Even to say "it will be a blessing" would have been provocative, since it seems to give God credit for whatever good happens. But that usage of "blessing" has constitutional text to support it:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.Liberty is a set of blessings, our Founders told us. The human task is to secure the blessings. If the Supreme Court says it has found a liberty — let's say a right to same-sex marriage — we may say that it is securing a liberty that is already there. When someone says "bless you," that doesn't mean that the blessing emanates from the speaker. It's short for "God bless you." It's asking God to deliver a blessing. In the Constitution, what we see is that the Framers believed that God had blessed us with liberty.
So to say "I hope the Supreme Court blesses us" is to identify the Court as the source of the blessing, to put the Court in the place of God, and to prompt and tease those who think the Court improperly makes up rights. That was deliberate and devilish temptation. Thanks for succumbing!
Below the fold are the comments that inspired this post:
1. Gahrie:
This is a perfect example of our country's problems right here. You, a Constitutional law professor, our hoping that the Supreme Court will create a "right" that you favor.2. MayBee:
The Supreme Court doesn't "bless us" with rights, or create rights. It protects the ones given to us by our creator and enumerated by the people in the Constitution.
Yes, the "blessing us" idea is troubling from a constitutional law professor. Perhaps it is some of her famous humor.3. alwaysfiredup:
"I hope the Supreme Court blesses us with the requisite constitutional right"4. Chuck:
Oh dear lord...
Surely, SURELY, as a law prof you could phrase this to be less off-putting.
Prof. Althouse;5. Hagar:
Huh?
You "hope the Supreme Court blesses us with the requisite constitutional right..."?
Say what? Since when was the Supreme Court in the business of 'blessing us with constitutional rights'? I thought they were in the business of constitutional interpretation, and working on judicial review of legislation. Not "blessings."
I hope that the Supreme Court "blesses me" with a new Cadillac and a Rolex watch.
Since you are a highly intelligent person, and an expert in constitutional interpretation, I am curious what you think is a plausible basis for the Court to extend such a blessing. Given that whatever the Court decides to bestow as a "blessing," it is taking away from individual states. If the test for reviewing DOMA and California's Prop 8 is not "rational basis," what is the proper test? And if the test is rational basis, how does DOMA or Prop 8 offend?
The Supreme Court cannot "bless us" with a non-existent Constitutional right.6. ed:
It is the word "marriage" that causes the problem for people.
It is not that hard for the Federal Gov't and the States to get out of the "marriage" business. Just declare that for the future "marriage" is a religious ceremony outside their purview, but existing "marriages" will be accepted as Civil Unions for taxes and other secular purposes.
@ Gahrie "The Supreme Court doesn't "bless us" with rights, or create rights. It protects the ones given to us by our creator and enumerated by the people in the Constitution."7. Unknown:
You're forgetting the penumbra of the umbrella of the awning of the cockleshell of the reflected shadow on a latrine wall of unenumerated rights as recognized only when someone on the Supreme Court has a wet fart.
Because evidently I do not have the right to not have a federal drone hovering over my yard or a DEA SWAT team breaking down my door, shooting my dogs and handcuffing me on the say-so of a drug abusing informant looking to buy his freedom but two gay men have the right to bugger each other in privacy.
But then again if you look at the various opinions set forth by the multitude of SCOTUS decisions you can find just about any kind of idiotic retarded nonsense because it appears to be more of justifying what the justices want rather than what the Constitution actually has written.
I thought Althouse's original post was a tounge on cheek [sic] reference to how we just moved on after the Supreme Court blessed us with Roe v Wade. Her follow comment leaves me scratching my head.I think the "follow comment" of mine that he's referring to is: "The GOP will be better off if the Supreme Court trumps this political issue. Democrats will may [sic] rejoice publicly, but privately they should curse." I used the word "curse" in deliberate counterpoint to "bless." And this actually should make sense in connection with Roe v. Wade. Politically, the decision undercut the liberals who would have fought for the right and gave huge energy to those who opposed it.
But I don't think a right to same-sex marriage will play out politically the same way. The pro-life movement is propelled by the belief that what's going on in the zone of privacy is the murder of helpless, innocent human beings. Pro-lifers can never move on. There is no corresponding moral compulsion to continue to agonize over what's happening inside someone else's marriage. Even if you think it's terrible and sinful, you can move on. That's the political blessing I foresee.
Posts
226 comments:
1 – 200 of 226 Newer› Newest»What if the liberty of one group (let's say a very tiny portion of the populace) threatens the liberty of the majority?
This is the case with the gay activist agenda.
The next battle with the gay activists will be over freedoms of speech, religion, assembly and association.
That battle has already been lost in Canada and the U.K.
So, it's not just an issue of agonizing over what your neighbor is doing in his or her bedroom. In fact, that's not the issue at all.
Shouting Thomas said...
"The next battle with the gay activists will be over freedoms of speech, religion, assembly and association."
What a boon and blessing, politically, that battle will be for those on the right, as it will position them squarely on the high road.
Declaration of Independence
... We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--
Seems like the rights we are Blessed with are attributed to the Creator here.
However one might define that, it isn't from our elected and / or unelected fellow peoplekind.
As Yul Brynner said to the Mexican villagers, "I'm not in the blessing business".
You're reaching, Ann.
Where, exactly, in the Constitution, does it give SCOTUS the power to bless anything?
I know same sex marriage is your particular toot (for whatever) reason, but you're letting your emotion cloud your reason.
the Framers believed that God had blessed us with liberty.
I don't think so.
A more perfect statement would be that God had blessed us with rights, and it was the task of the Constitution to protect the liberty to exercise those rights.
But props for coming up w/ the novel implied claim that God blessed gays w/ the right to marry.
That should drive plenty of traffic your way.
I don't think tolerance - or winning (on this or any other issue) - appeases the activists. In that sense it is not about gay marriage, it's about whatever can be forced down your throat next, it's the slippery slope that has many who actually agree with the concept of gay marriage holding back. And there's evidence to support that fear - remember being assured that there would be no slippery slope in creating 'No Smoking Sections' (which I loved, btw) - and yet today we see the slippery slope behemoth in the form of a Bloombergian nanny state, dictating even the number of ounces to a cup of soda.
You've committed a very silly breach of propriety here, Althouse, by suggesting that opposition to gay marriage is prompted by aesthetic irritation about what gay people do.
You've assumed very silly, shallow motives on the part of your opposition.
You do this constantly, which is the reason that I think that it is you who is being silly on this issue. You're just a complete goof on this issue.
What a boon and blessing, politically, that battle will be for those on the right, as it will position them squarely on the high road.
I'll consider that, Meade.
Not sure that I agree, but I will consider it.
I don't consider myself to belong to any political faction.
Yeah, what JAL said, and it can't be exaggerated to say that a "right", properly understood in this usage, is something intrinsic. God-given, if you follow Thomas Jefferson. Inalienable.
A "blessing" like when Chief Justice Taney "took care of" the slavery question.
if the Supreme Court invents a right of 2 gay people to force states to recognize their relationship as a marriage do you honestly believe that the issue will no longer "dog and distort the political discourse in our country"? That's an extremely naive position.
As you recall, the Supreme Court "resolved" that pesky abortion issue, which thereafter dogged and distorted the political discourse in this country.
Meade wrote:"What a boon and blessing, politically, that battle will be for those on the right, as it will position them squarely on the high road"
Except that it won't be the high road, it will be the bigot road paved with years of women's talk show chatter and Hollywood dramatizing the traumas of not being able to be married in a Catholic Church and the unfairness of the bigotry of an organization that is EXEMPT FROM TAXES. Something will have. to . be. done.
What you're presently doing with your explanations, is making shit up.
The Supreme Court will bless us all with its profound wisdom, for they are divine beings sent by God to resolve those difficult decisions that cause us mere mortals such acrimony.
The fact that there is a modifier in the designation "gay marriage" tells me it is not, in fact, marriage. I'm fine with same-sex couples being granted the same legal advantages or protections as man-woman couples who marry. But for same-sex couples to demand the same term for their relationship is to bend the language. Why not a new term for the union of two people of the same sex? Two men can say their are "paired", for example, and enjoy the blessings of "pairage." Or some such construct. Why hijack a term that means something already, add a modifier, and maintain that it is "the same as?" One is left to infer there is an agenda at work here.
As we've seen, once this "right" is established, anyone who doesn't embrace it, will be persecuted beyond the limit of the law, regardless of the blessings of their First Amendment rights.
