Posted my thoughts on the California ruling a little while ago at Inside Catholic – my concern is for the welfare of the churches, and by churches I don’t mean only Catholic churches but all religious affiliations that could possibly find themselves hounded by the government and lawyers on this issue.
…once again – as with Roe v Wade, an activist court (not the legislative body) has overturned what was essentially “the will of the people.” That never serves us well. And depending on who gets into the White House, we may see perhaps as many as three SCOTUS justices replaced by judges of an activist bent.
[...] I frankly think it might be a better thing if the religious sacrament of marriage were separated from the legal action of marriage, and vice versa. Perhaps it would be wise for us to adopt the practice of France, where the civil marriage takes place at City Hall, and the Sacramental marriage at the church.
A civil union is a mere legality. It can be defined any way the state wishes, but it leaves the church out of the question of who may “legally” be married and protects her ability to bestow sacraments and practice the faith free from “discrimination” lawsuits and the inevitable punitive damages that can materially destroy her.
Depending on how the courts go, we could conceivably see this issue coming up in a lot of states, and then there will be a press for federal recognition of gay marriage. If the church does not take steps to protect herself now, by advocating this sort of separation of duties and intents, she will be spending a lot of time and money (and losing tax-free status, of course) fighting for the right to practice the faith without government interference.
Bottom line: the churches manage to perform funeral rites without signing the death certificates; they should consider performing the marriage rites without signing the licenses, and distancing themselves from co-operative functions with the government which may open them up to lawsuits originating from and arguing a strictly secularist position.
I actually wrote something touching on this possibility last summer.
I have no problem with civil unions (my line gets drawn whenever someone implies that a church must go against its own theology and sacramental understanding of marriage), so I can understand where Don Surber is coming from in his post, and I agree with him about the “zero-tolerance strain” of liberalism that too often shuts down an exchange of ideas…
Seems to me that in the name of “tolerance,” – since everything is about the T word – the churches are due their fair of “tolerance” too, in the name of right to the free practice of religion.
While we debate that…some folks better think long and hard about how they’ll feel if the next president gets to name 3 new SCOTUS judges – for life. Patterico also expresses some displeasure at the judicial activism superseding the will of the people.
UPDATE: My L’il Bro Thom, holding the same opinion as Patterico, was challenged by his boss, who said, “sometimes the people get it wrong!” To which Thom replied, “but this is a Republic. It’s not up to the courts to make that decision. Remember how you hated it when you thought the SCOTUS overturned ‘the will of the people’ after the 2000 election?”
And please, don’t email me about the SCOTUS thing; I KNOW the decision to overturn the FL court was 7-2, I know the SCOTUS did not “seat” Bush and I know that Gore initiated the court action. But Thom’s point was a good one, too: If you didn’t like what you THOUGHT was “judicial activism” in that case, you should not like what is TRUE activism in this one.
Ed Morrissey at Hot Air has (very typically) the best commentary on this subject I’ve yet read:
Government recognition of marriage is a policy decision that should remain in the purview of the people. After all, no one argues that relationships require government sanction; two people can cohabitate without permission, as long as they’re consenting, unrelated adults. They can form contractual partnerships just like any two adults can, as long as the purposes remain legal. The argument in this case is for government sanction of the relationship as marriage — and as such is a public policy decision.
Had the people of California chosen to recognize gay marriage through legislation, I’d accept it — and in truth, I’d consider that a more rational policy than civil unions, which basically reproduce marriage with a different label. Government stopped being in the sacrament business at the moment it offered no-fault divorces. A civil-union contract has more binding power than does marriage these days. States would do best to leave the term “marriage” as an exclusive province of the churches and have all couples sign civil-union contracts instead, and let the individuals determine whether they feel “married” or not.
Pursuing Holiness also has a very interesting take on a separate angle: Why not let gays have marriage? We’re not using it. More thoughts on that by Maureen Martin (satire).
Related: A friend points out that in Iran, the government interferes with the free practice of religion. We don’t like that about Iran, so we should probably not allow that to happen here.
For those of you calling me an alarmist, Bainbridge gives food for thought.
