Sheri was right. Yesterday was the last day of class. Today, I leave it to you to fill in the blanks.
Yesterday, the USA joined Mexico which earlier this week ensconced gmarriage as the law of the land. What say you?
Don’t just say (what is true, and obvious) “We are doomed”, say why. Don’t just shout (like a man drunk on egalitarianism or filled with revolutionary fervor) “Yippe”, say why. Include relevant quotes from SCOTUS (pdf).
And be civil. I have had a long and exhausting three weeks and am not in the mood to hear people shout at one another. I’m particularly interested in hard, concrete, timetable-including, verifiable predictions, especially from gmarriage supporters.
I am writing a piece entitled, “Why Gmarriage Is Worse Than You Thought” to tell you that, as bad as you think it is, it’s worse. And why.
I’ll check back with the comments later, but otherwise will be away until tomorrow.
The obligations of priests under the new edict was, as far as I can tell, not defined. Does this mean Catholic priests are obliged to officiate in unions prohibited by the Church? If so, one solution might be for priests to give up their state licenses to marry and Catholic couples (male/female, that is) to participate in two marriage ceremonies, civil and religious. I believe this is done in Europe, but maybe someone can fill me in on the facts.
Is there a similar solution for bakeries and caterers? A civil wedding cake and a religious one? Bakeries and caterers to be licensed by the state?
Congratulations to the USA from The Netherlands.
Two reasons why this decision is bad news. The first is that it confirms Scalia’s prediction in Lawrence v. Texas that interpreting the law in a fundamentally libertine manner would produce these results. That means the law in this country functions procedurally enough to be very predictable but not enough to care about the constitution’s created purpose. Of course this has gone on for awhile now, but with the demographics changing the way they are and such clear victories for liberal notions of freedom in the recent past ( remember the profession still likes proceduralism very much so these decisions are like building blocks) , originalism is probably dead for good. This, of course, renders the constitution effectively meaningless.
The second reason it is bad is because it now makes society almost uncontrollably incoherent. Codifying such absurdity means that we will eventually fight in the courts over surrogates, polygamists, and so on. Our nation has become the university and the government now must adjudicate arbitrary identity issues on top of the old fashioned equity between contesting parties. In short, we have legally accepted chaos as a defining principle and we will disintegrate even faster as we try to negotiate with it.
1a – The reason we are told to call it marriage equality is because it isn’t.
2 – It is impossible for a gmarriage couple to be biologically equivalent to a heterosexual couple in having a child. It requires external non-partner involvement, most likely employing technological medical procedures, and legal contracts in addition to their marriage registration. The variety of gdivorce cases over the next half century will demonstrate the folly of all this, especially where a couple have a legal gmarriage in one country and a gdivorce in another.
3 – In Australian Aboriginal traditional views, the spear is male and the woomera is female, the twirling firestick is male and the base socket timber piece is female. Similar gender differentiation runs through tools and concepts of most cultures in the world. A woomera with a woomera can’t do anything useful.
4 – Oedipus can now kill his DNA mother and marry his DNA father and no-one would know – the tale has lost all meaning. Is there a Capulet son for Romeo? Will our next generation discover new ways to read these tales?
5 – Can we please now drop genders of nouns for children learning German and other languages.
Nick “… it is bad is because it now makes society almost uncontrollably incoherent. Codifying such absurdity means …. [etc]”
I think my five samples are examples of the depth of what you wrote.
Bob
When people were posting on fb earlier this year or last year, I posited the same thing (sort of the reverse of allowing Civil Union Gmarriage – they wanted it all).
I don’t THINK that SCOTUS could reach into a religious ceremony, especially if the ceremonies were wholly separate. (Say if you allowed a “tagteam” civil/religious ceremony, you’d probably at least have to allow civil marriages in the church.)
But a thought experiment that I also posited, was – what if SCOTUS or the new Marriage Protection Agency (MPA – a joint office of the EPA and IRS) allowed you only one ceremony; either civil (with all the legal rights and prerogatives), or religious (all of the spiritual rights and prerogatives); which ceremony would you choose.
The ones who choose spiritual, might eventually have a Common Law back door into “Official” marriage.
In effect, society is tampering with millennia old root level sexual mores in a rather arbitrary way. By reducing the requirements for social well being to the level of feelings and personal pleasure in the short term, you have shifted the energy from maintaining civilization to seeking comfort. When they have finished cutting all the fat off that hog, things are going to get very interesting.
