The Very Definition of Arrogance
A California federal judge just provided the very definition of arrogance, in ruling that Proposition 8, the California law codifying marriage as between a man and a woman, lacked even a "rational basis" and was therefore unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. So much for the beliefs that created Western civilization. So much for the traditions of all human societies, none of which have ever recognized "gay marriage" before now. What is the accumulated wisdom of mankind, not to mention the will of the voters of California, next to the musings of an unelected federal judge?
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I wish conservatives would stop pretending the Fourteenth Amendment was a good thing - nothing has been used for more destruction of our country as the 14th amendment has.
Voters in California (and Arizona) should take more drastic measures and pass a measure stripping federal judges of jurisdiction. Such a move may not have immediate precedent but it is more grounded in reality than the politically correct musings of a federal judge.
Mr. Maxwell: Of course, whether the Fourteenth Amendment was right or wrong to begin with, if it didn't exist, modern judges would find some way to impose their will on the people. Judges in Hawaii, Vermont, Massachusetts, Iowa, and California itself somehow found rights to civil unions or outright gay marriage in their state constitutions. Federal judges would have to be more creative, but they would find a way.
I don't think Tom Piatak is saying that the 14th amendment is a good thing, only that liberal judges who put their faith in that amendment are willing to turn their back on it whenever it suits their purposes. And James Kabala is exactly right. These constitutional issues are dead because judges, bureaucrats, Congress, the President find the instruments they need wherever they can and make them up, when necessary, as they go along. Burke said it succinctly: "Whatever is the road to power, that is the road that will be trod."
I don't like to keep repeating myself but marriage should never been taken over by the state. This was one of the Reformers' greatest mistakes, one which, by the way, led immediately to liberalized divorce laws both in Lutheran and in Calvinist countries. The most powerful force that kept the rich and powerful from living like pigs was the Church. Once they were set free, all restraint was gone. Henry and Philip of Hesse, and later Louis XIV and XV (yes, Catholic France and Spain followed suit) could do exactly as they pleased without shame, and their example has worked its way down through the nobility, the gentry, the middle and working classes until Calvin's denunciation of the Anabaptists--"They live like rats in straw"--is a fair description of the American norm as portrayed in film, TV, pop music--and the divorce courts.
Dr Fleming, I didnt mean Tom, I meant how so many conservatives and libertarians sing hosannas to the 14th for its so called 'incorporation' invented by Hugo Black.
"I don’t like to keep repeating myself but marriage should never been taken over by the state."
Yes, no doubt this is true however difficult it is to imagine for post moderns. Traditionaly the cultural necessities such as education, medicine, law, etc. was something practiced by religious in the light of charity. Once it becomes a civil service for profit, it becomes something entirely different. Now of course the deadly sins and their poet, Legion, is always at work in the world seeking someone to devour, so I do not say Luther's intentions to get clear of a corrupt clergy's grip on marriage were ignoble, simply misguided in the longer view of things. Again, it is the hardness of men's hearts which is the constant source for divorce. I read recently where the Catholic Church in United States represents 8% or the World's catholic population and 60% of the Church's documents of nullity for Christian marriage. We must be the most immature and hardest hearts in the entire Church today. Not only are we apparently incapable of forming the right intent in making a vow, we can't even keep a vow when other lives depend upon it. God, give us the strength. Amen
Mankind's musings in past histories has many times been and
continues to meet their match in what they muse as "future".
Without a doubt.
Because marriage is sanctioned by the state it is given a status in our society that the judge felt compelled to remedy. As Austin Bramwell put it, the courts can now try "change person's minds" Homosexual marriage bands instead how taking marriage out of the state's hands may well have been another big waste of political time and money.
Because marriage is sanctioned by the state, it is given a status in our society that the judge felt compelled to remedy. As Austin Bramwell put it, the courts can now try to “change person’s minds”. Homosexual marriage bans and ballot iniatives, instead of taking marriage out of the state’s hands, may well have been another big waste of political time and money. How else would a modern court rule with the 14th Amendment?
"So much for the traditions of all human societies, none of which have ever recognized “gay marriage” before now. What is the accumulated wisdom of mankind, not to mention the will of the voters of California, next to the musings of an unelected federal judge?"
Same goes for the world is flat - how did society manage to get past that one - 'round" trod all over the accumulated wisdom of mankind. Give me a break - things change and will someone please explain to me why I am suppose to care who marries who?
"Give me a break – things change and will someone please explain to me why I am suppose to care who marries who?"
