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Marriage on the rocks
Jewish World Review ^ | Dec. 9, 2002 | John Leo

Posted on 12/09/2002 5:13:47 AM PST by SJackson

In modern journalism, radical change is often announced by a yawn-inducing headline. For instance, "Legal Group Urges States to Update Their Family Law" (New York Times, November 29). The headline, one step up from "Don't Bother to Read This," refers to a ponderous 1,200-page commentary and set of recommendations by the American Law Institute, a group of prominent judges and lawyers. The proposals, "Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution," may seem like dry, technical suggestions about custody, alimony, and property distribution. But what this "update" really amounts to is a devastating legal assault on marriage.

The institute report says that in many important ways, domestic partnerships should be legally treated like marriage. It defines domestic partners as "two persons of the same or opposite sex, not married to one another, who for a significant period of time share a primary residence and a life together as a couple." When breaking up, the report says, cohabitants are entitled to a division of property and alimonylike payments, just like married people who divorce. And after a relationship ends, the cohabiting partner of a legal parent may share custody and decision-making responsibility for the legal parent's child.

The report validates homosexual relationships and gives them a status comparable to that of marriage. If accepted, this idea would lead immediately to the next legal argument: If gay and straight commitments have the same status in state law, isn't it picky and discriminatory to withhold the word marriage from the gay version? Heterosexual couples who live together would also get the same status as husbands and wives, blurring or eliminating another line between marriage and serial affairs.

War on tradition. The most drastic notion embedded in the suggestions is that marriage is just one arrangement among many. Marriage is being deconstructed here, downgraded and privatized. It is no longer the crucial building block of the social order and makes no special contribution to civil society that justifies any distinctive honor or status. This report, says Lynn Wardle, professor of law at Brigham Young University, "continues the war on the traditional family and traditional sexual morality that has been waged for over three decades."

Wardle has a point. Marriage is in trouble for a lot of reasons, but surely one important factor is the relentless hostility unleashed by the 1960s counterculture, which portrayed marriage as oppressive, patriarchal, outmoded, and destructive to children. The attitudes of today's elites reflect that never-ending campaign. Now we have lots of "marriage" counselors who never use the word marriage and textbooks on families bristling with hostility to the nuclear family. As I wrote in this space several years ago, "One of the problems in trying to shore up the institution of marriage is that so many of the professionals who teach and write about it-counselors, therapists, academics, and popular authors-really don't support marriage at all."

What they do tend to support is known as "close relationship theory," the idea that sexual and emotional satisfaction comes from intense, fragile, and often short-term relationships that aren't necessarily going anywhere. One advocate calls them "microwave relationships," cooked up fast, served, and consumed, presumably with other similar meals to come. It all seems like the dream world of a randy adolescent chasing cheerleaders. Marriage is knocked off its pedestal, and the family itself fades away. Children tend to fade away, too, in close-relationship theory, as emphasis comes down hard on adult fulfillment.

continued.....

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


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS: catholiclist
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To: John O; xzins; RnMomof7
Defense of marriage is one of the few tax breaks that should exist. (preferably in the form of sales tax rebates as the NRST outlines)

Actually, the proposed NRST tax rebates are a simple "per-person, per-household" rebate of roughly $200 per-each, per-month (I'm in the ballpark, don't have the exact figures).

Generally speaking, an un-remarried widow who was caring for her two children would receive the same $200 per-person as a married couple with one child, or three college guys renting a place together (whether they were a perverse "unitarian gay tri-union" or just frat brothers).

And our hypothetical widow with two kids should not receive any less than the Married couple with one kid, IMHO. The State's concern should simply be with dispensing the rebate equally... there's no need for "marriage subsidies" of any sort, IMO.

61 posted on 12/10/2002 9:43:42 PM PST by OrthodoxPresbyterian
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To: xzins
As a Christian bound by scripture to follow human laws which offer no offense, I struggle with determining if this "marriage license" requirement is an intrusion in God's domain. I've come to believe that it is.

As one familiar with God's law, I guess you understand that he made us Male and Female and that he ordained also that conjugal relations between the male and female be fruitful.

