Posted on 01/21/2006 8:23:11 PM PST by MediaAnalyst
BALTIMORE -- A Circuit Court judge yesterday ruled that Maryland's 33-year-old ban on same-sex "marriage" is unconstitutional.
- snip -
"After much study and serious reflection, this court holds that Maryland's statutory prohibition against same-sex marriage cannot withstand this constitutional challenge," Judge Murdock said in her 22-page ruling. The law defining marriage as a union of a man and a woman violates the state constitution's Equal Rights Amendment, which guarantees "equality of rights under the law shall not be abridged or denied because of sex," the judge said.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
If I got this straight, you view that your will is the same as the 'will of the people' and if you disagree with something you dismiss it and state that it cannot be the "will of the people".
If so, that's arrogant on your part.
The enumerated rights in the Costitution are based entirely on the Declaration of Independence, which is from Mosaic Law (Genesis): All men endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. This is a monogamous Judaic model of Adam and Eve in Creationist belief. The Reynolds decison reaffirmed that...
Marriage isn't a right. It's a privilege. All this over-thinking...the matter is quite simple.
The divorce-threatens-marriage lie
Apr 12, 2005
by Dennis Prager ( bio | archive | contact )
One of the most frequently offered arguments by proponents of same-sex marriage is that it is not gays wanting to marry a member of the same sex that threatens the institution of marriage, it is the high divorce rate among heterosexuals.
One reason this argument is so often made is that it appeals to the religious as well as the secular, to conservatives as well as liberals.
This is too bad, because the argument is a meaningless non sequitur.
First, while divorce ends a given marriage, it does not threaten marriage as an institution. Of course, many marriages fail and end in divorce -- while some other marriages fail and do not end in divorce -- but why does this threaten marriage as an institution?
To understand the foolishness of the argument "divorce threatens marriage," let's apply this principle to other areas of life. Let's begin with parenthood. It is undeniable that vast numbers of people fail -- and have always failed -- as parents.
Yet, no one argues that the many parents who fail to raise good children threaten the institution of parenthood. Why, then, do marriages that fail threaten the institution of marriage?
Likewise, few people are calling for the redefinition of parenthood because parents so often fail to raise good children. Why, then, redefine marriage because many marriages fail?
When we think of parents failing, we think of ways to improve parenting, and we discourage people from becoming parents before they are ready. Why, then, don't we do the same regarding divorce -- think of ways to improve marriages and discourage people from marrying before they are ready? Why must we radically redefine it? That redefinition is what threatens marriage.
There is a second reason the divorce-rate-threatens-marriage argument is disingenuous: If gays marry, they will divorce at least as often as heterosexuals do. That is why the divorce issue is entirely unrelated to the question of whether we should redefine marriage. The only reason the argument is even offered is because gullible people will buy it. The gullible include well-intentioned centrist Americans who think, "Hey, that's a good point. Straights sure haven't done such a great job with marriage; why not let gays have a crack at it?" And the gullible include well-intentioned religious Americans whose loathing of divorce overwhelms their critical thinking.
A third flaw in the argument is that it presupposes that every divorce constitutes a failure of a couple's marriage. Sometimes this is true; sometimes it is not. I know a couple married for 30 years who made a beautiful home for their three now-married children. The couple divorced last year because they had both concluded that they had drifted too far apart to continue living together in any meaningful way (one aspect of the drift was one partner's increasing devotion to religion and the other's decreasing interest in it).
Who has the hubris to call their marriage a failure? Their children surely don't think their parents' marriage was a failure. It produced three wonderful married adults, and it provided them a beautiful and loving home in which to grow up. One can only wish all marriages so "failed."
It is simplistic to maintain that the one criterion of success or failure in marriage is permanence. There are marriages that provided years of comfort to a couple and a fine home to their children that eventually end; and there are permanent marriages that have provided neither comfort to the couple nor a loving environment for their children. If the end of something renders it a failure, every one of our lives is a failure, since they all come to an end.
Finally, marriage is threatened not by divorce, but by people not marrying in the first place -- as is increasingly the case in the two European societies that have redefined marriage to include couples of the same sex. Our present high divorce rate is not stopping the vast majority of Americans from wanting to marry. Nor should it. Nothing provides the antidote to narcissism, or the environment for the healthy raising of children, or the way for people to take care of one another, as does the marriage of a man and a woman. And while most divorces are terribly sad, divorce itself no more undermines the institution of marriage than car crashes undermine the institution of driving. In fact, the vast majority of people who do divorce deeply wish to marry again; painful divorce has not undermined marriage even among those who have divorced.
