Gay “marriage”
With the California Supreme Court hearing arguments last week on whether it violates the California Constitution to disallow gay “marriage”, I thought it was wise to remind everyone things that the pro-gay agenda wants everyone to forget:
- Marriage is a legal privilege, not a right. The goverment is allowed to extend privileges (like say tax breaks) to groups who do things that they desire (and thus limit who has access to those privileges).
- It is desireable that all children be raised by BOTH their biological parents
- No gay couple can BOTH be the biological parents of a single child
- Marriage is an institution that encourages sexual couples to remain together for their life and therefore will raise together whatever children result from that union.
Pretty simple, yes? Government wants children raised by biological parents and gives benefits of marriage to those’s union has the potential to create those children. Gays can’t be biological parents, so gays can’t get married.
A further point:
When the government gives legal protections to a group, that convers certain things. It’s not just being tolerant of something, it’s ENDORSING that thing. It is a completely reasonable thing, speaking governmentally in a free society, that both gay people think their is nothing wrong with their behavior and that other people think their behavior is immoral. If the government says that gay “marriage” is acceptable, it is effectively saying that it is unacceptable for people to think gay “marriage” is immoral. When inter-racial marriage was finally allowed (and obviously good thing) it was a statement that other races are equal to whites. It is NOT ACCEPTABLE in the US to think that being black or hispanic (or pick your race) is a lesser race than whites. The same thing would happen with gay “marriage”.
As can be seen from countries like Canada where preachers are brought before “human rights commissions” for reading from the Bible, it is not acceptable in a society that allows freedom of religion to allow gay “marriage” and all that goes along with it. Gay “marriage” will lead to the outlawing of certain Christian beliefs.
March 12th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
#2 is the lie.
Do I win a prize?
March 12th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Why would you say that Blain? I think it’s common sense to most that in the vast majority of cases the biological parents both have the obligation and are best suited to raising their children. Sure, there are exceptions, but all in all, it’s what is supposed to happen.
Going further, in the cases where the biological parents are not the right people to raise the child, the vast majority of those cases are parents who are not/no longer married which I think further re-enforces the value of the government endorsing marriage since it is generally the state who takes the burden of either raising those children or providing for those who were not raised well.
March 16th, 2008 at 12:03 am
Yes but “desirable” and “necessary” are two different things. The economic benefits of making marriage and all the legal rights attached to it a privilege for potential breeders doesn’t follow. I mean, the government already gives the exact same tax deduction to gay couples with adopted dependents as it does to biological parents.
If you want good parents, something like a driver’s test for parenting and proof that you are actively seeking to become a parent seems more in order. And before you start crying eugenics, people wouldn’t need a license to have children any more than they do today. They’d only need the license for the legal benefits of marriage. Genitalia don’t even enter into it.
March 17th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
But I didn’t make a case for “necessary”. Remember that my logic is whether it is legal under the constitution for the goverment to restrict marriage to heterosexual couples. Perhaps I should have reworded #2 to say “The people believe that it is desireable” or something like that. The point remains that it, whether you find it desireable or not, the people do and it is the people’s right to incent others to engage in various behaviors.
Moving to the tax deductions for gay parents, you’re mixing two different incentives as if they are only one. The government has two:
1. Marriage to incent people to raise their own children.
2. Dependent benefits for those who raise children whether or not they are their own.
The two are not explicitely linked.
Said another way, the government recognizes that the desireable state of a permanent marriage in which a child is raised by their biological parents doesn’t always occur and therefore gives separate/additional benefits to those who raise children, irrelevant of their marital status.
Finally, regarding the “Driver’s test for parents”, it’s ironic you phrase it “seeking to become parents” and then exclude genitalia from the question. Last time I checked it was a pre-requisite for having children that the appropriate genitalia is involved.
But to bring this post back to it’s original point, we’re talking about the constitutionality of restricting marriage to heterosexual couples, not whether it is a wise restriction. To argue your point successfully in this post, you’ll have to stick to why it would be a violation of the constitution.
You can debate the wiseness of the restriction when I post on it another time. That topic deserves its own post.
March 18th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Ah. I see. You’re right. This is a case of liberal courts trying to go too far. I thought you were trying to make an argument against gay marriage. You were trying to make an argument against it being illegal to ban gay marriage.
I wasn’t saying the two were explicitly linked. I was saying that if “the people” have a preference, why isn’t it expressed in the tax code?
So you’ve never heard of surrogates, implantations, adoption? Plenty of gay couples are seeking to become parents through these means. You don’t have to be straight to want to be a parent.
