Marriage Rulings

It was a bad day for black robes. It is said that our freedoms are never safe when the legislature is in session. You could say something similar about when the Supreme Court is in session. Wednesday was the last day of this session, so, at least for a few more months, we can say “phew,” and stop fearing the daily onslaught.

At some future point I’d like to do a scorecard on the SCOTUS, but today the news about marriage is too heavy to cover more than that. Wednesday’s two rulings were on DOMA and Prop 8. (I wrote about the cases and issues at stake on April 1^st.) Let’s start with this declaration first, because the news is creating less than truthful headlines: neither ruling declared “same-sex marriage” the law of the land. Both rulings, while not going the way I thought they should have, were minimalist in effect. 

Supreme Court
photo from NPR

DOMA

A portion of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act was struck down as unconstitutional. The law—which was brought forward by a Republican Congress, but was signed by Democrat President Bill Clinton, and his Democrat controlled Senate, and which Obama claimed to support until a few months ago—had definitional purposes. As far as federal law was concerned, marriage would be defined as a contract between a man and a woman, and spouse would be defined as one of the marriage partners, the opposite sex of the other spouse. The change brought about by Wednesday’s ruling is to eliminate a federal definition, meaning the federal government will use the definition allowed in any particular state. Essentially the outcome is that federal employees in states that allow for same-sex “marriage” can receive spousal benefits. There will probably be other eventual outcomes, and further confusion, but at this point that is the limit of the definition elimination.

The unfortunate part of the ruling is the reasoning. The majority opinion claims that the reason the definition needed to be eliminated was that its only purpose had been to harm certain less popular citizens. There was no legal rationale; there was only the supposition that the justices could divine the motives of the Congress, Senate, and President who codified into law what had been assumed to be true for the entire history of the country—and indeed for the entire history of civilization—and somehow discern that it was based only on hatred against a particular innocent group.

Scalia (may he live long!) wrote a scathing dissent. It was around two dozen pages; here are a couple of excerpts:

But to defend traditional marriage is not to condemn, demean, or humiliate those who would prefer other arrangements, any more than to defend the Constitution of the United States is to condemn, demean, or humiliate other constitutions. To hurl such accusations so casually demeans this institution. In the majority's judgment, any resistance to its holding is beyond the pale of reasoned disagreement. To question its high-handed invalidation of a presumptively valid statute is to act (the majority is sure) with the purpose to "disparage," "injure," "degrade," "demean," and "humiliate" our fellow human beings, our fellow citizens, who are homosexual. All that, simply for supporting an Act that did no more than codify an aspect of marriage that had been unquestioned in our society for most of its existence—indeed, had been unquestioned in virtually all societies for virtually all of human history. It is one thing for a society to elect change; it is another for a court of law to impose change by adjudging those who oppose it hostes humani generis, enemies of the human race.

He’s right. The real concern is the condemnation of all of us in the majority who still hold to the age-old definition of marriage as enemies of the human race. Condemning the masses as sub-human simply for disagreeing with the current liberal cause de jour is certainly not the intended purpose of having a judicial branch. Scalia adds this:

It takes real cheek for today's majority to assure us, as it is going out the door, that a constitutional requirement to give formal recognition to same-sex marriage is not at issue here—when what has preceded that assurance is a lecture on how superior the majority's moral judgment in favor of same-sex marriage is to the Congress's hateful moral judgment against it. I promise you this: The only thing that will "confine" the Court's holding is its sense of what it can get away with.

Considering how correct the liberal court feels itself to be, they were restrained in their result. They failed to claim there was a constitutional or basic human right to same-sex “marriage,” and instead allowed continued federal government confusion at the mercy of state differences. If they thought they could have gotten away with acting more strongly against the majority of Americans, they probably would have done so. 

Prop 8

The Prop 8 ruling was, as feared by both sides, a punt. The case was dismissed because the Supreme Court preferred not to grant standing to a private organization to defend a state law. Here’s a summary, again, of the situation.

