Posted on 03/09/2003 5:40:25 AM PST by A. Pole
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:09:15 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
DURING THE ORAL argument in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, the Massachusetts lawsuit aimed at legalizing same-sex marriage, it was Justice Martha Sosman of the state's Supreme Judicial Court who put her finger on the crux of the case. ''Could it not also be framed,'' she asked Mary Bonauto, the lawyer for the gay and lesbian plaintiffs, that ''you're seeking to change the definition of what the institution of marriage is?'' After all there have been right-to-marry cases before, involving (for example) interracial couples, prison inmates, or the mentally retarded. But, Sosman noted, they ''have not changed . . . the historical fundamental definition of what the institution is.''
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
'Way back in 1996, in a posting I made to an AOL forum about an issue that would help Bob Dole's sagging presidential campaign, I proposed that the Republicans introduce this amendment to the U.S. Constitution:
"The United States, and the Several States, recognize that the legal and moral contract of marriage may be established only between one man and one woman. Neither the United States, nor the Several States, will sanction nor recognize any form of marriage other than that entered into by one man and one woman."
Simple and succinct. Worthy of inclusion into the United States Constitution.
As the years have passed, I have become more convinced that the _only_ possible way to "preserve" the traditional concept of marriage, in the moral, legal, and contractual sense, will be to place it onto a pedestal which neither the courts nor legislatures can "reach". If such pre-emptive action is not taken, sooner or later, through judicial activism or overly-liberal, well-intentioned legislation, the left will succeed in toppling one of the last icons of the Judeo-Christian West.
Vermont has already made such "progress", prompted by a State Supreme Court decision ordering the legislature to "do something" -- which the legislators promptly _did_. That's why we have "civil unions" in Vermont today. In my own state of Connecticut, state court action may be unnecessary; the Connecticut state legislature is considering a "same-sex marriage" bill, and there's a good chance it may actually pass.
Again: conservatives must unite to take "pre-emptive" action _now_ to enshrine marriage as a traditional union between one man and one woman. If we are unwilling to do this, we _will_ face a time where the courts and legislatures seek to re-define it for us.
It's important to pass such an amendment before liberals succeed in changing the "marriage-view" of a sizeable portion of the American population. To draw an analogy using illegal immigration: fifty years ago, it would probably have been possible to change the Fourteenth Amendment to exclude citizenship to the newborns of non-citizens (i.e., illegals). Today, the thought of making such a change is [in my view] politically impossible - it would never be ratified by the requisite number of state legislatures.
And so it goes with a potential "Marriage Amendment". The Marriage Amendment could probably survive [a certainly bitter] debate in the Congress, and successfully emerge for ratification by the states. And enough states _would_ ratify it -- now -- so that it would become a part of the Constitution. But "put this issue off" for twenty or thirty more years -- by then, after which a number of states may already have "gay marriage" laws on the books, possibly even legalized polygamy -- and the bets will be off. Those would "preserve marriage" must speak with forceful actions now, or face the future prospect of forever holding their opinions to themselves.
Cheers!<br) - John
Consider the purpose of that post. Marriage for the purpose of secular government should be based on secular, scientific realities of human biology.
Leave the ceremonial/esoteric issues to the spiritual institutions.
Since the Left always claims to want their "separation of church and state," let's cram it down their throats for a change...
Leave the ceremonial / esoteric issues to the spiritual institutions.
Since the Left always claims to want their "separation of church and state," let's cram it down their throats for a change...
Why is that?
Consider Plato's Euthyphro and Apology.
Socrates advances the argument to Euthyphro that, piety to the gods, who all want conflicting devotions and/or actions from humans, is impossible.
Likewise, morals are such a construction of idols used by the Left as a rationale for them to demand compliance to their wishes in politics, which most often are a skewed mess of fallacies in logic. Morals are a deceptive replacement for the avoidance of sin. If a person believes in a God, it is the conviction of the Holy Ghost by which they are guided and not by the idolatrous vanities of morals constructed by others.
Plato's Apology is a drama that portrays the current Left wing frustration with talk radio in America. The people of Athens (the Left) are demanding that Socrates (Rush) be silent. Socrates refuses and the elite of Athens demand the execution of Socrates. The modern Left wants a figurative execution of Rush Limbaugh and others like him (although 'figurative' would be quickly made actual if the Left ever had the unchecked power they desire).
Radio is the focus of only one of the five senses. A listener has to really tune in to the subject matter and focus on the content of the ideas.
Television is a combination of sensory focus and it is far easier to distract and misdirect viewer attention from essential topics presented.
Considering that 90% of people tend to be more influenced by the visual, television has become a new religion. It is analagous to Plato's cave allegory. Television as a propaganda tool helps create visual phantasms (or as Thomas Hobbes called them, 'phantastical images') of the brain.
There are three ways people are influenced according to the school of behavioral psychology - - visual (sight), auditory (sound), kinesthetic (emotion). The kinesthetic or 'feeling' is also based on olfactory and tactile sense, much like Pavlov's salivating dogs. Visual images and sound portrayed can be used to anchor emotional and/or conditioned responses desired by those that present them, which in the case of television, is the Leftist television media, actors who create phantastical images in film, and Leftist politicians who pander to symbolism over substance (like Rush always says about them).
The visual aspect of that phenomenon is also used by the print media to a degree. Interactve talk radio requires thought, television does not and relies on this as a means to influence viewers...