We've already seen the lawsuits in places like New York.
Wait till the first NAMBLA wedding.
And then there'll be the first polyamory orgy, then some guy who marries his cat...
Since about 5th grade or so I've been making it a point to say "gesundheit."
I saw it as an appropriate modesty.
"Where, exactly, in the Constitution, does it give SCOTUS the power to bless anything?"
The question assumes I asserted something I did not.
Allow me to refresh your memory:
As expected, I got some pushback for saying "I hope the Supreme Court blesses us with" a right to same-sex marriage.
Same-sex marriage is only one of many issues on which our political discourse is dogged and distorted by all this unseemly disagreement. Perhaps the Supreme Court can bless us with diktats on tax policy or immigration reform as well.
To clarify my earlier wise ass comment, ideally marriage shouldn't need to be defined by either the Government or a collection of elderly adjudicators. But it already has been and probably will be again because humans are irrational.
You seem to never ask yourself, Althouse, why the gay activist agenda seems to bring with it this assault on freedoms of speech, religion, assembly and association.
Could this be a feature, and not a bug?
Many years ago, I shared the belief that the traditional view of homosexuality was "bigotry." Living through the AIDS epidemic in SF and NYC forced me to change my mind about that. The epidemic, and the behavior that created it, convinced me that the traditional "stereotype" of gay behavior was, in fact, mostly correct.
You seem to have missed out on these events. Or else, you think that you've discovered a method for domesticating the suspect behavior.
I took it to mean the the Supreme Court would be doing us a favor if they make up out of whole cloth a "right" for gay people to marry. I believe that is more of a curse than a blessing. If it is a right for two people of the same gender to marry, I don't know how we keep that right from others.
It seems almost absurd that laws that were securely in place before, during, and after the writing of the constitution could be declared, now, unconstitutional. If there is a right to marry, it should be proposed and passed as an amendment
that it will be a blessing if the upcoming Supreme Court cases resolve this issue that is dogging and distorting the political discourse in our country.
And here I thought a law professor would understand that the Republic that was founded is indeed supposed to have "dogging political discourse"
I guess it isn't supposed to when your preferred policy preferences are being held up by all this messy discussion and democratic processes.
If there is a right to marry, it should be proposed and passed as an amendment
Exactly. It is not the function of the Justices of the Supreme Court to "bless us" with rights, create rights or even make judgements that will resolve this issue that is dogging and distorting the political discourse in our country.
. The job of the Supreme Court is to protect the Rights that others have identified and/or created, namely the people and their representatives in Congress.
I am willing to bet that if Althouse figured that the Supreme Court was about to rule against gay marriage she'd be screaming about judicial activism and the tyranny of the Court.
it is completely unfair for gay couples to be treated by the law the way single people are.
Gay rights as a divisive political issue is not going to just go away if the Court rules in favor of gay marriage.
Labeling opponents as homophobic is just too effective.
The question then becomes, what will gay activists push for next?
Affirmative action quotas for gays in hiring and admissions?
One of the prejudices of bright, well educated people is the belief that they have transcended their prejudices. Acceptance of gay marriage may be a good thing, but it is not a self evident right. Gay marriage should be won in the court of publi opinion and not in the judges' chambers.....The opinion of the majority of the populace has not always been right, but such opinion has been right far more often than that of the bright, well educaed people.
I am all in for liberty. Yesterday, at the Phoenix airport, I was molested and my wife's lotion was confiscated. I displayed my driver license, which was a paper renewal while I wait for the plastic one and the TSA agent asked for another form of ID, claiming the week-old renewal was "old." I showed her my passport which I brought anticipating just such a reaction at the new "Checkpoint Charlie."
TSA responded by singling me out as I boarded for one additional request for my ID.
Is there no one who will point out the idiocy of permitting my seat mate to bring along a knife and an 9 iron while face cream must be considered contraband? It is all theatre.
In the new America, I will be blessed to marry a goat, but we had best not fly anywhere on the honeymoon.
it is completely unfair for gay couples to be treated by the law the way single people are.
No it's not. Which is why many of us who oppose gay marriage are perfectly willing to support civil unions that will legally function the same as marriages.
In this way, gay people get equal treatment and the institution of marriage is not destroyed.
I want gay people to marry, but I want it to happen the same way marriage laws have changed many times in the past. Relationships,age, and intellectual capabilities are all restrictions on marriage that have either gotten top igniter or looser over the years.
Or the way adultery became no longer a crime. Did that take a Supreme Court decision, or just a change in how society wanted marriage laws enforced?
The Roe v Wade ruling did a great job of resolving the "issue that is dogging and distorting the political discourse in our country"!
Gotten either tighter or looser. Man, I need to remember to do a better job proof reading on my iPad.
it will be a blessing if the upcoming Supreme Court cases resolve this issue that is dogging and distorting the political discourse in our country.
What a silly and absurd thing to say.
Why not throw in "bigots" while you are at it?
Gahrie said...
If there is a right to marry, it should be proposed and passed as an amendment
Exactly. It is not the function of the Justices of the Supreme Court to "bless us" with rights, create rights or even make judgements that will resolve this issue that is dogging and distorting the political discourse in our country
This is why our "right to privacy" is such a mess. You want a right to privacy, write an amendment with privileges and responsibilities spelled out.
Otherwise, we're hostages to the next appellate court decision.
Same here.
Mark O said...
I am all in for liberty. Yesterday, at the Phoenix airport, I was molested and my wife's lotion was confiscated. I displayed my driver license, which was a paper renewal while I wait for the plastic one and the TSA agent asked for another form of ID, claiming the week-old renewal was "old." I showed her my passport which I brought anticipating just such a reaction at the new "Checkpoint Charlie."
TSA responded by singling me out as I boarded for one additional request for my ID.
Is there no one who will point out the idiocy of permitting my seat mate to bring along a knife and an 9 iron while face cream must be considered contraband? It is all theatre.
Lots of people have pointed it out.
The Ministry of Propaganda declined to take note of them.
That, however, does not mean DHS hasn't.
Ann Althouse said...
"Where, exactly, in the Constitution, does it give SCOTUS the power to bless anything?"
The question assumes I asserted something I did not.
You don't seem to have any idea what you're talking about. I've noticed that you'll often bring up law articles where you'll ask questions but rarely do you tell us what your interpretation of the situation is. I can see why. It's hard to imagine you teaching law. It really is.
it will be a blessing if the upcoming Supreme Court cases resolve this issue that is dogging and distorting the political discourse in our country.
If only those dummies who founded America would have come up with such an idea, things would be so much easier!
Why didn't Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and John Adams think of that?
Oh they did, and were pretty clear that the courts shouldn't do any such thing.
Never mind.
I personally believe that any action or behavior that was illegal when the Constitution, or Amendment, in question was written and passed should be unable to be turned into a "Constitutional Right" by the Supreme Court. These "rights" must be created by an affirmative action of the people and/or their representatives.
I think there is a tendency for lawyers - and law professors - to think the Supremes are the Constitution, since, when practising in the lower courts, they are obliged to act as if that is the case.
However, those who practise before the court are supposed to look at the Constitution itself and work with the justices to ferret out what it actually says, no more and not less.
Has there ever been a cultural issue that has advanced as far and as fast as gay marriage? Yet that's not good enough for Althouse.
Althouse, are you willing to defend your deeply anti-democratic/republican tendencies? If not why not?
Sharpen up!
Framing whatever you want as a "right" is the oldest trick in the Lefty book. Just like branding those who oppose gay marriage as "anti civil rights" is an effort to criminalize their opinion, at least in the mind of the news consumer.
Exactly, Gahrie.
If Ann can rationalize all of that, why can't she even imagine any legal arguments against SSM? Shades of the Adam Liptak.
I hope the Supreme Court blesses us with a right for a man to have as many wives as he wants.
And, once that happens, I demand that the Government apologize and pay reparations to the Mormons who would be proven right in the first place.
Meh.
Redefining terms and splitting hairs to push an agenda is what it is, Ann.
Fortunately for me I don't bow down to the swine in the Supreme Court or the gay community so they can do as they will and I couldn't care less. They do what they do with my utter contempt and as long as they leave me alone nobody will get hurt.
Meh.
Redefining terms and splitting hairs to push an agenda is what it is, Ann.
Fortunately for me I don't bow down to the swine in the Supreme Court or the gay community so they can do as they will and I couldn't care less. They do what they do with my utter contempt and as long as they leave me alone nobody will get hurt.
it will be a blessing if the upcoming Supreme Court cases resolve this issue that is dogging and distorting the political discourse in our country.
