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Why We Should Stop Making Arguments for Traditional Marriage
Aleteia ^ | 05/20/2014 | David Carlin

Posted on 05/20/2014 12:34:44 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

Common sense and thousands of years of historical precedent firmly put the burden of proof on those who wish to redefine marriage.

Another judge, this one in Arkansas, has struck down a state law banning same-sex marriage on the ground that the ban has no “rational” basis. In other words, the defenders of the law were not able to prove that the discrimination (against gays and lesbians) involved in the law served a useful social purpose.

It is a waste of time trying to prove that a law restricting marriage to male-female combinations is “rational” in the sense that it serves a useful social purpose. Now I happen to think that traditional male-female marriage is useful and that same-sex marriage will in the long run prove to be socially harmful -- very harmful indeed -- but I doubt that I can prove this to somebody who is not already convinced of its truth.

Why not, instead of trying to prove the irrationality of same-sex marriage, simply say that it is a “self-evident truth” that marriage must be a male-female thing? A self-evident truth is a truth that is known to be true without the need for any proof.

After all, we Americans have a very respectable tradition of holding that some truths are self-evident. In the Declaration of Independence our Founding Fathers itemized a number of self-evident truths -- that “all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” If Thomas Jefferson and the other Founders could make an appeal to self-evident moral truths, why can’t we?

Slavery was condemned and eventually abolished on grounds other than “rational” proof of its inutility. While it is true that slavery was not a socially useful institution, this is not why it was abolished. Americans (at least those Americans who lived outside the South) didn’t become anti-slavery because some economist proved to them that it did more harm than good to the GDP. They turned against slavery because they remembered what Jefferson had said in the Declaration and because Harriett Beecher Stowe -- without taking the trouble to give a “rational” proof that there is anything wrong with cruelty -- showed that slavery was a cruel institution.

Likewise when society, many millennia ago, first decided that marriage should be a male-female thing, this wasn’t because social scientists of that primitive society considered the possibility of same-sex marriage and rejected it in favor of male-female marriage because the latter, in their considered and very “rational” judgment, was more socially beneficial. Those primitive societies, along with every human society that ever existed prior to the 1990s, rejected same-sex marriage because it struck them as an absurdity. They rejected it because its irrationality could be seen on its face; it was self-evident; it didn’t require proof.

And if you are somebody who disapproves of same-sex marriage, is this because you have given it impartial consideration and, after much reading and discussion and contemplation, and after weighing up the pros and cons, you have been compelled by your sober and dispassionate rationality to the conclusion that it will be more harmful to society than beneficial? Or did you say to yourself when the idea of same-sex marriage was first proposed, “This is an absurdity”?

So if this is how almost every society that has ever existed on the face of the earth has decided that same-sex marriage shouldn’t be allowed, and if this is how many of us as individuals still decide against it, why when we enter a courtroom must we pretend that have a “rational” proof against same-sex marriage?

We ought to be able to go into a courtroom and say to the judge, “Your honor, you know as well as I that same-sex marriage makes no sense; and so I rest my case.”

-- David Carlin, a professor of sociology and philosophy at the Community College of Rhode Island at Newport, is the author of Homosexualism Versus Catholicism.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: gaymarriage; homosexualagenda; homosexuality; marriage
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To: SeekAndFind
Simple question.
Why was Sex and Sexes invented ( by evolution or creator take your pick)?

Was in for reproduction or personal enjoyment?..well if its for any other reason then reproduction then there no need for more the one sex..as gays prove.

So why is the state involved in person entertainment? It has no need

Conversely the state does have and interest in reproduction..else we die out as a people. .

41 posted on 05/20/2014 3:17:43 PM PDT by tophat9000 (An Eye for an Eye, a Word for a Word...nothing more.)
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To: Dutchboy88

Well-said, Dutchboy. Thank you.


42 posted on 05/20/2014 3:18:19 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o ("Stone cold sober, as a matter of fact.")
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To: ansel12

Government became involved in marriage when questions of faithfulness and inheritance became subject to dispute.

