“I don’t see how we can vote to restrict the freedoms of others.”
Your remark reflects a common misconception:
“Same—sex marriage will secure new liberties for homosexuals.”
This has not happened because no personal liberty was being denied them. Gay couples can already do everything married people do—express love, set up housekeeping, share home ownership, have sex, raise children, commingle property, receive inheritance, and spend the rest of their lives together. It’s not criminal to do any of these things.
Homosexuals can even have a wedding. It’s done all the time.
Gay marriage grants no new freedom, and denying marriage licenses to homosexuals does not restrict any liberty. Nothing stops anyone—of any age, race, gender, class, or sexual preference—from making lifelong loving commitments to each other, pledging their troth until death do them part. They may lack certain entitlements, but not freedoms.
Denying marriage doesn’t restrict anyone. It merely withholds social approval from a lifestyle and set of behaviors that homosexuals have complete freedom to pursue without it. A marriage license doesn’t give liberty; it gives respect.
That is precisely what the homosexual activists long for - societal and governmental recognition/approval of gay relationships granted them by a marriage license.
What’s kind of funny is that heterosexuals have been living together for years enjoying every liberty of matrimony without the “piece of paper.” Suddenly that meaningless piece of paper means everything to homosexuals. Why? Not because it confers liberty, but because it confers legitimacy.
Same-sex marriage is not about civil rights. It’s about validation and social respect. It is a radical attempt at civil engineering using government muscle to strong-arm the people into accommodating a lifestyle many find deeply offensive, contrary to nature, socially destructive, and morally repugnant.
You’ve probably heard of columnist Jeff Jacoby of the “Boston Globe”. Here’s what he said in one of his articles concerning this (about a year ago):
“The marriage radicals…have not been deprived of the right to marry—only of the right to insist that a single-sex union is a “marriage.” They cloak their demands in the language of civil rights because it sounds so much better than the truth: They don’t want to accept or reject marriage on the same terms that it is available to everyone else. They want it on entirely new terms. They want it to be given a meaning it has never before had, and they prefer that it be done undemocratically—by judicial fiat, for example, or by mayors flouting the law. Whatever else that may be, it isn’t civil rights.”
That’s exactly what the Supreme Court of CA did yesterday - they legislated from the bench and swept aside the will of the voters of California - forcing everyone to “accept” the court’s definition of marriage on the rest of us.
Homosexuality is broadly tolerated in this country. Gays are allowed to pursue their “lifestyles” without reprisal, even to the point of forming committed, monogamous unions. They may not be universally respected or admired, but they have the liberty to live as they choose. This is all they have the right to demand.
I didn't read past your second paragraph. I just rest my case.