About Me

In writing the "About Me" portion of this blog I thought about the purpose of the blog - namely, preventing the growth of Socialism & stopping the Death Of Democracy in the American Republic & returning her to the "liberty to abundance" stage of our history. One word descriptions of people's philosophies or purposes are quite often inadequate. I feel that I am "liberal" meaning that I am broad minded, independent, generous, hospitable, & magnanimous. Under these terms "liberal" is a perfectly good word that has been corrupted over the years to mean the person is a left-winger or as Mark Levin more accurately wrote in his book "Liberty & Tyranny" a "statist" - someone looking for government or state control of society. I am certainly not that & have dedicated the blog to fighting this. I believe that I find what I am when I consider whether or not I am a "conservative" & specifically when I ask what is it that I am trying to conserve? It is the libertarian principles that America was founded upon & originally followed. That is the Return To Excellence that this blog is named for & is all about.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Individual Rights & Homosexual Marriage

"Traditional marriage has been around for thousands of years.  Same-sex marriage is very new. I think it was first adopted in the Netherlands in 2000.  It may turn out to be a good thing; it may turn out not to be a good thing … But you want us to step in and render a decision based on an assessment of the effects of this institution, which is newer than cellphones or the Internet?" -  Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito addressing U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli last week during oral arguments in one the homosexual marriage cases now before the Supreme Court
 
Now I checked out Sammy's statement & found that re the last part of the statement that the Supreme Court has ruled on many cases dealing with issues that arose after the invention of cell phones and the beginning of the web going world wide.  For instance the Supremes have ruled on genetically modified DNA organisms, online piracy, GPS tracking by the police, finding ObamaCare constitutional before most of the law has taken effect, & various Internet privacy, free-speech, and censorship cases so the newness of homosexual marriage in & of itself isn't a good reason not to proceed based on all of these other cases.
 
Sammy is on firmer ground re the first part of his statement in that I checked out three dictionaries with copyrights between 1960 & 1991 & found that all of them define marriage as the mutual relationship between husband & wife further defining husband as a man & wife as a woman with no mention of same-sex marriage.  But the online dictionary I checked says that marriage is the the legal union of a man and woman as husband and wife, and in some jurisdictions, between two persons of the same sex, usually entailing legal obligations of each person to the other.
 
All of the ruckus around the Supreme Court last Tuesday & Wednesday started because homosexuals don't or may not have the same legal rights as married heterosexuals & their dissatisfaction has expanded into claims of violations of civil rights & human rights in that people in love should be able to become married.
 
Ron Prykanowski addresses the legal rights & civil rights questions when he writes "marriage is a contract, not a civil right. You do not sign a paper (license), have two witnesses, an official and exchange an act of consideration (love and affection is such a consideration) for a civil right.  If marriage were a civil right, why would you need a pre-nuptial contract or a property settlement agreement much like a business? It is a contractual life partnership."  Now the problem with Ron's excellent points is that the government has stuck their nose in & there are some 1,100 federal laws that rest on the definition of marriage.  A timely example is the IRS definition of who can file a "married filing joint" income tax return.
 
The legal defenders of homosexuals' positions in the two cases before the Supreme Court rely principally on the principles of federalism in the one case & the equal protection assurances of the Fourteenth Amendment in the other case.  The Justices are wrestling with whether or not to use the equal protection clause to create a new group who needs additional or more clearly spelled out legal defenses.  The Supremes have not done such a thing in decades.
 
Dr. Keith Ablow recently took the position I have had for years re this subject when he told Laura Ingraham "the government shouldn't be expressing a preference for whether two people of any gender get together and call themselves married. The government should never have been involved in these personal matters and it's highly prejudicial that a state or the federal government can say two men can marry, but not two women and a man. Three people can be in love!"   Click here to hear an excellent discussion between Laura & Dr. Ablow.
 
With regard to the more modern online definition of marriage I presented above please realize that the very next portion of the definition following the part about same-sex marriage is A similar union of more than two people; a polygamous marriage.  We are teetering on the cornerstone of civilization being redefined by polygamy or any other thing someone thinks of such as Laura mentioning in the video a woman who wants to marry the Eifel Tower or I add a college football player who was engaged to be married to a figment of his imagination.
 
So where does it end if the Supremes unconstitutionally meddle in this matter?  Just like the Supremes should not have taken the ObamaCare case in 2012 they should not have accepted the homosexual marriage cases either.  The Founders never intended nine unelected judges to tell the rest of the citizenry what is up.  Based on his comments in oral arguments it appears that Chief Justice Roberts may finally understand this – but oh what a difference if he did last year.
 
Above I mentioned human rights, civil rights, legal rights, & the rights of homosexuals.  You can get a grip on this issue by focusing on the the definition of libertarianism & especially the second half - individuals have the right to control their own bodies, in action and speech, as long as they do not infringe on the same rights for others.  The second half of this definition is the inalienable fundamental right – the right to be left alone from which life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness are derived.  All of the other types of rights mentioned above are statist ideas to one degree or another.  It is individual rights that are the bedrock of America as defined in our Constitution.
 
Now I don't know who could disagree with the above analysis – whether straight or homosexual – unless you have another objective in mind.  Like overthrowing the American way of life as your real agenda.
 
 

4 comments:

  1. Doug - I agree entirely. I also saw the Dr. Ablow interview and wrote to him immediately afterwards.

    I prefer marriage without government approval. They simply use it to incorporate your marriage and to hold each of you responsible for things the other may do. They use benefits to entice you and then strings to control you. It is another source of government control. I believe in the U.S. the marriage license first became widespread as a method of preventing whites and blacks from marrying.

    A few years ago I asked my minister why his power to marry was "vested in him by the state", and not by God. He stated he wouldn't want a married couple to live in sin. I replied that a couple can get married before the state and immediately cheat on each other. Another couple can get married without state approval, but before God and be faithful the rest of their lives. Why would the second be living in sin? He never acted the same towards me (and I attend a different church today).

    In my opinion, heterosexual couples should be fighting to leave a state-controlled approved marriage instead of gay couples fighting to be put under its control.

    ReplyDelete
  2. this was my post on Facebook this morning.

    I haven't mentioned anything on the homosexual marriage debate. But let me make this clear, if the folks that are against homosexual marriage would support the FairTax, that is a national sales tax instead of the most divisive tax - the Federal Income tax - most of the support for homosexual marriage would probably falter. In fact with the FairTax homosexual marriage may never have been an issue in the first place. The Federal Government is screwing us on so many levels with this income tax including dividing Americans rich vs. poor, corporations vs. people, etc. I am providing a link below of an older but still relevant article on this issue. No matter how the Supreme Court rules, we still should be pushing for the FairTax or some form of national sales tax. http://queercents.com/2007/10/31/fairtax-and-why-it-is-important-to-the-lgbt-community/

    ReplyDelete
  3. The last sentence in the article is the real reason for change in marriage laws.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Enjoyed reading your latest RTE about gay marriage, you are so to the point.

    ReplyDelete