In this respect agree with you. However in the respect of licencing marriages rather than simply recognizing that which has already happened by the power of God and thus implications there to I agree that Government has no business.

Government does not and Cannot form(or for that matter break) a marriage, it can merely recognize it’s existence in terms of legal implications.

I would thus propose that the question is not so much about the unfailing sinful foolishness of the State and Sodomites around us but of yourself.

Do we recognize the unions of Sodomite as legitimate? I would say absolute not. Its time to tell theses people that, they are not really bounded and have no real moral obligation.
Their only real marriage has been to that of Sin, and we believe in Redemption.
Urge them to leave Sodomy behind and Imply in no uncertainty terms that includes the one to whom they claim to be bonded.

What they call a marriage is a lie, and that is in no meaningfull way a marriage.

Hate the sin love and remind the sinner of their path to redemption!


43 posted on 05/20/2014 3:18:19 PM PDT by Monorprise
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To: MrB
...pointing out that they're freaks.

Why not dub these homosexual unions as Freak Shows? So what if it sounds harsh. Calling their actions unnatural obviously hasn't affected them or some seemingly conscience-less judges. They don't give a damn when they usurp real marriages but we don't have to agree with or accept their destructive agenda.

I've long believed that many heteros have given ammunition to the homos due to adultery, babies born out of wedlock, the huge number of divorces, and the harm brought on so many children. Still, that doesn't excuse the behavior and demands of homosexual activists.

For now I will call these unions Freak Shows.

44 posted on 05/20/2014 3:36:34 PM PDT by IIntense (WH)
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To: Socon-Econ

That made be good and fruitful but he is right about one thing in respect to how we interact with the issue.

This isn’t an argument or a debate this is a simple truth.

There is no such thing as a marriage to sodomy anymore than there is such a thing as a marriage to any other form of sin. There is no more obligation than there is morality in these unions and as such they are by the power of God Devolved as they were no union at all.

As Christians we should urge theses people to seek redemption.


45 posted on 05/20/2014 3:54:04 PM PDT by Monorprise
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To: tophat9000

RE: by evolution or creator take your pick)

If it is by evolution, then anything goes.


46 posted on 05/20/2014 3:54:50 PM PDT by SeekAndFind (If at first you don't succeed, put it out for beta test.)
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To: Monorprise
Government became involved in marriage when questions of faithfulness and inheritance became subject to dispute.

So countless thousands of years, since there has to be something known as a legal marriage.

When in American history was marriage considered legal, based on whatever a mosque, or cult, or gay church, or Mormon Temple, said, just because they were a religion?

Is that what you are calling for now? What do you think your chances are of ending the need for law in marriage and divorce? Even Thomas Jefferson (marriage license bought 1771) dealt in divorce law as an attorney, the federal government was passing laws in regard to marriage in the 1780s and 1790s.

47 posted on 05/20/2014 3:55:32 PM PDT by ansel12 ((Ted Cruz and Mike Lee-both of whom sit on the Senate Judiciary Comm as Ginsberg's importance fades)
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To: SeekAndFind
A few months ago I had a conversation with one of my lib sisters. In the course of the conversation, homosexual marriage came up. She said she couldn't understand how anybody could be against it. I replied it's because many people, like myself, don't believe homosexuality is normal. We view it as a mental disorder. She couldn't believe I could think that. I said, sorry, but the human anus was not designed to have certain things rammed into it.

She called me a hater. I said, I don't hate homosexuals, but they do have a mental disorder. I asked her if she had a choice to choose her sons' sexual orientation, would she push the button for homosexuality or heterosexuality. She refused to answer. But I know what button she'd push.

48 posted on 05/20/2014 4:04:24 PM PDT by driftless2 (:-))
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To: ansel12

“Is that what you are calling for now? What do you think your chances are of ending the need for law in marriage and divorce? Even Thomas Jefferson (marriage license bought 1771) dealt in divorce law as an attorney, the federal government was passing laws in regard to marriage in the 1780s and 1790s.”

I’ve never heard of such laws except in cases of employment.


