In a way, it was far more discouraging to see the New York legislature pass a gay-marriage bill than it was to see the now-familiar rogue judicial declarations, like those in Massachusetts, California, and Iowa. While constitutionally preferable to judicial imposition, New York’s statute is far more culturally distressing, a symbol not of a judicial overreach but of a more fundamental cultural change. The democratic process (yes, I know there was horse-trading and money involved) worked, and the elected legislature of New York performed its constitutional function. And in so doing, they struck yet another blow for self-indulgence and for adult-focused self-actualization.
Gay marriage is the child of no-fault divorce, which was itself born of the sexual revolution. In a time when the hard-earned experience of two full generations of sexual experimentation have taught us unequivocally that the two-parent, mother-father household is our nation’s best bulwark against abuse, poverty, addiction, and criminality, we should be moving away from the notion that our culture and our lives are best-served by legally protecting sexual experimentation and tinkering with the institution of marriage. Instead, we have scrutinized the cultural toll and said, “More, please.” After all, the heart wants what it wants, and we shouldn’t be unfair in doling out the sexual goodies.
Gay marriage proponents speak the language of liberty, but so often one form of liberty (sexual liberty) is granted while other forms (free speech, religious freedom) are taken away. In the liberal definition of “diversity” there is room for many sexual practices but only one way of thinking. Thus, we now live in a world where the state attempts to force Catholic charities to place children in same-sex families, college students are punished for speaking against same-sex parenting, graduate students are thrown out of college for refusing to morally affirm homosexual sex, tax exemptions are denied when churches don’t make their property available for gay weddings, and social work licenses threatened merely because a school counselor supported a state marriage amendment. In each of these cases, enumerated constitutional liberties were threatened for the sake of protecting a state-approved idea — the idea that there should be no moral distinctions drawn between homosexual and heterosexual relationships.
When it comes to marriage, we know the institution that predates the state itself — the two-parent, mother-father household — is an enduring bulwark and building block of civilization of itself. We also know that experimentation with and deviation from that form has caused an enormous amount of national suffering. And yet millions of Americans celebrated New York’s latest marriage experiment. I fear that we’ll continue to reap the cultural whirlwind of our own selfishness.
How does legalizing gay marriage cause any of the problems you are discussing?
Are two-parent, mother-father households going to break up because gay marriage is legal? Are fewer going to form? Gay people were never going to form those households.
It sounds like maybe your issue is with gay adoption. It's not with gay marriage.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOh Jason...where to start? FIrst we had "no fault" divorce. What did that do? It made it very easy for people to divorce and the result was devastating to children, and it still is. Trust me, I know. I was a family law atty and quit because I couldn't stand it anymore...the damage these parents inflict on their children. I wanted no part of it. Now we have gay marriage which is basically the sanctioning of gays "creating" children...not adopting them. Making them via egg/sperm donation and effectively denying them their GOD-GIVEN right to a mother or a father. The crux of the article is that we, as a society, should only enact laws the serve the best interests of children. Isn't that why we have laws against incest and polygamy?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAs I said, it sounds like your problem is with gay adoption, not gay marriage. All of the things that you claim are bothering you were legal in New York before this new law.
So why focus on gay marriage? Banning the renting of wombs and the selling of sperm & eggs is probably more popular than banning gay marriage.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBecause gay marriage grants the state's sanction and blessing (and state subsidies) on an act of adultery.
Along with the benefits of marriage should go the obligation to not make babies with people other than one's spouse. That is a rule-change that will affect us all.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"which is basically the sanctioning of gays "creating" children"
"Sanctioning"? Since when did anyone in this country, gay or not, care to or need to have their procreation activities "sanctioned" by the government?
Personally, I have no problems with homosexuals adopting children; Children that would likely be otherwise condemned to a life of foster care, or worse. And, I would prefer that two gays not engage in procreative activity. Why, after all, would you endeavor to create a human being with the express intent of denying that human either a mother or a father - and make no mistake, every child has a mother and a father.