The Supreme Court could resolve it by saying it's not a constitutional issue and must be worked out legislatively. I think the SCOTUS could resolve it further by saying it's not a Federal issue and must be worked out by the states (DOMA be damned).
Roe v. Wade could have resolved the abortion issue that way as well.
@ Althouse
"... Liberty is a set of blessings, our Founders told us. The human task is to secure the blessings. If the Supreme Court says it has found a liberty — let's say a right to same-sex marriage — we may say that it is securing a liberty that is already there. ..."
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
...
"So to say "I hope the Supreme Court blesses us" is to identify the Court as the source of the blessing, to put the Court in the place of God, and to prompt and tease those who think the Court improperly makes up rights. That was deliberate and devilish temptation. Thanks for succumbing!"
Nobody "succumbing" to anything. You wrote something utterly beyond stupid. That you did it deliberately to troll your own blog is frankly more of a bad reflection on you than on your readers. That it was utterly beyond stupid is an established fact that you agree with.
None of this makes you look good and quite frankly reinforces my opinion that the only reason to read your blog is for the comments.
We should call muggings marriage too.
Once the word doesn't mean anything, anything qualifies.
Muggers's rights.
Penumbras.
Penumbras everywhere.
Is there anyone impressed by the arguments Althouse has given on this? Anybody?
Frankly I'm underwhelmed.
The question then becomes, what will gay activists push for next?
The elephant in the room is unsustainable gay lifestyles, and I do not mean unsustainable due to economic expense or anything like that.
Homosexual men have (even in the all-tolerable Netherlands) much higher rates of venereal disease, depression, and suicide than heterosexual men. Homosexual men tend do use drugs, tobacco and alcohol more than the rest of the population.
Why it is called "gay" escapes me.
Gahrie said...
I personally believe that any action or behavior that was illegal when the Constitution, or Amendment, in question was written and passed should be unable to be turned into a "Constitutional Right" by the Supreme Court.
Like blasphemy?
I don't get your point, Meade.
The 14th amendment took care of the states' blasphemy laws. So yeah, that was taken care of via Amendment
"The pro-life movement is propelled by the belief that what's going on in the zone of privacy is the murder of helpless, innocent human beings."
Yes. Yes we are.
Trey
Like blasphemy?
I am perfectly willing to live in a country without a Constitutional right to blasphemy. (I do not believe blasphemy should be illegal.)
However, I believe it could be, and has been, argued that the First Amendment (an affirmative action by the people's representatives) did in fact create a Constitutional Right to blasphemy.
Bigotry, by definition, serves a personal cause. The demand for normalization of homosexual behavior is a bigot's errand.
The biological imperative, the prerequisite for evolutionary fitness, is heterosexual behavior. That is the sole determinant of normal in this context.
Individuals who engage in homosexual behavior, similar to nearly half of the population who are either non-contributory or net-negative contributors to the general Welfare, are making the wrong demands. The former cannot reasonably demand normalization of their behavior, while the latter cannot demand normalization of involuntary exploitation (e.g. redistributive change).
I suggest that as society no longer sees fit to respect biological imperatives, or recognize the prerequisites for evolutionary fitness, then there is no defensible basis to further discriminate between sexual and platonic relationships, in any form.
To make this discussion productive, and to isolate the prejudice of all parties, any further discussions must necessarily consider cooperatives, unions, clusters, independent of sexual activity, productive, unproductive, or otherwise.
That said, according to Professor Volokh, the slippery slope argument is voided through the existence of popular resistance to change.
We live in interesting times. Why do people insist to focus on homosexual behavior and exclude the diversity of human relationships? I will leave arguments for inter-species relationships for another time.
- - -
As for abortion, there is no legitimate basis to discriminate between a developing human life inside or outside the mother's womb. We cannot isolate the life of a Barack in his mother's womb from the life he has outside following birth. A human life is in a state of chaotic development from conception to death.
The only reasonable argument centers on distinguishing between the biological and conscious stages of human development. There may be a small window between conception and development of consciousness, where the organic material is essentially inert. The period where the Jews and Christians' God distinguishes between "man" and a "living soul", which may well be correlated to the emergent property of consciousness in a human life.
Any other argument violates our unalienable rights from "creation" (per our national charter) and the equal protection clause of our Constitution.
The biological imperative, the prerequisite for evolutionary fitness, is heterosexual behavior. That is the sole determinant of normal in this context.
n.n said... Individuals who engage in homosexual behavior, similar to nearly half of the population who are either non-contributory or net-negative contributors to the general Welfare, are making the wrong demands. The former cannot reasonably demand normalization of their behavior, while the latter cannot demand normalization of involuntary exploitation (e.g. redistributive change).
Regarding the biological and evolutionary arguments against homosexuality as counter to fitness, it seems to me if the existance of a small percentage of homosexuals somehow negatively effected overall reproductive rates and overall fitness it would have likely not persisteded in human populations at the percentages it has (that is it would have remained an anomally at a fraction of a percentage). The prevelance of homosexuality in human populations suggests that their may be ancillary benefits to these non-reproductive individuals in human populations.
gerry:
late 14c., "full of joy, merry; light-hearted, carefree;" also "wanton, lewd, lascivious", from Old French gai "joyful, happy; pleasant, agreeably charming; forward, pert".
...
The word gay by the 1890s had an overall tinge of promiscuity -- a gay house was a brothel. The suggestion of immorality in the word can be traced back at least to the 1630s
...
Slang meaning "homosexual" begins to appear in psychological writing late 1940s
etymology of "gay"
The homosexual behavior, and its participants, were not formally described as "gay" until the mid-twentieth century. It was a semantic distortion (or exaggeration) undertaken by a activists to manipulate perception through exploitation of common language. However, it's not immediately clear in which way the association was intended to shift popular opinion, because its common use had both positive and negative implications.
Basically Ann just did a good job at exposing the right-wing bigots on this blog. Congrats, and good job. They have been outed for being the hateful haters that they are.
Fuck off, Alex. From one comment to the next, it's impossible to find what side of the plate you bat from.
So a question is -- when do people who question SSM and homosexuality become quilty of hate crimes in this new Universe of America? As it is in Canada?
If SCOTUS rules for SSM?
And yes, there is no rational then to restrict polygamy or polyandry or any permutations at all, really, is there?
OTOH I think anyone and their uncle should be able to make whatever civil contract they so desire. Partners schmartners whatever. It's the co-opting of the word marriage that creates problems for me.
As for the civil and federal laws that govern marriage, social security benefits and how civil unions would be included? Hell, they just added almost 900 pages to the Obamacare nightmare without a twitch. I am sure some enterprising lawyers and bureaucrats can make some more rules and regs to solve that problem.
Increase the entitlements at every turn.
I'll be quite happy if the supremes find a right not have my income and redistributed, my vote not diluted by fraud, the right to defend my life and the right to privacy as a general proposition and the right to my persuit of happiness as I see fit.
Alex, silly, Ann didn't expose them, they've been exposing themselves for quite sometime now.
Fuck off, Alex. From one comment to the next, it's impossible to find what side of the plate you bat from.
I literally think Alex just switches perspectives after every single post. If this one is pro gay marriage, the next will be anti gay marriage.
Alex, silly, Ann didn't expose them, they've been exposing themselves for quite sometime now.
Inga, why aren't you a bigot in not supporting polygamists right to marry?
The states argument limiting marriage to only couples is weak.
So say I, and therefore any who oppose is a bigot.
ed said @ 11:46a
Is there anyone impressed by the arguments Althouse has given on this?
Anybody?
It's these kinds of after-the-fact shape-shifting, word-smithing, back-sliding, 'because you all obviously lack in reading/hearing comprehension abilities, I will now tell you what you heard/read again...' lecturing diatribes and attitudes that drove me into engineering. Hopefully God will soon bless us with some leaders who aren't lawyers or law professors again...
Nonapod:
That's not the implication at all. The continued existence of dysfunctional behaviors, including homosexual, does not imply they contribute to the fitness of a species or society. It does indicate that some classes of dysfunctional behaviors can be reasonable tolerated when they are a minority behavior.
The evolutionary fitness argument, including biological imperatives, focuses solely on classifying behaviors for normalization, tolerance, and rejection in order to promote natural viability. There is no evidence that homosexual behavior (not individuals) contributes to the fitness of a society or humanity. The issue we are discussing is not individuals, but their voluntary behavior, and its proper classification (and therefore treatment) in a society and humanity.
