Gay & Straight

[objectivist1]

The author of this article is both cherry-picking quotations from the ancient Greeks, ignoring the large body of artwork by them which often depicts sexual intercourse between males, and is essentially contorting himself to make his argument.  It is true that the concept of a homosexual life-long union recognized by the state did not exist until very recently.  That certainly does NOT make it "unnatural."  While I have my reservations about gay "marriage" as opposed to civil unions, ultimately the state should not be involved in granting licenses for marriage at all, nor was it until very recently.  Nor was there the issue of treatment for tax purposes. 

Homosexual behavior has now been observed and verified in 100s of animal species, and in many cases these male-male pairings last for life.  Ask any farmer, and he will tell you that there are 'homosexual" bulls, goats and sheep, who prefer to have intercourse with the same sex, and show very little if any interest in the opposite sex.  This notion of the behavior being "unnatural" is simply false - and it is used in a tortuous manner to justify prohibiting such relationships by those who want to do so for whatever reasons, just as there were plenty of Biblical justifications offered to justify slavery, up until quite recently.

I take my own life experience as a great teacher, and include in this what I have observed over my 50+ years on this earth.  Anthropologists will tell you that the percentage of homosexual individuals in human society has remained constant for as long as history has been recorded on such things.  Animal data appear to show that this is also true in other species.  If this were a genetic defect or aberration, by the way, one would expect that it would be bred out of the population over time.  It clearly has not been.  These tortuous justifications for condemning homosexuality are tiresome.

[Crafty_Dog]

Not intending to be tiresome, offered more in the spirit of the offerrings contrary to the tidal wave with which the pravdas and the progressives seek to innundate us that endeavor to engage the discussion on a more serious level.  I agree that the piece does do some cherry pickings and certainly you make valid points.

" ultimately the state should not be involved in granting licenses for marriage at all, nor was it until very recently.  Nor was there the issue of treatment for tax purposes."

Now this is an interesting point and I invite you to flesh it out further. 

What did marriage look like before the state was involved? 

When and why did the state become involved?

What would removing the state from marriage look like now? 

[DougMacG]

Also looking forward to discussion on the questions Crafty posed.

Happily married people ask how the gay marriage issue could possibly affect their marriage.  Obj's proposal illuminates that.  First we define marriage to not mean marriage, then make it unrecognized altogether.

The federal government is already shifting to parent-one, parent-two designations, removing recognition of basic natural phenomena like mother and father as fast as they can.  Why only two parents or spouses, politicians and bureaucrats only know.

Like Barack Obama, my own thinking has evolved.  Somewhere between 2 and 3% of people are gay.  Condemnation of that is not helpful.  Everyone has the right of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. 

Denying the unique relationship of a man and a woman becoming husband and wife is not helpful either.  Nor is dropping a societal preference that a child have a mother and a father in love, married and living under one roof whenever possible.

[Crafty_Dog]

Obj:

Hoping the questions I posed will receive your attention , , ,

[objectivist1]

Crafty,

I think this will go a long way toward addressing your questions:

http://mises.org/daily/2209

[objectivist1]

Here is another good blog post, and hilarious but very valid comedy routine on this very topic (video not safe for kids):


www.humblelibertarian.com/2013/03/dont-legalize-gay-marriage-de-legalize.html

[objectivist1]

From a straight, quite conservative Christian pastor in Wisconsin who has been arguing against getting a state marriage license for over 13 years now:

You should not have to obtain a license from the State to marry someone anymore than you should have to obtain a license from the State to be a parent, which some in academic and legislative circles are currently pushing to be made law.

When I marry a couple, I always buy them a Family Bible which contains birth and death records, and a marriage certificate. We record the marriage in the Family Bible. What’s recorded in a Family Bible will stand up as legal evidence in any court of law in America. Early Americans were married without a marriage license. They simply recorded their marriages in their Family Bibles. So should we.

(Pastor Trewhella has been marrying couples without marriage licenses for ten years. Many other pastors also refuse to marry couples with State marriage licenses.)

This pamphlet is not comprehensive in scope. Rather, the purpose of this pamphlet is to make you think and give you a starting point to do further study of your own. If you would like an audio sermon regarding this matter, just send a gift of at least five dollars in cash to: Mercy Seat Christian Church 10240 W. National Ave. PMB #129 Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53227.

[Crafty_Dog]

Good discussion Obj.

Question (NOT an argument pretending to be a question!):

What about the notion that government has a role in protecting those who cannot protect themselves?  Hypothetical:  Traditional type marriage, dad works, mom focuses on the home and the young children.  Mom is relying upon Husband's promise to provide for her and the children.  Now he decides to run off with his secretary with the big, perky tits.

Under the framework you are advocating, what, if anything, is to be done?

[objectivist1]

Crafty,

In answer to your question - action could easily be brought in civil court, and in fact was before marriage licenses were invented.  The family Bible, with the signatures of the married persons and two witnesses (or separate contract that was generally kept in the Bible or in the case of Jews - Torah) was recognized as legally binding by every state in the Union.

