It’s entirely possible that, when it comes to gay marriage and the First Amendment, pluralism won’t work.

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It’s entirely possible that, when it comes to gay marriage and the First Amendment, pluralism won’t work.

Written By : Bookworm

Rodney King got his 15 minutes of fame for (a) getting beaten up while resisting arrest; (b) having his name attached to some horrific riots; and (c) plaintively asking “Can we get along?” The last is a great thought. I’d like to get along with people better myself. “Getting along,” though, presupposes that people have the same goals and values. In our pluralist society, even when we have differences, we mostly limp along all right. Elections shuttle different value systems in and out of power and (at least when the unions aren’t rioting) Americans expect a peaceful transition.

Still, even pluralist societies have bottom line values, things as to which we’re not willing to bend (although, lately, it’s getting harder to pinpoint just what those values are). Up until recently, one of those values was that “marriage qua marriage” was a one man, one woman deal. In recent years, we were willing to contemplate “civil unions,” but “marriage” remained sacrosanct.

Also, because of the First Amendment, another American bottom-line is that the government cannot meddle in religious doctrine. Some confused people think the First Amendment outlaws religion, or outlaws religious people from participating in politics, but most understand that — unless they’re calling for human or animal sacrifice, or polygamy — the American government leaves religion alone.

I have said all along that the main problem with the gay marriage debate is that, by creating an entirely new bottom line (gay marriage) we’re going to see two bottom lines crash into each other. You see, traditional male/female marriage meshed nicely with the vast majority of traditional religious norms. Gay marriage, however, does not mesh with traditional religion. While Progressive churches and synagogues have opened their doors to gay marriages, more traditional ones, especially the Orthodox Jewish faith and the Catholic Church, have not done so.

When I’ve raised this concern to people, they scoffed. One liberal told me that, even though abortions are legal, the government has never gone toe-to-toe with the Catholic Church. He looked a bit taken aback, and had no response, when I pointed out that the Catholic Church doesn’t provide, or withhold, abortions; it simply speaks against them doctrinally. The Church does, however, marry people, and that leaves open the possibility that a gay couple will sue the church for refusing to perform a marriage service.

Others, while acknowledging that my point has a certain intellectual validity, say that it will never happen. I’m not so sure, especially after reading a story out of England involving a Pentecostal couple who were told that, as long as their religion held that homosexuality is not acceptable behavior, they could not foster needy children:

A Christian couple morally opposed to homosexuality today lost a High Court battle over the right to become foster carers.

Eunice and Owen Johns, aged 62 and 65, from Oakwood, Derby, went to court after a social worker expressed concerns when they said they could not tell a child a ‘homosexual lifestyle’ was acceptable.

The Pentecostal Christian couple had applied to Derby City Council to be respite carers but withdrew their application believing it was ‘doomed to failure’ because of the social worker’s attitude to their religious beliefs.

The couple deny that they are homophobic and said they would love any child they were given. However, what they were ‘not willing to do was to tell a small child that the practice of homosexuality was a good thing’.

What’s relevant to this post is that the judges explicitly held that homosexual rights trump religious rights:

Lord Justice Munby and Mr Justice Beatson ruled that laws protecting people from discrimination because of their sexual orientation ‘should take precedence’ over the right not to be discriminated against on religious grounds.

Admitted, Britain does not have a First Amendment. However, as I noted above, First Amendment or not, our government bars, and (when Mormons are involved) actively prosecutes, polygamy. It does so despite the fact that polygamy was official doctrine for the Mormons and is official doctrine for the Muslims. Likewise, although Voodoo is recognized as a religion, we don’t let practitioners engage in animal sacrifice. In other words, First Amendment or not, the government will interfere in religious doctrine if it runs completely afoul of a bottom-line American value.

If gay marriage is deemed Constitutional, we suddenly have two conflicting bottom-line values — gay marriage and religious freedom. I’m not predicting how this will turn out. I’m just saying that, if I was the Catholic Church or an Orthodox synagogue, I’d start having my lawyers look at this one now.

Cross-posted at Bookworm Room

http://www.facebook.com/jayhoffer Justin Hoffer

The entire problem here is that Mormons can and still do marry multiple wives. They just don’t get legally recognized marriages. They still practice polygamy, it is 100% legal. The only illegal thing is registering multiple marriages. This is displayed quite readily on the ridiculous TLC show “Sister Wives”.

This is what the gay movement doesn’t get. No one is stopping them from having a “gay marriage”. Marriage is nothing more than a religious ceremony. The laws surrounding marriage are for taxation and legalities like divorce, inheritance and privacy laws. Other than taxation, most of the legalities surrounding married couples could easily be worked into a marriage contract by a lawyer. Then someone reports a last name change and you’re done.