Unwin, Sorokin, and Gilder have a thing or two to say about all of this as well.
Hans:
Sounded like a “Yippee”
Don’t just shout (like a man drunk on egalitarianism or filled with revolutionary fervor) “Yippe”, say why.
Bob
An addendum to my last point.
Instead of the MPA, what if the Church decided that civil unions were a sin (a civil union would indicate one’s support of “sexual sin” of others if not actual “sexual sin” on their own part).
After all, many conservative Catholics won’t “participate” in marriages of other denomination and sometimes won’t attend, especially if said marriages involve former Catholics or previously divorced.
This is just another victory for the long, slow march of destruction begun nearly 100 years ago by Willi Muenzenberg.
He created and perfected the covert influence operational approach for destroying Normal-American culture.
He was the mastermind who began the practice of front organizations with high-minded innocuous-sounding names–the Western Anti-Fascist League, the Society for Equality, etc. With true believers as the moving forces, a massive public relations campaign, and identification of the transmission belts of Normal-American culture (media, education/academia, Hollywood), Muenzenberg’s minions energetically set about their mission.
With a belief system that can be reduced to 6 bullet points, all of which are anti-Normal; the covert influence operation has churned along for decades now. It is a slow process, but the Willing Accomplices are patient.
With this victory, they won’t rest. They just move on to the next point of hatred. PC-Prog’s hated capitalism is on the ropes–thanks to the global warming operation. PC-Prog’s bullet point of American xenophobia is near victory–the illegal invasion, Dream Act, illegals granted voting rights, etc.
And on, and on……Cassandra continues to notice.
Details:
Why Do Politically Correct Progressive Hate America?
http://willingaccomplices.com/willing_accomplices/videos
Hans: Isn’t that the country with the very active pedofiles rights group that wasn’t outlawed until last year and is still active underground? I’m not sure I’m proud to be congratulated by such a country, but it does point out the direction this leads. Let’s see: legalized euthanasia, legalized drug usage, other sexual orientations demanding equal rights. Thanks, but I really did not need to be reminded of the direction.
I would point out that the term “surrogate” is completely and totally WRONG as used in womb rent, which could be important when this particular method of procuring a child becomes widespread. A surrogate is a mother, not the biological one, who raises another’s child. Often across species when dealing with animals. It is not womb rental and we should be calling this “surrogate” practice what it is. Gmarriage in males requires either womb rental or buying a baby to procure children.
Gary: Excellent 4th point. Freud would be horrified.
There are the “slippery slope” and religious freedom arguments which are both important, however, a far greater concern to me is the complete usurpation of States’ rights by the Federal Government that has been made possible by the Supreme Court Decision. In my opinion, that is a far more steep and dangerous “slippery slope.”
Sheri in The Netherlands you are allowed to kill yourself, but the government is not allowed to kill you. In the USA that’s just the other way round. I think there exist underground racist groups in the USA where segregation only was abandoned in the sixties.
Pot-kettle-black
Unexpected consequences – a genuine story.
Recently a Jewish gay (male) couple who were married in a reform Synagogue, had a child via a surrogate mother. They used sperm from both, and wonder of wonders, twins were born, one each. Oooopps – but the mother wasn’t Jewish, so the children were not strictly Jewish. Never mind, the Synagogue decided to not mention that small matter and call them Jewish anyway. It’s gong to take a lifetime for this one to play out all the consequences, possibly right up until whether they can be buried in the section of the cemetery they expected.
Nick wrote – “Codifying such absurdity means that we will eventually fight in the courts over surrogates, polygamists, and so on.” It has already spun an absurdity into religious decrees. “… it now makes society almost uncontrollably incoherent.”
Hans, there are records of doctors and families ordering euthanasia without the subject’s consent. See my post “The Slippery Slope of Euthanasia” and links contained therein:
http://rationalcatholic.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-fifth-commandment-slippery-slope-of.html
Do you think that being killed without your consent is a good thing?
Omitted “doctors and families in the Netherlands and Belgium ordering euthanasia without the subject’s consent”
Chuck L
I can’t disagree.
Isn’t that supposed to be how Constitutional Amendments take place? If enough states had banned Gmarriage, wouldn’t that be the law of the land?