It is true that things change but it is not true that all change involves progress. Same sex marriage is nothing new to our tired and worn out world. What is rather new is this idea that every fall from grace represents some type of human progress and every barrier broken, an invitation to freedom instead of chaos. Have you not read the ancient accounts of when our people showed themselves much worse,apart from one or two, plunging into beastly existence and a life not worth living? When City and state, arts and sciences meant nothing; laws and statues, morality and philosophy were not even names; they lived a nomadic life in the desert and wilderness, wild and savage creatures whose gifts of soul were almost completely destroyed by their deliberate wickedness? Practices of every kind had taken complete possession of them, so that at one time they corrupted, at another they murdered each other, at yet another they became cannibals?
What business is it of ours who murders, rapes and pillages or who marries and is given in marraige? Oh, do not mistake the hour of the night, it will get much darker before dawn.
And who determines the "rationality" of this federal judge?
So luckylady, what if incestuous marriages became common? Would that be OK too? It doesnt affect you either, and after all, 'things change'? Who cares if our Christian ethics have been flipped on their heads in less than 100 years - if it stands in the way of 'progress'!
Daniel Maxwell: "So luckylady, what if incestuous marriages became common?"
What's interesting is that a brief historical survey will show that polygamy and incestuous marriage (e.g. brother - sister) did occur throughout history but were quite rare. There often seemed to be a set of unique circumstances that favored these practices among a limited group of people.
But to equate gay "marriage" with polygamy or incest is unfair to polygamy and incest, as the latter two have a historic (albeit limited) pedigree while the former does not. In short, gay "marriage" is a fairly recent creation and would have seemed unnatural to previous civilizations. Even the Greeks and Romans, who tolerated some homosexual acts, would have thought gay "marriage" aberrant. The very verb 'to marry' in Latin (maritare) also means "to impregnate." Marriage and natural procreation were closely related.
Middle American Radical,
I know, it was just to point out the folly of this modern "if it doesnt affect me, why should I care?" mindset. I could have taken it to even more absurd levels, but we are already seeing the start of the pedophilia regularization movement in Europe so I just took it one step further. In fact I fully believe incest will eventually fall under the 'if it feels good, do it' banner.
And as I state above, Arizona and California should outright nullify the federal judges' decisions - either directly or pass measures to strip the federal judges of statewide jurisdiction. Some might say that such an act would be too radical, even revolutionary, but not any more so than the actions of federal judges. And such a spirit is in air, as Missouri, in a sense, has nullified Obamacare.
And it also depends what one means by "incestuous". I limited to to brother-sister. If one means cousins, then incestuous marriage probably has been the historic norm, as most population groups (genetic clusters) around the planet are quite intermarried. Even in the 19th century, many Englishmen and Germans were marrying first cousins - producing quite normal and healthy children.
Mar, I wasnt intending to argue the pros and cons of incest. I meant between siblings, not first cousins. Incest was only an example. Fill in the blank with pedophilia, etc the example would still stand.
I look at all this and feel like I should first step back and make sure to be careful about the distinct issues of gays and gay marriage. Two very different matters.
Historically, famous gay men like John Maynard Keynes have deeply frowned upon marriage.
So it is rather unusual when a gay person breaks from the gay community and starts supporting marriage.
It's an act equivalent of a straight man condemning marriage and married life. Do you see what I mean?
What happened to an entire century of anti-bourgeois sexual revolutions and sexual politics? That revolution that started with the British elite like Somerset Maugham and John Maynard Keynes? What happened to all the crazy rich bisexuals who wanted to have sex with anything that moved on two legs or more? What happened to those who wanted free love, endless sex, and no marriage? To that little movement which started in the 1920s and kept growing till the 1960s? What happened to those days when West German children were put into sexual re-education centers by unmarried communist parents?
At what point did gay people slowly want to start retreating into something that resembles traditional middle class married life? What's next? Them becoming straight altogether? Having children?
I also wonder how a tiny minority could be so driven to this cause. It turns out that applying for a joint bank account is harder for them; they feel they are asked too many extra questions about why they want a single account.
Is that a genuine concern when thousands of young men, young women, married men and women, and children are struggling to get by with no steady income from a regular job?
Funny little issue. One side could say, "Why do you care?" and the other, "Why do you care?" back and forth.
One of the legacies of the ancient world is the logical methods that have made science possible. One aspect of Greek thought that distinguishes it from most other traditions, including other high civilizations, is the distinction between subject and object, between a thing and its image. This coupled with such basic principles as the principle of non-contradiction--the belief that something cannot be both X and not-X--permit us to distinguish between a fact, such as the world is roughly spherical (as the Greeks knew and even came very close to measuring the its circumference) and an unjustified opinion, such as the belief that the earth is flat. (By the way, Columbus' critics did not think the earth was flat, but they did know it was too large for him to reach China, and they were right.) So leftistlady, not being the heir of this tradition, is incapable of distinguishing between fact and her fancy. The fact that science can correct errors now means that judges can reinvent nature. We know what marriage is and always has been, a relationship, usually social and legal, between a man and a woman whose main purpose is the procreation and rearing of children. If marriage can be a relationship between two men, then why not broaden other legal concepts: agree with feminists that rape includes a pinch in the elevator, that theft includes being two days late on a car payment, the murder includes a sock in the jaw or a threat?