More coverage:
Volokh has thoughts on the “slippery slope”
Sr. Toldjah
B. Daniel Blatt at Pajamas Media – I’m surprised there is no round-up.
Glenn wonders, did CA just hand the state to McCain?. I doubt it.
Allahpundit looks at the decision.
STACLU
True North
National Review Online has a lot.
A
1 John McCain would have been given a gift by the CA judges – would revive the whole Gay Marriage issue.
Unfortunately, McCain burned his bridges by opposing the Marriage Amendment. One of MANY political errors by an incompetent candidate.
2 This is not about civil rights. It’s about damaging conventional families. This is just the beginning – in Sweden, it is a crime for ministers to oppose homosexuality on religious grounds. In CA, it’s effectively illegal to do the same.
Future President Obama comes from an “unconventional family”, so he would not hesitate to force people to “normalize” his own and others.
Don’t count legalizing polygamy next – it’s already in litigation.
Can you imagine the divorce proceedings? It’s going to be like the two women presenting a stolen child to King Solomon – cutting the child into pieces.
A
1 John McCain would have been given a gift by the CA judges – would revive the whole Gay Marriage issue.
Unfortunately, McCain burned his bridges by opposing the Marriage Amendment. One of MANY political errors by an incompetent candidate.
2 This is not about civil rights. It’s about damaging conventional families. This is just the beginning – in Sweden, it is a crime for ministers to oppose homosexuality on religious grounds. In CA, it’s effectively illegal to do the same.
Future President Obama comes from an “unconventional family”, so he would not hesitate to force people to “normalize” his own and others.
Don’t count legalizing polygamy next – it’s already in litigation.
Can you imagine the divorce proceedings? It’s going to be like the two women presenting a stolen child to King Solomon – cutting the child into pieces.
At this point I think let the world go its own way. Yes, and withdraw from much of secular life.I already have my own mental space where I have done a lot of that.
At this point I think let the world go its own way. Yes, and withdraw from much of secular life.I already have my own mental space where I have done a lot of that.
Of course polygamy is next. There is now no rational basis for maintaining the prohibition on it.
Soon thereafter, of course, incestuous marriages are quite forseeable, if only as an estate planning device. For example, currently, mega-taxes are imposed on transfers of wealth following death (estate taxes and inheritance taxes), including inter-generational transfers. However, federal and state death tax laws also recognize a marital exemption, allowing the estate to pass to a spouse tax-free.
As such, it would be legal malpractice for a lawyer to not advise widowed spouses to marry their children. By marrying their children, they obtain the benefit of a tax-free transfer via the marital exemption upon the death of the parent/spouse. By not marrying their children, such transfer at death gets taxed.
The fact that they never live together or never have sex is, of course, within the couple’s right to privacy, i.e., none of the government’s business.
When we start defining marriage to be whatever the hell we want it to be, such inane and absurd results are sure to happen.
But like I said before — there is no “law” anymore. A “law,” properly understood, is something akin to transcendent truth — unchanging. Human law, e.g. statutes and judicial decisions, have the force of law, but are not technically law per se. Even so, such human law historically has been seen as having to be consistent with reason, e.g. the common law, so as to be fairly applicable to everyone.
Today, instead of law, we have “a mirror of our culture,” which is as about as subjective and relativistic as you can get. Mirrors of culture are not law, and never have been, but that is what we have got. As such, we can alter at will the law of human life; we can alter at will the law of sex/gender; we can alter at will the law of marriage. I suppose if you can mutilate a woman’s genitals, pump her full of hormones, and surgically construct an appendage, which some insist is a facsimile of a penis, you can call a woman a man as a matter of “law,” and when she later gets pregnant because they apparently have not yet removed her uterus, you can print headlines that a “man is pregnant,” but she is still a she and always will be as a matter of fact and truth.
So are we at all surprised that something like “marriage” could be nevertheless treated as nothing more than moldable clay — even though it pre-existed all courts, pre-existed all government, pre-existed all organized society, and thus has a set “definition” (being the union of a man and woman), which, having not been created by government, is beyond the power or competency of government to add to or subtract from or change in any way?
God may not be dead, but man’s belief in the idea of law is gasping its last breaths.
Of course polygamy is next. There is now no rational basis for maintaining the prohibition on it.