Or do they have a proscribed time period in which to express an opinion without making it a law, until 2/3rds states agree. I’ll have to revisit that part, although I probably shouldn’t cause SCOTUS is taking over.
in The Netherlands you are allowed to kill yourself, but the government is not allowed to kill you.
Not yet. Not legally. But danggit, we need those beds and they’re just taking up space and using resources we need for other patients. So maybe we withhold food and water or treatment. That’s not euthanasia. Or maybe we sorta kinds prescribe an overdose of morphine. That’s not euthanasia, right? These are only lebensunwertes Leben.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/02/26/but-rick-santorums-sorta-right-about-dutch-euthanasia/
Really, Hans, reading the same left-wing sources as Syl is? I notice you did not address legalized euthanasia, which is not the same as suicide. The racism in this country is all on the news and very little in reality. But it serves the purpose of creating hate and discontent, something the leftists love. Sorry, not pot-kettle-black.
Chuck L: Agreed.
I do not know how to predict particular social and legal consequences of U.S. gmarriage over the next 5 years, because I don’t understand the mechanisms by which some behaviors and attitudes get to be “a thing” in the United States, while others don’t.
The late economist Mancur Olson wrote acutely about how political interest groups can flourish by being 100% devoted to their interest, just because the average person can only be about 0.0000001% devoted to most particular topics.
But he didn’t explain why some interest groups are quite evidently more “interesting” to financiers, legislators, judges, bureaucrats, business corporations, and academics than others.
Historians and theorists of oligopoly (that is, the practices and attitudes of our betters) may have something to contribute here; but how ‘skillful’ (in Matt’s precise sense) any of their models of oligopoly are, and how well they predict U.S. future laws and practices, I don’t know.
The same can be said of historians, theorists, and practitioners of propaganda. Steve Sailer is fond of implying that if there were actually ‘skillful’ models of propaganda, then the you-need-me-every-fifteen-minutes marketing researchers would go out of business. But since they haven’t….
The only thing I can contribute is to copy-and-paste a few paragraphs from Dr. Jeffrey Mirus’s recent piece, which identifies the rise of legal positivism in US law as the relevant legal issue here:
So, the conceit that in the United States, we can simply set aside questions of value and get on with improving the material side of life, has run its course; or more specifically, the conceit has been revealed as cover for the Will to Power of the empowered, in which (for example) what was previously understood as vile, disreputable, anti-social behaviors, by some satisfactory process, become self-evident rights.
Over a few decades, gmarriage has become holy, and those who oppose it, unholy, forbidden, vile.
But how this has happened, and the mechanism by which gmarriage in particular should have any particular specific dire consequence (not that it won’t) is beyond my ken.
This seems to me to get into Lenin’s Who?…Whom? territory, and I don’t understand that part of human life very well, and certainly in no detail.
That is, Who does what to Whom now, as a consequence of gmarriage? What particular specific nudges, propaganda, and behaviors will now most benefit, and least harm, “interesting” interest groups, financiers, legislators, judges, bureaucrats, business corporations, and academics?
Beats me.
What this will show is that gays are just as bourgeois (i.e. boring) as everybody else.
Sheri:
The racism in this country is all on the news and very little in reality. But it serves the purpose of creating hate and discontent, something the leftists love.
Case in point:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUC2I5MfalE
Step right up, folks, and get your official, government-issue, artificial dignity.
I’ll give a shot at explaining the “why”.
America has gone full circle and finally reached America. Contra those who seem to suppose that gmarriage is an anti-American phenomenon that heralds the end of the USA, in my opinion it is as American as apple pie. The fundamental philosophies of individualism, relativism and primacy of worldly utopia that gave birth to both the American and French revolutions are responsible (albeit not deliberately) for this mess, and many others. Much hot air is wasted over “cultural Marxism”, but where do you think it evolved from in the first place other than the ideology of the intellectual cousins of the Founding Fathers? Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité. I’ve said this before elsewhere and I’ll say it again here.
Canada and Europe went down the rabbit hole first, you say? What Canada? Canada’s been dead since the 1970s. It overthrew its natural vaccines to Americanisation (the Tory and Franco-Catholic pseudo aristocracies) as early as the 1960s. All it is now is a carbon-copy of the liberal Northern US, a cultural (and often political) satellite state of Yankeedom. Same could be probably be said of post-war Europe, although I know far less about it than about my own country so I’ll refrain from further analysis in that direction.