There are many dysfunctional behaviors which we can reasonably tolerate when they are restricted to a minority. Homosexual behavior is not unique among dysfunctional behaviors, even if it is the prototype of evolutionary dysfunction. The principal dysfunctional behavior is elective abortion of developing human life. This is not only a violation of evolutionary fitness, it signals a general devaluation of human life, and suggests that women, and men, are incapable of self-moderating behavior. The last behavior, self-moderation, is a prerequisite for liberty.
To take it to an extreme, there are other behaviors which have ancillary benefits, and have survived through the generations, including: murder (e.g. elective abortion), rape, pedophilia, bestiality, promiscuity, involuntary exploitation, fraud, etc. All of these behaviors have survived and have ancillary benefits to individuals and classes of individuals. None of them are suitable for normalization, and most cannot even be tolerated. That's the difference with homosexual behavior among humans. It can be reasonably tolerated as a minority behavior. However, there is no legitimate argument to normalize it.
I have to agree with Palladian that government should get out of the business of defining marriage.
Civil unions for everyone to determine financial and tax aspects so everything will be equal.
Marriage to be considered a religious construct to be determined without restrictions by the government. That would include same sex marriage as well as mutiple partners for Mormons and Muslims as dictated by their doctrines. I don't feel that I have a right to limit their religious practices so to deny them the right to plural marriage is just wrong.
Next stop, polyamory.
If we're disengaging the biological imperative, why should just 2 people get the benefits of union? What's special about 2? Doesn't it take a village?
Baron Zemo and Palladian, I'm with you.
Let everyones marriage be governed by their own morality. Or lack thereof.
My penumbra seems to keep getting blown apart in the liberal wind.
Baron Zemo:
What about children? Should we discriminate and restrict relationships with human beings early in their development? We murder them as a right when they harsh our mellow, but should they also become part of a couple or couplet?
Keep government out of our bedrooms. Keep government out of our religion. Keep government out of our marriages.
Anyone can have a civil union for financial reasons.
Anyone can have a "marriage" if they find a church or a cult or a guy ordained on the internets who will marry them.
They can even jump over a broom on a mountain in Colorado and call it a marriage.
Knock yourselves out there buddies.
Interesting that conservatives were A-OK with the government endorsing heterosexual marriage until now. Now they want to take their toys and go home like petulant children.
Interesting that conservatives were A-OK with the government endorsing heterosexual marriage until now.
Along with every other human culture and society.
Not even the ancient Greeks felt the need to call their homosexual lovers their spouse.
Argggg, I hate it when Alex makes sense.
sorry, God won't be blessing anything about same sex marriage.
Some say this is a small issue that distracts us from solving the bigger issues of the day, but I disagree. It's a major issue and the Republican party commits politicide by trying to go along with the flow to get votes they won't get anyway. MSNBC will never offer them love.
Mel, whose God do you speak for? What about religions that do not believe in the Judeo Christian God?
Civil unions should be enough, but it really is an attempt to force secular ideals on the churches. Soon, an effort will be constituted to ban religious institutions from marrying only heterosexuals or face the loss of tax-favored status.
Only a bigot would be against a father marrying his daughter.
Alex:
Why is it interesting? Have you read The Constitution?
From the Preamble:
We the People of the United States ... to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity
Heterosexual, that is naturally productive, relationships, are a central feature of our government and American conservatism. It is therefore the proper role of government to promote adoption of this behavior in our society.
You see it will never be enough. If we switch to a "civil union" format for tax and financial aspects and leave the definition of "marriage" to the religions it is not enough. Same sex marriages will be full marriages in those religions or sects that accept them. As will pural marriages. Those that do not accept them do not have to concern themselves with it.
But it will never be enough.
Same sex marriage is just a tool to destroy conservative traditional values. Even if everyone in America voted for it as a strictly secular matter....it would not suffice.
It is just more oil for the slippery slope of the abrogation of freedom of speech and religion by the forces of progressive political correctness.
Let me put it another way; I hope the Supreme Court blesses us with a right for a man to marry his daughter.
That should shut up the bigots. If you don't like what I just said, then you are full of hate.
Alex said...
Interesting that conservatives were A-OK with the government endorsing heterosexual marriage until now. Now they want to take their toys and go home like petulant children.
Is it so hard to understand government can follow culture but lacks the authority to change it?
Setting the bar too low for calling a person a "hater" makes the name caller look borderline. I do not hate anyone, but as a Christian, I will never support behaviors that are deemed sinful. That will not get my vote. Now I will not get my panties in a wad if the vote passes, but then, I am not a hater.
Westboro Baptist Church, Fred Phelps, those are haters along with Louis Farakhan and David Dukes. The rest of us just disagree with you and some of you guys can't deal with that without getting overly emotional and well, hateful.
Trey
It is not a matter of being petulant childern.
It is a matter of rendering onto Caesar what is Caesars.
Let civil unions rule in the matters that the government controls. Let religions rule in the areas that are properly their concern.
If there is a religion that accepts and celebrates SSM or plural marriages or even incestual unions......they should have the right to celebrate it and live in "love." Isn't that what the goal is?
The government should concern itself with the tax, inheritance and financial aspects and leave the morality out of it.
Baron Zemo:
I mischaracterized your intentions with the last comment. Clearly you recognize that there is a need to classify and thereby distinguish behaviors for normalization, tolerance, and rejection.
There are many plural marriages in NYC because of our substantial Muslim population. They fly under the radar. I personally know two Muslims who live with more than one wife. That is his religion. It is not for me to tell him how to live his life. He has only one "legal" spouse because of the marriage laws as they currently exist. If civil union were to be the norm he could register the rest of his wives and childern as "civil" partners. That would protect them don't ya think?
Without anyone having to opine on the "morality" or "acceptablity" of his practices.
n.n said...
That's not the implication at all. The continued existence of dysfunctional behaviors, including homosexual, does not imply they contribute to the fitness of a species or society. It does indicate that some classes of dysfunctional behaviors can be reasonable tolerated when they are a minority behavior.
Non-reproductive individuals can contribute to the reproductive success and overall fitness of a population through other means (including aid in the rearing of young, protection, resource gathering, and other activities). As to your other assertions, I was only attempting to address things in terms of evolutionary biology and population genetics. I wasn't trying to make a qualitative judgement about whether a particular behavior could or should be either tolerated or "normalized" in a human society.
Baron Zemo wrote:
I have to agree with Palladian that government should get out of the business of defining marriage.
Should govt also get out of the business of defining divorce?
Yeah, because Roe v. Wade was such a blessing when it resolved a controversial issue that had been poisoning our politics.
Although perhaps the lack of actual killing will make this different.
Alex said...
"Interesting that conservatives were A-OK with the government endorsing heterosexual marriage until now. Now they want to take their toys and go home like petulant children."
This is an example of what happens when conservatives offer a compromise. So, take your all-or-nothing and put it with all the other compromises that somehow just end up being a weapon turned against conservatives. Is it any wonder we think Breitbart had the right idea.
Inga said...
Mel, whose God do you speak for? What about religions that do not believe in the Judeo Christian God?
Inga's right. I expect Shiva will be raining his blessings down on us forthwith.
As the Nutty Perfessor's favorite incestous pedophile put it: "The heart wants what the heart wants."
If people are in love and want to be in a SSM because they love each other that is just great. Find a religion or a sect to bless and have a big wedding. Just don't force churches or temples to marry you or photographers to photo you or caterers to cater to you. Do your own thing. If there is a big market for it plenty of businesses will cater to it. That includes religions. There are plenty who will be happy to cater to the SSM lovers.
Go out and be prosperous and multiply. Or whatever.
1. If the State blesses us with the rights, it can take them away.
And it will.
2. The SCOTUS deeming gay unions 'marriage' will be settling the issue as much as its abortion decision settled that.
Yes government should be out of the business of divorce. It can disolve a civil union in a civil court.
In the Jewish religion a divorce means nothing unless you obtain a gett. Which is a purely religious thing that will allow you remarry as a Jew. Other religions can follow suit.
The financial aspects are properly the business of the courts.
What's so hard to understand about that?
The financial aspects are properly the business of the courts.
What's so hard to understand about that?
Because things like alimony and paternity and dividing up asssets and who gets the kids are all based on marriage being something with both rights and responsiblitities and rules taht conform to it's dissolution.