I really don't care what the freaks in California do or don't do, and what people do in their own homes does not disturb me at all. That "the heart of man is the place devils dwell in" should be no news to anyone over the age of 6 in our country, but what is intolerable is all the incredible stupidity of all these lying leftists. Perhaps lying is the wrong word: leftists are simply oblivious to the plainest facts.
The only interesting aspect of the Gay Marriage campaign is the way it illustrates what is perhaps the most salient quality of leftists, namely, their inability to live their own lives and think their own thoughts. Minority rights advocates are never content with success. No matter how many privileges are handed out to Jews, Blacks, homosexuals, Muslims, they cannot sleep at night unless they can find some way of making the rest of us think about them. "Look at me, look at me! I'm Gay. I'm Jewish. I'm black. Look at me." It is a lot like black teenagers in a shopping mall.
It is never enough for leftists to have everything their own way until they compell all non-leftists to agree with them. In the Gay Marriage debate, how many times have you heard the phrase, "A real conservative would support his because he's in favor of marriage, blah blah blah." This is because, of course, all REAL conservatives believe exactly what real leftists believe. And, to make it even better, most conservative leaders are working overtime to prove that the leftists are correct. A rational man without a sense of humor or faith in God would blow his brains out.
"This is because, of course, all REAL conservatives believe exactly what real leftists believe."
But remember, no one forced conservatives to baptize the civil rights and civil disobedience movements, but they did anyway. But when we had priests and future feminist nuns encouraging 'freedom rides' I am not surprised it happened.
My question does not concern itself primarily with either homosexual “marriage” or its apparent legal justification. What I want to know is this:
Can a healthy and unified polity exist which contains citizens who openly disagree about such fundamental matters?
Religion, as even an atheist can admit, has been a principle of cohesion among the peoples of the earth for all of our history. Our foundational myths, stories, beliefs, rituals, practices, moralities, etc. provide us with a framework within which we are able to live a properly communal life with those to whom we are somehow naturally attached. Liberalism, the project of modernity, purports to be able to structure human life in a way that is neutral to all of the differing claims of religion and even culture, but one more question comes to mind whenever this is proposed as a satisfactory answer to my first question:
Why would somebody want to live in this way unless they were not themselves already neutral to the differing claims of all the world’s cultures and ways of life?
In other words, who but a modern man would want to live in a modern world? The only people who actually think that the liberal orthodoxy imposed upon us is, in fact, neutral are people who happen to have no moral objections to the practices in question in the first place. At some level I have no problem with this, for this is just a particular example of the general principle I affirmed above. But our history is not so neat that we can all live in the way we choose, and what we call the “culture war” appears to actually be a war between to different cultures that desire to occupy the same seat of power and historical space. The only answer I can possibly think of is that we must radically devolve power so much so that no orthodoxy can be imposed so universally and so uniformly that people feel alienated from the very world in which they live. But, then again, the radical devolution of power is itself opposed by the liberal orthodoxy.
Is marriage something not created by humans, that they can interact with but not change (like physical facts about the Earth)? Or is it something created by humans, which can therefore take any form they wish it to take? This strikes me as the fundamental question, which like all fundamental questions in our supposedly open and tolerant society is never asked.
The simple answer to the first question is: No, absolutely not. Devolution of power would be the answer, if it were possible, and it would only be possible in conditions of economic, social, and political collapse. The only answer for Christians is to do what they once did: live as Christians. Until they quit listening to and supporting the frauds and quacks who take their money and mount campaigns pretending to challenge a regime they actually support--say, people like Pat Robertson or Bill Donahue or Focus on the Family--even sincere Christians will not only not make any difference, they will not even attempt to lead Christian lives.
The phrase "created by humans" smacks a bit of the aetiological frame of mind that ascribed the invention of beekeeping to Aristaeus, music to Orpheus, etc. If one is a pure Darwinist, the argument would be that marriage developed as a strategy that enhanced inclusive fitness and through the gene-culture feedback mechanism became a part of our programming. A Christian or Aristotelian or Taoist would see marriage as a human implementation of a divine and/or natural plan. The leftist notion is exemplified by Marx's statement that man is the species that makes his own essence, that is, we have no predetermined nature but are free to "reinvent" (a favorite Clintonian word) ourselves and our institution, but it is anticipated by Locke's tabula rasa and by Descartes' insistence that every traditional judgment has to be scrutinized skeptically and his queer declaration that a city designed by a single mind is better than one that evolves over the centuries. This is the essence of the revolution: the rejection of man as either a natural or created being. Leftism is not just a form of lying and perversion but a lying that defies the order of Creation or of nature. That is the meaning of all the garbage about symbolic logic, postEuclidian geometry, and Einstein's bogus cosmology. An interesting point: the AntiChrist movement could never have existed without Christianity, whose either/or fanaticism it shares. That is one of many reasons why there can be no revival of the more harmless forms of paganism. With the Incarnation and the operation of the Holy Ghost in the world (through the Church), mankind turned a corner. He cannot go back. If he will not have Christ, he cannot turn to the Great God Pan, for the Great God Pan is dead: he must turn to Satan.
