Posted on 12/09/2002 5:13:47 AM PST by SJackson
In modern journalism, radical change is often announced by a yawn-inducing headline. For instance, "Legal Group Urges States to Update Their Family Law" (New York Times, November 29). The headline, one step up from "Don't Bother to Read This," refers to a ponderous 1,200-page commentary and set of recommendations by the American Law Institute, a group of prominent judges and lawyers. The proposals, "Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution," may seem like dry, technical suggestions about custody, alimony, and property distribution. But what this "update" really amounts to is a devastating legal assault on marriage.
The institute report says that in many important ways, domestic partnerships should be legally treated like marriage. It defines domestic partners as "two persons of the same or opposite sex, not married to one another, who for a significant period of time share a primary residence and a life together as a couple." When breaking up, the report says, cohabitants are entitled to a division of property and alimonylike payments, just like married people who divorce. And after a relationship ends, the cohabiting partner of a legal parent may share custody and decision-making responsibility for the legal parent's child.
The report validates homosexual relationships and gives them a status comparable to that of marriage. If accepted, this idea would lead immediately to the next legal argument: If gay and straight commitments have the same status in state law, isn't it picky and discriminatory to withhold the word marriage from the gay version? Heterosexual couples who live together would also get the same status as husbands and wives, blurring or eliminating another line between marriage and serial affairs.
War on tradition. The most drastic notion embedded in the suggestions is that marriage is just one arrangement among many. Marriage is being deconstructed here, downgraded and privatized. It is no longer the crucial building block of the social order and makes no special contribution to civil society that justifies any distinctive honor or status. This report, says Lynn Wardle, professor of law at Brigham Young University, "continues the war on the traditional family and traditional sexual morality that has been waged for over three decades."
Wardle has a point. Marriage is in trouble for a lot of reasons, but surely one important factor is the relentless hostility unleashed by the 1960s counterculture, which portrayed marriage as oppressive, patriarchal, outmoded, and destructive to children. The attitudes of today's elites reflect that never-ending campaign. Now we have lots of "marriage" counselors who never use the word marriage and textbooks on families bristling with hostility to the nuclear family. As I wrote in this space several years ago, "One of the problems in trying to shore up the institution of marriage is that so many of the professionals who teach and write about it-counselors, therapists, academics, and popular authors-really don't support marriage at all."
What they do tend to support is known as "close relationship theory," the idea that sexual and emotional satisfaction comes from intense, fragile, and often short-term relationships that aren't necessarily going anywhere. One advocate calls them "microwave relationships," cooked up fast, served, and consumed, presumably with other similar meals to come. It all seems like the dream world of a randy adolescent chasing cheerleaders. Marriage is knocked off its pedestal, and the family itself fades away. Children tend to fade away, too, in close-relationship theory, as emphasis comes down hard on adult fulfillment.
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(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
Oh please ... utterly ridiculous.
The state is OBLIGATED to recognize that union and it does so by certifying same.
I'm sick to death -- particularly of the Economic World View "everything's a contractual relationship" crowd of libertarian sorts -- of the constant bemoaning of the certificate as some sort of "permission" to marry.
Like I said ... anyone can marry if they so wish. In order for that union to be recognized by the State (who is limited to recognizing Just unions which provide maximum freedom and justice to the children naturally a part of any lifelong conjugal relationship), it has to fit certain parameters.
Surely there's an evolutionist or two still lurking about here who can help me make clear the absolute differences in "fitness" where homosexual and heterosexual unions are concerned. That's just for starters.
What sand-trap? I never hit into them.
The definition of the marriage sacrament does not but the definition of the marriage contract does.
(You don't read the whole thread before you post do you?)
GSA(P)
Are you arguing that the State should not be forced to recognize the primacy of the marriage contract?
If so, than the marriages of my parents, the queens I know and whatever unions folks decide to confect between themselves and their pets have equal standing before the law since none are recognized as Legitimate Unions into which children may be born with the maximum of natural protections and legal rights.
How is the state certification of a marriage contract devaluing the marriage sacrament?
GSA(P)
Really? Show me, in the Bible, precisely where the "definition of the marriage contract" is specifically rendered unto Caesar.
Chapter and Verse, and it better say to the letter exactly what you are claiming... or you are committing Sacrilege, and are at War with the Law of God.
GSA(P)
That seems to me to be the definitive statement here...
I am deeply opposed to legal recognition and sanction of homosexual "marriage" but am still in the process of figuring out the root of my opposition... The above articulates some of my vaporous primal instincts about it...