Baron Zemo said...
There are many plural marriages in NYC because of our substantial Muslim population. They fly under the radar. I personally know two Muslims who live with more than one wife. That is his religion. It is not for me to tell him how to live his life.
I'd bet good money that if a Mormon was caught having more than one wife, the government would come down hard on him. Althouse too. Have you ever said that Mormons should have more than one wife? Would you be ok if a father married his daughter?
The jumping over a broom thing comes from the Gulla culture in South Carolina and Georgia. Many states recognize common law marriage which does not require any ceremony.
As expected, Althouse succumbs to the temptation to pat herself on the back and do her trademark cruel-neutrality-style victory dance for yet more sloppy thinking.
She misses the point that there was no Supreme Court in 1787 to bless anyone with anything. That was the Founding Fathers, the very group of people historically who wrote the Constitution on behalf of "We the People."
I find it more than presumptuous to suppose that the Supreme Court performs any sort of blessing, especially the rather debased body in its modern form that "blesses" women with the right to kill unborn children and men with no rights in the decision at all though with the obligation to become virtual indentured servants to support a child even if they are shown not to be a biological parent.
Or the more recent "blessing to cede control of a sixth of the American economy and major part of every American's life to the government by discovering that Obamacare was a tax though the politicians (mostly lawyers) declared it emphatically not to be a tax.
I don't hate the government but I have come to a substantial disrespect for the current crop of legal minds in the government and academia.
It is the same in the Catholic church. You can not remarry in the church unless you get your Catholic marriage annulled.
Otherwise you can not get married in the church.
Can the government force a Catholic priest or a rabbi to give the full rites of their religion to someone who does not follow the rules of marriage as outlined by that religion? I presume that you would say no?
Let SSM be guided by the same standard. Fully protected under civil law but not a matter to be addressed by any religion that deems it not part of their doctrine. That is all most people want.
But religious freedoms will not be protected by the courts. If you think it will be you are fooling yourself.
I agree with what Meade wrote supra.
I don't hate the government but I have come to a substantial disrespect for the current crop of legal minds in the government and academia.
I second that. Instead of "civil servants," let's call them "civil savants." That's what they fancy themselves, so let's oblige them. They will lap it up like a puppy to milk.
But I don't think a right to same-sex marriage will play out politically the same way. The pro-life movement is propelled by the belief that what's going on in the zone of privacy is the murder of helpless, innocent human beings. Pro-lifers can never move on. There is no corresponding moral compulsion to continue to agonize over what's happening inside someone else's marriage. Even if you think it's terrible and sinful, you can move on. That's the political blessing I foresee.
And I foresee that the Law of Unintended Consequences will make you another typically mistaken liberal.
I'd agree that gay marriage won't be the same level of unhealing wound in American politics, but we are already seeing gay activists and activist lawyers and judges using anti-discrimination law as a crowbar into conservative churches and businesses. That won't stop. The polarization will continue.
Likewise, there will be serious pushes to legalize polyamorous marriages and I see no way to stop that now that the definition of marriage is up for grabs. Gay marriage advocates blandly assure us that won't happen but offer no credible arguments.
David said...
"Yeah, because Roe v. Wade was such a blessing when it resolved a controversial issue that had been poisoning our politics."
Except, I don't remember abortion being a controversial issue poisoning our politics until after Roe v. Wade the way the same-sex marriage issue is today.
"Although perhaps the lack of actual killing will make this different."
Exactly.
ken in sc said...
The jumping over a broom thing comes from the Gulla culture in South Carolina and Georgia. Many states recognize common law marriage which does not require any ceremony.
I am unmoved by Althouse's support for a Federal level blessing of SSM. I think it's a state's business and I hope SCOTUS reacts accordingly.
"Civil unions should be enough, but it really is an attempt to force secular ideals on the churches. Soon, an effort will be constituted to ban religious institutions from marrying only heterosexuals or face the loss of tax-favored status."
That will not happen. That's where freedom of speech and free exercise of religion will surely work. If the religious organizations are attacked here, they will become the victims, and unless the country has somehow already gone to hell, they will win.
And the country is not going to go to hell because gay people are given the right to marry. That's an end to oppression, not a beginning.
You may say: But I can visualize a way that it could be a beginning to oppression. Yes, but that fight is admirable and winnable.
Baron Zemo wrote: Go out and be prosperous and multiply. Or whatever.
That is anathema to them, baron. Their credo is "be fruitless and divide"
Get on the side of freedom from oppression now, because it is from this side that the fight you visualize will be fought.
Ann - conservatives prefer to go back to a world where they were the oppressors and nobody questioned it.
@ Alex
"Basically Ann just did a good job at exposing the right-wing bigots on this blog. Congrats, and good job. They have been outed for being the hateful haters that they are."
You bore me.
And the country is not going to go to hell because gay people are given the right to marry. That's an end to oppression, not a beginning.
Yes but...the same people look to Europe for guidance on social structure--I think that's hard to deny. And England is not encouraging as far as freedom of speech, religion, etc.
Ever ask yourself why the Dutch don't seem to have this problem? It's a complete divorce of civil and religious marriage. And I find your and Meade's tepid defense "they wouldn't dare go after churches" unconvincing.
chikelit - keep up the martyrdom meme.
And the country is not going to go to hell because gay people are given the right to marry. That's an end to oppression, not a beginning.
What oppression, Ann?
From the states perspective, marriage is about reproducing the state. Marriage is for the children, Ann.
Explain to me how it is fair for able bodied individuals to get the same advantages of those who expend the energy in raising the next generation. That's the state's interest in marriage.
Alex said...
chikelit - keep up the martyrdom meme.
STFU, biggot
"Civil unions should be enough, but it really is an attempt to force secular ideals on the churches. Soon, an effort will be constituted to ban religious institutions from marrying only heterosexuals or face the loss of tax-favored status."
That will not happen.
That is a pretty blind or Pollyannish viewpoint given the coordinated effort to force the Catholic Church to violate its principles by forcing them to provide abortions and birth control. In some cases the government has forced the shut down of Catholic Charities by giving them an either or ultimatum. Either you provide services that are against your religion or else.
"Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington announced today that it is shutting down its foster care and public adoption program. The District of Columbia said the charity would be ineligible for service because of the new law recognizing same-sex “marriage.”
“Although Catholic Charities has an 80-year legacy of high quality service to the vulnerable in our nation’s capital, the D.C. Government informed Catholic Charities that the agency would be ineligible to serve as a foster care provider due to the impending D.C. same-sex marriage law,” the organization said in a statement."
So.....your blithe statement of what will never happen is foolish and biased. It has happened and it WILL happen. But you don't care because all you think about is that your gay son should be happy at the expense of everyone else.
And the country is not going to go to hell because gay people are given the right to marry. That's an end to oppression, not a beginning.
They have the right to marry. They are demanding the right to redefine the language. And that is the beginning to oppression, not the end.
And, before you say it, I really don't care if people speaking the truth bore you.
The state has redefined "marriage" to be the union of 2 consenting adults. It's not about pushing procreation anymore. Also I have no problem with the Catholic Church not being allowed to run foster program based on government dollars. To me it's just as important that those kids not be immersed in a bigoted message as getting a stable home. Society has an interest in turning out non-hateful citizens. Look how badly traditional conservative values have failed us. Resulting in edutcher and so on.
Baron Zemo wrote;
There are many plural marriages in NYC because of our substantial Muslim population. They fly under the radar. I personally know two Muslims who live with more than one wife. That is his religion. It is not for me to tell him how to live his life.
Telling someone they can't marry three people is not telling someone how to live, it is telling someone how they can marry. Big difference.
If a muslim lives under the radar he can have his harem. A bigamist can have his bigamy, an incestual couple can have their incest.
I don't see why socity can't validate the types of relationships it wants to validate and not validate the ones it doesnt.Is it for example, in the interest of society to be neutral on incest? or to actively promote it as being as normal as non incest?
Govt also has social workers who sometimes have to place kids into households, or remove kids from households. What then is a household that should be defined as unhealthy? If you want society to remain neutral on that then society could never answer that question. But I suppose you'd argue that society should get out of the business of social work too?
Like suppose an incestual couple comes to an adoption agency to adopt kids. Is that a place where they should place a kid?
Ann Althouse said...
Get on the side of freedom from oppression now, because it is from this side that the fight you visualize will be fought.
