"Rights do not come from the Constitution: read the Declaration of Independence.
Is education a right? No. You cannot find education in the Constitution. Neither will you find marriage..."
Rights come from our nature as human beings. Saying they come from a Creator doesn't tell us anything about the nature of those rights. I never said they come from the constitution; I said the opposite. The constitution's main aim is to say what the legitimate powers of government are. If a power is not specified in the Constitution, the government has NO AUTHORITY WHATSOEVER to exercise that power. That doesn't mean that the government is not right now completely ignoring it's constitutional limits; it is on far too many issues.
You are right, education is not a right, in the sense that the government is not authorized at the federal level to intervene in it. In the sense that everybody is entitled to pursue whatever education they want as long as they don't make someone else pay for it, the pursuit of education is a right. If I want to study astrology (I don't), the state should not be permitted to stop me as long as I study it with my own money.
Marriage, by your own admission, is a religious rite. It therefore is outside the bounds of civil authority. The government simply has no constitutional power to regulate it; if it does try to, it is the same as regulating religion, which I am sure no honest person of faith wants. If two men want to get married in some church that accepts that, it is nobody else's business. It doesn't infringe on your life, liberty, or property, therefore you have no moral claim to stop them by threat of force (the state).
" Morality and all of its associated concepts are from the belief that some higher power is defining the correctness of human behavior.
Which one is of no importance to this matter. The fact is you cannot, using formal standards of categorical logic, prove the preceding syllogism false."
You can't prove it true either. It is a meaningless and useless assertion therefore.
"If it involves public dollars, then it is my business. You cannot have a private choice and take public money"
You mean like having religious institutions getting nice little tax breaks? That kind of racket?
"You cannot take my money by using the government to point a gun at me to support your perverted fetishes... (Note: a fetish is an object of worship.)"
That's ok, because all of my fetishes are non-perverted :).
Seriously, if two people engage in gay sex, unless they do so in your house uninvited, they have not infringed on your life, liberty, or property. If you don't like it, what gives you (or any mob, or any elected official representing said mob) the right to force them to stop such behavior? If they get a disease as a result of their behavior, how is that affecting you anymore than the idiots smoking themselves to death? Or eating themselves into immobile lard-asses? Many, many behaviors have adverse health consequences, yet we for the most part leave it to the individual to decide how to make those choices.
The statists among us though want to make all sorts of welfare programs universal, including health care, just so they can then say, "Well mister, your actions DO have a public effect because if you get sick, the state pays for it." It's not just religious busybodies; it's the food police and the anti-smoking zealots, among others. If the proper role of the state was enforced, the only things it would do is enforce contracts and prevent foreign and domestic violence initiated against any individual or group of individuals.
If two men want to get married in some church that accepts that, it is nobody else's business. Yes it is. It involves the 501(C) tax-exempt corporate status of the church, public benefits, insurance rates, public health, etc., not to mention the other affects on the environment of children...
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
If a power is not specified in the Constitution, the government has NO AUTHORITY WHATSOEVER to exercise that power.
The people do... and who are the people? We elect representatives, we vote...
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
Marriage, by your own admission, is a religious rite. It therefore is outside the bounds of civil authority.
If Michael Jackson is your pope and molesting children is your religion, we do have the right to regulate the PRACTICE, not the belief...
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
Morality is the belief that some higher power defines what is correct in human behavior.
This axiom is proof of itself. An atheist telling me I am immoral is no different than a preacher or rabbi telling me I am a sinner. I do not bend my knee in acquiescence to the wisdom of men...
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
If you don't like it, what gives you (or any mob, or any elected official representing said mob) the right to force them to stop such behavior?
The power to do so comes from the will to. The mechanism is the law, at the present, and the votes and power of enforcement is there to carry out the will of the people.
We are not talking about private behavior here. We are talking about public behavior - - which is marriage (and usually procreation).
We have all the authority to exercise any power on this earth as a function of self-preservation and the peace of our lives. The power to shape the temporal reality in this world is physical force. If you want to make great harrowing public displays of depravity in front of my family, it is my right to protect the peace of their lives and doing so is a function of government, provided it is given by consent of the governed.
Either we have government, or we don't. If we don't, then I just do as I please to enforce my will upon you and society. This would become a monarchy. This is why we vote, have legislators, courts, police and statutory laws.
You miss the entire point of the issue...