The people of California long ago (around 2001, I believe) voted to continue defining marriage as a man and a woman; the state legislature overruled the people’s will. So the people responded through the initiative process and codified the traditional definition of marriage to overrule the legislature. This was Prop 8, which won in 2008 with 52% of the vote (a clear majority, and if you look at the voting, you see that only a few urban masses voted against the proposition, while nearly all counties had majorities voting in favor). Despite the win, a few judges flouted the law and “married” same-sex couples, and a judge decided to overrule the people from the bench and say that was lawful, because he thought it should be (he was a homosexual judge with an agenda, but refused to recuse himself or even be objective). The state of California was required to defend the law against this judicial behavior, but it refused. So the organization that had supported Prop 8 asked for standing. The case has been making its way up through district and circuit courts on its way to the Supreme Court.

outcome of Prop 8 vote
graphic source: Wikipedia

The Court said Wednesday that, because the Court had never before allowed a private entity to defend a state law, it would not do so now. In the process it overturned the 9^th Circuit ruling and essentially said the law needed to be defended by the state of California. If the state continues to refuse to defend the law, that probably means judges may choose to “marry” same-sex couples afoul of the law, and there will continue to be confusion about the validity of those “marriages.”

But any way you look at it, the Supreme Court ruling fell short of approving same-sex “marriages” in California, and also gave a ruling that can only be applied to that particular state.

The aftermath isn’t good for real marriage, but it is worse for the initiative process for those states that have it. It says, “Sure, you can have an initiative process, but the outcome is irrelevant if the state government doesn’t happen to agree with the outcome.” The will of the people was seriously degraded with this ruling. 

Flotsam and Jetsam

While it could have been worse, the outcome for civilization was negative from these rulings. More than laws, however, which were only minimally affected, the opinions flamed the hateful vitriol against supporters of traditional marriage.

A comparison was brought to my attention, in a piece by Ben Shapiro for Breitbart. It was a case with Bob Jones University, back in 1983. That private university, a religious institution, had a rule against interracial dating. I never understood the belief against interracial dating or marriage. It seems odd and archaic today, but there were parts of the country (mostly southern) that held to separation of races longer than other places. So, while we may clearly disagree with Bob Jones University’s beliefs on that issue, they weren’t unheard of at the time. Their non-profit tax-exempt status was removed—not because they suddenly became a for-profit organization, but because their beliefs weren’t politically correct:

Government has a fundamental, overriding interest in eradicating racial discrimination in education … which substantially outweighs whatever burden denial of tax benefits places on [the university’s] exercise of their religious beliefs.

The Court decided against the University based only on its beliefs. So the question is, could the Court do the same with churches, schools, businesses, and other organizations that hold what they deem is an “enemy of the human race” belief?

The tactic of the tyrannical hemisphere has been to control the language, the message. To move popular opinion until people think what they used to know instinctively isn’t so anymore. And anyone who still has the old common sense are labeled the “enemies of the human race.” At least we have a Supreme Court justice who spelled out what is happening, so there’s a record for historical anthropologists to someday dust off and discover.

I tend to consider the relationship to civilization when history happens before our eyes. I came across this quote during the days’ post-decision reading, and it seemed apt:

This time, however, the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time. And it is our lack of consciousness of this that constitutes part of our predicament. We are waiting not for a Godot, but for another—doubtless quite different—St. Benedict.  —Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue 

Hopeful Extra

Thursday the 10^th Circuit Court ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby, which refused on religious grounds to provide medical coverage for abortifacients (abortion inducing drugs), just in time to keep them from having to pay fines of $1.3 million a day, that were set to start July 1^st. Courts don’t always go wrong. Not yet.

SCOTUS on Marriage Part III: Outcomes of the Cases

Part I is on Definitions, Part II is on Arguments. Today's Part III is on Possible Outcomes

I have a poor record for predicting what the courts will do; I like to think positively, and believe all will work out. But after last year’s tortured ruling on Obamacare, all bets are off. I can’t predict. The oral arguments are almost certainly after the fact of the justices making their individual decision. They have already begun drafting their opinions. So all I can do is summarize the issues.