49 posted on 05/20/2014 4:04:28 PM PDT by Monorprise
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To: Jim Noble

There was a recent article (can’t remember the author) about the national psychiatric conference in 1973 where they rescinded their position that homosexuality was a mental disorder. The author of the article investigated the conference and discovered that many of the chief people at the conference making the decision to redefine homosexuality were themselves homosexuals. In short, there was no scientific analysis, they just decided that homosexuality was as normal as heterosexuality.


50 posted on 05/20/2014 4:08:07 PM PDT by driftless2 (:-))
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To: Monorprise

Which laws, Colonial marriage law, marriage law by states, federal laws dealing with marriage?

What do you want to know that will support the absurdity of saying that marriage isn’t also a part of law?


51 posted on 05/20/2014 4:10:41 PM PDT by ansel12 ((Ted Cruz and Mike Lee-both of whom sit on the Senate Judiciary Comm as Ginsberg's importance fades)
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To: ansel12

“What do you want to know that will support the absurdity of saying that marriage isn’t also a part of law?”

Marrage isn’t founded in law, to claim that Law doesn’t reference and uses marriage is to deny hands of politicians.

The State does not and cannot makes a man and woman married. Only God can do that. The State can however recognize that marriage’s preexistence in the applicability of its laws.

But the State’s recognition is no more an indicator marriage than a blind man’s recognition of the color red is an indication of red.


52 posted on 05/20/2014 4:19:26 PM PDT by Monorprise
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To: Monorprise

The Muslim, gay cult, and Mormons, can all say the same, and we don’t care, it is only when it is legal that we care.

What you are saying is fine for church, but it sure doesn’t help us deal with American law, for instance in recognizing spouses in the military, and in immigration.

You aren’t opposing gay marriage, you are just talking to yourself, and making up some fake history at the same time.


53 posted on 05/20/2014 4:27:09 PM PDT by ansel12 ((Ted Cruz and Mike Lee-both of whom sit on the Senate Judiciary Comm as Ginsberg's importance fades)
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To: SeekAndFind

I thought this might have been yet another “I really don’t want to run for president” proclamations from Rand Paul.


54 posted on 05/20/2014 4:27:58 PM PDT by Fledermaus (Conservatives are all that's left to defend the Constitution. Dems hate it, and Repubs don't care.)
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To: ansel12

The idea of institutionalizing Sodomy in the holy name of marriage could not disgust me more.

It is akin to someone publicly painting satanic symbols on a bible as they burn it.

But I don’t know what else I can do about this great assault upon our virtue, our institutions, and evil that now seems to have us surrounded.

Nothing we say or do seems to matter, not even the fact that there is no point to a marriage without family seems to phase theses loonatics on the left and Tyrants in Washington.
The leftist loonatics at least seem to think they are on some sort of Godless crusade to defend some oppressed group while desecrating the rights of anther group.

This of course Angers me to no end, and even provokes thought of violent retaliation. But I cannot appeal for redress of this injury to people who too crazed by the echo champer to listen to reason, and I don’t seem to have any other way to halt the progress of this evil.

All I can do is try to pretend that it is not my lawn that they are desecrating with their act of perversion, that it is not my home that they have invaded with this madness.

I am open to suggestions. But the truth is real Marriage has been dying for decades for precisely the same reasons. People are not treating marriage as a holy union. Instead its something of a cultural Fad now inspired by eons of tradition now all but discarded in the light of decades of easy divorce in apparently faithless marriages.

The sad truth is, there isent a whole lot of Real meaningful Marriage left in our culture to save. Perhaps that is why this infection has taken hold so easy and quickly to the already gravely ill and dying institution.

I would suggest to you, that marriage needs to be reborn among the truthful and faithful and that rebirth unfortunately must be totally independent and perhaps secrete to the now totally corrupt state.


55 posted on 05/20/2014 4:46:28 PM PDT by Monorprise
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To: Monorprise

We need to find a way to advance conservatism, and right now the dagger directed at it’s heart, is libertarianism.