So Mr. Briggs, ready to go full Reactionary?
Geezer alludes to the question that always pops into my mind first with regards to gay issues: What about the ewww factor? Judging by a lifetime of observations, I have to conclude that a change forced on society that violates some innate aspect of human nature won’t ‘stick’.
But, since I am an engineer, let’s get right to the heart of the matter of root cause. I blame it on a fundamental flaw in the US Constitution – no truly operational means of checks and balances on the Supreme Court. After learning about the theory of checks and balances in high school civics class, I asked the teacher what was the check on the Supreme Court. I don’t distinctly remember his answer – something about the Supreme Court having no enforcement powers, I think, that I found unsatisfying, and I remain unsatisfied.
The Supreme Court has taken full advantage of this flaw, with Marbury v. Madison, and Stare Decisis. The liberals have found this combination irresistible, the ultimate in unaccountability, and accountability to liberals is worse than the cross to Dracula. If SCOTUS is acting as a legislature, which is now well beyond pretense, Stare Decisis should no longer be applicable: a legislature cannot bind future legislatures.
If the root cause lies in a missing clause in the Constitution, then the only effective remedy is a constitutional amendment to add the missing clause. It seems obvious – the states must have the power to vacate certain, or perhaps any, Supreme Court ruling.
Barring that, I find myself having to agree with the most pessimistic – that this great experiment we call the United States, that has brought so much hope to the oppressed of the world that a society based on freedom can not only survive but flourish, is doomed to failure, and rule of the majority by the minority is an inescapable aspect of the human condition after all.
Lincoln put it succinctly – “If you call a tail a leg how many legs does a horse have? Four. Calling a tail a leg does not make it a leg.”
Whatever it is called a linking of two same sex individuals does not make it a marriage.
Bob,
“The obligations of priests under the new edict was, as far as I can tell, not defined. ”
The obligations of priest is defined in the first amendment. No priest, or church will be forced to celebrate gay wedding. The couple will always be able to get wed at a civil institution or search for a church that celebrate these wedding.
The only reason a priest could have to perform a gay wedding is if he was acting for the state which doesn’t favour any religions. This means the priest would represent the state and not the church.
“Is there a similar solution for bakeries and caterers?”
As it was demonstrated by the court ruling in the case of Hands on T-Shirt, religious corporation can refuse to render services on the basis of freedom of speech.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/04/28/christian-t-shirt-company-doesnt-have-to-print-gay-pride-festival-shirts-court-says/
A bakery cannot refuse to bake a cake but it can refuse to write a pro-gay message, the same way that Azucar bakery was vindicated in offering to bake a cake but refused to writer an anti-gay message. Christian bakeries loses because they refuse any services.
For caterer, it depends if they have to cater on site or if they only bring the goods. On site, they could claim refusal to celebrate which cannot be claimed if they are off site.
” I asked the teacher what was the check on the Supreme Court.”
The check on the Supreme courts is the writing or rewriting the laws in accordance with the constitution. The check of congress is to strike down laws that do not respect the constitution. The president checks is the naming off Judges and is Veto.
The best example is the 13th amendment which overuled SCOTUS judgment of Dred Scott.
Syl: This is why the Second Amendment exists.
Actually, the second was so written out of fear that England would attack the USA.
Syl: You have been woefully misinformed on this.
Sylvain: “The only reason a priest could have to perform a gay wedding is if he was acting for the state which doesn’t favour any religions. This means the priest would represent the state and not the church.”
In Australia marriages conducted by ministers of religion are legal marriages because the minister is a celebrant registered by the government. Does that make them an agent representing the government?
http://marriage.ag.gov.au/allcelebrants/both
I don’t remember many conservative being outraged that SCOTUS gave companies religious Religious liberties. In fact the federal RFRA act on which the hobby lobby decision was drawn upon. Yet no where in the constitution, or the RFRA, can be found the definition of a person as including corporations.
The U.S. Constitution doesn’t make any mention of the words marriage, while the ninth amendment that people have more rights than those included in the constitution.
“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. [1]”
The 14th amendment also expanded what constitutes individual freedom, which was not limited to wasps anymore.