Be that as it may, I don't understand your argument. Are you implying that more gays will procreate (rather than adopt) because they're married? Why?
"should only enact laws the serve the best interests of children."
Some of the greatest infringements on liberty and freedom the last year have all been passed "for the children". Frankly, I get nervous when people start using language like that. Smoking police, food police, spanking police etc, etc - all done "for the children".
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse@Scott...many states do not allow gay couples to adopt children. If SSM is legalized, they will be able to make their own babies and the partner can then adopt that baby. That's sanctioning where there was none before. Brad Pitt did not adopt Angelina's children...they just changed the kids' last names because people have to be MARRIED to adopt (and no, I am not talking about the children they had together.) So I guess you also don't think there should be laws that require children to be restrained in vehicles??
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"many states do not allow gay couples to adopt children."
If by five, you mean "many", then sure - many states do not allow gay couples to adopt children. I, however, don't qualify five as "many". It's true that several other states don't allow unmarried couples to adopt.
"If SSM is legalized, they will be able to make their own babies and the partner can then adopt that baby."
I'm sorry, but did you say you're an attorney? Are you not confusing marriage laws with surrogacy laws? In several states, homosexual couples - married and unmarried - can use a surrogate (under the rules established by their state's surrogacy laws), and the non-biological parent can adopt that child. It happens all the time.
Neil Patrick Harris and his partner used a surrogate, and they're both legal guardians to the child. They are (today) unmarried.
There are plenty of states today that allow unmarried couples - gay or straight - to legally contract with a surrogate. There are also plenty of states that allow unmarried couples to adopt. And, there are plenty of states that allow unmarried gay couples to adopt.
While I don't pretend to know the inner-workings of parental arrangement of Brad & Ange, it's clear that in California, Brad Pitt could, as an unmarried partner of Angelena Jolie, adopt her first child (who was also adopted, I believe). This is called second parent adoption, which I'm sure as an attorney, you know. With some limitations having mostly to do with the legal status of the other biological parent, second parent adoption is legal in California and it's also legal in California for homosexual couples; Happens all the time.
".) So I guess you also don't think there should be laws that require children to be restrained in vehicles??"
What I think is government statists use the "for the children" excuse early and often to infringe the constitutional liberties of citizens.
Obamacare, for example, was passed at least in part, "for the children".
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYes...I am an attorney but I quit 10 years ago, before all this craziness started. In my state, there are no surrogacy laws and only married people can adopt AND most importantly, there is a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. If you think this is so great for kids, I suggest you google "Daddy's Name is Donor" and you will see the only study done on the children and how they fare.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThey are now considering getting married due to pressure from their kids who even at their young age must recognize the value of a married mother and father.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseConsider this:
Women get along better with other women than they do with men, and women by far have the stronger nesting instinct.
Watch for two heterosexual women to "marry" so that they can have the bennies of being married but not the hassle of having to coax a man into commitment or the heartbreak of watching him stray.
They'll bear children in these two-adult homes, and all will seem well, until we realize that men have become entirely untethered from home and family responsibilities.
We've already seen how this turns out in the inner cities, where the welfare check has supplanted the husband: the men indulge their vices without restraint and turn to macho games of "don't diss me or I'll cap you."
In the meantime, the children are deprived of needed fathering, and the cycle of poverty and other social pathologies becomes further ingrained.
With SSM now legal, middle-class women will set up housekeeping, and it will be increasingly respectable, because hey, the kids aren't poor, and they've got two adults there for supervision, and what's the matter with you, ya bigot?
Supporters of SSM like to compare those resisting SSM to those who resisted Civil Rights, but that's not the applicable paradigm.
Those who resist SSM are more like those who, at the dawn of the Great Society, warned that subsidizing unwed motherhood among the poor would lead to an unending cycle of illegitimacy and fatherlessness, but were shouted down (then as now) for being racists and bigots and haters of the poor.