Soon thereafter, of course, incestuous marriages are quite forseeable, if only as an estate planning device. For example, currently, mega-taxes are imposed on transfers of wealth following death (estate taxes and inheritance taxes), including inter-generational transfers. However, federal and state death tax laws also recognize a marital exemption, allowing the estate to pass to a spouse tax-free.
As such, it would be legal malpractice for a lawyer to not advise widowed spouses to marry their children. By marrying their children, they obtain the benefit of a tax-free transfer via the marital exemption upon the death of the parent/spouse. By not marrying their children, such transfer at death gets taxed.
The fact that they never live together or never have sex is, of course, within the couple’s right to privacy, i.e., none of the government’s business.
When we start defining marriage to be whatever the hell we want it to be, such inane and absurd results are sure to happen.
But like I said before — there is no “law” anymore. A “law,” properly understood, is something akin to transcendent truth — unchanging. Human law, e.g. statutes and judicial decisions, have the force of law, but are not technically law per se. Even so, such human law historically has been seen as having to be consistent with reason, e.g. the common law, so as to be fairly applicable to everyone.
Today, instead of law, we have “a mirror of our culture,” which is as about as subjective and relativistic as you can get. Mirrors of culture are not law, and never have been, but that is what we have got. As such, we can alter at will the law of human life; we can alter at will the law of sex/gender; we can alter at will the law of marriage. I suppose if you can mutilate a woman’s genitals, pump her full of hormones, and surgically construct an appendage, which some insist is a facsimile of a penis, you can call a woman a man as a matter of “law,” and when she later gets pregnant because they apparently have not yet removed her uterus, you can print headlines that a “man is pregnant,” but she is still a she and always will be as a matter of fact and truth.
So are we at all surprised that something like “marriage” could be nevertheless treated as nothing more than moldable clay — even though it pre-existed all courts, pre-existed all government, pre-existed all organized society, and thus has a set “definition” (being the union of a man and woman), which, having not been created by government, is beyond the power or competency of government to add to or subtract from or change in any way?
God may not be dead, but man’s belief in the idea of law is gasping its last breaths.
This issue really comes down to one simple question: Is the definition of marriage an individual right or a right that belongs to society? In essence, the court is claiming that it is an individual right. However, once you take that stand, you can’t then claim that such things as incest or polygamy should be illegal. If it is an individual right then one could claim just as well the right to marry one’s sister as well as marry someone of the same sex.
Where then is the opposition to legalized polygamy and incest? The immediate claim is that “well, that’s not what we’re talking about and people would never go for that. It’s too extreme.” In other words, the opposing argument assumes the right of society to determine the limits or legal marriage and thus exclude polygamy and incest (and anything else one could think of.)
However, if we assume that the definition of marriage is something for the entire society to define, then we have places where that issue can be decided: that’s in the legislature and in the voting booth.
This issue really comes down to one simple question: Is the definition of marriage an individual right or a right that belongs to society? In essence, the court is claiming that it is an individual right. However, once you take that stand, you can’t then claim that such things as incest or polygamy should be illegal. If it is an individual right then one could claim just as well the right to marry one’s sister as well as marry someone of the same sex.
Where then is the opposition to legalized polygamy and incest? The immediate claim is that “well, that’s not what we’re talking about and people would never go for that. It’s too extreme.” In other words, the opposing argument assumes the right of society to determine the limits or legal marriage and thus exclude polygamy and incest (and anything else one could think of.)
However, if we assume that the definition of marriage is something for the entire society to define, then we have places where that issue can be decided: that’s in the legislature and in the voting booth.
Gay Marriage Threat to Those Traditionally Married
Gay Marriage Threat to Those Traditionally Married, Multiple Times…
Gay Marriage Threat to Those Traditionally Married
Gay Marriage Threat to Those Traditionally Married, Multiple Times…
“But that will not change what happens as to hiring in Catholic Hosptials, Universities,Adoption programs , and the numerous Charitable organizations we run. That is where the lawsuits will come and that is where the true threat to our liberty and things such as tax exempt status lies”
FYI, We’re already there. Catholic Charities in MA had to close shop on Adoption services because of conflicts regarding the granting of adoptees to gay couples in that state. It came down to “Your conscience or your job.”