The two cases both deal with the definition of marriage, but ask different specific questions of law. The Prop 8 case is about whether the people of a state have a right to decide to keep the definition of marriage it has always had, or will have a redefinition forced on them by judges. The decision might avoid an actual decision by deciding the defenders of Prop 8 have no standing, which is a catch 22 situation. The people used the initiative process to override state-imposed changes against their will. Then the state refused to defend the people’s vote against the judges who overruled the people. To say no one but the state has standing leaves us asking, who can be the advocate of the people against the state?

Photo credit: npr.org

If the case is thrown out, it will only affect the state of California, with all the real issues still up in the air. But it also means the people have no recourse against a tyrannical state. Still, I think it’s unlikely the Supreme Court will use this case to announce a new unwritten “right” to same-sex “marriage.”

The DOMA case is about whether defending the long-standing definition of marriage is constitutional. The main question here is, when/how did the millennia-old definition of marriage become unconstitutional? A “right,” by definition, means God granted it, and it is just a matter of the state being prevented from infringing on that right.

If the court decides there is a right to marry (to be granted all legal and society honors) based on having a sexual relationship of one’s choice, why would it be constitutional to refuse to grant those same marriage honors to people who want to marry more than one at a time, or someone who is a close relative, or someone not alive, or someone nonhuman, or someone not of age? That is the slippery slope argument. The only defense to it is, “There is no slippery slope. We’re not talking about that; we’re only talking about the rights of same-sex couples.” And if you refuse to look at the argument, you submit yourself to being surprised by the slippery slope, which logically follows.

The argument against DOMA in the 90s was that it wasn’t necessary, because no one was even considering threatening the definition of marriage. Today’s arguments are equally disingenuous. Taking fidelity, permanence, and family establishment out of the definition of marriage, and pretending it has always been just a love thing, just honoring two people who have chosen to have an emotional connection for the time being, does not benefit society, and it certainly doesn’t leave marriage and family unharmed.

The DOMA decision hinges on rationality. Is there a rational reason to define marriage as it has always been defined if that prevents some people from enjoying the benefits of marriage? The threshold is actually quite low; if a single rational person can be found to have a single logical reason, then it is not irrational to uphold the law. The other side has to prove that there is no rationale for preventing marriage benefits from being extended to people who don’t currently meet the requirements for marriage.

It should be an easy decision, because family, fidelity, and permanence are all outcomes of the marriage contract that have an extraordinarily long history of benefit. In order to rule against DOMA, a very few states get deemed “rational” while the majority of people in the vast majority of states are deemed unreasonable—and bigoted hatemongers to boot.

But in political bodies (and the Supreme Court is unfortunately political, against design), simple facts get obscured behind other motivations. The opposition to the defense of marriage have enlisted a willing media in framing the argument as a civil right to marry—leaving out a great many details: homosexuals are free to (and frequently do) marry a person of the opposite sex like everyone else; there is no guarantee to anyone of marrying the “person of their choice” if the person they choose is already married or is a close relative, or is someone who doesn’t consent to marry them, or is someone below the age of consent or is mentally incapable of giving consent, and various other limitations.

I don’t think the cases available provide the possibility that the Supreme Court can come out with a declaration that marriage must be defined as it always has been not only by the federal government but also in all the states. I think upholding DOMA would only affect definitions within federal law, which leaves things the way they are now, with the possibility that individual states can define marriage differently in contracts within their states.

This is still problematic, because of the “full faith and credit clause.” Generally, contracts made in one state are upheld within the other US states. If you get married in Idaho, you don’t have to get remarried if you visit or move to Virginia. But, in the case of marriage, if a state grants all the rights and title of marriage to a same-sex couple, and that couple moves to a state that doesn’t recognize that change in the definition of marriage, would that second state be forced to recognize the contract? Thirty-one states have foreseen this scenario and have protected themselves, beyond statute, by declaring the long-standing definition of marriage in their state constitutions. Which makes it a question of sovereignty, so that a single state doesn’t hold power without representation over the people of all the other states.

