Posted on 10/09/2003 7:56:46 AM PDT by Sweet_Sunflower29
Edited on 04/22/2004 12:37:21 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Marriage has its advantages but some think the nation
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Episcopal, actually.
And I always consider myself married because the Church says so, not because the State says so. I would have no problem conforming to the Episcopal Church's canon laws for marriage.
Hey, don't senior citizens get these same perks -- as well as the ubiquitious discounted meal perk at IHOP!
Right now as a direct result of the state's involvement in marriage, there are hordes of men who refuse to marry. They will not commit, they will not marry, and if they have children it will be out of wedlock. You might not like it, but its a fact.
The state's meddling has created a no win situation for married men in this country and the predictible result is a marraige boycott. That is far, far more of a threat to marriage than any gay couple could ever be. You see, married gays won't prevent heterosexuals from marrying but unjust divorce laws sure will.
If you really cared about marriage, the big push would be for sane equitable divorce laws. As it stands you can be a loving, caring husband and if your wife one day decides she's bored with you, you'll be out of your home, lose all your assets, your kids, your guns, you'll have a restraining order placed against you and you will have absolutely no redress whatsover.
Men considering marriage are seeing what happens to others time and time again and they are running away as fast as they can.
This will be the real downfall of marriage and society, but I guess there isn't much political mileage in eliminating it.
We must pick and choose our battles, bc2. The defense of marriage is the most important one to me now.
Did someone say the word "EVIL"?
Okay, I will................
EVIL!
The way to stop it is to stop defining marriage!
Your attempt to change the subject and deflect attention from the homosexual agenda is noted. Your statements about "hordes of men who refuse to marry" are laughable. You display an interesting lack of consistency by saying the state shouldn't have laws regarding marriage, but the state should make more laws about divorce.
So, the way to stop marriage from being re-defined is to stop defining it? That is a totally illogical statement. Unless marriage is defined as only a heterosexual institution, it will be constantly under attack by homosexuals and their supporters, which is what you have become by your arguments.
If you're talking about stengthening the government's role in the institution of marriage, I think it is quite appropriate to see how they have done thus far. And the record over the last fifty years is pretty grim.
Ask somebody who is sixty how many women they knew personally who had out-of-wedlock births when they were young. If they count them on their fingers, they will have room left over on one hand. Now think about how many people you know who have had in-wedlock births in the last ten years. Once you take away all the children whose parents are divorced, you are getting back to the fingers of one hand to find the ones who are still living with their natural parents after ten years.
Government involvement in marriage has been a disaster, and it will only get worse.
I haven't argued for any such thing. My church has rights that are guaranteed by the 1st Amendment. A Constitutional amendment defining marriage as a heterosexual institution will free my church from having to fight that part of the homosexual agenda by guaranteeing the proper definition of marriage!
The article is about de-lagalization of marriage. While this holds some relevency to gays, it is not exclusively about them. Inequitible divorce laws certainly are a relevent topic in discussing the the corrosive effect of the state on marriage.
Your statements about "hordes of men who refuse to marry" are laughable.
You find the truth amusing? There are no shortages of articles and statistics describing the phenomenon I mentioned. Perhaps you haven't seen them?
You display an interesting lack of consistency by saying the state shouldn't have laws regarding marriage, but the state should make more laws about divorce.
I should have been more clear. If the state does not dictate the terms of the marriage contract, it follows that it has no say in how divorces proceed. Couples will agree to their own terms of marriage and what happens if they decide to end their marriage. And rest assured that most sane men would never agree to the terms that the state currently dictates. In fact, they are voting with their feet right now in large numbers precisely because of that reason.
Forgive me, perhaps I read too much into the word, "heterosexual". Other than being able to have children the old fashioned way, what really distinguishes the heterosexual family from other types of families, say, an adult son or daughter who lives with an elderly relative?
I don't fear monogamized gay people setting up stable households, where they mow the lawn, pay their taxes, and contribute to society in much the same way as heterosexual families do.
As "gridlock" has pointed out, there is nothing stopping two men right now from conferring privileges in Law on eachother by means of mutual Private Contract. However, Private Contracts are exactly that -- not binding on parties external to the contract. Two Men could (gridlock's example) designate eachother as health-care proxies; but if I made the business decision to not hire anyone who designated another man as their health-care proxy, or to do so in some cases but not in others, no law currently forces my hand in such hiring decisions.
Unless, of course, a union is defined by the State as a "marriage", in which case I have a legal obligation to respect such union as being so.