There may be honest reasons to support the redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples. The argument that heterosexuals divorce a lot is not one of them. It is, in fact, demagoguery.
Dennis Prager is a radio talk show host, author, and contributing columnist for Townhall.com.
That's interesting, because nearly all the married couples I know have been together forever. Clearly you hang out with the wrong people.
I see the statement "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is to complex an issue for you.
*Falls on the floor laughing*
There are several men on FR (let alone the rest of the country) who have stated that they are not going to get married because they did want to risk becoming a financial slave for the next 20 years to their (ex)wife because of sexist/anti-male divorse court rulings.
Furthermore, what does that red herring have to do with your assertion that you are the only one that thought of the propaganda that divorce is a greater threat to marriage as an institution than same sex perverted marriage (a pre- canned very popular argument applied liberally by homosexual advocates and activists world wide) A.K.A Homosexuality?
My point is you have more than once thrown your hat in the ring and are advocating homosexuality here on FreeRepublic.com contrary to the goals of this forum.
I have kept track of your homosexualisim advocacy here on this forum and will continue to do so.
Regards!
DirtyHarryY2K: How, exactly, does the worries of a few paranoid men that don't have common sense enough to marry the right woman for the right reasons threaten marriage as an institution?
Sir, are you accusing the younger, single, intelligent men of FR of lacking "common sense" and being "paranoid" on the issue marriage?
You, intentionally I think, have disregarded the point. All you want to do is advance the homosexual agenda and do away with the will of the people. In EVERY case where real people are allowed to vote on perverted anti traditional laws, they have overwhelmingly voted against the perverts.
What does that red herring have to do with your assertion that you are the only one that thought of the propaganda that divorce is a greater threat to marriage as an institution than same sex perverted marriage (a pre- canned very popular argument applied liberally by homosexual advocates and activists world wide) A.K.A Homosexuality?
Answer my question in post 69.
So?
The general principle (society is better served by limiting marriage to male-female unions) isn't disproved by a anecdotal counter example ("I know a gay couple that, for all I know, has been faithful for 25 years") cherry-picked to make the point.
Dou you know of any same sex couple that is capable of procreating?
He insulted the younger men of FR, and I am calling him on it. See post 69.
And to answer your question, not without outside help.
It's my experience that much of the support for gay marriage at FR comes from socially immature single young men and women who don't buy into this general principle. I suspect it's because they view sex solely as recreation, an erotic all-senses-involved Play Station 2 game.
Childless male-female couples do not disprove the general principle either. At least there is a underlying biological coherence in their coupling that is not present and will never be present in gay marriage.
I disagree, this is not what marriage is in the present day. Feminism, sexist divorse court rulings, and anti-male child support laws have corrupted marriage into a mockery of what it once was and as such, I don't support marriage.
snip--The law defining marriage as a union of a man and a woman violates the
In other words: the matter god accidentally created 'something other than' just men and women.
While few things upset me more than to see another ultraliberal activist judge strike down marriage laws that have been in place, with the people's consent, for centuries, one silver lining is that conservative Republicans can use the issue to increase conservative turnout and get votes from culturally conservative Democrats (particularly black Democrats, who generally speaking are more socially conservative than white Democrats). In Maryland, conservative Republican Lt. Governor Michael Steele was already polling well with Democrats and in particular with blacks in the race for the U.S. Senate (Steele is black, and started to make inroads among black voters in 2002), but if he emphasizes the marriage issue he could make even greater strides.
It would be especially helpful if Steele demanded that the RAT candidates take a stand on the issue. If Democrat Congressman and Senate candidate Ben Cardin is forced to take a position in favor of a Federal Marriage Amendment, it might cause a collapse in his support among liberals in the RAT primary and throw the nomination to former Congressman Kweisi Mfume (there are so many RATs running that Mfume could win with less than 35% if Cardin loses support among white liberals). And if Cardin opposes the Federal Marriage Amendment, Steele can use the marriage issue to attract an unprecedented number of black votes and defeat Cardin. The MD Senate race promised to be a barnburner, but it may get even more interesting due to the tyrannical behavior by an activist judge.
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