Can same-sex couples move to these states and sue for recognition of their contract? Yes, and that does seem to be a strategy. Because of the deeply held beliefs—the strong rationale for marriage—it would seem reasonable for such couples to either stay where they have a recognized contract or assume that their contract is not binding. But instead of accepting that limitation for themselves, they press for all of society to change. So far, however, no case has made it through the lower courts to the point where a test case could reach the Supreme Court.

My hope for the Supreme Court is that they are swayed by the awareness that Roe v. Wade was not only bad law, it interfered with the state-by-state working out of a divisive issue. The court, I believe, will try to prevent such intrusion for now. I think they are likely to seek some middle-of-the-road still indecisive decision.

On Prop 8 I hope they will find in favor of the people’s law, but whichever way it goes, they are likely to clarify that the decision is only pertaining to the people of California and their initiative process.

On DOMA, I think they should uphold, because to do otherwise would be very disruptive to contract law and would be the most intrusive decision. Even if I’m wrong, I think they will try to find a way to prevent the decision from being a declaration of a new “civil right” for anyone to marry anyone of their choice.

As with Obamacare, we’re trying to predict the minds of Kennedy and Roberts. Kennedy tends to look consistently at civil rights fairness, so it’s hard to know whether he will succumb to the drumbeat argument of the opposition or consider the full meaning of the marriage contract. He is an unknown.

Rumor over the weekend was that Justice Roberts has a lesbian cousin who was sitting in his section during the hearing. I assume that report is intended to cause us to believe that merely having a cousin with an assumed opinion is enough to change the chief justice’s opinion on what the Constitution says. I hope that isn’t so, but I offer no guarantees. Roberts went way out of his way on Obamacare not to strike down the law. It seemed so out of character that people have speculated conspiracy theories, that the administration holds some piece of evidence (even if it’s something untrue and manufactured) over him as a threat, so he must not cross them. Maybe so, but it could be that he just personally seeks to avoid acting in a declarative way.

At any rate, it is unfortunate that the future of civilization is on a knife edge, at the mercy of nine unelected political appointees, two-thirds of whom are more likely to work toward their desired outcome rather than declare what the Constitution says. (May Thomas, Alito, and Scalia live long and healthy lives!)

On an ironic side note, on Sunday, March 24, about 300,000 protestors marched on the capital of France, in defiance of a bill sponsored by their president that would allow same-sex “marriage,” which has already passed the lower parliament. Even the people of France, where sex outside of marriage has been considered a cultural norm for centuries, are standing up against the imposition of the homosexual agenda.

SCOTUS on Marriage, Part II: The Gotcha Question

The SCOTUS heard oral arguments concerning the definition of marriage Tuesday and Wednesday of this week: Tuesday on California’s Prop 8 and Wednesday on the federal DOMA law. This is part II of my commentary on the discussion. On Wednesday, in Part I, I wrote on a couple of basic definitions. Today I’m looking at the Gotcha question, plus the “Voice of the Children” argument. It’s going to take a third post, coming Monday, to deal with the possible outcomes of the court cases.

The Gotcha Question

Here’s the Gotcha question: “How does a same-sex ‘marriage’ harm your heterosexual marriage?” The assumption is that there is no harm, so there is no answer. But there is harm, even if it isn’t blatantly obvious to the casual onlooker.

The current definition of marriage is a particular contract, binding the parties of the contract with the promise of fidelity, permanence, and protection of family. To change the definition removes those promises from even existing contracts.

Procreation: Separating the marriage contract from the act leading to procreation means nullifying and changing the contract so that there is no particular interest in family. This is important because, without interest in family, there’s pretty much no societal benefit from the contract that the state has an interest in. All benefits of marriage go to couples without the couples giving anything of value to society.

Fidelity: The change in contract also removes the promise of fidelity, because unfaithfulness in a same-sex relationship has no effect on the vulnerability of offspring and parents, in competition with a possible usurper of those protections. (Same-sex partners, incidentally, tend to be unfaithful at rates nearing 100%.) I had the promise of fidelity from my mate when I made the contract; if the court changes the definitions within the contract, it takes away from me this contractual promise.