As far as I’m concerned, the solution is to reduce the level of government in marriage, rather than only expand it further.
http://www.facebook.com/jayhoffer Justin Hoffer

The entire problem here is that Mormons can and still do marry multiple wives. They just don’t get legally recognized marriages. They still practice polygamy, it is 100% legal. The only illegal thing is registering multiple marriages. This is displayed quite readily on the ridiculous TLC show “Sister Wives”.

This is what the gay movement doesn’t get. No one is stopping them from having a “gay marriage”. Marriage is nothing more than a religious ceremony. The laws surrounding marriage are for taxation and legalities like divorce, inheritance and privacy laws. Other than taxation, most of the legalities surrounding married couples could easily be worked into a marriage contract by a lawyer. Then someone reports a last name change and you’re done.

As far as I’m concerned, the solution is to reduce the level of government in marriage, rather than only expand it further.

http://www.wordaroundthenet.com Christopher Taylor

Yeah they tend to claim all their “wives” as dependents and get welfare benefits for all the kids too.
Anonymous

Actually, those who continue to practice polygamy are apostates who are not in the official LDS church.
Anonymous

Actually, those who continue to practice polygamy are apostates who are not in the official LDS church.

Anonymous

I was going to get Mrs. Trench Raider on here (an ex-LDS member) to explain that. But she said that your post pretty much sums up both official church policy and actual practice. Plural marriage is not permitted either offocially or unofficially in the LDS church of today.

TR
http://www.facebook.com/jayhoffer Justin Hoffer

Not exactly relevant to the argument. So splinter groups don’t follow the official rules, they are still following their religion as it appears in the Book of Mormon.

Toastrider

Yeah, but that’s like complaining about Christianity because of the antics of the Westboro Baptist Church.

http://www.facebook.com/jayhoffer Justin Hoffer

As it pertains to this argument, not at all.
Anonymous

Someone wanted to explain that being a member of the LDS church means no polygamy (he wasn’t being argumentative – he was just explaining a cliched misconception of Mormonism). Then you argued that splinter groups define the majority. Lastly, someone pointed out that if that was so, you could condemn the entire Christian religion based on the actions of one crazy church in Kansas. Thus, the argument follows.
http://www.facebook.com/jayhoffer Justin Hoffer

@illmunkeys

I never argued that the splinter groups defined the majority. All I did was point out that people still practice polygamy completely legally and used self-described Mormons as an example. Then, others started arguing with me over what constituted a Mormon, which had NOTHING to do with what I wrote initially, and I explained that.

Anonymous

Relevant to your comment, though. They aren’t splinter groups because they no longer belong to the official church. They have all been excommunicated. And the practice of polygamy is not an exclusively Mormon tenet, either. Both King David and Abraham were polygamists, to name some prominent practitioners from the Bible.

Anonymous

On the contrary, the gay marriage understands this very well which is why they reject civil unions. They need for marriage to be a civil right in order for them to black mail religious people and sue churches out of business. The gay people get it, it’s Christians who don’t understand the game plan.

Anonymous

What a refreshingly honest view of gay marriage, and the limited abilities of our Constitution.

The government will either side with Judeo-Christian sexuality, or Pagan sexuality. BOTH are religions, and to suggest that it is somehow religion-neutral for government to side with same-sex marriage conveniently ignores this fact. Institutionalizing homosexuality by legalizing same-sex marriage establishes ancient Roman paganism as the state religion just as much as limiting marriage to men & women establishes Christianity as the state religion.
Anonymous

What a refreshingly honest view of gay marriage, and the limited abilities of our Constitution.

The government will either side with Judeo-Christian sexuality, or Pagan sexuality. BOTH are religions, and to suggest that it is somehow religion-neutral for government to side with same-sex marriage conveniently ignores this fact. Institutionalizing homosexuality by legalizing same-sex marriage establishes ancient Roman paganism as the state religion just as much as limiting marriage to men & women establishes Christianity as the state religion.

http://www.cavalierx.com CavalierX

“limiting marriage to men & women establishes Christianity as the state religion”

If you really want to marry that nice beech tree on your lawn, you need help.

Anonymous

The amount of support that gay rights has gained is disturbing evidence of how gullible and suggestible the general public is.
Anonymous

Hilarity. To marry a beech tree you’d first have to get over the hump that a plant/animal can’t enter into a legally binding contract. Good luck with that for anyone who wants to try.

Now, as to his argument that limiting marriage to only a man and woman defines Christianity as the state religion is wrong: nearly all religions have this common trait.

Anonymous

I agree with you that man-woman marriage is not establishment of religion, but too much of the current discourse involves social libs accusing Christians of wanting to establish some kind of theocracy simply because we believe marriage is marriage.
http://www.wordaroundthenet.com Christopher Taylor

The only reason a binding contract is in the way of marrying a tree is that this is presently how the laws are written. If you are willing to rewrite the laws to allow two men to get married, then the law as written is not the primary problem any longer.