You're dreaming if you don't think that eventually state law would require all businesses to recognize and treat all "partnership contracts" equally, effectively creating homosexual marriage
No, that would be impossible -- because under such a mandate, the opportunities for fraud would be too great. 50 hippies in a commune could "partnership contract" themselves, and if 1 got a job the Business would be forced to let the other 49 sponge off the Health Care benefits.
That's why, despite the fact that mutual contracts are legal between two men now, it is impossible for the State to require that parties external to the contract be bound by its terms. They have never done so, and in fact they are effectively unable to do so.
Thus, if Marriage were returned to the sphere of Private Contract, not only would the State be unable to define homosexual unions as "marriages", it would be impossible to legislate that any individual or business respect them as such.
That is a fallacy. Employers would end up having to provide the same benefits to homosexual spouses of their employees as they do to heterosexual spouses of their employees in "partnership contracts". You are playing into the hands of the homosexual agenda.
No, they wouldn't -- because "equal protection" Law would require that the Law apply to any and all mutual contracts. Legislators would be forced to require that businesses treat 50 hippies "privately contracting" together all be covered by the benefits of the one who had a job -- and that is why, despite the fact that voluntary mutual-benefit contracts are legal now, the State does not require that Parties external to the Contract be bound by its terms, and in fact they can't.
That is a bogus argument. You are talking about an unconstitutional establishment of religion. Marriage, however, is a legitimate and constitutional government concern, as stable heterosexual marriages are a tremendous benefit to society as a whole, therefore the government should do whatever it reasonably can to promote such an institution.
It seems to me that the Constitution is silent on the issue of Marriage -- else, why would you believe that we need a Constitutional Amendment?
I don't think you thought that one through very well, as you kinda shot your own FMA argument in the foot.
Another bogus argument. There is no "canon law" against the marriage of believer and unbeliever. In 2nd Corinthians Paul says that a believer shouldn't marry an unbeliever, but he also says in 1st Corinthians that if you are married to an unbeliever you shouldn't divorce them! Besides, if a church doesn't want to marry a believer and an un-believer they are free to do that today, and would be free to do so under the proposed Constitutional amendment - this is no "devaluation of canon law". Besides, the 1st amendment protects a church's rights to practice their beliefs. That is not changed by a Constitutional amendment defining marriage as only a heterosexual institution.
Right now, Religious Businesses are required to treat as "married" anyone whom the State says is married -- thus, if a Believer employee (call her "Susie Q" marries (as defined by the State) an UnBeliever, the Business is required to cover that UnBeliever with benefits as though the Marriage were Legitimate!! (It's not legitimate at all -- but Caesar says so) And woe to the Business which would dare fire Susie Q for her breach of canon law -- after all, under the Law of the State, little Susie's just exercising her civil rights to a State-legalized marriage, which is required to be respected as a "marriage" in Law.
Were marriage a matter of Private Contract, OTOH, the Business would be free to enforce employment discipline for breaches of canon law -- for Private Contracts are not binding on external parties, and indeed cannot be.
As I stated above, churches are free today to marry or not marry whoever they wish. Nothing would be changed with the proposed constitutional amendment.
The usurpation of Marriage Authority to the State allows the State to write into law all the "easy come, easy go" marriage and divorce laws with which they have radically devalued the institution. By contrast, the sphere of Private Contract allows Churches to write canon law protections of marriage into the "partnership contracts" as legally binding clauses... which the State, if not enjoying the monopolistic Power to define "marriage", would be compelled to respect as a voluntary mutual private contract.
Given Americans' general preference for Religious Blessing of their unions, the return of Marriage to the sphere of Private Contract (into which Churches could require canon-law protections of marriage as a condition of Religious Blessing) would likely result in an enormous strengthening of the Institution of Marriage in succeeding generations, as Americans would have legally-binding obligations to adhere to the Canon Laws of their Church as written into their voluntary "partnership contracts"....
...as opposed to the easy come, easy go "marriages" we have now under the State Monopoly.
Why is that illogical? If there is no definition, there can be no re-definition. Seems perfectly logical to me.
I agree that marriage will be under constant attack by homosexuals and their supporters. This is true. So who would you rather have defending marriage, the Jesuits or Teddy Kennedy?
Government definition of marriage will lead inevitably to the expansion of that definition to include those whom you would wish to exclude. This is inevitable. And once that definition includes those people, that definition will completely supplant any traditional definition that is advocated by any other social institution.
And the FMA is an impossible dream. (Or nightmare, depending on how you view individual liberty)
To the Six-Thousand (actually, 6,000+) Year old histories included in the Bible, that's pretty dang recent.
It's a matter of perspective.
Best, OP
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