Permanence: The establishment of permanent family in the original contract is also made vulnerable; since there is no dependent spouse or child produced by procreation within the marriage, there is no assumption of harm when a relationship ends. That is why government has had no interest in automatically sorting out division of property when same-sex couples part (which they do, historically, at rates approaching 100%). Similarly, government stays out when co-habiting unmarried heterosexual couples split.

So the change in definition means the new contract has no promise of fidelity, permanence, or family. How does that play out?

Suppose a father of several children, married to a woman for more than a decade, decides he prefers a different woman, and he ends the contract. The wife, who sacrificed considerably—health, career, energy, time, personal wealth—to procreation and raising the children, is left unprotected. She has no promise of alimony to make up for her sacrifice; she has no promise of custody if she doesn’t have as many resources as the father. She is told all can be taken from her, because there was no expectation of fidelity, permanence, or family in the original contract (even though she entered the contract with those promises expected).

Does the change in definition mean this woman’s relationship with her spouse will end in this disaster? No. But is the loss of protection from this threat real? Yes. She has been harmed.

Suppose a woman is married to a man for more than a decade, producing several children, but she has been unfaithful multiple times. She may be uncertain of the fatherhood of each of the children, or she may know the spouse is not the father. She gets the tax and insurance benefits plus honor of society nevertheless, simply because she continues having a sexual relationship with the spouse, but because there is no expectation of fidelity, the man has no right to expect that any children born to the woman were his offspring. Why marry in the first place, if he doesn’t even have that promise? And if he has no expectation of father-child relationship to the woman’s offspring, can there be an expectation that he provide for them? The man has been harmed by the change in contract, and so have the children.

No longer is it a contract requiring fidelity, permanence, and protections to family. It is now a contract implying only an announcement that two people choose to have some sort of sexual relationship, not necessarily exclusive, not necessarily permanent, and no interest in producing or protecting children—but the contract nevertheless requires society and government to give advantages and honors to the couple simply for their declaration of “love.”

Same-sex “marriage” makes it a different contract than it was. Courts will treat it as a different contract in all 1100+ laws relating to the contract. Laws surrounding marriage—property division, child custody, alimony, etc. will change, because the purpose of marriage and the state’s interest in it will have changed. Parents even lose the values attached to being a mother or father; those get substituted with neutral meaningless terms like “parent 1” or “caregiver.” Those who already have the original contract lose its meaning, and couples marrying in the future have no way to make the contract that heretofore has been available.

Voice of the Children Argument

One of the relatively new arguments voiced last Tuesday will probably be referred to as the “Voice of the Children” argument. The estimated thousands of children living with same-sex parents want their parents to have the same respect that married heterosexual parents have. This is interesting. Adults put children in the position of a family without a married mother and father, and then accuse, “How can you be so unfair to our children?” Instead of solving the problem by avoiding putting children in this deficient situation, they tell society it must accept the problem situation as equivalent to ideal as if that would solve the problem. Or, in other words, let’s decide to pretend it isn’t a problem, so that no one has to suffer the problem.

The question ought to be, what are children entitled to? They are entitled to being raised in a family with married mother and father; society should do all within its power to encourage that situation for each child. Wherever that isn’t possible, the situation for the child will be statistically likely to be deficient, and society will have to somehow use its social and economic capital to make up the deficiency as well as it can.

If society were actually interested in what is best for the child, then the child would be placed within a traditional family for adoption. But that is not being considered by anyone as an option, particularly for children born biologically to one of the same-sex parents. We as a society allow a great deal of freedom among individuals to make mistakes and choose their own way of dealing with them. While in past generations most children born to unwed mothers were voluntarily put up for adoption, today many more unwed mothers (above 90%) keep the child, thus depriving the child of a parent (also making adoption much more difficult for couples wishing to adopt, but that’s a discussion for another day). Many similar problems arise from divorce as well. We don’t take children away from divorcing parents to put them in other two-parent homes; the idea is abhorrent, even to the strongest defenders of the natural family.