Softening up the heteros with the Birth Control most Christian couples these days consider their "right" as part of Planning their families, the State has for generations been obscuring the apparent differences between sex partners desirous (or not) of children and the Father and Mother -- Husband and Wife -- who not only form but obligate themselves to a family.

Why?

For all the useful idiot rant of the Libertarians and others, the fact is that the basic human condition is as Family, not the rabid individualism that informs our culture ... particularly our shrinks and sex therapists.

It is the family (as patterned after the Trinity) on which are based not only our most enduring bonds as human beings but also our sense of equal dignity despite the separate persons and different roles of family members and the notions of nationhood, much less community.

In destroying the family -- particularly the eradication of patriarchal authority in exchange for a Democratized Collective of individuals -- the State accomplishes two things:

(1) they weaken us absolutely, causing most citizens -- single mothers, impoverished, insane, failing, elderly who need Medicare, etc. -- to rely on the State instead of their families in the name of "independence"

(2) they usurp both Family and Faith as the source of all rights and justice. As arbiter and creator of our rights (to housing, to abortion, to assisted suicide, to all manner of perversion and even for-profit Free Speech porn featuring children ... so long as it's faked), they supplant and render meaningless and "private" the notion of the Creator as recognized in our Declaration as the source and guarantor of our human dignity and liberty.

It infuriates me, really, that so many folks get caught up in the sound and fury of gay rights, corporate benefits and taxation and fail to recognize that it's the marriage license which limited the State's ability to redefine marriage.

By restricting the marriage license to only those unions essentially (if not actually) capable of forming families, the integrity and meaning of marriage was preserved.

Marriage is not just a license for sex, self-fulfillment and economic benefit for the parties. It is also about the children born of that relationship. As an institution protected from the State's interference by the parameters of marriage license restrictions -- marriage offered some measure of justice for and recognization of the children naturally a part of the Family born of conjugal union.

Justice must needs be premised on reality ... on True and Enduring things.


62 posted on 12/10/2002 10:56:37 PM PST by Askel5
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To: Askel5
BUMP!!!

GSA(P)

63 posted on 12/11/2002 9:09:55 AM PST by John O
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To: xzins
The marriage license itself is viewed an unnecessary by the state. The "common law" marriage recognizes that the reality of a union precedes the intrusion of the state.

That would noly be true in states that recognize common law marriage. Most do not. Some recognize common law marriages if they occurred in another state that recognizes them.

64 posted on 12/11/2002 9:36:34 AM PST by afraidfortherepublic
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To: Nick Danger
"In five years we'll be reading about men losing their homes to women they barely knew. We'll wonder how things came to such a pass. Well, here's your chance to see it coming, because here it comes. "

you are in need of some serious therapy....

it is much more likely that men will go after women .....I know many, many more women who make tons more than their husbands or boyfriends....blame that on the loss of industrial jobs or whatever...its the truth..

I don't like the way our country and the world are going one bit....but the least I fear is that men will some how get the shaft.......women have always suffered when traditional marriage vows are not kept, and when traditional male/female roles are not enforced...

now we have a society of women who work, often bringing home more money than the boyfriend of husband, who also primarily raise the children and keep the house....not in every case, but more often than not......

65 posted on 12/11/2002 9:51:58 AM PST by cherry
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To: Clint N. Suhks
...the bestial domestic partnership...

I know a couple of guys who are pretty sure they have that right now, if by bestial you mean married to a b!tch.

66 posted on 12/11/2002 9:55:06 AM PST by Petronski
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To: afraidfortherepublic; OrthodoxPresbyterian; xzins; Askel5; Nick Danger
I thought y'all might be interested in this article. It contains an excellent, in-depth history of laws regarding marriage in our legal system. You may want to read it if you have time.

"The Meanings of Marriage," by John Witte (Law Prof. at Emory Univ.).
67 posted on 12/11/2002 10:19:39 AM PST by bourbon
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To: cherry
you are in need of some serious therapy....

That is called an argumentum ad hominem. It is the weakest of all responses. It is a personal attack, as opposed to a comment about anything I said. In theory I could push the abuse button on you, but I try not to interfere with people who foul up their own posts.

