. They are not worth our time. They are mad or wicked. So too our courageous Ryan Anderson, who says that marriage by nature requires a man and a woman. “Shut up,” they explain.

I fear that our age is so enslaved to ideology that we can no longer notice what is obvious and natural, or think sensitively about history, or craft analogies that can stand a moment of analysis.

(Excerpt) Read more at thepublicdiscourse.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: homosexualagenda; marriage; naturallaw

1 posted on 09/29/2014 7:49:50 AM PDT by rhema
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To: rhema

Very good discussion.


2 posted on 09/29/2014 7:59:34 AM PDT by Tax-chick (I can play the piano just as well with or without shoes.)
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To: rhema

Yes, we are beholden to pressure groups and political correctness nowadays. That is true.

It’s interesting to see the roll call vote on the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. At that time, Congress overwhelmingly voted that marriage was a man and a woman. Even most liberals of the day, regardless of their views on homosexual rights, thought that marriage should be a man and a woman.

Less than 20 years later, one is scorned and considered a hateful bigot if one says he thinks marriage should be a man and a woman. But at the time, it was okay for liberals such as Chuck Schumer, Joe Lieberman, Joe Biden, Pat Leady, Tom Harkin, etc. to say that marriage was a man and a woman and not be attacked as a bigot for that opinion.


3 posted on 09/29/2014 8:06:12 AM PDT by Dilbert San Diego (s)
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To: rhema

could be


4 posted on 09/29/2014 8:10:09 AM PDT by bunkerhill7 ("The Second Amendment has no limits on firepower"-NY State Senator Kathleen A. Marchione.")
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To: rhema
Segregation was based on irrational, peculiar prejudice. By contrast, protecting marriage between one man and one woman is based on universal truths about our human nature.

This is not a fact, it's an opinion.

Or, more precisely, it's the author's (and my) opinion this is a fact, but it appears a near-majority and growing number of Americans disagree with us.

In practical terms in a democratic society, people's beliefs are what matters, not the demonstrable facts.

Beliefs are not rational. They are generated and maintained at a level well below concious thought.

Therefore, providing facts and logical argument, as such, has never, ever changed a person's beliefs.

Facts and logic can play a role, but only in a person who is willing to receive them.

Will and Grace and the hundreds of other TV shows and movies over the last few decades with cute and lovable gay characters have had infinitely more influence on people's beliefs on this issue than all the facts and figures in the world.

However, see my tagline. The consequences of beliefs being put into action do not change with the intensity or unanimity with which a belief is held. Reality often bites.

5 posted on 09/29/2014 8:13:32 AM PDT by Sherman Logan (Perception wins most of the battles. Reality wins ALL the wars.)
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To: Sherman Logan

“This is not a fact, it’s an opinion.

Or, more precisely, it’s the author’s (and my) opinion this is a fact, but it appears a near-majority and growing number of Americans disagree with us.”

The only correct answer can be that marriage is between one man and one woman.

Any other argument leads to marriage is between one and anyone or everyone they wish to have sex with.

The queers argue for equal rights of marriage for GLBT, and perhaps a few more ‘LETTERS’ tossed in.

How could a bisexual, or transgender be limited to choosing just one marriage partner and be equal?

If sex is marriage there would be lots of plural marriages.

If love is marriage, would people be married to animals like their cat/dog, or even their new pick-up truck?

Nope, anything but the correct answer is nonsense.


6 posted on 09/29/2014 8:38:20 AM PDT by Beagle8U (If illegal aliens are undocumented immigrants, then shoplifters are undocumented customers.)
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To: Beagle8U

I don’t disagree.

But lots and lots of nonsense has made its way into public policy over the years.

It may be comforting to hug your knowledge that you are right to your bosom, but it won’t change what happens in the world we all have to live in.


7 posted on 09/29/2014 8:55:39 AM PDT by Sherman Logan (Perception wins most of the battles. Reality wins ALL the wars.)
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To: Beagle8U
anything but the correct answer is nonsense

Excellent summary!

8 posted on 09/29/2014 8:56:58 AM PDT by Tax-chick (I can play the piano just as well with or without shoes.)
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To: Sherman Logan

Do you have a rational way to rebuke what I wrote?

Don’t the queers at some point have to make a rational argument for their case?


9 posted on 09/29/2014 9:08:46 AM PDT by Beagle8U (If illegal aliens are undocumented immigrants, then shoplifters are undocumented customers.)
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To: rhema

at times it is more like a bidet


10 posted on 09/29/2014 9:19:15 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: Beagle8U

“Don’t the queers at some point have to make a rational argument for their case?”

Not as far as the state is concerned. All that concerns the state in the modern era is simply whatever judges, pols, or the voting majority think about their irrational marriage argument at any one time. That’s how the state defines marriage, it doesn’t have any other way to do it as far as I can see. To the state marriage can be anything as long as judges, pols, or the majority say it can, rationality only comes into as far as judges, pols, or the majority care about such things.

Freegards


11 posted on 09/29/2014 9:41:32 AM PDT by Ransomed
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To: rhema
Should have gotten a mathematician or other scientist to write an argument for marriage, or a Christian, or a logician, or a combination of these; only an English major could write such a tortuous "argument". His "facts" are flawed, and furthermore are just opinions with no supporting data that are easily refuted.

Just one example

People will always find ways to distinguish themselves from their “lesser” brothers, but the bizarre racial touchiness that characterized the American South, or that hardened into the caste system in India, a mingled modus vivendi and modus odiendi, is uncommon in human affairs. It is certainly not universal.

The Hindu caste system was a system of social stratification not racial. However, nearly EVERY race shows(generally negative) racial "touchiness" towards races they came into contact with-- the British for nearly all races in their empire, likewise the Romans for the Gauls, Celts, and others. Nearly all sub-Saharan Africans for the "white pig" or "white meat". Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese towards white Europeans and even more so towards black Africans. Mongols towards Europeans and vice-versa. North African (Moors) for Europeans and vice-versa.

12 posted on 09/29/2014 9:44:12 AM PDT by LambSlave
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To: Sherman Logan

Look at it another way. Marriage both legally and canonically required consumation to be a fact. No consumation, no marriage, annulment granted. Consumation in marriage means the performance of marriage acts. Those acts require certain complemenatary body parts which in ordinary circumstances can conceive a child. If you don’t have the right body parts ( and some men and women do not)not marriage act and no marriage. If you are homosexuals you do not have the right body parts, therefore no marriage act no marriage. In other words, the parts do not fit naturally.

You can’t flim flam God or Mother Nature or Gaia or Venus.


13 posted on 09/29/2014 9:46:22 AM PDT by amihow
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To: rhema
...analogies that can stand a moment of analysis.

They analogies be rayciss!

14 posted on 09/29/2014 10:01:11 AM PDT by JimRed (Excise the cancer before it kills us; feed & water the Tree of Liberty! TERM LIMITS NOW & FOREVER!)
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To: amihow

That is your (and my) definition of marriage. It is increasingly not accepted as valid by our fellow American citizens.

My point is simply that “truth,” as such, is simply irrelevant in this discussion.


15 posted on 09/29/2014 11:22:47 AM PDT by Sherman Logan (Perception wins most of the battles. Reality wins ALL the wars.)
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16 posted on 09/29/2014 12:42:53 PM PDT by ELS
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To: rhema
"homosexual pseudogamy"

What a marvelously descriptive phrase!

17 posted on 09/29/2014 4:12:50 PM PDT by reg45 (Barack 0bama: Implementing class warfare by having no class.)
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