With that option off the table, then society must simply spend its social capital tolerating the fact that some children will be raised without a mother and a father.

No matter how much the children are saying, “We don’t want our family to be seen as less ideal than families with a mother and father,” society can’t change facts. We sympathize for any child missing a father or mother, but we can’t magically say, “We’ll just say your situation doesn’t miss a father or mother, and then you won’t feel like you’re missing out.” When children demand, “I want! I want! I want!” sometimes the grown-up has to say, “I’m sorry, but that’s not something you can have.”

Supreme Court and the Definition of Marriage

I’ve written pretty thoroughly on the subject of protecting marriage. Here’s the basic list again:

• In Defense of Marriage
• Defining Marriage and Making Cream Sauce (I co-authored with Richard Wilkins)
• The Gay Marriage Fantasy
• Why Texas Will Vote to Protect Marriage—NoMatter What You Call Us
•        Devaluing Marriage and Family--Part I, Part II, Part III
   

So today, I’m just commenting on some of what we’re seeing in the Supreme Court’s hearing of oral arguments, Tuesday on the Prop 8 California case, and Wednesday on the federal DOMA law.

Some of the difficulty is the media wording of the issues, so I think I’ll do a little translation.

Banning is the wrong word. To ban something, the something must exist first. No one is “banning” same-sex “marriage”; they are defending the definition marriage has always had—since before the state existed to codify it in law. Technically, California claims same-sex “marriage” existed there and was then “banned,” but that’s disingenuous. The people of the state of California voted to keep the definition, and the legislature decided to ignore them, so, before the legislation went into effect, the people of the state put forth a proposition to change the constitution to retain the original definition of marriage and won by majority vote. And then judges flouted the decision, granting marriage licenses to people who didn’t qualify for said licenses, leading to the court cases at issue now.  So, every time you hear the word ban, know that it is the result of media manipulating public opinion.

“Same-sex marriage” is an oxymoron. Marriage, real marriage, concerns the legal and societal concern with what happens because of a specific sexual act, and only that act. To be blunt, a marriage is only consummated once the couple engages in the male sexual organ penetrating the female sexual organ, making possible egg fertilization. If a married couple engages in any other type of mutually voluntary sexual behavior, the state is simply uninterested. The reason is that this particular sex act is what leads to procreation, which is of vital interest to society, including the vulnerability caused by procreation, especially to children but also to mothers.

Oral arguments Tuesday touched on the procreation issue, but only awkwardly. What about couples who are infertile? What about couples marrying too late in life to procreate? (Justice Kagan asked about marriage after age 55, for example, apparently unaware that history offers many examples of people 55 or older becoming parents.) Those questions are not for the court to be concerned with; those are medical questions. Those couples can still marry, because they can still engage in the sex act. And they can establish permanent families going forward. Couples that fail to consummate the marriage can have the contract annulled, meaning that because they do not include the behavior of concern, their relationship does not qualify as marriage.

I don’t know why the simple question isn’t posed to same-sex couples: “Do you intend to engage in male/female sexual intercourse required for marriage? And how do you intend to do that without the appropriate body parts?” Their issue isn’t infertility. Mostly they are fertile. They are simply not engaging in the act with an appropriate partner to qualify for marriage.

There is not now, and has not been, any law “banning” homosexuals from marrying—when marrying means engaging in the singular male/female sex act that can lead to procreation, God willing. Homosexuals raising children have all either engaged in that act, or they have adopted a child produced through the coming together of someone else’s male and female seed. Even in the growing business of female homosexuals using in vitro fertilization, they can’t combine their egg with the egg of their partner; they have to have the semen from a male donor. There is no physiological way for this couple to produce offspring together. This basic fact of life ought to be obvious.

The supposed gotcha question of those seeking to redefine marriage is, “How does a same-sex ‘marriage’ harm your heterosexual marriage?” And the assumption is that there is no harm, so there is no answer. But that is incorrect.  There’s enough to say on that to wait for another post.