As an old salesman friend of mine used to say, "You bought it; it's yours."

68 posted on 12/11/2002 10:54:34 AM PST by Nick Danger
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To: John O
In fact, almost all non-Christians should be denied visas.

Really. On what basis?

69 posted on 12/11/2002 11:11:46 AM PST by malakhi
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To: Askel5
the fact is that the basic human condition is as Family, not the rabid individualism that informs our culture

Interesting. Are you saying it has been, or it should be, or something else? Jesus said no marriage in heaven. Does the same apply to a perfect world?

Prehistorical and historical evidence suggests that people first lived in kin groups (for 200K years), then extended families within tribes(neolithic structures had room for cousins and uncles but also separate sleeping quarters), then (in parts of the world) nuclear families. The Individual fits the trend. Tribal cultures today, who have no separate word for cousin and brother, would scoff at our nuclear families.

70 posted on 12/11/2002 12:13:25 PM PST by monkey
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To: Askel5; xzins; RnMomof7
It infuriates me, really, that so many folks get caught up in the sound and fury of gay rights, corporate benefits and taxation and fail to recognize that it's the marriage license which limited the State's ability to redefine marriage.

Just out of curiousity...

Unless one abdicates, to the State, the Right to define Marriage in the first place -- how exactly does the Marriage License "limit" the State's power to re-define Marriage??

Your argument amounts to a claim that "charter schools limit the State's ability to redefine education". That may be true enough in its case (that is, until the homosexual lobby secures enough votes to require new mandates for the Charters, to continue the analogy)... but only if you have already whored out the Right of Education to the State in the first place.

I mean, sure, if you are going to begin the conversation by assuming that the State has the Right to "define" Marriage, I can see how it could be argued that Marriage Licenses would "limit" the State's power to "re-define" marriage.

But, m'dear.... Why on earth should Christians "render unto Caesar" the Right to "define" Marriage in the first place?!?!

Revenge of the Begged Question.

71 posted on 12/11/2002 2:39:04 PM PST by OrthodoxPresbyterian
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To: Askel5
Hey, you're stealing my song.:)
72 posted on 12/11/2002 3:52:08 PM PST by independentmind
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To: angelo
This country was founded by Christians based on Christian values. While it was not a theocracy it was expected that people would conform to Christian values. If people coming here do not support those values then they shouldn't be allowed in to corrupt our culture. The best way to insure that Christian values are supported by all incoming immigrants is to be sure that those immigrants are Christians.

Since this country is far better off if we remain 'good' and the only way to remain good is to hold to our founding ideals (Christian Ideals) then we had better defend our culture better than we have defended our borders

GSA(P)

73 posted on 12/12/2002 5:39:22 AM PST by John O
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To: OrthodoxPresbyterian
Why on earth should Christians "render unto Caesar" the Right to "define" Marriage in the first place?!?!

We seem to be discussing two separate definitions of marriage.

The first is the cultural definition. Which Christians and other moral people define as one man joined with one woman for life. The perverts define it as me and whoever/whatever I feel like screwing for as long as I feel like screwing them/it.

The second is the legal definition.

In order to defend our culture and the values that culture is founded upon we use the government to legally define marriage as one man joined to one woman. Unfortunately we've been delinquent in our defense and let them cross out the 'for life' part. No fault divorce was a huge mistake.

Using the Gov to defend/support what is in the nation's best interest is a constitutionally valid use of government.

While the legal definition will never usurp the real (Christian) definition it is a good tool to use to defend our culture and values.

Everything boils down to the fact that as a nation we are better off if we limit unions to 'one man joined with one woman'.

GSA(P)

74 posted on 12/12/2002 5:49:35 AM PST by John O
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To: John O; xzins; Askel5; Demidog
In order to defend our culture and the values that culture is founded upon we use the government to legally define marriage as one man joined to one woman.

Good grief, man, that's like asking the Government "to defend our values and culture" by establishing a legal definition of "Christianity".

It is morally wrong thing to do such a thing in the first place (that is, to invite the State into that which is Biblically reserved to the Church), and it is guaranteed to fail and damage that which it tries to "defend".

