Gay Marriage Ban. Yeesh.
Originally posted 6/05/06 on ursuspacificus.blogspot.com –ed.
If ever there was a more ridiculous topic for discussion, a greater waste of time and a more emptyheaded pointing at tbe weaknesses of one’s own argument, I haven’t heard anything about it yet.
From what I’ve heard the arguments used to promote this amendment include:
1) Marriage has traditionally been between one man and one woman
2) Marriage is a sacred union, as defined in The Bible.
3) Marriage is a vital cornerstone of our society
Let’s look at them one at a time…
1) Marriage has traditionally been between one man and one woman OK… The United States of America has had a lot of dubious traditions, which have since been abandoned, including slavery, wholesale slaughter of Native Americans as “Savages”, bigotry, lynchings, hazings, blah blah, blah. If “tradition” is the (or a) principal reason for doing something, perhaps it’s time to dig deeper. Tradition is not a justification for anything. Periodically re-examining beliefs and traditions and adjusting them to suit reality is healthy.
2) Marriage is a sacred union, as defined in The Bible The operative word is “sacred”. If marriage is sacred, then the government has no business being involved, as the government is defined in The Constitution. There appears to be value in legally binding commitments between people… “life partners”… survivorship, power of attorney, visitation, inheritance… “Civil Unions”… That’s sensible, I think. If you want to get married, do it in a church… or at least have it officiated by a member of your chosen clergy…. that’s great, but it’s not legally binding until your have a Civil Union. So there.
3) Marriage is a vital cornerstone of our society Vital Cornerstone, huh? Is that why the divorce rate is about 50%? Is that why so many people are having children out of wedlock? I don’t know… If marriage is such a Vital Cornerstone, how can we get away with treating it so trivially? Typically, wedding vows include some variant of “’til death do us part”. Um… yeah…
The mere notion of a Constitutional Amendment to define Marriage as between one man and one woman contradicts the the First Amendment to the US Constitution. The First Amendment states, in part, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” There are religions which allow or even promote polygamy. There are religions still being practiced today which require animal sacrifice. All the homosexual community has to do is throw a religion together and make same-sex marriage a tenet of their faith. Case solved.
The last time self-righteous, self-centered Puritans bullied the Senate into altering the constitution, we got “Prohibition” (Amendment XVIII to the US Constitution) out of the deal. That worked well. It worked so well in, fact, that it is the only Amendment to the Constitution, thus far, to have been repealed (Amendment XXI). Way to go, Puritans.
Apart from Amendments XVIII and XX1, the bulk of the Amendments fall into one of two catagories:
1) Those that guarantee rights of the citizens and the states.
2) Those that clarify the definition of the elected offices of the federal government and the procedures for dealing with changes and anomalies therein.
If this one goes through, it would be Amendment XXVIII… and, with any luck, we’d come to our senses and repeal it as Amendment XXXI.
This country is getting more and more screwy every time I turn around. People, PLEASE!!! Stop and think for a second!