Which means that you are for a man to have more than one wife, and for a man to marry his daughter. You have to be, or else you are nothing but an oppressor, a bigot, or a person filled with hate.
The Nutty Perfessor said...
That will not happen. That's where freedom of speech and free exercise of religion will surely work. If the religious organizations are attacked here, they will become the victims, and unless the country has somehow already gone to hell, they will win.
And the country is not going to go to hell because gay people are given the right to marry. That's an end to oppression, not a beginning."
This simply not true. You will be among the first to say that gay marriages are the law of the land and that religious institutions will have to accept them or accept the consequences.
Many people do feel that the country is going to hell because of SSM. They fell that they are going to hell if the accept that. Feelings are what this all about.
You might not agree and I might not agree but that is what they "feel."
Alex said:
"To me it's just as important that those kids not be immersed in a bigoted message as getting a stable home."
You're being quite generous with someone else's life. What values created you, Alex?
That's an end to oppression, not a beginning.
That's not how it has played out in Canada and England.
I see no reason to think that the steamroller of multiculturalism won't similarly end our freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
Assurances are meaningless, and the call to arms ("fight is admirable and winnable) is insulting.
Pogo sounds like the wail of the white supremacists bemoaning the 1960s Civil Right acts.
Baron Zemo said...
Many people do feel that the country is going to hell because of SSM. They fell that they are going to hell if the accept that. Feelings are what this all about.
Some of us see this as just a first step towards a man with multiple wives, and a man deciding to marry his daughter. Once SSM is sanctioned there won't be any stopping of these feelings.
Ann Althouse said...
That will not happen. That's where freedom of speech and free exercise of religion will surely work. If the religious organizations are attacked here, they will become the victims, and unless the country has somehow already gone to hell, they will win...
You may say: But I can visualize a way that it could be a beginning to oppression. Yes, but that fight is admirable and winnable.
Compare this to what people arguing for affirmative action claimed about warnings it would be interpreted to allow discrimination in favor of minorities. Then ask how many people for affirmative action are now against race preferences? Maybe one in a thousand. The rest embraced positions they mocked as the product of paranoia shortly before.
The same will happen here. Statistically zero will fight against the overreach. Some small number of people will have the decency to remain silent, but the rest will "evolve".
And the country is not going to go to hell because gay people are given the right to marry. That's an end to oppression, not a beginning.
Professor: This is just more ipse dixit on your part.
I can well imagine a sixties liberal saying, "The black family is not going to hell because of welfare payments. That's an end to oppression, not a beginning."
Half a century later, 80% of firstborn children to black mothers are born out of wedlock and into a dysfunctional subculture.
The right has lost this one big time. There are other bright spots though for the GOP. Workers are getting the shit knocked out of them everywhere, unions are in decline, wealth will continue to be shoveled upwards, a Democratic president is more than willing to cut entitlements and approve an export pipeline. Cheer up guyse!
Garage:"The right has lost this one big time. "
Not really, not if it passes and then gets dropped as a subject. The wonderful thing about LIVs (low information voters) is that they have memories like gnats. The GOP is segueing into reality t.v. and hip hop and is planning big give aways to LIVs in the form of ever more entertaining bread and circus. We are going to take the tricks we pulled on people who borrowed money from the big banks when they didn't want the money and apply them to politics. Hide and watch.
As soon as the Supremes give the nod to SSM, maybe we should get behind a push for any two people not having sex together to get married; no romance involved.
That should take the "magic" out of a marriage contract, and show it as essentially a civil contract.
Wonder if then it would have the same appeal for homosexuals? Or maybe they'd fight to restrict it to a romance-based union and "oppress" those in friendship-only unions?
It's not about pushing procreation anymore.
Yes, we should definitely emulate Europe with its sub-replacement level reproduction values.
That's the state committing suicide. What do these people expect? The intolerant muslims are going to pick up on all this PCism and multi-culturalism?
Not likely. Or here in the US. I was drinking with a very nice Hispanic fellow, and he told me about the power of his race.
The problem with multi-culturalism is that it assumes a cultural aspect: tolerance in all cultures. That's not in evidence at all. In fact, given the Dutch Cartoonists issues, I would say it is in evidence other cultures are NOT tolerant of other cultures.
So, let's commit cultural suicide, make the culture effete, and let's see what happens.
How about this. Get the state out of the business of defining culture, and leave it to the people. So far, I see little evidence the state manipulation has done much good.
I'll ask again, because I always ask this question in these threads, especially when they're full of social conservatives: why do you feel that your particular understanding of morality requires enforcement by the secular government? Why do you think that removing the government from the business of defining the paramaters of marriage would cause a complete collapse of the supposedly ancient and immutable institution?
I'm fairly unusual in that I'm a queer who doesn't support State-sponsored "same sex marriage", because I don't support any State-sponsored marriage. Marriage is not an issue that the State should be defining or licensing or concerned with in any way. The State should merely issue civil contracts between parties who seek them for legal reasons.
This issue is so divisive and difficult because it shouldn't be an issue at all. Chances are when you are having a governmental policy debate where people cite scripture, or misguided notions of biology and evolution, or social morality, or social engineering, that you're discussing an issue that should not be addressed by governmental policy at all.
I'll repeat myself: the only fair solution to this issue, that respects both religious and personal freedom, and that will not result in some later infringement upon freedom of association and free exercise of religion, is to end government-licensed marriage altogether.
Talk about a blessing of liberty...
garage mahal said...
The right has lost this one big time. There are other bright spots though for the GOP. Workers are getting the shit knocked out of them everywhere, unions are in decline, wealth will continue to be shoveled upwards, a Democratic president is more than willing to cut entitlements and approve an export pipeline. Cheer up guyse!
So why don't you geniuses on the left come up with with some fiscal sanity, keep your social mores, and go with it? Why do you expect the remaining people on the right to save you by converting?
Can you for once take BO off a pedestal?
"Thanks for succumbing!"
I didn't succumb because I no longer take anything you say seriously. Was that your goal, professor?
BTW you ignore the issue of whether it is the court's role to "discover" rights. What's to stop them from discovering the right of my poor neighbor to have ten percent of my savings? You also ignore how, if the court can find a "blessing" for gay marriage, anything exists to prevent it from finding a similar right for polygamy. Perhaps you believe polygamy is an undiscoverable right? Why?
For the record, as I have stated in the past, I am in favor of altering the legal definition of marriage to allow same sex couples. I've always thought that "marriage", as recognized by the state, and opposed to the sacrament or religious tradition of "marriage", is merely a law that can be enacted, altered or repealed through the legislature. I don't see how it is a "right" or a "blessing" to be secured by an activist court -- or how any court could discern the limits of such a right in the constitution.
And I will add that my solution is the only true small-government conservative one.
Social conservatives who need the government to enforce their idea of morality should just join the Democrat party, where they'll be right at home with the rest of the Statist social engineers.
Palladian said...
I'll repeat myself: the only fair solution to this issue, that respects both religious and personal freedom, and that will not result in some later infringement upon freedom of association and free exercise of religion, is to end government-licensed marriage altogether."
I agree 1000%.
@Palladian: I once asked Chuck B. the same question I posed at 3:13. He scratched his head and said it it couldn't happen. "Fiscally handcuffed" or something was the take-away message I got.
Not really, not if it passes and then gets dropped as a subject
The Supremes deciding it is probably in the GOP's best interest? Alternative to that is fighting over it for the next 10-15 years while support grows even stronger.
Palladian: I could not agree with you more, but SSM advocates want the name "marriage" attached to their partnering and they want it sanctioned by the state. If you take either away they are not happy. If you give them the identical rights of married couples but call it anything but marriage they will not be happy. The only logic here is that if the state does not have a hand in marriage then they cannot have marriage wherever they like because various religions will deny them that right. On the other hand if the state legalizes SSM then the advocates will be next after the religious institutions that deny them a ceremony. And if the state legalizes SSM and heterosexuals then renamed their own partnerings the SSM advocates would want that name as well. I think we should have SSM and join the fight on the religious front.
Most if not all social conservatives are no longer trying to enforce their idea of morality anymore.
They just want to be free to practice their religion without the government coming in to regulate and control it.
I know that this is the next step.
The demand that Catholic institutions provide birth control and arbortion with their medical plans is just the first step.
Garage: Yes, definitely. If the law of the land was that SSM was legal then I think the GOP would shut up about it. It is already capitulating. Fast. As it should
Baron Zemo: Of course it is the next step. Churches will be labeled as houses of bigotry until they capitulate. Most will. The rest will have their tax status rearranged.