Anonymous

What a refreshingly honest view of gay marriage, and the limited abilities of our Constitution.

The government will either side with Judeo-Christian sexuality, or Pagan sexuality. BOTH are religions, and to suggest that it is somehow religion-neutral for government to side with same-sex marriage conveniently ignores this fact. Institutionalizing homosexuality by legalizing same-sex marriage establishes ancient Roman paganism as the state religion just as much as limiting marriage to men & women establishes Christianity as the state religion.
Soldout

Gay marriage: a situation where two people who are in love and just want the same benefits as straights, have their rights taken away by god fearing X-tians.

Anonymous

don’t worry, maybe one day you and the “partner” can be sealed.
http://www.wordaroundthenet.com Christopher Taylor

NAMBLA says the same thing. So do pedophiles.

Anonymous

And Obama made the same argument as Lincoln, but the two aren’t equivalent are they?

http://www.wordaroundthenet.com Christopher Taylor

Try to focus here: he’s using the same argument as these other groups, yet you find some horrible and others acceptable. Upon what basis?

Anonymous

Pedophelia abuses children, gay marriage is between consenting adults. Being born a certain way should not exclude you from marriage unless that marriage poses some sort of significant harm.
http://www.wordaroundthenet.com Christopher Taylor

Pedophiles are born a certain way, a horrible way, but psychologists are certain that’s how they’re wired and cannot change. Why should they be excluded from marriage? Why do you deny them their love?
http://www.cavalierx.com CavalierX

“Pedophelia abuses children”

Not according to pedophiles. Who are you to judge them, when you tell us we aren’t allowed to judge gays?
Anonymous

“Being born a certain way”

Scientific research indicates that this is a myth. SOME sexual deviance is a mix of genetic and environmental factors:

“Genes in themselves cannot directly specify any behavior or psychological phenomenon. Instead, genes direct a particular pattern of RNA synthesis, which in turn may influence the development of psychological dispositions and the expression of behaviors. There are many intervening pathways between a gene and a disposition or a behavior, and even more intervening variables between a gene and a pattern that involves both thinking and behaviors…No one has presented evidence in support of such a simple and direct link between genes and sexual orientation.”
–Stein, E. (1999). The mismeasure of desire: The science, theory, and ethics of sexual orientation. New York, NY: Oxford
University Press.

” . . .when asked if homosexuality was rooted solely in biology, gay gene researcher, Dean Hamer, replied, “Absolutely not. From twin studies, we already know that half or more of the variability in sexual orientation is not inherited. Our studies try to pinpoint the genetic factors…not negate the psychosocial factors” (Anastasia, 1995, p. 43) In addition, brain researcher Simon LeVay has acknowledged that multiple factors may contribute to a homosexual orientation (LeVay, 1996).”
http://narth.com/docs/hom101.html

http://www.wordaroundthenet.com Christopher Taylor

Try to focus here: he’s using the same argument as these other groups, yet you find some horrible and others acceptable. Upon what basis?

Anonymous

First: NAMBLA = pedophiles…

However… Gay couples who want to marry are of legal age and can enter into binding legal contracts…. Places like NAMBLA prey on weak-minded minors who can’t enter binding legal contracts (although NAMBLA wishes they could because that wouldn’t make them pedophiles in the eyes of the law).

Anonymous

“Married” gays are not entitled to the “same benefits as straights”, simply because they do not naturally produce children. This is about the value of parents, not validating the personal feelings of a self-absorbed minority group. A close relationship between gays has no more value for society than a close relationship between siblings, best friends, or neighbors who are very fond of one another.

Anonymous

So a married woman who can’t have children (or decides not to) is less of a person than a woman with 3 kids?

Anonymous

I didn’t say they are “less of a person”. I said society does not benefit from the relationships they want society to institutionalize in the way society benefits from traditional marriage.

Public policy is not based on exceptions. It is based on mass behavior. A small subset of the general population makes great adoptive parents, but the majority of people do not. It’s called the Cinderella Effect. (http://psych.mcmaster.ca/dalywilson/margo_paper2.pdf) For every non-blood-relative a child has living in his home, his chances of being abused and neglected go up. This is because the average person cares more about blood relations. This fact was documented by evolutionary psychologists in the 1970s.

Easy divorce laws and the sexual revolution have been disasters for children, many who end up as disasterous adults. Just look at the inner-cities. Institutionalizing “two daddies” or “two mommies” – will only increase the misery.

Anonymous

There are thousands of other meaningful ways to contribute to society that don’t have to do with naturally bearing children.
Anonymous

Yes, but NONE of those thousands of other meaningful ways actually occurs anywhere NEAR the extent that naturally bearing children does.

The human race is not made up of altruistic members. It is made up of real people guided by selfish desires. Thankfully, one of those selfish desires happens to be a natural obssession with the welfare of one’s Diluting the meaning of marriage weakens it.
Anonymous

Deleted.