Rinosim (weak on social issues) and libertarianism (radically left wing on social issues) share a common enemy, Christianity, and the conservatives, and they have discovered each other, and are melding together as a fresh new coalition with a fresh new vocabulary, and a fresh new argumentative approach to overcome conservatism.

I don’t have any good answers on how to lead a national fight, but I know that we better get tuned in better into what politicians are truly saying when they start describing themselves as “libertarian” and that we need to “temporarily put social issues on the back burner”, or that they are strong supporters of “liberty”, without telling us what they mean by that word when they use it in place of describing their support for social conservatism.

Even on some threads here, we are having trouble finding our footing and approach and language to deal with libertarians support of the gay agenda, and their calls for “less emphasis” on social issues, or for “putting them off” for a while, and dealing with the language of promoting the homosexual agenda with words like “liberty, “statists”, and so on.

The “government out of marriage” chant, is one they created, even though they are anti-God and it is meaningless, and has nothing to do with reality and politics, but it does throw more mud into the discussion, and as a diversion it works especially well on some devout Christians who haven’t thought that slogan through, as it relates to defeating the democrat party in a real life political battle, to preserve marriage in America.


56 posted on 05/20/2014 5:04:45 PM PDT by ansel12 ((Ted Cruz and Mike Lee-both of whom sit on the Senate Judiciary Comm as Ginsberg's importance fades)
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To: Monorprise
I would suggest to you, that marriage needs to be reborn among the truthful and faithful and that rebirth unfortunately must be totally independent and perhaps secrete to the now totally corrupt state.

I'm not ready to surrender to living like a Christian in a hostile Muslim country, I want to keep fighting for conservative politics and elected leadership, and traditional America.

57 posted on 05/20/2014 5:07:51 PM PDT by ansel12 ((Ted Cruz and Mike Lee-both of whom sit on the Senate Judiciary Comm as Ginsberg's importance fades)
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To: ansel12

Washington is usurping our right to govern yourself locally in every state every day. We can’t stop Federal Employees in black robes from issuing edict, all we can do is fight to get politicians who ignore those edicts and attack those usurpation. But as you know good and well Washington has us all in a prison, and we can only go so far before they march in an army to rape us into submission to their tyrannic edicts.

The truth is, Washington in every vital social and economic respect is more a unbounded Government then ever it was, and we have no room to maneuver on social issues. The biggest reason why is that it’s lawless employees in black robes practice the most authoritarian form of tyranny in their usually radical pronouncements of new law supposedly “Discovered” in a 200 year old Constitution where it was never written, imagined, or practiced before.

We have spent 30 years trying to undo this lawless madness thou better appointments only to have it pounded back down upon us twice as authoritarian as before. “The system” isent working, and nether is our best attempts to fix it over decades.

I don’t see any non-revolutionary options. Short of Revolution which I fear we haven’t the strength to carry out, I don’t see any hope for a lawfully government respectful of the limit’s of nature’s God.

I do however believe that if there is to be a future it will be in our own offspring and family adhering steadfastly to those laws and limits. When the roman empire fell, and there was no law of any merit it was these values which preserved Christendom thou the ages until the renisants.

Now maybe your right about Social Conservatism, and libertarians(At least some of them). I don’t know.

I do know and acknowledge that we are in a great need for Socially conservative values. That our culture is falling apart as our civilization spins towards sodomy and self-destruction.


58 posted on 05/20/2014 5:32:35 PM PDT by Monorprise
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To: IIntense

You’ve identified the big picture - the agenda to destroy the family. That includes divorce, adultery, pornography, abortion, homosexuality, and promiscuous use of birth control.


59 posted on 05/21/2014 5:20:18 AM PDT by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
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To: SeekAndFind
With evolution anything goes?..not true..

Things evolve for a reason ..or really random anomalies be come part of the permanence design if is give an advantage the organism to reproduce itself and its anomaly over and over.

By itself gay seem to be a self destruct / kill switch for an organism to prevent its reproduction... at best sterile worker bees..

60 posted on 05/21/2014 1:21:16 PM PDT by tophat9000 (An Eye for an Eye, a Word for a Word...nothing more.)
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