They worship for gods 'those appearances that remain in the brain from the impression of external bodies upon the organs of their senses, which are commonly called ideas, idols, phantasms, conceits, as being representations of those external bodies which cause them, and have nothing in them of reality, no more than there is in the things that seem to stand before us in a dream...'
Like the necromancy of the Wellstone funerally, the use of Martin Luther King Day, or constantly invoking the "spirit of the '60's," the Left attempts to raise spirits of the dead as a totem for worship.
Marxism and their forms of Cultural Marxism are a religion, a collection of cults. In many cases they worship a dead Karl Marx like some (and I stress some) Christians worship a dead Jesus, and not a living God. This is no more apparent than in the practice of enshrinement and regular grooming of Lenin's corpse in the former Soviet Union.
It is the religious fervor associated with the pro-abortion advocacy. The societal practice of abortion is ritual mass murder upon the altars dedicated to idolatrous vanities, a collective human sacrifice to pagan idols. It has a similitude to the Teutonic paganism of Adolph Hitler, whose idolatry was the idea of a "master race." In effect, this genocide was a mass human sacrifice to those pagan idols.
The advocacy of "gay marriage" is based on an esoteric idolatry. (See my post #10 and others here...)
Television has become a virtual temple in which the liberal priesthood performs without rest its sacraments and seeks to assemble the masses to worship the profane, the "progessive," and the politically correct.
They are hoping that the court will adopt their view.
My point was, if you take this view of marriage-that it is a personal choice like steak tips instead of brisket, and that it affects only individuals (which, BTW, no society anywhere at any time has ever done)-then the plaintiffs have a good argument.
Another way to put this is that, if you allow heterosexuals to have "gay marriage" (unilateral termination at will, multiple albeit sequential partners, no commitment to reproduce, and lots of governemnt benefits to define the relationship), then the case to deny "gay marriage" to gays becomes quite weak.
It therefore follows that if a court rules for these plaintiffs, consensual polygamy must be and will be legalized within two years.
I think something very similar has already happened. It was a president instead of a dictator. Why else would Clinton have dared to f*ck the whole country unless he was exercising his conjugal rights ;-)
It must be a union of (1) two people (2) of the opposite sex (3) who are not related.I probably shouldn't point this out but this sentence could be parsed as:
It must be a union of (1)two (2)people (3)of the opposite sex (4)who are not related.In this day and age any perversion is considered diverse and therefore good.
Marriage customs are very varied. Your suggestion is quite seriously followed in Iran, because Shia Islam allows the institution of "temporary marriage". This is a union contracted for a specific amount of time, which can be as short as an hour, with both partners agreeing to the duration, and the "gift" paid by the man to the woman. He is free of the obligation to support her (which always applies in a permanent union) but he has to acknowledge paternity of a child, and support it, if she has one. Men can make as many temporary marriages as they want. Women can only have one after a "waiting period" of more than 6 weeks - in order to settle any questions of paternity. Of course, most people in a temporary union do not aim to have children. In Persian slang, it is a "pleasure marriage."
This is specific to Shia Islam, the Sunnis don't have it, and indeed any mention of temporary marriage puts them in a rage. However, it has limited cases of adultery before the Islamic courts in Iran, where such cases are rarer than in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia.
Reader David, I am flagging you to this, because I think that you had commented on this in an earlier thread. You can back up what I am saying! I expect some incredulous reactions. (On the other hand, if it wasn't you, and you have never heard of temporary marriage, I apologise.)
The idea of Natural Law came from Thomas Hobbes, and later from John Locke. Ben Franklin was also influenced by that school of philosophy.
They took it at least partially from Orthodox Jewish practice (with which I am not familiar enough to cite the applicable laws) and partly from Christ's amplification of the Jewish Law (Torah.)
The question I ask, is where in the Gospels is Christ attributed to having spoken on the issue of monogamy or polygyny?
We know it was explicitly permitted by Jewish Law (which is from Moses) to have polygyny and not polyandry.
Whenever I have questions about Biblical law, I refer to Hobbes.
Part IV. Of the Kingdom of Darkness
Chap. xlv. Of Demonology and other Relics of the Religion of the Gentiles.[10] Another relic of Gentilism is the worship of images, neither instituted by Moses in the Old, nor by Christ in the New Testament; nor yet brought in from the Gentiles; but left amongst them, after they had given their names to Christ. Before our Saviour preached, it was the general religion of the Gentiles to worship for gods those appearances that remain in the brain from the impression of external bodies upon the organs of their senses, which are commonly called ideas, idols, phantasms, conceits, as being representations of those external bodies which cause them, and have nothing in them of reality, no more than there is in the things that seem to stand before us in a dream. And this is the reason why St. Paul says, "We know that an idol is nothing": not that he thought that an image of metal, stone, or wood was nothing; but that the thing which they honored or feared in the image, and held for a god, was a mere figment, without place, habitation, motion, or existence, but in the motions of the brain. And the worship of these with divine honour is that which is in the Scripture called idolatry, and rebellion against God. For God being King of the Jews, and His lieutenant being first Moses, and afterward the high priest, if the people had been permitted to worship and pray to images (which are representations of their own fancies), they had had no further dependence on the true God, of whom there can be no similitude; nor on His prime ministers, Moses and the high priests; but every man had governed himself according to his own appetite, to the utter eversion of the Commonwealth, and their own destruction for want of union. And therefore the first law of God was: they should not take for gods, alienos deos, that is, the gods of other nations, but that only true God, who vouchsafed to commune with Moses, and by him to give them laws and directions for their peace, and for their salvation from their enemies...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.