Anonymous

I didn’t say they are “less of a person”. I said society does not benefit from the relationships they want society to institutionalize in the way society benefits from traditional marriage.

Public policy is not based on exceptions. It is based on mass behavior. A small subset of the general population makes great adoptive parents, but the majority of people do not. It’s called the Cinderella Effect. (http://psych.mcmaster.ca/dalywilson/margo_paper2.pdf) For every non-blood-relative a child has living in his home, his chances of being abused and neglected go up. This is because the average person cares more about blood relations. This fact was documented by evolutionary psychologists in the 1970s.

Easy divorce laws and the sexual revolution have been disasters for children, many who end up as disasterous adults. Just look at the inner-cities. Institutionalizing “two daddies” or “two mommies” – will only increase the misery.

Anonymous

Oh really? So if you adopt a child that has less value than conceiving a child? If you have a child through artificial insemination that has less value? The only value of marriage is procreation?

With your logic why couldn’t we just leave it as whites marry whites and blacks marry blacks. This self absorbed minority who insists on interracial marriage is just stirring up trouble. And think of the children. Think about how they will be teased at school.

Sorry, you fail.

Anonymous

Straw man much? Homosexuals are not a different race (nor are they “born that way”). They want society to absorb their chosen behavior into the larger culture. They want society to accept an entirely NEW institution — two men, two women. That is multiculturalism, not racism.

“The only value of marriage is procreation?”
Procreation is what sets marriage relationships apart from other close relationships. The only other relationship that is equally important is parent-child. No one is forbidding any of these people from having other close relationships. But it is ridiculous to expect the rest of us to care about them as much as these two most basic building blocks of society.

I’m a lot more worried about children being sexually abused at home by their father’s boyfriend-of-the-week (or mother’s, for that matter) then being teased in school.

Anonymous

I’m a lot more worried about children being sexually abused at home by their father’s boyfriend-of-the-week (or mother’s, for that matter) then being teased in school.

So homosexuals are more prone to prey on children sexually? I think the you meant to refer to Catholic priests.
Anonymous

Tom,
I need to inform you that those priest were gay. Google the scandal, and you will see the vast majority of victims in that scandal were boys. The Church gave into activist pressure in the 1970s and began allowing gay “celibate” men into the priesthood. Here’s a sad chronicling of what followed: http://old.nationalreview.com/03june02/kurtz060302.asp

Oh, and by the way, here’s an entire culture that considers gay pedophilia to be a rite of passage: see, the Sambia of Papua New Guinea:
http://www.mygenes.co.nz/PDFs/Ch6.pdf
Anonymous

Tom,
I need to inform you that those priest were gay. Google the scandal, and you will see the vast majority of victims in that scandal were boys. The Church gave into activist pressure in the 1970s and began allowing gay “celibate” men into the priesthood. Here’s a sad chronicling of what followed: http://old.nationalreview.com/03june02/kurtz060302.asp

Oh, and by the way, here’s an entire culture that considers gay pedophilia to be a rite of passage: see, the Sambia of Papua New Guinea:
http://www.mygenes.co.nz/PDFs/Ch6.pdf
http://www.wordaroundthenet.com Christopher Taylor

The Roman Catholic Priests who preyed primarily on teenage boys? Those homosexual non sexual predators? You might want to rethink your case.

Toastrider

Yeah, I hate to be on the same side as Gumball and *shudder* pinko, but that’s a damn weak argument to use. Procreative technology is advancing by leaps and bounds; you may yet live to see things like full-blown cloning or exowomb technology. What happens then?

Anonymous

How interesting that you think it is morally acceptable for us to carry out Mengele-type research just to accomodate adults’ sexual appetites. Ever think about how the products of theses technological advancements are going to feel?

Anonymous

A viable alternative to infanticide?
Toastrider

Have you considered trying out for the long jump in the next Olympics? Because it’s a hell of a leap from ‘this is a weak argument due to advances in procreative medicine’ to Mengele. For shame. If I want overwrought emotional backlash I’ll go talk to hoggo.

Believe me, I had to hold my nose to agree with Gumby and Pinko. But ‘procreation’ as a restriction on marriage would also rule out couples unable to conceive due to various medical conditions. Which is stupid.

Anonymous

A straight man has no right to marry his best male friend for the benefits any more than a gay man does, so no discrimination. Marriage was a religious institution coopted by governments. If you want to argue for gay couples to get the same benefits as straight couples, then argue for civil unions for all and get the government out of marriage. Instead of telling a church they are not allowed to undertake one of their traditional roles, tell the government they are only allowed to officiate And enforce contracts And let the couple find a church of their choosing to declare them ‘married.’ If a church does not want to wed two men due to their religious views, then you don’t have to worry about the government infringing on first amendment rights by forcing them, and by ensuring every couple has to go through the same marriage at church, civil union contract a city hall process, then no one is being discriminated against either.

