Posted on 08/05/2003 10:23:10 AM PDT by Outlaw76
"Hey, let's reinforce the stereotype that Republicans are like NAZIS! That will be real helpful!"
Don't you have a Klan metting to attend?
You couldn't be further from the truth.
I see your point on reinforcing their views of conservatives though. Once this thought it spread to that segment of society, no action of any kind would ever be needed.
Sure they do. And that's exactly why they make the demand of marriage. It's a means of counterfeiting God's design. That is, in fact, the mission of the one who controls this world right now. And he will continue to appear as an angel of light or "enlightenment" to perpetuate the deception on the spiritually blind. Just a reminder that we battle not against flesh and blood.
And now back to our regularly scheduled unwitting and worldly programming.
And of course we all know there's never anything like that with one man-one woman marriages < /sarcasm>
Get the government out of the marriage business -- completely! Nobody -- straight, gay, monogamous, polygamous, whatever -- needs their personal relationships registered and licensed by the government, any more than we need our guns registered and licensed by the government.
So-called "gay" marriages can be defeated by simply, straightforward reliance on common sense. At last look, 85% of the public disapproved of gay marriages and that tells me a "defense of marriage" amendment would sail through.
If there are benefits to marriage (I'm happily, heterosexually married, by the way), they should accrue to give families, which are burdened by the effort it takes to raise children, an advantage in society. That's the main reason I find the gay marriage movement, which I think is based on the egotistical desire to have the trappings of acceptance without the responsibility, so outrageous and perverse.
IS POLYGAMY NEXT? Dan Cere weighs in
Stanley Kurtz's discussion on the possible polygamous outcomes of a same-sex redefinition of marriage throws the public debate off track. This debate is not about polygamy; it is about a most fundamental public redefinition of the social meaning of marriage. The proposed redefinition and reduction of marriage to a "union of two persons" transforms marriage into a registered domestic partnership between consenting adults. To claim that this development may also lead to polygamy adds nothing of real interest or concern to this devastating reduction of the social meaning of marriage. The damage is done. The legal recognition of polygamous or polyamorous laisons will be little more than minor appendix to this bleak story.
The proposed redefinition empties marriage of key social meanings and in doing so it achieves a number of dismal goals. To name just a few:
*It kills any public affirmation of the decisively unique role of the heterosexual ecology of human life for society.
*It relativizes opposite-sex bonding as merely one lifestyle choice among many.
*It delinks marriage and procreation, and sends a very loud and insistent public message that marriage has no essential relationship to children.
In this light, Andrew Sullivan's zealous counter-attack is even more misleading. Sullivan states: "What Kurtz wants you to believe is that one percent of marriages will have more of an impact on the remaining 99 percent than the 99 percent will have on the one percent. Sorry, but it just doesn't make sense."
Sullivan is simply wrong. The change in the public definition of marriage is a change for everyone, not just for gays. Institutions like marriage are about socially embodied meanings and practices, they are not just legal buckets that you can fill as you like.
When we tamper with core meanings of institutions we inevitably see very significant social shifts. Divorce reform challenged the meaning of marital permanence. Back in the sixties the experts assured us that it would have no real impact. It would only help hard-pressed folk headed the road for divorce. Why would stable marriages be affected by such legal tinkering? We plowed ahead on their good advice (with a good social conservative, Ronald Reagan, leading the charge). Divorce rates spiked. The lesson? Surgery into the social meaning of vital institutions digs into their internal life and effects deep and significant change.
Let's be frank. The proposed redefinition of marriage cuts into the heart of this institution. It rejects, in the words of Canada's Ontario Court of Appeal, any "rational connection" between marriage, procreation and children. This reduction represents the last chapter in a steady movement of law and public policy over the last few decades towards a view of marriage that is but a pale shadow of its former self.
Who will pay the price? In the cycle of human life marriage has struggled to serve the young men and women who bridge the sex divide. According to cross-cultural data this "elephant in the room" constitutes 99 percent of couples. The huge social responsibility of conceiving children and raising families lies squarely on their shoulders. However, the vital social and cultural supports for this elemental human project are now being dismantled. In Canada marriage as a social institution uniquely designed to support and serve the "needs, capacities and circumstances of opposite-sex couples" has been denounced as discriminatory. The crucial project of forming stable mother/father/child bonds is dismissed with cavalier indifference as we celebrate "diversity" as an end in itself. Public applause is strictly channelled to the fluid world of loving relationships.
This debate is not about homosexuality; it is about marriage. From the perspective of our older and deeper cultural traditions, this proposed new institution is "marriage" in name only. In fact, the use of the term "marriage" to describe this domestic partnership regime is presumptuous. This new public institution of marriage is, in the words of the poet T.S. Eliot, a hollow thing, a thing stuffed and filled with straw.
A sign of the social meaninglessness of this achievement can be found in the recent comments of one of its most fervent ideological proponents in Canada, parliamentarian Svend Robinson. In the glow of this "landmark" change in the definition of marriage, Robinson mentioned that he had been asked whether he would now marry his partner Max. Svend responded: "It's been an incredible time for those of us who have struggled for full recognition of gay and lesbian couples' equality rights. Yet I'm still unsure if Max and I will marry anytime soon. After nine years in a committed, loving relationship, how would the state's imprimatur change anything?"(Globe and Mail, June 24, 2003) Many were dumbfounded by Robinson’s dismissive attitude to the state’s imprimatur of marriage. Wasn't that the whole point of this zealous fight to redefine this fundamental social institution?
But Robinson's what's-the-point-of-marrying shrug sends just the right signal. Marriage has been reduced to a Hallmark card to mark one's "emotional commitment" to a partner. And that's the way this story of marriage ends, "…not with a bang but with a whimper." (T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men")
I would be careful about endorsing "civil unions", as this may end up being a stepping stone to "gay marriage". Just get the folks used to the idea. Well, we have "civil unions", why not "gay marriage"?
Notwithstanding a 50% divorce rate. I think you're piking the nit while the felon runs free.
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