Gary in Erko,
The answer would be no when the priest is acting inside the church, yes if he is acting in the room where civil marriage are performed. I have no idea if priest do perform civil marriage though.
Following your link in Australia they do seem to perform both. Cities can solve the problem very easily by hiring someone willing to perform those ceremonies, which should not be hard to find.
Sheri,
When the constitution was written do you really believe they wrote provisions that would authorize usurpation of power?
You realize that Washington sent the army to disarm a guy and collect taxes. They ended up killing him.
http://www.ttb.gov/public_info/whisky_rebellion.shtml
In keeping with Briggs request to not just snipe at each other, I have engaged the progressive of the North concerning the constitution and what it says. As usual, there is a disconnect there between reality and what Syl relates in his comment. This is one of the dangers of gmarriage—once you start running off into lala land and trying to pretend two men or two women somehow constitute “parents”, that surgery and a bathing suit can turn a male athlete into a female attention grabber, that gender is all in one’s head, the train to insanity has left the station. When one decides reality is all in one’s mind and there is no objective reality, it’s not far to total chaos and lawlessness, which in no way resembles the nirvana progressives are claiming lies at the end of the rainbow here. If one has any doubt on this, I can refer you to websites where the authors have no belief in the “real” world and that are sure there are sinister forces everywhere. We used to call this crazy, but the inmates took over the asylum and black is white and white is black. It never turns out well. So get out those tin-foil hats, line the house with magnetic wires to block the signals from getting out, and keep asking why the dog you named Fred could possibly have puppies because Fred must be a male or you would not have named him Fred. Obviously.
Briggs, the appropriate spelling is gmirage.
Sheri – “trying to pretend … that gender is all in one’s head”
I wonder whether there is a significant correlation between upholders of rejection of the validity of biological gender with those who accept the doctrine of climate science.
It’s about time we acknowledge homosexuality as a real thing that many people live with, and that for those people to have the same opportunity for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as the rest of us, we need to treat them like the rest of us. We’re growing up, folks. It’s a good thing.
And it’s not new in any way. All the SCOTUS did was acknowledge the validity of something that’s been going on as long as two sexes have been around.
JMJ
JMJ
“Yet no where in the constitution, or the RFRA, can be found the definition of a person as including corporations.”
Neither are a lot of another things Most of common law for example. If that’s supposed to be an argument it’s a shabby one.
This is just another of your meaningless assertions. Corporate personhood is an American legal concept that a corporation, as a group of people, may be recognized as having some of the same legal rights and responsibilities as an individual. (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood ) This is a long standing concept and also incidentally what its called a “corportation” which means embodiment. Corporations do not have all rights as a person (for example,. they can’t vote) but there is no reason those rights cannot be given to them by Congres or even a state.
Gary in Erko,
While I do believe in climate change, I do not believe the catastrophic views and I have a huge problem with the scientific use of statistic by the catastrophist. Briggs views on climate change is what brought me to his site.
How people see themselves is of no impact to your life. A guy that removes is genetelia and grow breast does not hurt you in any way. You can find it ewwish as you want. It simply requires that you ignore it. If the person feel better after transformation all the better for her.
Can you explain in what way it affects your life?
Sheri,
It is so sad to see how little american no about their own history.
People like Cliven Bundy waving the Amreican flag while not recognizing the existence of the government to which the flag belongs to. Or people waving the Dixie flag like it was the confederate flag, which it never was:
“MYTH – The Confederate Battle Flag represented the Southern Nation.
FACT – Not true. While the Southern Battle flag was carried into battle, the Southern Nation had 3 different National flags during the course of the war.
The First National flag was changed due to a resemblance of the US flag.
The Second National flag was subsequently modified due to the similarity to a flag of truce.
The Third National flag was the adopted flag of the Confederacy.
The Confederate Battle Flag was never a National Flag of the Confederacy. It was carried into battle by several armies such as the Army Of Northen Virginia and the Army of Tennessee. Was also used as a Naval Jack by the Confederate Navy.”
http://www.rulen.com/myths/
And flying this flag next to the US flags is like flying the nazi flag next to israel flag.
etc.
Dav,
The concept of personhood for companies and corporation came from a decision of SCOTUS in the early 1800s and for 200+ year their right was limited.