Anonymous

1. Almost all the states with civil unions are blue states, the right isn’t having any of that.
2. Separate but equal isn’t.

http://www.facebook.com/jayhoffer Justin Hoffer

1. That’s the gay movement’s own fault, who claimed that they would be fine with civil unions and then went ape shit for marriage after they were already granted civil unions. If you want to get married, marriage is state responsibility. Move to a different state.
2. Separate but equal is. Jews and Christians are separate yet equal.

Toastrider

*winces*

Justin, I sympathize, but ‘separate but equal’ really didn’t work out well for us Americans.

Anonymous

Marriage has never been just a “religious” ceremony. It has been a way to keep legal order in determing parental and property rights. It has been a system that has worked beautifully, although not perfectly.

If you are looking for as little government intrusion into people’s lives as possible, making marriage meaningless in the eyes of the government is one of the worst things you can do. This is because traditional marriage does more to decrease the need for government-involvement than any other institution, because it allows each family to be a State unto itself: Parents govern their own children.

You remove the marriage part of that, and the state has to referee between mother-father differences, as well as disagreements between children and their parents. The State becomes the Parent.
Anonymous

“get the government out of marriage”

Why not “get the government out of parentage”, while we’re at it? I mean, what business is it of the government to get involved in people’s personal family arrangements anyway? Let pregnant women find a lawyer and notary public of their own choosing to authenticate the birth of their children and create documents declaring her “parent”. Or, better yet, all children should be wards of the State until they are old enough to legally declare whether or not they want to grant their parents control of them. Then no one is being discriminated against.

I mean, the issue of whether or not a woman has special rights to control a child simply because that child comes out of her is a matter of opinion, too. Why does she get to control another human being just because some religious people think it’s the “natural order”?

Soldout

Gay marriage: a situation where two people who are in love and just want the same benefits as straights, have their rights taken away by god fearing X-tians.
Anonymous

Some religious centers want to marry homosexuals but they are not allowed to. If you pass gay marriage, no one is going to make a church marry two homosexuals, no one is infringing on their rights. And if you can’t tell the kids you want to adopt that homosexuality is ok then you probably shouldn’t be adopting. There is a good chance that child will be homosexual and then will have had irreparable damage done to him telling him he is either destined for a life of chastity or he is going to hell.

http://www.facebook.com/jayhoffer Justin Hoffer

Religious centers can already marry gay couples. The only things that doesn’t occur is the government recognition of the marriage.

If parents want to teach that homosexuality is immoral, that is their right. Not allowing a couple to adopt children because of their beliefs on homosexuality is an infringement of freedom of religion and freedom of speech.

Anonymous

Not allowing parents to adopt children because it will lead to the child being self loathing is not an infringement of freedom of religion. If your religion teaches people that they are essentially bad people because of the way they were born and it leads to depression and self loathing in an innocent child, then you do not have a right to adopt a child into that setting.

http://www.cavalierx.com CavalierX

“Not allowing parents to adopt children because it will lead to the child being self loathing is not an infringement of freedom of religion.”

Deliberately placing children in a situation where they’re going to be indoctrinated with a tiny fringe minority mindset and be the butt of all other childrens’ jokes is harmful to the children. Don’t they have enough shit in their lives being orphans already? Why do you SOBs want to use them as props for your little pretend families? Go to Toys’R'Us, get a doll and raise that.

Anonymous

Few things bring about more self-loathing than drastically abusing one’s body in violation of its natural purpose.

http://www.facebook.com/jayhoffer Justin Hoffer

If that’s the case, then no one should be allowed to adopt children at all. Every single belief system, including politically correct bull shit, can cause self loathing. I loathed myself growing up because I’m a white male, indoctrinated by the school system to believe that I’m somehow bad simply because someone else who barely looked like me did something bad. Your argument makes no logical sense.

Toastrider

Not me. I’m a megalomaniacal egotist. That’s why I don’t give two shits about this argument. Time spent whinging about gay marriage is time I haven’t spent polishing my Jupiter-sized sense of self-worth :D

Anonymous

Not allowing parents to adopt children because it will lead to the child being self loathing is not an infringement of freedom of religion.

Oh yes it is.

First of all, you have precisely ZERO evidence that any foster child raised by this Pentacostal couple would grow up “self loathing”.

Second, you do not have the right to dictate other people’s religious beliefs. And make no mistake, that is what you’re doing. You are saying that if they do not change their beliefs, or change their church, they cannot adopt a child. That is an unbelievably blatant violation of the principle of freedom of religion.

Anonymous

Some religious centers want to marry homosexuals but they are not allowed to.