[Crafty_Dog]

What law would the court apply?

What proof of marriage in the absence of a signed family bible/Torah?  

What about polygamy?  Group marriage? (multiple men/women) Gay/Lesbian relationships?

======================

This makes sense to me:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/344124/marital-discord-court-editors
Over the past two days, the Supreme Court has been considering whether to overturn two duly enacted pieces of legislation — the federal Defense of Marriage Act and a California constitutional amendment — on the basis of novel theories about the Fourteenth Amendment that had occurred to almost nobody until quite recently. It should let the laws stand.
 
In the California case, a popular referendum ratifying the definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman is said to violate the Constitution’s guarantee that states will extend the “equal protection of the laws” to all persons, including those persons in same-sex couples who wish to have the state government declare their relationships to be marriages.
 
Equality means that like cases should be treated alike. Whether California’s definition of marriage meets that standard depends on whether or not there is some difference between opposite-sex and same-sex couples that justifies recognizing some of the former and none of the latter as marriages in the eyes of the law. The answer to that question in turn depends on what we understand marriage to be.
 
It turns, that is, on whether marriage should be understood to have an ineradicable connection to procreation or be understood exclusively in romantic terms. If the basic purpose of marriage as a pre-political institution and a public policy is to channel heterosexual behavior into the social forms most likely to lead to stable child-rearing, as we believe, then it makes sense that its definition includes sexual complementarity and involves no invidious discrimination. Many people do not, of course, accept this premise, and they have advanced various arguments against it.
 
The Constitution is silent — obviously silent — about which side is correct, and that is reason enough for the Court to allow California to decide the matter as it wishes, which of course means to allow it to change its mind. The Court should forthrightly declare that the Constitution gives it no authority to choose one side or the other. It should reject calls for it to “punt” by ruling that defenders of the law have no standing to plead their case, which would have the effect of allowing lower-court judges to write same-sex marriage into the Constitution for their jurisdictions.
 
Justice Scalia neatly exposed the weak spot of the argument that the Constitution requires same-sex marriage when he asked Ted Olson, a lawyer making that argument, when that requirement came about. Olson declined to make the ludicrous contention that the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 was the public’s way of advancing same-sex marriage. That left him arguing that the evolution of the culture had changed the meaning of the amendment. Public views on homosexuality and marriage certainly have changed: But that change can be and has been expressed in the votes of citizens and legislators.
 
The other case before the Court is a challenge to the provision of the Defense of Marriage Act that defines marriage, for purposes of federal law, as the union of a man and a woman. Here the challengers make an argument beyond their equal-protection claim. The federal government is supposedly infringing on the states’ power to set marriage laws by insisting on its own definition in its own laws.
 
One would think that to state that claim is to refute it, but Justice Kennedy showed signs of crediting it. The act leaves states free to adopt any marriage law they want. The Constitution does not compel the federal government to use the states’ definitions in its own laws, although it may decide to do that as a matter of administrative convenience. If the federal government has the power to designate some households in tax laws as joint filers — which no one contests — then it has the power to say which households, and so long as its classifications are compatible with the Constitution it cannot matter if they track state law. Federalism does not, in other words, mean that state governments have the right to force federal law to change to their liking. Chief Justice Roberts exposed the emptiness of this “federalism” argument when he asked whether the federal government would invade the province of the states by extending marriage-related federal benefits to all cohabiting same-sex couples in all states, even those that recognize no such couples as married or even in a civil union. The opponents of DOMA were appropriately flummoxed by the question.
 
In both cases, the Court should leave lawmaking authorities to do their will. We oppose same-sex marriage, but in the absence of a constitutional amendment enshrining our view it would be wrong for the Supreme Court to block it — and nobody has ever argued otherwise. Proponents of same-sex marriage feel no such inhibitions. The Supreme Court should be more dispassionate.

[objectivist1]

Crafty - I don't know the civil law code by heart, but a good friend who is an Atlanta cop (and a libertarian) told me that the law is enforced against men who won't pay child support in the 'hood here all the time - they go to jail.  And the overwhelming majority of these people are not married.  The same principle would apply. 

Same-sex civil unions could be formed with a contract.  As for polygamy - not sure what the issue is here.  The state could outlaw it - which I think is bad policy - but if it were legal - the same principle would apply.  The state should not be granting "permission" for people to form sexual/romantic relationships with one another.  It's contrary to the concept of liberty as our Founders understood it.  I might also point out that there are multiple references to polygamous marriages in the Torah - evidently at that time it was  sanctioned by God, as the Israelites understood Him. 

I am often vexed by the church/synagogue authorities decreeing that this, that or the other is "sinful" according to their arbitrary judgement, and then decreeing to their flocks that their pronouncement be taken as "gospel."  Evidently only THEY have the ability to discern "what God really meant" in Scripture.  Jesus was extremely critical of this very behavior, and often spoke out against it.

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/20/bigoted-religious-zeolites-high-school-senior-allegedly-expelled-charged-with-felonies-over-gay-relationship-with-consenting-fellow-student/