"Tolerance"--You Keep Using that Word...

Back in 2008, a week after the election that included Proposition 8 in California, I wrote a response to a post on an online group; it was a political offshoot of a rather large homeschool group, so that inflammatory conversations would not show up where people are just looking for homeschool information. 

The post I responded to was saying we should mark the anniversary of Matthew Shepherd’s death, and if someone wants to do that, I don’t have a problem. I do have a problem with insisting homosexuals exemplify our collective guilt alongside “slavery, women voting, separation of races”; “We simply must stop wasting our energy trying to legislate people out of existence.” Really? We have ever legislated anyone out of existence, and homosexuals are included in this apparently vast group?   

He added, “As long as the majority of the citizens of this country are willing to legislate against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people there will be people that will take it upon themselves to feel it is their duty to harm these people physically.” Really? Protecting the institution of marriage, which is the basic unit of civilization, causes people to go out and beat up homosexuals? This person not only doesn’t understand evidence, he doesn’t care about it.  

“Dennis,” who always signed his posts with “peace,” did respond to my post, point-by-point accusing me of being a bigoted, uninformed homophobe, simply because I hold the opposite view of his, which he defines as good—but without actually responding to the data with any evidence of his own. That is what we face. So my response isn’t to him; it is to give words to those who know somehow his accusations are wrong but don’t have the data and words to defend themselves. (The political group eventually became unused and irrelevant, but Dennis continued on the regular homeschool group until a few months back, when he started a flame war that was so offensive to so many that he was removed from the group—all the while signing “peace.”)

__________________________________

November 13, 2008

Linda Nuttall

You are assuming, Dennis, that homosexuals are “a people” in the same sense that races are “a people,” a group that is alike because of innate qualities. But there is a huge difference between genetics determining the level of melanin in the skin and the choice to act on various urges. The law is equal toward homosexuals: they can marry someone of the opposite sex, who is not a close relative, who is not already married to another, who is old enough to consent to the contract, who is a human being—the same requirements for marriage that are required of heterosexuals. What they want is a special privilege just for them. They want a new definition of marriage—honor for being in a temporary non-exclusive sexual relationship that cannot produce offspring and offers no benefit to society. Traditional marriage is defined as a permanent contract between a man and a woman requiring exclusivity and faithfulness, designed to protect any offspring by guaranteeing the child will be raised by his/her two parents of separate sexes—clearly a benefit to society. Even when it doesn’t always work out, encouraging it is society’s duty. There must be a preponderance of success to avoid societal decay. 

Marriage pre-dates every state; the state didn’t invent marriage, and therefore cannot simply un-invent or re-invent it into something else. The state can only decide under which conditions to grant a license showing how and when the state will honor the bond. What “same-sex marriage” does is eliminate respect for traditional marriage; it encourages honor for a behavior that deserves no honor, and in essence prevents society from honoring what is in society’s best interest.  

Everywhere “same-sex marriage” has been enforced, it has seriously increased the incidence of out-of-wedlock childbirth and then child abandonment in society as a whole, because it separates the connection between marriage and a commitment to children. Everywhere it has been enforced, people with religious beliefs that disagree have been persecuted and prosecuted for their beliefs. Everywhere it has been enforced, parents have been deprived of the right to decide when and how homosexual relationships will be taught to their children. 

This week the people who claim to be asking for “tolerance” demonstrated their refusal to give it. Yesterday Scott Eckern lost his post as Artistic Director of the California Music Theater, driven out after 25 years, because he voted “Yes” on Proposition 8 (along with more than half of California voters) and gave a $1000 donation to support that cause. According to the Sacramento Bee, “when Tony Award-winner Marc Shaiman, the composer of ‘Hairspray,’ read of Eckern’s donation last week, he urged artists and theater workers across the country to boycott the theater.” He wrote “that he wouldn’t allow his work to be done at California Musical Theater, and theater workers across the country have followed his lead… 

“Susan Egan, star of ‘Thoroughly Modern Millie’ and ‘Cabaret,’ followed with a similar email. Theater professionals flooded CMT’s offices over the weekend with phone calls and emails decrying Eckern’s actions.” What was his action that was so egregious that he should be driven from his profession? Supporting an idea these “tolerance”-seekers disagreed with. 