I always insist: There is no such thing as same-sex "marriage." It's a fraud, a hoax, a joke.
If you watch old movies and even TV shows (pre-1985), a "marriage" between two people of the same sex is always treated as a farce.
Question for you Dr Fleming: what do you think the effects will be if the Supreme Court imposes gay marriage upon every state in the country? I've heard a number of different predictions, but I would like to hear yours.
"That is the meaning of all the garbage about symbolic logic, postEuclidian geometry, and Einstein’s bogus cosmology."
I would be interested in hearing a bit more about this.
Surprised and disappointed that nobody here has mentioned that the so-called 14th amendment to our Constitution was never ratified in the method the Constitution requires, and is henceforth null, void, and non-existent.
These people have usurped words - gay, sex as in "homosexual" and marriage. The have usurped "gay" to mask the literal deadness of their choice to have erotic encounters with the same gender, dead because nothing can be begotten, sired or born. The have usurped "sex" lies the male and the female of a species as juxtaposed to the "asexual," ability to reproduce by agamogenesis; hence, the term "homosexual" is an oxymoron. As has already been pointed out on this thread, they cannot maritare or impregnate (marry). What they do bring to the "partner" with whom or in whom they practice mutual masturbation is death, which is the ultimate pathogen of STD's, including AIDS.
It is a facet of the culture of death: same-gender erotic encounters, contraception, abortion and fad adoption. All of these are anti-marriage or the counterfeits of marriage. They are the offspring of the anti-culture in which we live and which lives embedded in us.
Somehow I left out a phrase of words.
"The have usurped sex, which is reproduction by the male and female of a species...."
What would a US where marriage isn't taken over by the state look like?
When it happens, it will be because conservatives have tried to use state governments, the amendment process, and the courts to define marriage. He who sups with the devil should take a long spoon. American conservatives don't even have the woodens stick dairies used to supply with a half pint of ice cream. We live in a dangerous and hostile world, and the naivete of Christian conservatives means we cannot defend our own homes and families because we are too busy occupied in endless and futile attempts to make commie queers live the way we want them to. There is no Constitution any more, only Court rulings. The only material interest we have is in the costs--insurance, welfare, social security, etc. That is a bullet we are going to have to bite.
"When it happens, it will be because conservatives have tried to use state governments, the amendment process, and the courts to define marriage."
I suspect a greater cause will be that conservatives allied themselves with libertarians, who are certain enemies of conservative customs and laws.
Conservatives tended to keep quiet while libertarians happily proselytized, thus creating many converts for the cultural left.
While I think there are too many good libertarians with the right instincts to simply dismiss them, I have started to come around to a position similar to Mr Jones.
Why blame the libertarians when it is the conservatives who sell out? It's too easy to find scapegoats for the utter failure of the entire conservative movement.
Yahoo News at this moment reports a new CNN poll that shows a majority of Americans favor same sex marriage. I thought that in every state that had placed the issue on the ballot, it had been voted down, often with overwhelming majorities...? Perhaps the poll wss limited to San Fransico and Houston...?
MAP, not only are most Americans cowards and non-Christian, the bulk of the population is tired of the issue. The egalitarian indoctrination accomplished by the public schools has helped as well. So it is easier for those polled to give the politically correct answer rather than answer what the believe. So much for the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.
I find myself in total agreement with Dr. Fleming here. I recently responded to some of the standard homophile agit-prop over at TAC.
This Judge was rather obviously pursuing the homosexual agenda. I'm loathe to use the propaganda term "gay" to describe that way of life.
After 37 years in the SF Bay Area I can say that there is nothing "gay" in the traditional sense of the word about that
community. It's just another statist power group. Even in SF they
are no more 10% of the population and maybe the same here in oakland. Nationally they are more like 1% but their noise is
quite deafening. They are not content to stick to their own private
lives but have to shove their agenda down everyone's throats.
Midge Decter had a great piece exactly thirty years ago in Commentary titled The Boys On The Beach. Normally I loathe the
neocons but this was both well reasoned and well written.
Justin Raimondo has a current piece at Taki's site titled
Gay Marriage:An Oxymoron. I've had trouble with him before too
but this is a worthwhile piece.
We may have to have a legislature cure here where the Federal Courts are forbidden to intervene in certain areas.
L. Brent Bozell's 1966 work The Warren Revolution is more timely
than ever.