Because look, those girls are going to have kids out of wedlock anyway: we might as well make sure they're taken care of.
It seemed like the compassionate thing to do, didn't it? But the compassionate intentions didn't prevent the unhappy consequences.
The worst thing a society can do is permit its men to become untethered from home and family. Male energy is a wonderful, edifying thing when men are bound to women though marriage, but it is a fearsome force of destruction when let loose on its own.
Now that women can have the security and stability and adult assistance that come from marriage--without having to domesticate a man--they'll do it. And men, now freed from women pestering them to settle down, will continue as they always do, in a state of perpetual adolescence, narcissism, vice, indolence, and finally violence.
We're already halfway down this road because of the sexual revolution: men can "get some" without having to commit to either the woman or the offspring that might result. And are men not increasingly adolescent long into their 30s, 40s, 50s?
This isn't a positive development, but we'll end up with the whirlwind we deserve for ignoring millenia of wisdom plus revealed truth, for those who believe in that.
All because we wanted to be nice to some nice people. Worth it?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOh you are so smart...so well written. David has some bright friends. I am going to cut and paste and save this.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseEverything you say after "consider this" was already legal before same sex marriage. If people really want to live as you describe, I don't think a lack of marriage benefits would stop them.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe benefits - medical, financial, inheritance, etc. - were legal before this was codified? I thought the whole reason for this was to give a partner the same legal standing as a spouse. There's a lot of truth in that post, actually. People WOULDN'T live as he described, because if something happened to one of them, it's a gawdawful mess for the surviving partner and children.
Unless I've completely missed the whole reason for SSM in the first place. You wouldn't tell me that it was simply to force acceptance of a particular point of view?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseTChrisB,
Many of the benefits were already in place, and those which were not could have been gotten by numerous legal remedies that did not involve a redefinition of marriage.
The exceptions, I think, have to do with what one can demand of other private institutions, adoption agencies being the big obvious example. By being included in marriage, SSUs can now demand all services in the market that have been reserved to married couples when before they could only ask, and often they were not denied.
I am very much open to correction on these points, but the primary thrust, reading the victors and the losers words and knowing a little of the way we are, has to do with lifting a burden of conscience and placing it on the shoulders of the so-called "bigots" and "homophobes".
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePeople already do live as he described, even in states where same-sex marriage is illegal. In fact, couples have jumped through numerous legal hoops to raise families together - via adoption agreements, wills, and so on. Why? Because they love each other and want to raise families together.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePermitted, yes. Blessed and celebrated, no. Is not the sole point of this new legislation to have the civil authorities give SSU the positive nomenclature of marriage, renaming civil unions as "marriages"?
If all was legal before hand, then what is it about the new law that makes you celebrate or defend it? What benefits do you or anyone else think will be gained? How will people's behaviors change if they are told by the laws that SSUs are really SSMs, with all of the goods associated with the latter?
If you don't understand or won't admit why the law is considered good by some, how can you hope to understand why others think it is bad for the same reasons?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI second this reaction. Except for taxes, the main benefits of marriage are about passing property to the one you love and otherwise protecting your relationship (e.g. spousal privilege and hospital visitation). There's little point to the inheritance property rights independent of your love and affection for your spouse.
The tax benefit is the only benefit that exists independent of your affection for the spouse. And it only really applies if one spouse earns little or no income and the other earns a lot. If both spouses are high-earning, then it's actually a marriage penalty.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseJason,
If those questions have not come up for you before now, then you need to think more deeply about the issue.
If you'd like to have a serious discussion about it, I would happily contact you directly to discuss it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOne of the reasons SSM has become more popular is because the average public is beginning to see those couples as committed and willing to make sacrifices for each other. The concepts of "self-indulgence" and "adult-focused self-actualization" don't ring true for many people with gay friends and family. Continuing to beat this drum will not win you any converts.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"We also know that experimentation with and deviation from that form has caused an enormous amount of national suffering."
Who's this "we", kemosabe?
And how about a little substantiation.
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