Only since 2014 do they have religious right. It is a good question to ask if they should have the right to vote? If a case was brought to the court they would have a good possibility to gain such write, though it would only had 1 or 2 million vote in the 120-150 millions vote cast. But they did win the power to bring money as they want with the citizen united decision, which gives them more power than if they could vote.
Still Kennedy shows consistency in his decision having always, or almost, voted on the side that expanded freedom.
Sylvain: “Can you explain in what way it affects your life?”
A few hundred people were blown up in the last couple of days overseas. So what. It doesn’t effect my life. Is that how you insist we should all assess the goings on in the world? That’s an illness called “whateveritus” – somethings occurring, so what, I’m all right over here . . . . whatever.
Marriage has never been a simple agreement between two people. If that were so then (for instance) the conflict between the Montague and Capulet families would be a meaningless background to Romeo & Juliette. Marriage has always been a relationship between a couple and their community, and the couple and their prior and subsequent generations. It’s a social construct based on natural biology. Yes, exceptions have always gone on, recognised as proxies for the normative biological essence of family, and the position of family within clan and community. Gmarriage belittles the scope of what marriage really encompasses. It’s whole basis is a disruptive idea of the nucleus of social organisation.
Read the I-Ching, for instance. “The functional family is a team that symbolizes the ideal of human interdependence, and has long provided a firm foundation for society. The healthy family is an embryo of society and the native soil in which ethical values take root and grow. Fertilize this soil, and the whole of society benefits.” http://divination.com/iching/lookup/37-2/
Had same sex marriages in the UK for quite some time and the ensuing divorces too!
The World hasn’t ended, just shrug your shoulders & let them get on with it. More important issues to worry about.
Of and by itself the concept of gay marriage seems reasonable until the concept of polygamy is pushed by various religious groups that decide they too are now disadvantaged and discriminated against.
That lasts only until the concept of marriage to minors is pushed by other religious and self interest groups because they too feel disadvantage and discrimination and by then the culture has no solid moral foundation so the legalised abortion of babies is followed by the legalised euthanasia orphans, disabled, homeless, and aged and infirm.
A culture with no moral foundation is a culture of hedonism without conviction and sense of purpose. Such as a culture is a prime target of attack by cultures with focussed religious and belief systems.
Such a culture may believe it is right to punish gays and homosexuals by pushing them from the roof tops of tall buildings, or the culture may believes in the integration of religion and state .
Such a culture could conceivably force the idolators of a hedonistic society to convert or to die.
Look, I’m just saying is all, who knows how this would turn out if a violent death cult managed to gain supporters using social media to spread hate against cultures that did not conform to an extremist ideology. Worse still if the cult ever managed to infiltrate and suborn cultures with no fundamental rules and laws based on moral codes of acceptance, peace and love.
And who could say what would happen if the cult ever gained enough power to consider overthrowing governments, taking control of vital financial, industrial and energy resources, and worse if the cult ever gained nuclear arms.
Thank goodness we have a strong and dependable United Nations that would step in and remind such a savage regime of their obligations under International Law.
Praise be, Amen.
This will give progressives licence to redefine culture, which isn’t good, because progressives essentially ignore the thousands of years of trial and error that man has gone through to develop the society we have today. They have the arrogance to think that they are the first generation to figure out how society should work, and that any human being who came before was just wrong, ignorant or bigoted or two of the three or all three.
Such people cannot maintain society.
Refer to Multiculturalism to see the game plan in action. First, you call for a ‘minor’ change, and allow it to be implemented.
In this case, we start seeing a few “gay marriages” after they’ve screamed for it and wone.
Secondly, use the fact that it has occured as evidence that society has changed. Consolidate your position. Claim that it was concensus, despite the fact you achieved your position by screaming at peoples faces, slandering opposition and in general being a thug.
When immigration was expanded, they then used the “fact” that there was more diversity as PROOF that we are a diverse society. You allow change, then push the change as the right status quo. The old one is now invalid. Discredited.
In this case, the fact that there are gay marriages. Use this to strengthen the argument against straight marriage. It is now no longer a wrong opinion, its a wrong FACT. The progressives can now state that anyone who believes that marriage is between a man and a women is factually wrong.
Attack culture. Say that depictions of marriage between a man and a woman are not reflective of our society. Demand that books, movies, childrens books, TV shows, etc reflect our new reality. Change history. Change old stories to make them more ‘modern’. Sleeping beauty now marries a woman. Reinforce the fact that the canon of Western Civilisation doesn’t reflect how our society runs any more.