There was an unauthorized demonstration against a Latter-day Saint temple in Los Angeles two days after the vote last week, requiring LAPD, along with SWAT teams, to protect private property, just because it was owned by a religion that strongly supports traditional marriage—along with the majority of voters, and a wide coalition of churches and demographic groups. The Church has always made it clear that it is important to love and support homosexuals and never attack or hate; but it is also a right and responsibility to stand up for traditional marriage, which is the basic unit of civilization. These beliefs are not tolerated by opponents, who ironically shriek obscenities at their opponents while saying they are only asking for tolerance. 

It might interest you to know that homosexual-on-homosexual violence is so prevalent that a majority of homosexuals experience it, and yet almost nothing is being done to prevent it. Heterosexual-on-homosexual violence as a hate crime (because of prejudice) is so rare that barely a handful of cases can be found annually, and they are prosecuted as they should be. 

If the sacrifice you’re asking from heterosexuals is to re-create the world so we have to raise our children without an understanding of the importance of sexual purity before marriage and complete fidelity within marriage, and have the laws of the country denounce what we would like to teach them—if that is the sacrifice you are asking us to make, I’m not willing.  

At some point it would be nice if the people asking us for tolerance would be willing to experiment: total purity before marriage and complete fidelity after. They’ve been unable and unwilling to do it anywhere they’ve had the opportunity. Doesn’t look to me like they’re willing to make even a small sacrifice of personal self-control. 

You’re asking us to allow a religious belief—that sex outside of a committed marriage, and particularly unnatural sexual behaviors that cannot produce offspring, should be honored as God-approved—you’re asking that this religious belief be forced down our throats, against our will. It is no wonder that people who value marriage and family have stood up in heavy majorities in 30 states to pass state constitutional amendments, and to pass legislation defining marriage in an additional 14 states, to prevent activist judges from forcing this religious belief upon us. 

I recognize that people disagree on the issue. But I am willing to allow the majority to be allowed to say what they believe in a free society, rather than have it forced on them by unelected judges.

One Small Victory

There was a small news story yesterday with somewhat large meaning. The California high court unanimously ruled that the proponents of Prop 8, the state initiative to protect marriage in that state, had standing to defend the law following the state’s refusal to do so. More here.

Outcome of Prop 8 Vote
Source: California Secretary of State*

Opponents of the law claimed that the legally passed initiative violated the US Constitution, and they got District Judge Vaughn Walker (a homosexual, who therefore should have recused himself, since he aligned himself with the opponents), ruled that it was unconstitutional. Had he ruled otherwise, the opponents would have had the right to appeal. But since he voted their way, the opponents have insisted that only the state governor and attorney general had the right to appeal, and if they didn’t, then no one else could. 

So that means that they believe the initiative process in California—which exists so that the people can have a say in what their laws will be when they cannot get the legislature to act in their interest—are subject to the whims of the state government as to whether to acknowledge any such law.  

So the court was right yesterday: when the state refuses to carry out its executive duty, interested parties must have a right to step in and defend their own position. The state’s 100-year-old initiative process was at stake. 

As for protecting family simply by affirming the definition of marriage as it has always been—between a husband and wife, exclusive and intended to be permanent, between consenting adults of opposite sex who are not closely related—it is now going to the next step: on to the 9^th Circuit of the US Supreme Court, a court with a reputation for being the most liberal and most likely to have its decisions overturned for failure to apply the law. 

The 9^th Circuit will hear arguments about whether traditional marriage is an institution that violates the equal protection and due process clauses of the US Constitution. If they rule that the right to define marriage as it has been defined in most civilizations for millennia is in violation, then the next step will be an expanded 11-judge appeal panel. And it won’t end there. Quite likely, either way it will be appealed to the US Supreme Court. 

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*Graphic from Wikipedia.