Bullshit. If a church decides to “marry” two homosexuals no one is going to stop them. It’s when they go to get their “marriage” legally recognized by the state that is prohibited by law.

President Friedman

Mighty Sam speaks the truth. About 15 years ago our local Methodist church expelled their minister because he’d been performing marriage ceremonies for gay and lesbian couples.

Anonymous

Lets get this straight: currently a pastor/priest/what-have-you wears two hats a civil one and a spiritual one. When he signs the marriage license, he is doing a civil role. When he speaks about marriage and god and all that jazz, he is doing a spiritual role. What will happen is a that a church will have to decide: do we still do the civil role, or do we abandon that hat. As long as they continue the civil role, they’d have to accept all comers equally. If they abandon it, freedom of religion kicks in. I assume many churches will follow the latter approach. When was the Catholic church or any religious group last sued for only hiring male priests/pastors? Sexual discrimination is very much illegal.
Anonymous

Instead of addressing the point of the article (that churches WILL INDEED be forced to perform gay marriages) we get the same tired old clip-art responses from “gayunemployedmexica.” Same, same, same.

His silence on the issue, and his backing of the idea that people who view homosexuality as wrong should not be allowed to adopt, points quite glaringly to the truth: this will be thrown right in the face of the church.

I love it when people disingenuously claim “No one’s going to force a church to perform a gay wedding.” Really? Then why were activists protesting at a church last week? Why weren’t they protesting their elected officials and saying to the church “Oh, you won’t be forced to perform gay marriages, so you’re not a part of this”?

Like the gay agenda’s always gone, we get little increments and lots of assurances that “nothing’s going to change that much.” They are liars and lunatics.

Anonymous

Exactly!!!

Anonymous

Hmmm! My response seems to have moved. To be clear, I’m agreeing with RKae, not illmunkeys whose claims totally disregard all the attacks and lawsuits brought against churches in the last 30 years.

Anonymous

Hey, you know how the gov’t forces churches to hire female preachers/pastors? Oh, wait… they don’t. It will be the same for gay marriages. Churches will have to abandon the civil hat they wear during marriage ceremonies: namely, the pastor will no longer sign the marriage certificate. As long as the pastor isn’t doing a civil function, the gov’t has no power to regulate.
Anonymous

The gay agenda strikes again: “Christianity isn’t dying, it’s being eradicated” (apologies in advance if any link problems).

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/cristinaodone/100078209/christianity-isn%E2%80%99t-dying-it%E2%80%99s-being-eradicated/

Anonymous

Instead of addressing the point of the article (that churches WILL INDEED be forced to perform gay marriages) we get the same tired old clip-art responses from “gayunemployedmexica.” Same, same, same.

His silence on the issue, and his backing of the idea that people who view homosexuality as wrong should not be allowed to adopt, points quite glaringly to the truth: this will be thrown right in the face of the church.

I love it when people disingenuously claim “No one’s going to force a church to perform a gay wedding.” Really? Then why were activists protesting at a church last week? Why weren’t they protesting their elected officials and saying to the church “Oh, you won’t be forced to perform gay marriages, so you’re not a part of this”?

Like the gay agenda’s always gone, we get little increments and lots of assurances that “nothing’s going to change that much.” They are liars and lunatics.
Anonymous

omg, this is why i fear for conservatives- you can’t see the obvious and so you are always shocked and surprised by the hateful activities of the moonbats. The whole point of the “gay marriage” movement is to be a weapon to destroy Judeo-Christian religious groups. And yet, here you are wringing your hands over the possibility that there might be a clash between religion and the gay agenda (except for the ROPMA which gets a pass for their homicidal rage against gay people). It is not a possibility, IT IS THE GOAL! They’ve been pushing for this exact result for the last 30 years.

Case in point- the ACLU’s war on the boy scouts. While they have done much damage, they haven’t been successful because people tend to side with protection of children over the imagined rights of gay people. The ACLU, being patient and devious, learned from their mistakes and invented the whole gay marriage is a civil right nonsense. It was a tactically brilliant trojan horse especially against religious people who naively claim that “surely the gay agenda does not intentionally mean to destroy religious institutions and drive religion from the public square.” Of course they do!

The ACLU has already attacked the Catholic church and driven it out of the adoption business in Boston. Churches have been successfully sued for refusing to rent out their facilities for gay marriages. Religious photographer was successfully sued for refusing to take pix at a gay wedding. The idea that gay people won’t sue churches is total BS!! They’ve have and won. They’re chomping at the bit to take it further and the ACLU is leading the way. All lawyers know that the so called religious exceptions in gay marriage legislation is useless. Once enacted, the ACLU will sue to strip the clauses out of the acts and the activist judges will do so with glee. The supreme court has held that that gay people are not a protected class. But recently, El Duche has come out and said that he personally has decided that gay people are a protected class and DOMA is unconstitutional. He’s given them one more weapon to attack religion and the legal blackmail will excellerate. Churches are constantly having to choose whether to spend millions to defend bogus ACLU lawsuits or remove their religious principles from the public square. The war on Judeo-Christian religion has been going on for over 30 years now, but one side refuses to acknowledge that they are under attack. To the libs, destroying churches is a feature, not a bug.