But yeah. I missed the point. No prize for me.
I just like the gay people I’ve met so much better than the straight people.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:11 pm
I don’t agree with your reasons, but I do agree with the overall premise (no gay marriage).
Reason? Marriage is a church institution. The legal and political institution is called “civil unions.”
Separation of church and state is interpreted today as simply churches not being allowed to dominate the state. People forget that it also originally meant that the state is not allowed to dominate the churches. That is why the government should not be allowed to administer marriages, just civil unions.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Brian, the logic of my post does not depend on which term is used to denote the union. Whether you call it a “Marriage” or a “Civil Union” doesn’t change that it is the state’s perogative to encourage behavior and to setup laws that do that. Nor does the term in and of its own right determine whether the 1st Amendment is relevant. Call it whatever you want, it’s still a legal contract with legal privileges. It has nothing to do with the Church.
May 18th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Ken, you should have kept your asinine comments about gay marriage on this blog and not let them bleed over into EMFMV. I really like that blog, but it is not the smartest place to soapbox your views on gay marriage. I guess I’ll be moving on to the other Cal football blogs now. *sigh* why’d you have to go and do what you did?
May 19th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Hi Ken! I dont take political issues well because they are so far from what God commands and in the end, it does not matter what I think; Bush still gets re-elected and taxes are passed to benefit the wrong cause. I do appreciate that you can express what you think. I have become tired of doing so personally and work hard and quietly for what I believe God gave me certain aptitudes for. So what I mean to say is, I tune into EMFMV because I like to follow my Golden Bears with God in mind first. Other blogs, like the insider, lack this, and are generally more worldly. Thanks!
p.s. I am not a super blogger so I dont mean to ignore you if I only come by once a month or so.
p.p.s. especially with that “solve this math problem in order to leave a reply” thing! Go Bears!
May 20th, 2008 at 8:35 am
JC, I’m with you in my disenfranchisement in how politics has such bad results. Since this blog is pretty dormant most of the time I haven’t expressed just how disappointed I’ve been with the Republican party who’s pretty thoroughly abused the electorate that gets them elected time and time again because they know the alternative is far worse.
May 20th, 2008 at 8:43 am
Peter, when I decided to let this blog “bleed” into EMFMV, I did so knowing that there may be a few who were offended by it. But I decided to do so anyway. I figured it was reasonable to do for the following reasons:
1. I never do it. (and I made it clear that this was a rare exception, not a new trend)
2. I steared clear of moral/religion issues and stuck to an underlying legal issue.
If you feel the need to avoid EMFMV because of that SINGLE post, a post that I believe to be very reasonable, I both respect you for sticking to your principles and could care less that you won’t be reading.
If on the other hand you’ll accept a post that you strongly disagree with every couple YEARS, I both welcome your rational comments/disagreements and am thankful for you tolerating my infrequent asides.
May 22nd, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Ken,
I must admit I was acting on the heels of an angry moment (brought about solely by seeing/reading your gay marriage commentary, it should be noted), when I wrote my comment. It’s not exactly smart of me to jump at you on your religious/whatever blog, but I felt compelled to action of some sort and I didn’t have the option of commenting on EMFMV.
I will admit you don’t add content on contested issues (nobody is taking the tree sitters seriously…seriously), and so this was an isolated event. Still, it was one that really stuck in my craw (no pun intended…or maybe I should say it’s a gay pun in jest).
Despite your sticking to the legal aspects of the court’s decision, your perspective and underlying opinions and feelings were transparent. Many of the points you brought up while dissecting the issue were circuitous ways of laying out your opinion as well, so the post read like a soapbox diatribe to me.
I’ve always thought it insanely stupid to criticize bloggers for their content. I mean, if you don’t like it, don’t read it, right? Well, kind of. I go to EMFMV to read about football. If something a little out of place shows up every once in awhile, it’s no big deal. When a long post is dedicated exclusively to something waaaay not related to Cal football, and waaaay out-of-sync with my own beliefs, it incenses me and apparently (thank goodness) many of your other readers. It’s your blog and you can do whatever you want with it (that’s obvioulsy part of the beauty of the blogosphere), but I still feel it was in poor taste for you to use your reach in the world of Cal football to express a personal opinion about sexuality, legal framework or not.
I was curious to see how you’d react to my restrained flaming, and I think you chose the right approach. That said, I will keep reading EMFMV because although I think your outlook on gay marriage is totally ridiculous, you’re outlook on Cal football is great. Please just do your readership a favor and in the future keep Bears-unrelated topics to yourself.