"I'll repeat myself: the only fair solution to this issue, that respects both religious and personal freedom, and that will not..."
That's your mistake, Palladian. your plan makes sense only if a 'fair solution' was the goal.
The left isn't doing this because they want fairness, just as Obamacare wasn't about insurance coverage.
It's about power.
They gain maximum power over more and more of our lives with each step. They don't give a damn about fairness or even gay marriage.
It's another weapon, meant to destroy the opposition. They don't even want a solution that gay weddings supposedly solve. They want to destabilize the status quo. it's what they've preached for 75 years.
I'm disappointed Althouse is unable to see that, but she was similarly unable to see the danger in electing Obama. I thought maybe you could see it, however.
@Palladian: I once asked Chuck B. the same question I posed at 3:13. He scratched his head and said it it couldn't happen. "Fiscally handcuffed" or something was the take-away message I got.
If liberty-minded Americans are going to save this nation from our current descent into the dark chasm of fiscal ruin and Statist control, we've got to take the political weapon of moral/social righteousness away from the left, because it's powerful and it's the only thing they've got.
Social conservatives need to trust in their God and in the strength of their private moral reasoning, and give up trying to use the secular government to engineer society. If the right is going to survive as a viable force in this country, they've got to only focus on issues within the legitimate purview of the power of the State and not continue to struggle in the phony glue-trap of moral and social policy that the Democrats have set for them.
Palladian-
I consider the family a fundamental building block of society. As such, I'm nervous about screwing with it, without some pretty good evidence that the screwing with it will not make things worse. I understand that the current arrangement does not work for everyone, but I would like to hear a convincing argument that a change would make things better, and not worse. At the very least, I would like changes to happen slowly, so that we can see what happens over time.
"If the right is going to survive as a viable force in this country..."
It's too late for that. Now we have to wait for the inevitable financial collapse.
I'm entering self-preservation mode.
The simple decree that SSM will be recognized by the government in all civil matters will never be enough. Ever. It is just the begining.
I would not put any faith in people like the Nutty Perfessor standing up for religious freedom.
The take will be...."It's settled law...I don't agree with forcing churchs to perfom SSM marriages...but that is settled law and you have to comply or face the consquences."
why do you feel that your particular understanding of morality requires enforcement by the secular government?
It's in the interest of the state to encourage marriage as the institution that raises the next generation. It's expensive to raise the next generation. That's the state interest.
What the state interest is in homosexual marriage is beyond me. It's not as if the state can waive a magic wand and have male gays start reproducing. Gay males are end-of the liners, especially since the state has all but removed any value a gay man might have for his siblings' ability to raise offspring to adult-hood.
I'm entering self-preservation mode.
Sorry, no one gets out of here alive. To not fight for the next generation is to lose.
On the other hand, I'd probably be willing to make a deal that on the whole would strengthen marriage:
Get the government out of the business of defining/recognizing marriage, in exchange for getting the government out of the business of undermining the natural benefits of a stable family relationship. No more welfare for single moms, no more social security for seniors , no more medicare. If people needed to depend on their families for when times got tough, they'd take those responsibilities more seriously.
It's already lost.
Now is the time to wait.
Palladian: I could not agree with you more, but SSM advocates want the name "marriage" attached to their partnering and they want it sanctioned by the state.
Which is exactly why we should take this arrow out of their quiver, so to speak. If the government doesn't pretend to have the power to define marriage at all, then this issue disappears into the private sphere, where it belongs.
Most if not all social conservatives are no longer trying to enforce their idea of morality anymore.
They just want to be free to practice their religion without the government coming in to regulate and control it.
Exactly, which is why I think my solution is the only one that protects both religious institutions and gay people. I am not interested in a nation that bestows the blessings of liberty only upon those people who are "on my side". I want to live in a society where the liberties of both me and my ideological opponents are protected. To go down the path of using the power of the State to "vanquish" your ideological opponents is to ensure that, eventually, everyone> will end up in chains.
The left isn't doing this because they want fairness, just as Obamacare wasn't about insurance coverage.
It's about power.
Of course it is, and that's why these discussions disgust me. The Democrat party is good at emotionally manipulating people, and I've watched them use gay people as a political tool when it suits them and their designs on State power, and later betray or abandon those same gay people when they're no longer a political asset. Take garage mahal for instance; he's using gay people, and by extension, the idea of human liberty, solely as a political weapon to help his "team". But recently (I haven't time to locate the comment thread right now) he expressed an antipathy towards me, and towards gay men in general, when I said something "off the plantation", so to speak.
I wish more of my fellow queers were savvy enough to know that they're being played, and that anyone who promises to protect your freedoms over the freedom of others, doesn't care about protecting freedom at all.
It's in the interest of the state to encourage marriage as the institution that raises the next generation. It's expensive to raise the next generation. That's the state interest.
If it's in the state interest, why isn't it enshrined in the US Constitution? If marriage and procreation is so important to the secular government, surely the brilliant Framers would have put it in there?
The US Government was not conceived as an architect of a social engineering project. It was made into that by Statists, left and right alike, like you.
Inga,
"Argggg, I hate it when Alex makes sense"
You must be a very happy person today, then.
If it's in the state interest, why isn't it enshrined in the US Constitution? If marriage and procreation is so important to the secular government, surely the brilliant Framers would have put it in there?
It's not in the federal constitution because of federalism. My guess would be that it is also not in most state constitutions for the same reason that water is not mentioned in the fishes' constitution. That does not mean that the states were not actively involved in recognizing marriage and specifying rights that went along with it.
Anyone who thinks that churches will be labeled as houses of bigotry until they capitulate, is talking about Christian churches, right? I can't imagine any homosexual, Liberal, Democratic Senator or House member, Democratic Mayor or Governor will try to force Islamic houses of worship to accept any of this. Name one Democrat in this country that will demand that a Mosque accept SSM.
Garage wrote:
The right has lost this one big time. There are other bright spots though for the GOP. Workers are getting the shit knocked out of them everywhere, unions are in decline, wealth will continue to be shoveled upwards, a Democratic president is more than willing to cut entitlements and approve an export pipeline. Cheer up guyse!
what do you mean the right lost this one big time? Hillary Clinton just came out today to FINALLY endorse gay marriage even though it was her husband that passed DOMA. And the president only officially endorsed gay marriage on the eve of the election.
So in otherwords. As far back as YETERDAY the most likely candidate to be put forth as the dem successor had the same position as the right on this.
But recently (I haven't time to locate the comment thread right now) he expressed an antipathy towards me, and towards gay men in general, when I said something "off the plantation", so to speak.
You got criticized on a blog? Well, welcome to the internet. That's pretty much your MO if you had any self awareness at all. The GOP has been using wedge issues to win elections like SSM, Iraq War, terrorism, abortion, unions, environment issues, etc since....... forever. The tables have turned. I suspect that's what you don't like.
If it's in the state interest, why isn't it enshrined in the US Constitution? If marriage and procreation is so important to the secular government, surely the brilliant Framers would have put it in there?
Are you really saying the next generation isn't in the state's interest? Is that actually your position?
I suppose one reason it isn't there is that, at that time, religion largely carried the institution. And just about everyone did it.
Second, at that time the state wasn't in the business of altering the balance of marriage in a destructive way back in those days either.
Really, it doesn't take a genius to figure out what is going to happen to Europe if it continues it's insanely negative reproductive rates. It won't be Europe anymore. It will be Egypt.
Palladian wrote:
The US Government was not conceived as an architect of a social engineering project. It was made into that by Statists, left and right alike, like you.
it didn't have to be articulated because it had a defined meaning even then and so it would be inconceivable to define the meaning any differently. Unless you are aware of gays wanting to be married and the framers saying "yeah sure whatever. Marriage means whatever you want".
If you're not aware of that scenario it's probably because it never happened.
Althouse epitomizes the mindset with the "righting a historic wrong!" histrionics. A wrong that went from non-existent to existential in about 10 years. Almost like it was fabricated out of thin air for some divisive political purpose...
AllenS: Excellent point. Perhaps the super secret plan is to have everyone convert to Islam so that they can hold non PC opinions and have non-PC practices. Basically do as they wish without criticism. Really excellent point.
It was made into that by Statists, left and right alike, like you.
Oh, I missed this bit. Yes, it's a statist position to expect the state to subsidize marriage.
