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Sunday, April 7. 2013

Is marriage just a simple legal contract?

I always thought the legal part was the least of it, but we all know well what can happen when government sticks its nose into things. This is pretty good: 


Canada's Precedent in Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage: Is There Any Valid Reasons to Be Against Gay Nuptial


A quote:



If homosexuals and heterosexuals are really “equal” before the law, then logically heterosexual marriage must collapse into being little more than a legal construct as well. Indeed, marriage and family become mere adjuncts of the state after the removal of the de facto conditions that make the traditional family a pre-political institution in the first place. No longer is family something that, in the words of Douglas Farrow, “precedes and exceeds the state.” No longer is the family a hedge against the totalitarian aspirations of the state because no longer is the family prior to the state.


Posted by Bird Dog in Our Essays, The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 17:00 | Comments (22) | Trackbacks (0)

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Marriage was a religious rite to guarantee a family for the children. It was always for the children's benefit.
Marriage is not intended to give "gays" a tax break, the very purpose of debars "gays" from the rite.
Govorment made marriage a legal transaction to protect the childrens status in all states with a formal prceedure on desolving that rite.
But I don't expect Kommiecrats to understand
#1 serfer62 on 2013-04-07 17:13 (Reply)
If marriage began that way, it soon 'evolved' to primarily protecting property rights.

It's been years ago and I can't remember where I read it, but it was by a rabbi who presented evidence that marriage was 'invented' to discourage licentious behavior.

Of course, neither of those hypotheses about why marriage was created nullifies the 'it was for the children' one. All those things were probably factors.
#1.1 Donna B. (Link) on 2013-04-07 19:23 (Reply)
The State may pass all the laws it wishes. Increasingly, I see no reason to obey them. Molon Labe!
#2 B. Frank on 2013-04-07 17:55 (Reply)
Hetero marriage started that collapse many decades ago. It was little more than a temporary legal construct long before the gays got involved.
#3 B Moe on 2013-04-07 18:28 (Reply)
How many of you will stand with me and demand an end to "no-fault" divorce?
#3.1 William O. B'Livion on 2013-04-07 22:45 (Reply)
count me out.

before no-fault divorce, divorce court was a joke, a stupid theater, aided by lawyers and judges who were giving divorcing husbands and wives what they both wanted.

Mosk's dissent in In re Marriage of McKim (1972) 6 Cal. 3d 673, 684:

QUOTE:
Every day, in every superior court in the state, the same melancholy charade was played: the "innocent" spouse, generally the wife, would take the stand and, to the accompanying cacophony of sobbing and nose-blowing, testify under the deft guidance of an attorney to the spousal conduct that she deemed "cruel."


as stupid as that is, you don't want the government deciding what differences are irreconcilable, unless you don't care about the government sticking its nose that closely in private matters.

but maybe you don't mind. a lot of this marriage debate centers around what people think of other peoples' affairs and "reality" shows are all the rage, so why not?
#3.1.1 wirraway on 2013-04-07 23:53 (Reply)
Yes & no...no & yes...

TC
#4 Gar on 2013-04-07 18:47 (Reply)
My wife and I were married by a judge (a friend of ours). I've told her that if same-sex marriage is legalized, I want to be re-married in our church. My position is that our civil marriage will no longer be valid, at least in my eyes. She doesn't really agree, given we've been married 28 years, but I'm going to be pretty insistent about it.
#5 Jim on 2013-04-07 19:11 (Reply)
how do you figure your civil marriage would be invalid?

and why do you think your church would "remarry" you? your church might bless (Anglican) or in some particular way acknowledge the existing marriage; I'd lay very heavy odds it already recognizes the legality of the civil ceremony (or, to put it more accurately, the civil law recognizes the religious marriage). (RCs take a more rigorous approach, this is a general answer).
#5.1 wirraway on 2013-04-08 00:46 (Reply)
I would consider my civil marriage invalid because civil "marriage" no longer exists once its meaning has been destroyed.

My church does allow renewing of vows, and entering into a religious marriage if there was only a civil marriage previously. It's happening more and more frequently. For example, when a civilly-married couple who were non-Christians become Christians, our church will have a ceremony to bless them in a Christian marriage if they wish. There's no official "marriage" that the State knows about, but it is now a marriage acknowledged in the church before God. (Essentially, it's the same thing liberal churches were doing under the table to "bless" same-sex relationships when they were not recognized by the State.)