Anonymous

Major?

President Friedman

Ultimately I don’t see the potential for a legal showdown between two different belief systems as a good reason to withhold marital benefits from gay couples, but as others have mentioned, I also don’t think a defacto ‘gay marriage’ law is the only way to address the issue. I favor having the state get out of the marriage business altogether and only enforcing the property contract part of it, as well as arbitrating on behalf of the children in custody disputes. This would keep gays from succesfully suing churches who refuse to marry them because those churches would no longer be performing a civil service for the state (which isn’t to say they wouldn’t still get sued, but only to say the lawsuit would have a lot less to stand on).

Anonymous

Pres. Friedman,

If it is discriminatory for the state to hold husband-wife relationships in special esteem, then then it is discriminatory for the state to hold parent-child relationships in special esteem. Both involve affording extra rights & status to a special class: the first to people who commit to someone of the opposite sex. The latter to people who bear children.

President Friedman

You are correct that both are discriminatory. I just see more good reasons for the state to discriminate on behalf of child-parent relationsips (you know, to keep parents from killing strangers who show up to steal their children).
President Friedman

You are correct that both are discriminatory. I just see more good reasons for the state to discriminate on behalf of child-parent relationsips (you know, to keep parents from killing strangers who show up to steal their children).

Anonymous

What I appreciate about your response here is your willingness to admit that it is a matter of priorities, rather than engaging in libertarian utopianism.

I may misunderstand your point, but I want to say that resident husbands play an important role in keeping their own children safe — much more efficiently than police officers being called in after-the-fact.

President Friedman

And for what it is worth, I do not believe in libertarian utopianism. In many cases, libertarianism is the harder way to go, and produces less than optimum results. I just believe that more often than not it is the most ethical type of governance in accordance with the social contract. People should have to cede a bare minimum of their natural rights in order to live together in society. We cede these rights because to not cede them would mean we live in a state of perpetual war with our neighbor. When we start ceding them because it would just make certain things a little bit easier to accomplish, we pervert government into something it should not be.

Anonymous

“I just see more good reasons for the state to discriminate on behalf of child-parent relationsips”

Could you be more specific about what those are?

President Friedman

Certainly. With children you have a case of individuals who are not capable of taking care of themselves or (in most cases) making informed decisions about their own well being. Because of this, their parents are responsible for making decisions on their behalf. This special relationship requires that the state discriminate a sort of “special relationship” between the parent and the child, otherwise the act of being a parent would, in a strictly legal sense, often be more akin to owning a slave. It’s not a perfect system by any means (calling people adults at the age of 18 regardless of other circumstances is a fairly arbitrary way to go about it, and has its own problems), but it beats any other system I can think of.
Anonymous

And which parent gets to make those decisions on their behalf, the father or mother?
President Friedman

NotALibertarian, Disqus wouldnt’ let me reply to your comment below so I am replying here. You asked which parent gets to make decisions on the child’s behalf, and of course that depends on the situation (in marriage you have joint custodial rights, outside of marriage one parent must be given custodial preference over another, and this usually defaults to the mother since we know she will be present at the birth of the child). Either way, it is a preferable system to having the state be the custodian of the child, which is the only other alternative I can think of.
Anonymous

Sadly, our Disqussion has become impossible. But I need to point out to you that exponential lifestyle disagreements resulting from multiculturalism have resulted in there being very little difference between the State deciding which parent has custody of a child and the State itself having custody of a child.

And so this attempt to eliminate discrimination by “getting the government out of marriage” now forces you to advocate for getting the government INTO family life, making subjective judgments about parental “fitness” after-the-fact. And it requires even more government discrimination still — against one of two parents.

Anonymous

I also need to point out, sir, that, while it is fashionable to believe the state should “get out of the marriage business”, what you are advocating amounts to further encouragement of bastardy. That is what happens when the state removes all incentives for marriage and all penalties for marital breakdown.
You may want to live in a society full of single-parent and no-parent children, but I do not. Try visiting Detroit, MI to see what happens when the State disincentivizes marriage.

President Friedman

I don’t think you can look at the current state of marriage and tell me that government incentives are doing a good job of preserving the institution. We have an entire generation of young American males right now who either see marriage as a luxury for the wealthy or as a big trap designed to seperate them from their money.

You want marriage to become more meaningful? How about if a couple who wants to bind their fate together is forced to sit down together and think about it and spell out exactly what that means to them in a legal document? I think that’s a much better system than what we currently have. You might end up with fewer people getting married (we are going to end up with that any way) but the ones who do will have marriages that are more significant, that they are more thoughtfully invested in.

