So what? I don't see what the big deal is. If equal protection under the law has any meaning, any two consenting adults ought to be able to marry. What compelling interest does government have in preventing gays from marrying? I'd like to hear the arguments.
Some say that if gays are allowed to marry, polygamists, polyandrists and every other Jerry Springer wannabee will demand to marry as well. Again so what? If someone wants to marry a spangle of consenting starfish, go ahead - let me know where they registered. The only caveat to my live and let live theory is that religious institutions should not be compelled to perform marriages that defy their beliefs. Because as we've seen it's not enough to be tolerated, it's not enough to be accepted, everyone and everything must be celebrated equally.
5 comments:
interesting topic and comment given that Catholic Charities in Boston has decided to end it's adoption program due to an inability to come to agreement over gay couples as adoptive parents. Catholic Charities wanted to continue the adoption program but not allow children to be placed with gay couples. That was deemed discriminatory so they called the whole thing off (after about 20 years of operation, I believe). While I believe gay couples can make fine parents I am with you when it comes to asking people to defy their most deeply held beliefs, even if I may not agree with those beliefs.
ElD:
You need to clarify your request, for me anyway.
Do you mean arguments against altering the definition of marriage:
1) as a Roman Catholic;
2) as a Christian;
3) as a monotheist in the Judaeo-Christian tradition;
3) as an American, according to Constitutional law & rights;
5) according to philosophy, Natural Law theories, and/or socio-psycho-logical theories and statistics;
or 4) as a heterosexual man with a wife & kids, who simply wants to know what all the fuss is about -- live and let live, etc
My own response would depend on which category of "reasons" you were really interested in or frustrated about.
I suspect that for the first three you and I are in agreement. I'd like your take on:
4)as an American, according to Constitutional law & rights;
5) according to philosophy, Natural Law theories, and/or socio-psycho-logical theories and statistics;
I'd like to hear how the state can deny marriage or any other legal contract based solely on sexual preference.
Well then, I would imagine that your new Exec. Asst. for your new business should be put on that research project ASAP. He/She may want to begin with the simple use of words in a consistent, unequivocal way, when dealing with matters of law, and then for starters, check out this link http://marriagelaw.cua.edu/Issues/.
I would do the research for you myself, but I am a freelance researcher, and so I would need to charge a modest amount of $$$ in order to profitably organize and report on what Robert Bork and other legal minds are thinking about this topic.
But if you have not hired an Exec. Asst. as of yet, do not fret -- this topic (ie "not-necessarily-Christian, but a resonable American's understandable opposition to same-sex marriage"), and the issue of Just War Theory are going to be my next posts (as usual simply posts of links, as useful reference material),... Now that I've let the image of legal infanticide linger on my blog & hopefully enter into the minds of anyone silly enough to be reading my awfully boring blog consisting simply of links and quotes.
Or, regarding the meaning of words in my above post, I will transpose a section of G. K. Chesterton's "What's Wrong with the World", in which -- regarding the use of "comrade" amongst the socialist/communists of his day -- he replies:
"The word [marriage]just now promises to become as fatuous as the word "affinity." There are [groups] where all the members, men and women, call each other [married]. I have no serious emotions, hostile or otherwise, about this particular habit: at the worst it is conventionality, and at the best flirtation. I am convinced here only to point out a rational principle. If you choose to lump all flowers together, lilies and dahlias and tulips and chrysanthemums and call them all daisies, you will find that you have spoiled the very fine word daisy. If you choose to call every human attachment [marriage], if you include under [the name of marriage, eg,] the respect of a youth for a venerable prophetess, the interest of a man in a beautiful woman who baffles him, the pleasure of a philosophical old fogy in a girl who is impudent and innocent, the end of the meanest quarrel or the beginning of the most mountainous love; if you are going to call all these [marriage], you will gain nothing, you will only lose a word. Daisies are obvious ...; but they are only one kind of flower. [Marriage] is obvious ...; but it is only one kind of affection; [and] it has [unique] characteristics."
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