Once same-sex "marriage" is legalized, you will see churches opting out of the system entirely, because they can no longer support the institution of secular marriage. I know first-hand there have already been these discussions in some Catholic dioceses.

In most states, the minister is only the "agent" of the State in marrying people, e.g., "by the authority vested in my by the State of X, I hereby pronounce you man and wife." The defense is often made that churches cannot be compelled to do homosexual "marriages," but what they do not tell you is that the State can prohibit ministers from doing any marriages at all, if they don't do homosexual "marriages." Thus, when my state passed "civil unions" legislation (that was deemed to be equivalent in all respects to "marriage"), it had to insert a conscience clause into the marriage statutes saying that no minister would be compelled to perform such a ceremony if they were religiously opposed. That restriction can easily be removed, either by legislation or lawsuit. (I.e., no person will be licensed to perform marriages in my state unless they also do same-sex unions.)

One possible outcome of the pending suit in the U.S. Supreme Court may be to force our State (like California) to change "civil unions" into "marriages." Then the pressure will be directly on the churches to perform them. The state's Civil Rights Commission has already taken the position in testimony to the Legislature that churches must allow same-sex ceremonies to be permitted on their properties if they allow any members of the public to attend their services (and not just limit attendance to church members). By allowing members of the public to attend, they become "public accommodations" and become subject to the State's civil rights laws and must allow such ceremonies. (Yes, that is another civil rights lawsuit just waiting to happen.)

What is going to happen is churches will opt out of performing state-sanctioned marriage entirely. So Christians will get a church marriage, which is the one that "counts." They will also have to get a civil marriage ceremony, if they want the legal benefits. If we get same-sex "marriage," I would advocate that any sort of civil ceremony be done away with entirely, and that civil "marriage" be entered into simply by filling out an application at the county clerk's office, without anything more.
#5.1.1 Jim on 2013-04-08 15:43 (Reply)
In Canada's case, government recognition of gay marriage was preceded by two decades with wholesale changes in family law designed to reform and secularize it, such as the changes in Quebec that prohibit women from using their married-name on their driver’s license, contracts, or credit cards.
To some extent this secularization was pushback against the abuse of formal and informal powers of the churches in a country where separation of church and state was not considered a virtue.
Few Quebecois of my generation get formally married unless they are religious.
#6 Douglas2 on 2013-04-07 19:32 (Reply)
Dougie 2,

I stand to be corrected butt, I believe it started with Boob Rae's NDP (aka Soliasilst/Commie) provincial guvm't...

The rest is...sad 2 say...well...
#6.1 Garry on 2013-04-07 22:49 (Reply)
Marriage is an oath undertaken for the benefit of children, but it is far older than any modern religion, so to say that churches "own" the concept or word is silly. And I've known enough gay-couple families that I think allowing them to marry is beneficial.

That said, Canada has gone way too far. They require all churches to conduct gay weddings for anyone who wants one, and priests are now in prison there for "hate speech" for continuing to say that homosexuality is a sin. I say, let the gays start their own churches (or persuade existing ones, as they have some Anglican congregations) and do their thing there.
#7 jdgalt on 2013-04-07 19:45 (Reply)
They didn't "persuade" the Anglican congregations they took them over. The anglican church is small and mostly older people and gay activists took it over without a fight. Some of those old folks are so senile they still don't know it. Back in the 60's and 70's gays almost took over the catholic priesthood and the result was a lot of buggering of the poor alter boys.
#7.1 GoneWithTheWind on 2013-04-07 21:46 (Reply)
If it were legal here I could marry myself and get a tax break. I don't see where it is specified that a marriage must be between two different persons.
#8 chuck on 2013-04-07 20:54 (Reply)
Could I marry my friend Nan so we can get each others SSI?
#9 Gina on 2013-04-07 21:15 (Reply)
Individual rights, especially sexual rights, now trump the good of society in modern culture. I don't see a good way of reversing that which does not create more problems than it solves. But there you have it: whether it is better for children or better for society is now an irrelevant question (unless it could be shown to be of enormous and therefore compelling state interest).