Which is, of course, exactly what we are seeing right now with Marriage, isn't it??


Since the State is doing such a good job "defending our values and culture" by establishing a Legal Definition of Marriage, why don't we also ask them to "defend our values and culture" by establishing a Legal Definition of Christianity??

Don't worry... they're from the Government, they're here to help.

75 posted on 12/12/2002 7:44:18 AM PST by OrthodoxPresbyterian
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To: OrthodoxPresbyterian; John O; Askel5; Demidog
Marriage is of God.

From the beginning God made them man and woman. A man shall leave his father and mother and be united to his wife; and they 2 shall become one flesh. Those are Jesus' words. They highlight that the original marriage was performed quite nicely by God and that no state representative was present.

Jesus' words also highlight that it will be impossible in the eyes of God for a man and a man or a woman and a woman to unite and become one flesh.

Sodomy can never result in Godly marriage. Therefore OrthoPresby is 100% correct. God has already defined marriage. We have no need of the state to help us with that definition....unless, of course, we have no qualms about it being perverted.
76 posted on 12/12/2002 7:59:45 AM PST by xzins
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To: xzins; OrthodoxPresbyterian; Askel5; Demidog
Xzins and OP. You are both correct in that Marriage is defined by God. It is also however a contract which gives it's participants some legal advantages.

One purpose of Government is to provide for the general welfare of the people of this nation. Our general welfare is best served when families exist of one man joined to one woman with the resultant children. Therefore the gov subsidizes this healthy family structure. That is where the gov marriage license comes in.

In this day and age any two people can shack up without a marriage being involved. So why do the perverts try to redefine these shack ups as 'marriage'? Solely for the tax (and other legal) advantages.

While the two of you argue against gov involvement in what should be a private arrangement, the rest of us realize that the marriage subsidy is one of the few good things that gov does and should be maintained.

If we do not defend the concept of marriage legally we will never be able to defend it culturally. Therefore we must defend it legally. The only way to do that is by law defining marriage as being one man joined to one woman enforced through marriage licenses or some other gov arrangement.

We will never stop the perverts from forming their sexual unions of convenience but we don't have to subsidize their abberrant behavior.

GSA(P)

77 posted on 12/12/2002 10:40:17 AM PST by John O
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To: John O; xzins; Askel5; Demidog
Our general welfare is best served when families exist of one man joined to one woman with the resultant children. Therefore the gov subsidizes this healthy family structure. That is where the gov marriage license comes in.

While the two of you argue against gov involvement in what should be a private arrangement, the rest of us realize that the marriage subsidy is one of the few good things that gov does and should be maintained.

If we do not defend the concept of marriage legally we will never be able to defend it culturally. Therefore we must defend it legally. The only way to do that is by law defining marriage as being one man joined to one woman enforced through marriage licenses or some other gov arrangement.

There are Liars, there are Damn Liars... and then there are those who try to "justify" the usurpations of the God-State.


Since the State is doing such a great job "defending our values and culture" by establishing a Legal Definition of Marriage, why don't we also ask them to "defend our values and culture" by establishing a Legal Definition of Christianity??

Don't worry... they're from the Government, they're here to help.

78 posted on 12/12/2002 10:59:24 AM PST by OrthodoxPresbyterian
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To: John O
John, at some point we cut loose and allow freedom to rule. That is actually a central concept in Christianity. Every person stands before God. All things are lawful for us, or open to us....it's just that all things are not expedient.

If a person chooses the life of a sodomite, then there are consequences. The most important of those are with God. But they are free to live that lifestyle. They must pay for their choices some day. If they wish to shack up with a dozen like-minded souls and call it a marriage, they are free to do so. And no one can mount an effective argument that they are not free to do so. They will do it anyway.

But God defines marriage. God defines what is right. No state license can confer that or take it away. We do no ultimate good putting these things in the hands of the state and assigning tax money to support our religious causes. The state, being a human organization, will eventually fail and will corrupt what you've done.
79 posted on 12/12/2002 11:33:23 AM PST by xzins
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To: OrthodoxPresbyterian; Askel5; Demidog
ping to #79
80 posted on 12/12/2002 11:35:34 AM PST by xzins
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