As others have said above, society will lurch on. The steers, queers et al. will mangle cultural norms until they get what they want, whatever that is. No amount of counterexamples, proofs, logic, direct refutations, exposes of the truth, yelling, screaming, or foot-stomping is going to change that, due to a remarkable imperviousness that a NASA aircraft engineer would envy...
Meanwhile everyone succumbs to the weight of his own appetite, which is how black holes are formed... I know more black holes than not and it ain't a pretty sight.
Oh well, I'll be in my bunker with enough canned beans and ammo to put up a decent struggle when the b@st@rds come t' get my happy a$$...
First you show me the scriptures I requested.
God tells us explicitly to obey the law. (see my prior post) If we disobey the law (even something as simple as marriage license rules) we disobey God.
GSA(P)
To precisely WHAT legal standing are you referring, given my argument?
Let me try to be crystal clear: The State does not have ANY Biblical Authority to "certify" ANY Marriage AT ALL. Such a "certification" would be a State Usurpation against the Law of God.
Respectfully, you seem incapable of thinking about this issue without presuming that the State MUST "certify" Marriage.
Why is that? Do you honestly believe that Abram and Sarai's Marriage was "invalid" because they didn't have a State Marriage License??
Tell you what... don't post me a long synopsis of Roman dogma on the matter, just answer that question. One word -- Yes, or No:
What Scriptures have you requested?
God tells us explicitly to obey the law. (see my prior post) If we disobey the law (even something as simple as marriage license rules) we disobey God.
If we advocate the rendering unto Caesar of that which is not his -- we disobey God.
When we seek to disabuse Caesar of his Usurpations, we do not disobey God; we obey him.
You can commit Sacrilege and render unto Caesar that which is not his if you want; but as for me, I say that "We must obey God rather than Men". (Acts 5:29)
No, the slippery slope began when the state abolished marriage and replaced it with registered cohabitation with benefits.
It is not surprising that gays, polygamists, pedophiles, and animal lovers want in on the action.
Posters who write, "Marriage is between one man and one woman" are correct only in part.
The part they leave out is, "and it is permanent".
That little part, when it was eliminated, was the start of the slippery slope.
How can we reach the lost for Jesus if we advocate the State Violation of God's Law, by advocating that we render unto Caesar that which is not his??
When we violate God's Law and render unto Caesar that which is not his, the Lost will believe we are simply power-hungry Bible-denying hypocrites. Because, of course, when we violate God's Law and render unto Caesar that which is not his -- we ARE power-hungry Bible-denying hypocrites.
By inviting Caesar to pass judgment on the "validity" of Abram and Sarai's Marriage, you have just whored unto Caesar that which belongs solely to the Family, the Church, and to God.
As you know, my own view is that there should be a "high wall of separation" between the Parents' authority over their children, and the "interest" of the State... a sacrosanct "don't tread on me" realm of parental authority, to be breached only in cases of outright Parental Abuse, etc.
As for Adoption, there really isn't any "libertarian dogma" on the subject of which I am aware and I tend to favor the formula of assigning Adoptive Preference to the extended biological family, in order of biological relation (this is what I call the "Braveheart" formula. I also happen to view this as the Biblical formula; correct me if I am wrong).
Admittedly, such a biological Adoptive Preference would create a situation in which Adoption by Homosexuals would be relatively difficult and uncommon (with the exception, I guess, of the occasional "gay uncle" who is the closest surviving relative); but I think I can live with that, even if the lavenders can't.
My point was if biological mom lives with 4 other women during the raising of the children each of those four other women will have visitation and vacation rights (not to mention the biological dad)
Pity the children
Egads.
Double Egads.
Well, like I said before... either there should be a "high wall of separation" between the Authority of the biological Parents and the "interests" of the State, or this sort of insanity will continue (which, it probably will).
Separation of Family and State.
C'mon, OP. Be serious. The State is not passing "judgment" on the marriage union by restricting itself to acknowledging as valid only the union of an unrelated man and woman.
How is that "passing judgment"?
If you wish to have the State honor the primacy of the marriage contract (as part of the Family's claim to autonomy and sovereignty), you must start by recognizing the union of the Founders.
Yes. I'd like to keep it that way, thanks.
The state should stick to the natural moral law and leave the theology -- and Authority -- of faith (Christian or otherwise) to individuals willing to obligate themselves thus.
Of course not.
I wouldn't exactly cite "the Bible" to source its validity either, however.
You sorta talk at cross purposes.
Happy to hear it.
Something to be said for those "vaporous primal instincts" ... =)
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