We learned to say in the 20th C that the Constitution is "not a suicide pact." Yet it is, rather. The Founding Fathers were so concerned with nailing down a solid version of individual rights that they did not notice quite legitimate interpretations of those words that they never intended. Gay marriage would be a particularly good example of this. They simply assumed that no one would ever question the one-man-one-woman foundation of this nor that it had significant societal benefit for communities and children. It's hard to fault them for not having 200 years of prescience, actually.

The arguments that hetero marriage has problems are not remotely persuasive to me as a spur to legalising gay marriage. I believe it is a terrible idea and were I a governor, would veto it for rather arbitrary and intellectually indefensible reasons, preferring to let some other societies run the experiment for a hundred years before signing on in the US. Yet I agree that the Constitution does not provide clear support for either side, and in its aggregate, favors allowing people to do what they want if it does not demonstrably and significantly harm others.
#10 Assistant VIllage Idiot (Link) on 2013-04-07 21:25 (Reply)
Marriage is fundamentally a deeply spiritual and mystical union of one man and one woman, individually different and incomplete, which combine to create a third whole (holy) entity. This is believed by religious people to be designed by God and thus recognized by religious organizations as a holy sacrament recognized by respective ceremony.

States got involved to define property rights and more importantly recognize this arrangement as optimal for the protection of children and thus the propagation of future contributing citizens. This is a legitimate interest of the state and her citizens. That is before the state and many of her citizens went barking insane and decided novel new forms of societal organization should be tried and the old established ways abolished just because.

Gay marriage is primarily just another way for the rebellious to give the finger to tradition and the proper ordering of society. It is at heart destructive to a properly ordered civilization and thus evil. It provides absolutely no benefit to society or individuals that simple property rights adjustments couldn't solve.

Personally I'm sick and tired of having a perverted lifestyle that we've all agreed to tolerate politely shoved in my face 24x7 that only represents about 5% or so of the population. It is severely testing what little goodwill I have left for the homosexual population.
#11 phil g on 2013-04-08 08:16 (Reply)
"Personally I'm sick and tired of having a perverted lifestyle that we've all agreed to tolerate politely shoved in my face 24x7 that only represents about 5% or so of the population. It is severely testing what little goodwill I have left for the homosexual population."

Hear, hear brother! I am so with you!
#11.1 Qugi (Link) on 2013-04-08 08:57 (Reply)
Here in Maine, back in 2009, if I recall, the day after one of the 6 or so referenda that have been put forward here attempting to codify make-believe marriages, back before the most recent vote that finally "settled" the law because the disparagers of marriage won, the very next day after that particular measure went down in defeat for the homosexuals in2009, Maine's Department of Health and Human Sacrifice issued a press release which, as if nothing had ever happened... as if the pro-gay "marriage" side had won, they issued a press release announcing that they were removing any reference to mothers or fathers on all DHHS forms, referring only to Parent 1 and Parent 2.

I later lost a job for suggesting that the DHHS was being run by lesbians whose goal was the total dismantling of the traditional family. The culture war is alive and heated here in Maine.
#12 Straight Out on 2013-04-08 13:21 (Reply)
Many of the low population states were targeted years ago to infiltrate them and take their congressional seats. I suspect Maine was one of these targets.
#13 GoneWithTheWind on 2013-04-08 17:18 (Reply)
Physically and emotionally health parents naturally want their children to grow up into physically and emotionally health parents. This is the essence of all laws governing marriage. Any details of these laws contrary to this essence is unfortunate incidentals to the essence. All basic forms of 'prudish' traditions of mate selection process arise initially to preserve this essence, even though, in many instances, like tight rope racing for the blind or inexpert, the initials quickly devolve into having habitually unjust kinds of one or both anxious strictness and anxious permissiveness).

Marriage is a male and a female in the deepest and most direct kind of association with one another. Such an association is inherently self-sustaining, that is, marriage is most essentially its own sovereign society.

But, in a world of death and disharmony, marriage is a commitment, and a community-binding vow, to remain married.

So, now, marriage—of the enduring kind―consists in the right of two to act on their mutual compatibility; in which their right to so act does not consist in their compatibility, but in their competence in face of factors weighing against the endurance of their action.

http://paradoxofintensity.wordpress.com/we-are-the-aliens-we-are-the-natives/
#14 Daniel Pech (Link) on 2013-04-30 13:51 (Reply)

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