Third. Use force against the now factually wrong opinion.
People who say marriage should be between a man and are woman are not just denying people the right to get married, but denying EXISTING marriages. Legislate.
Fourth. Use the EXACT same arguments you use for gay marriage, for polygamy/teen marriage or whatever. The arguments they used for gay marriage are just as applicable for any other slippery slope redefinition. Forget you ever said that the calls for polygamy in the future were ridiculous appeals to the slippery slope fallacy.
They have done this exact game plan before.
The concept of personhood for companies and corporation came from a decision of SCOTUS in the early 1800s
Not it didn’t. It is an idea that arose in England in the 1700’s. It’s part of common law. All the Court did in 1819 was recognize it as fact.
JMJ: Shall we also acknowledge that pedophilia is very common and people are forced to live with the stigma thereof. That seems totally unfair and completely non-compassionate. Let’s get that fixed right away. It’s really so unkind how these poor individuals are treated. They certainly cannot pursue happiness.
Wow, your definition of grown-up is regressing to preschool level? Black is white, white is black, n’est pas?
Really, if it was nothing new, we certainly did not need the supreme court involved, did we? It could have gone on just as it always did. And note that murder, theft and many other things have been going on since the beginning of time and SCOTUS has not yet approved thereof, though with the destruction of property in so-called race riots, they do seem so inclined.
Syl: Are you really so dim you cannot see how this affects everyone? Oh, but you can and do and just don’t care at all. You care nothing that a business is ruined by vengeful individuals, you care nothing about what happens to the business owners, etc. You care only about YOU. We see and understand that very clearly.
I believe I will start lecturing you on Canada and how it works. After all, I’m sure Canadians have no idea how ignorant and uninformed they are about their own country. Stay tuned.
Horatio: Agreed and well said. JMJ thinks we’re growing up when in actually, we are regressing. That then leads to all you have noted.
Adam Gallon: You do remember the Revolutionary War, right? If the US wanted to be like England, there would be no US. Thanks anyway.
Gay marriage? By the law of the holy slippery-slope argument I hereby declare that this will inevitably lead to the imprisonment, torture and execution of all straight people and the collapse of civilisation. Grab yer torch and pitchfork! /sarc
America has turned the corner and the main question now is; can we ever get back to the moral self respect and pride that the liberals have despised and thoroughly dumped. The narcissistic belief in relativism is disappointing to say the least and I think for many conservatives an overall emotional depression is normal. For Christians the bottom line is that “divorce” is as wrong as “sodomy”. As a result it is wrong to condemn homosexuals any more than we would divorced individuals. I use this example not to support Gay Marriage but to bring a moral perspective .
This is not a reason or justification for the Supremes did. Gay marriage is not an equal right it is as we all know an additional right above and beyond the right that everyone already had to heterosexual marriage. So- technically and clearly it is not an equal right, but an additional right. This will cause as much trouble as does the abortion issue. What is disappointing too, is the lack of Conservative leadership.
Adam Gallon: “More important issues to worry about.”
There always are, at least for conservatives. For the progressives, there’s always an issue, big or small, to be worked on diligently until they get what they want.
That’s why the progressives continue winning incrementally, and conservatives lose, one battle at a time.
Adam: Agreed. Conservatives seem unable to find an issue and stick with it. I suppose that’s just part of the individualism that permeates that political idea, but in the long run, it loses to the persistent progressives. It also helps that progressives have no set values and can jump from one idea to the next and pretend like they never held a particular viewpoint. Not being attached to reality truly is an advantage in this.
Oh—and conservatives don’t have things like Organize for Action where they can tell their minions what the emporer wants done. That is another disadvantage.
Sheri, It’s conservatives’ own fault that they don’t have something like OFA. Lots of outfits ask for money (e.g. National Review, various religious types, foundations et c.) but no umbrella outfit exists and there is no effort to make one. Maybe current events will galvanize right wingers to action, but I fear not.
the definition of a person as including corporations.