I would prefer the government weren't involved at all, but first government ought to relinquish much of the power they have accumulated in the name of fairness over the years, and haven't done much good, and return that power to individuals and communities. If states want to dink around with this stuff, I think that's OK, and it also allows people to escape oppression.
So yes, your criticism is quite valid, but we live in the world we live in, and I take positions that make sense within that context.
The state does have an interest in the next generation for sure. I would prefer to leave that up to the cultural organizations such as the church, but I'm a Milton Friedman type.
I see no value to the state in subsidizing homosexual marriages, except to keep people like Ann feeling good about "progress," and "anti-oppression."
Ann Althouse said...
It's asking God to deliver a blessing. In the Constitution, what we see is that the Framers believed that God had blessed us with liberty.
What God are you talking about? Allah?
n.n.
consistently makes very valid points about what happens to societies that abandon traditional values. You have to admit that history is full of examples of what happens when traditional moral values are thrown over in favor of new and more "intellectually" interesting ones.
Show me a civilization in history that lasted very long after abandoning very basic moral principles. Not just Christian and Jewish values, but the standard values that every society holds to. Respect for others, family solidarity, charity, love, generosity, empathy, and acknowledgment of s force greater than self.
The Gods of the Copybook Headings. They can be ignored and ridiculed, but they can't be stopped.
Maybe you haven't heard, but there's a new God in town, and you don't want to fuck with him or his followers.
You can still ridicule and make fun of Christians like you have been doing, because they are a caring group of people for the most part.
When the Supreme Court rules in favor of marriage equality, I love all these threats from the bigots about how they are going to keep up the fight.
Is there anyone at all who is worried about some anti-gay dead-ender bigots who are promising to keep up the fight?
How about you, Andy? Care to call followers of Islam, anti-gay dead-ender bigots because they don't support SSM. You can do so right now.
garage, Inga, Althouse, care to follow Andy on leading the way on this?
Might as well go on record right now. What have you got to fear?
When the Supreme Court rules in favor of marriage equality, I love all these threats from the bigots about how they are going to keep up the fight
Andy. Consider the state provides a bunch of rights to married couples, including survivor rights, social security continuation, lower tax rates for single earners, etc. This makes sense within the context of people expending the energy to raise the next generation that is going to produce all the goods and services old non-working people get.
Explain to me why two able bodied homosexual males ought to obtain that money from taxpayers?
To me, it's not a matter of bigotry at all. Marriage is for the children, the next generation, not for two able bodied homosexual males to obtain benefits they never worked for.
When the Supreme Court rules in favor of marriage equality, I love all these threats from the bigots about how they are going to keep up the fight.
Blah blah blah. What does that mean, marriage equality? That all people have the right to marry however society defines marriage or that all marriages are equal, be they gay or straight or couples or trios?
What threats?
The only threats are coming from the likes of AndyR and his ilk.
They will try to destroy anyone and anything. Not least among them the targets are organized religions.
Just like they went after the Mormons in Cali.
They aim for destruction. Not comity.
The servers have crashed!
Dante said: To me, it's not a matter of bigotry at all. Marriage is for the children, the next generation, not for two able bodied homosexual males to obtain benefits they never worked for.
Althouse, Inga, Andy will always just reply "but what about the exceptions?" It's their countermajoritarian streak. They will even cite polls saying that minds have changed--that majorities have become minorities but they'll still side with the "new majority." They will then justify it as a historical grievance. Some logic, eh? Predictable. Obvious.
AllenS wrote:
How about you, Andy? Care to call followers of Islam, anti-gay dead-ender bigots because they don't support SSM. You can do so right now.
For all the talk of bigotry in Islam it should be noted that they are discriminated against in this country when it comes to marriage too. THey can't marry their multiple wives. I dont really see Inga or Althouse standing for their right to "marry" nor do I see them making the denial of their rights into a civil rights cause.
Another fun post on Althouse's favorite family topic.
I think Althouse may be trying to tell us something with these Altzheimer's posts, her writing and thinking have definetely been getting sloppy lately. How sad. For any students at Wisconsin who are paying full tuition that is.
Andy R. continues to be an excellent advocate for opposing same sex marriage. What a wretched waste of carbon you are.
And bitchtits Mahal continues to spout nonsense, although my new hypothesis about why he is so against a traditional definition of marriage is that his own failed. Maybe him and Andy could give it a go. How dare all you bigots deny the "right" of two pasty white fat leftist retards to get married.
Obama bless us, everyone.
Palladian wrote:
Social conservatives need to trust in their God and in the strength of their private moral reasoning, and give up trying to use the secular government to engineer society. If the right is going to survive as a viable force in this country, they've got to only focus on issues within the legitimate purview of the power of the State and not continue to struggle in the phony glue-trap of moral and social policy that the Democrats have set for them.
Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other," John Adams message to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, October 11, 1798. "Religion and virtue are the only foundations, not only of republicanism and all free government, but of social felicity under all governments and in all the combinations of human society."
"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to a political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim that tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness," George Washington stated.Washington, George, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796. "We ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which heaven itself has ordained."
I don't think the framers were neutral on morality the way you suggest.
Althouse, Inga, Andy will always just reply "but what about the exceptions?"
I know, I've been hearing the same thing "It's not fair," since this stupid idea came up.
All one has to do is look at it from the state's perspective. What value is there to provide these benefits? Ans: none (with the possible exception of lesbians with children).
Meanwhile, my hen has become broody, sitting on her eggs. The Rooster is standing guard over her, ready to protect her.
wyo sis:
The point is that traditional morality is not independent of constraints imposed by the natural order. In fact, the latter influences derivation of the former. The natural order and the dreams of humans must be reconciled. It's ironic that environmentalists do not join this debate. They, of all people, should recognize the need for reconciliation between the two causative orders in our world.
As for religion, it may be a mere coincidence, but the first revelation of evolutionary principles was not from Darwin, but from God, or whoever inspired the Torah. Look to the Torah, and Genesis specifically, for the first recorded description of evolutionary principles. Look to the Torah for the first recorded attempt (or success?) at reconciling the natural order and human dreams.
It would be a mistake to ignore the wisdom of our ancestors, and perhaps God.
AllenS and Palladian: well done
Dante:
Procreation is explicitly recognized in The Constitution. In fact, it is recorded in the Preamble.
We the People of the United States ... secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity
How can anyone living on planet Earth not explicitly or implicitly recognize evolutionary principles. The founders of this nation certainly did not overlook the circumstances of reality when codifying our nation's organization.
How can anyone living on planet Earth not explicitly or implicitly recognize evolutionary principles.
I suspect because they are rather horrifying, when they are considered. Meanwhile, the state should not be implementing policies that cause the culture to commit hare-kari. Nor should it pervert those institutions that have protected the state and its culture.
But, these things seem to be in vogue these days. The charge is led with "Bigotry," "Racism," and "Sexism." Oh, and let's not forget "Progress," "Being on the right side of History," and all that other garp thrown at us with no evidence or circumspection. Great. When the imported cultures of Islam in Europe and Mexico in the US dominate, I doubt they will make that mistake.
Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.
Thank God Adams wasn't the only one writing the Constitution.
He also thought the Alien & Sedition Acts were a good idea.
Thank you, Roger. I have an enormous dislike for people who will go after others that because their natural instinct isn't to fight back, but try to reason. You'll see it time after time, the name calling of bigot, hater, knuckledragger, or someone out of touch.
Like most cowards, you'll never see them say anything about people who will try to kick their teeth down their throat if they disrespect them.
I remember Althouse some years ago wondering why a robber was described as being black in a newspaper article. She couldn't understand why it was important. The concept of identifying the robber by race to help in his apprehension was lost on her.
I'll say it again, she won't hesitate to chastize Christians or white people, but you never hear her ridicule Muslims or Blacks. The reasons are obvious.
Andy, Inga and garage are the same way.
How about another thread about funny Mormon underwear?
Explain to me why two able bodied homosexual males ought to obtain that money from taxpayers?
Be ause they're taxpayers too?
To me, it's not a matter of bigotry at all. Marriage is for the children, the next generation, not for two able bodied homosexual males to obtain benefits they never worked for.
So you believe that post-menopausal, sterile, elderly, and handicapped heterosexuals shouldn't be allowed to marry? And that heterosexuals who, for whatever reason, don't reproduce should not be allowed benefits from marriages?
I always knew Big Bird was an asshole.
I always knew Big Bird was an asshole.
You must have cheered Romney's threat to defund him. :)
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