Anonymous

“I don’t think you can look at the current state of marriage and tell me that government incentives are doing a good job of preserving the institution.”

The current state of marriage is the product of no-fault divorce laws that were pushed by libertarians in the 1960s. The current state is an indictment of liberal marriage laws, not the state’s ability to strengthen marriage.

The way to make marriage more meaningful is to tighten the divorce laws, and to bring back the concept of legitimacy: If you want child support, you have to be married to your baby’s father. If you want visitation rights to your child, you have to be married to his mother.

Children born of the marital union are what make marriage — as an institution — meaningful. It is only right that our legal system reflect the fact that this unit a building block of healthy societies, much in the way private property rights are a building block of healthy societies.

President Friedman

I’ll admit that my preference for liberty precludes me from supporting a reintroduction of no-fault divorce laws, even if such laws would be helpful to the institution of marriage (and they very well may). I just find them too restrictive. People who no longer want to be married should not be forced to remain married by the state, even for their children’s sake. It’s a case of me not being willing to trade freedom for stability.

As to your final comment about children, while I agree that a two-parent household is the optimal setup for childrearing, I disagree that this is the chief reason for marriage being a meaningful societal institution. It is but one of a miriad of reasons. If your statement is correct, then why should the state offer marital benefits to husband/wife pairs who don’t have children and don’t intend to? Furthermore, if your chief reason for wanting it is to promote childrearing, how would reinstating no-fault divorce change the fact that fewer married couples are chosing to have children at all, and those who do are having fewer children?
Anonymous

Does your preference for liberty lead you to believe that it should be made easier for businesses to get out of their contractual obligations as well? And keep in mind that, in many states, the “no-fault” aspect means that judges turn a blind eye to the act of adultery (breach of contract) when adjudicating between the two parties. What would this kind of attitude do to the business sector?

Secondly, the argument that childless couples somehow nullify child-rearing as the central purpose of the institution of marriage is about as valid as pointing to abusive natural parents to discredit the parent-child institution.
President Friedman

Again, Disqus won’t let me respond directly to your post below, but here is my response. Should a business be able to walk away from their conractual obligations? Absolutely, for any reason they want. There should certainly be costs associated with doing so (and a sharp contractee will have spelled these out in the contract), but even if the boss just decides he’d rather go fishing for a month than finish the contract, he should be able to do that.

The fact that some states turn a blind eye to breach of contract in marital ‘fault’ is a good case for making the contract more formal. If it is written into your marriage contract that, “Should one party or the other engage in adultery, they shall, at the other parties bequest, be deemed to have failed in their contractual duties and forefeit all claims to joint assets and child custody.” It would be pretty hard for a judge to ignore that.

As to your second point, we do often remove custodial benefits from abusive parents, so accoridng to your view of marriage why wouldn’t we remove marital benefits from non-offspring-bearing spouses?
Anonymous

Pres. Friedman,
The removal of custodial benefits from abusive parents arises out of an emergency-situation. Childless couples present no kind of emergency.

More importantly, though: Childless couples do nothing to undermine the institution of marriage, because they do not disrupt the FRAMEWORK that makes marriage worth having as an institution. Declaring that marriage is open to same gender couples, declaring that marriage (whether hetero or not, childless or not) does not require monogamy, etc., dismantles the framework. There are no longer any advantages for children that are the product of a “marriage”, because “marriage” no longer involves advantageous circumstances for child-rearing.

Our educational system is another societal institution. Do people go through it without learning what it is assigned to teach them? Sure they do. Does that change the central purpose of our educational system? Do people sometimes become famous through their experiences with our justice system, and not even receive justice? Yes, they do. But that doesn’t mean we say, “justice is no longer the purpose of our justice system. Its purpose is to make people famous . . . and facilitate justice.”

If institutions are so easily invalidated by exceptional circumstances, if they are so elastic in nature, why not declare that a dog could be a parent to a child? I mean, plenty of parents abandon their children, and many dogs are nicer to children than their own parents are, after all. You see, I have now proved with my exception that the the Parent institution isn’t really as limited as you think.

Anonymous

“I don’t think you can look at the current state of marriage and tell me that government incentives are doing a good job of preserving the institution.”

The current state of marriage is the product of no-fault divorce laws that were pushed by libertarians in the 1960s. The current state is an indictment of liberal marriage laws, not the state’s ability to strengthen marriage.

The way to make marriage more meaningful is to tighten the divorce laws, and to bring back the concept of legitimacy: If you want child support, you have to be married to your baby’s father. If you want visitation rights to your child, you have to be married to his mother.

Children born of the marital union are what make marriage — as an institution — meaningful. It is only right that our legal system reflect the fact that this unit a building block of healthy societies, much in the way private property rights are a building block of healthy societies.

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