That’s one of the hallmarks of Western Law and Civilization that developed in the Early Middle Ages. It means that the president of the union cannot be personally sued for actions of the union; the professors in a university cannot be held liable for the practices of the university; the mayor of a city cannot have his own property confiscated in recompense for some policy of the city. In this, the Hobby Lobby decision was not much — because it applies only to personally-owned corporations, not to large, stockholder-owned corporations.
The U.S. Constitution doesn’t make any mention of the words marriage,
That’s because:
a) The Constitution is an operating manual for the mechanisms of Government, not a goody-bag for all aspects of life. The Founding Fathers did not envision a government that regulated and micromanaged everyone’s life.
b) Government had not yet seized control of marriage (or education). Once they did, it took only a hundred years of poking at them to break both.
https://thomism.wordpress.com/2010/05/05/secularism-and-the-1870s/
the ninth amendment that people have more rights than those included in the constitution.
True that; but liberals have spent the past fifty and more years declaring the Ninth (and Tenth!) to be a dead letter. Do they now suddenly seek to resurrect it?
we need to treat them like the rest of us.
Surely not that badly!
All the SCOTUS did was acknowledge the validity of something that’s been going on as long as two sexes have been around.
Do you mean rape or pedophilia? What has “going on” for a long time got to do with social evolution?
Person: No argument there. Conservatives really need to get their act together, but as noted in a previous comment, said individuals are not good at forming a coalition of any type. They attack each other in Congress. All of it’s very, very foolish and costs them and the country dearly.
Sheri,
“Are you really so dim you cannot see how this affects everyone?”
We’ve had gay marriage in Canada for over 10 years now. Yet the world didn’t end. God did not send hurricanes, earthquake or other storm to punish us.
This is basically a non factor here. No one is going out of business.
You are free to try me on Canadian history but our history is pretty much boring. Nothing much happen which is a good thing.
We’ve had gay marriage in Canada for over 10 years now. Yet the world didn’t end.
That’s begging the question. It’s a symptom, not a cause.
NSDAP was founded in 1920 and the world hadn’t ended by 1930. For that matter, Romans in Gothic Italy thought things were still going well. Sooner or later, those Goths would become Romanized…. It is only in retrospect that such things can be discerned.
Ten years is nothing. That’s not even a single generation. The triumph of the will goes ever onward.
Sylvain: Really? Your standards for the apocalypse are awfully high. I doubt many social conservatives in Canada predicted literal fire and brimstone. What happened was in fact, exactly what they did expected- the continued march of Sterility Inc.™ plus family breakdown.
I concur with the Statistician. Gmarriage is a symptom. The fact that we pretend that can exist is bad ipso facto. It’s a canary test that shows us that something, somewhere, went really, really wrong. A government declaring that 2+2=5 would be roughly analogous- I would lament the impending collapse of mathematics far less than I would lament the fact that such a pronouncement was made in the first place.
*did expect, not “did expected”.
“Yet no where in the constitution, or the RFRA, can be found the definition of a person as including corporations. ”
In other words, the owners and managers of a corporation aren’t persons but are instead giraffes.
“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. [1]”
Does the word “retained” mean anything here?
“…the mayor of a city cannot have his own property confiscated in recompense for some policy of the city.”
If that were possible, it might improve city government.
The question of whether the fact that something is legal means someone can be compelled to get involved with it against his/her religion has already been brought up. Remember the Hobby Lobby case of last year? The same court responsible for the gay-marriage decision ruled in favor of the rights of people called bigots by the self-congratulatory ones. Please note that birth control has even wider and deeper backing from the Left than gay marriage.
As for how permanent this is, just a few days before the gay-marriage decision, the court overturned raisin-control. This was part of the left-wing agenda of a few decades ago, defended with the same amount of condescension we see today in the gay-marriage debate. Not every left-wing victory is permanent.
“…the mayor of a city cannot have his own property confiscated in recompense for some policy of the city.”
If that were possible, it might improve city government.
Recall late Republican Rome wherein officials could be sued for their actions in government once they had left office. The lesson learned was “never leave office.”
Recall, too, that in any republic large enough there will be factions favoring multiple sides of a question. Thus, no matter what course an elected official takes, there will be some party — whether optimates or populares more than willing to ruin the fellow.
No, on the whole, Western Law is superior. Without corporations, no one would risk their money on a speculative venture like aeroplanes or radio because if the enterprise fails, all the stockholders would be personally liable for all debts and the West would be no more prosperous than the Middle East.