Unfortunately, it will happen to many other churches and individuals as well. I’m waiting for the next case, possibly originating in a state such as TX (which is about half Catholic and about half Baptist) in which a church is threatened a lawsuit because they refuse to marry a gay couple. You are going to see the pendulum swing against Christianity in this country as you have never seen happening before. The main force behind this will be people with such resentments against Christians that they will do anything to cut us out of public life.
Just watch in a few years as Christian families who vote with their wallets and their feet become targets of “Child Protective Services” because Christian schools teach against homosexuality. I am sad to predict that many Christians in this country will eventually be discouraged from, or outright shut down from, many professions because of their faith and practice. Look at pharmacists who can no longer practice because of their faith vs. abortion pills and such. Or check Canada, where showing your Christian colors even on your own business can guarantee you a nice “chat” with their ill-called “Human Rights” Commission. They don’t think much of it, but they’re slowly reviving the lions at the coliseum: after eighteen hundred years or so of “sleep”, those “big kitties” are going to be mightily hungry…
Oh, one more thing. Over ten years ago, the pastor at my church in Northern VA (I now live in TX) warned the congregation that homosexuality was not only “sinful” in the Biblical sense, but it was also the most damaging to our society. He didn’t say it in the sense of “damaging the family”, but from the rest of the preaching, I understood that he meant more: our civilization. I couldn’t understand how it would do so, but as I hear more Islamofascists (and even some “moderate” Muslims) preach against Western culture and civilization, I wonder if (with the Political Correctness that has ruled in the CA Supreme Court and elsewhere) they have indeed made the one rope with which to hang us all.
“But that will not change what happens as to hiring in Catholic Hosptials, Universities,Adoption programs , and the numerous Charitable organizations we run. That is where the lawsuits will come and that is where the true threat to our liberty and things such as tax exempt status lies”
FYI, We’re already there. Catholic Charities in MA had to close shop on Adoption services because of conflicts regarding the granting of adoptees to gay couples in that state. It came down to “Your conscience or your job.”
Unfortunately, it will happen to many other churches and individuals as well. I’m waiting for the next case, possibly originating in a state such as TX (which is about half Catholic and about half Baptist) in which a church is threatened a lawsuit because they refuse to marry a gay couple. You are going to see the pendulum swing against Christianity in this country as you have never seen happening before. The main force behind this will be people with such resentments against Christians that they will do anything to cut us out of public life.
Just watch in a few years as Christian families who vote with their wallets and their feet become targets of “Child Protective Services” because Christian schools teach against homosexuality. I am sad to predict that many Christians in this country will eventually be discouraged from, or outright shut down from, many professions because of their faith and practice. Look at pharmacists who can no longer practice because of their faith vs. abortion pills and such. Or check Canada, where showing your Christian colors even on your own business can guarantee you a nice “chat” with their ill-called “Human Rights” Commission. They don’t think much of it, but they’re slowly reviving the lions at the coliseum: after eighteen hundred years or so of “sleep”, those “big kitties” are going to be mightily hungry…
Oh, one more thing. Over ten years ago, the pastor at my church in Northern VA (I now live in TX) warned the congregation that homosexuality was not only “sinful” in the Biblical sense, but it was also the most damaging to our society. He didn’t say it in the sense of “damaging the family”, but from the rest of the preaching, I understood that he meant more: our civilization. I couldn’t understand how it would do so, but as I hear more Islamofascists (and even some “moderate” Muslims) preach against Western culture and civilization, I wonder if (with the Political Correctness that has ruled in the CA Supreme Court and elsewhere) they have indeed made the one rope with which to hang us all.
A gGood Take on the California Gay Marriage Ruling
Laura at Pursuing Holiness writes why she’s not as worked up about the California gay marriage ruling as a lot of other conservative Christians. Citing low marriage rates and high rates of divorce, u…
A gGood Take on the California Gay Marriage Ruling
Laura at Pursuing Holiness writes why she’s not as worked up about the California gay marriage ruling as a lot of other conservative Christians. Citing low marriage rates and high rates of divorce, u…