Married to the State
Homosexual Marriage vs. Heterosexual Marriage.
As a Christian Constitutionalist this, at first glance, may seem like quite a quagmire. The solution, as I see it, is actually quite simple. As a young Christian my reflexive response used to be the mantra of many people who call themselves Christians, “the sanctity of marriage, between a man and a woman, MUST be preserved as an institution of God.” Indeed, as a Christian, I know it is a sacred unity between a man and a woman instituted by God. However, under our great Constitution, this is NOT a behavior to be legislated and enforced by government. The Constitution and a number of historical facts, I believe, support my above determination.
The first problem we all have with marriage is that it requires a license, which by definition implies a privilege granted by the government to you to do what would otherwise be ILLEGAL, for nominal tax of course. http://dictionary.law.com defines license as “governmental permission to perform a particular act…” When anyone gives you anything (permission, for example), that person or entity has to have the authority to give that something to you. When did government acquire the authority to give permission for you to get married? It sure wasn’t our Constitution, which to my knowledge is the legal document that our government is granted any powers it has by us. Yes, We the People give government the privilege of it’s powers, not the other way around.
George Washington didn’t need permission from his government to marry, why do we? In fact, according to the law of the land during George Washington’s time the only legislative requirements to get married were that you acquired the consent of your future in-laws and that your marriage was posted publicly 5-15 days before the ceremony. From my internet research the government decided to usurp the powers of granting permission to marry during the mid-1800s when most states had laws outlawing marriage between blacks and whites, some states began allowing interracial marriages if you got a license. Eventually, in 1923, this became the status quo for all marriages when the federal government got involved and passed the Uniform Marriage and Marriage License Act. So the marriage license was born from bad fruit, the Bible says a tree that produces bad fruit cannot produce good fruit.
Adding injury to the insult of the government making yet another perfectly legal act into an illegal one, needing of course, a bureaucracy and taxes to support it, it seems that with this marriage license in some cases the government claims jurisdiction over your kids! Admittedly, I have not done the proper research on these reports, however, knowing how the government operates this does not surprise me a bit.
Although, as a Christian, I cannot endorse homosexual relationships, I also cannot, in good conscience, pervert the Constitution into denying certain American’s from the same freedom, to live their life as they see fit, that I try to enjoy, unless they have committed a criminal act (such as not allowing felons to vote). That said, laws regulating consensual relationships between adults, I believe, is an unconstitutional invasion of American’s privacy. Once that is done, as it has been in the past, you find yourself on a slippery slope sliding directly to tyranny, which cannot be allowed.
Homosexuality is a social issue, which like other social issues, government should not interfere with. If Christians want to oppose homosexuality, I believe the way to do it is through the churches and the market. For example, I don’t shop at Target because of their financial support for many homosexual organizations. Simple as that. There is no need for the ever reaching arm of government to dictate who my fellow citizens decided to fall in love with. One reason, in modern times, churches have not been effective in battling the problems Christians see with homosexuality is the fact that the majority of so called main-stream “Christian” leaders, one recent addition being Ted Haggard, are in fact homosexual along with the most leaders of the political party many so called Christians unfortunately align themselves with, Folly being a recent example. This kind of leadership along with equally polarizing leaders in the homosexual community, I believe, leads to the bitter emotional rampages that happen on both sides, purposefully creating illogical arguments where each opposing group get to race for who’s rights they can take away first. When in reality, it was government’s plan all along to eroded the people’s rights, but what better way to do this than have the people take their own rights away! Genius!
That said, as a Christian, I have dear friends of mine who are of the homosexual persuasion. I don’t approve of their behavior, and I know they don’t approve of some of my behavior. I highly regard their opinion on many issues, as they mine. However, like any average group of people, we have differing opinions on each others choices in life. This doesn’t mean we try to make the government tell the other how to live. We, instead, have rational discussions, exercising our right to free speech, as people should.
My solution for the couples that would like to be legally seen as a single entity in a similar way married couples are seen today, (insurance purposes and power of attorney, for example) is a voluntary signing of an affidavit in a local county courthouse. In this affidavit, basically a sworn oath, you can affirm that you have indeed joined into a union with your partner on a certain date and additionally signed by a witness to a ceremony (btw - being a witness was one of the original duties of the best man and maid of honor). Affidavits are punishable by purgery if you are not truthful, just like in court. This should more than satisfy any legal bindings of a union or marriage for any medical, tax or insurance needs. Politicians should also be required to sign affidavits regarding their campaign promises as well, like David Van Os willing did this past election when he ran for Texas State Attorney General.
Bottom line is that we should stop being tricked into trying to legislate each other’s life and supporting laws that either create precedents to invade everyone’s privacy or out right do invade everyone’s constitutional privacy. Government never keeps itself in check, it is up to us to ensure that it is held to the restrictions the Constitution sets forth.
marriage should definitely be kept sacred. it should be governed by the church and not the government. call them civil unions if you like, and allow all kinds to fall under this category.
i’ll take the libertarian stance on this issue: “government needs to focus on its constitutional responsibilities instead of re-defining itself to intrude on the responsibilities of churches and families”
While I am interested in your Constituional position, I’m wondering isn’t the license a form of official registration with the Civil Government, of a marriage to gain certain benefits from the state?
Common Law marriages still exist and are valid in most states.
As to your describing homosexuality as a persuasion, I think you need to do some reading on the scientific basis for homosexuality as a variation in behavioral norms, and occurances in other species.
Skin color and sexual orientation aren’t choices. Both can be altered, but shouldn’t be discriminated against, no matter what your religious teachings are.
No matter how you look at it, these laws are nothing more then discrimination with the state’s endorsment. They affect a smaller minority but are not too much differant then the Jim Crow laws of the last century.
I would suggest that the arguments for same sex marriage are ephemeral at best. Visiting loved ones in the hospital, conveyance of money or goods upon death, property rights, etc… might all be more extensively, and objectively be protected through the use of a simple “power of attorney”.
Indeed, many “wealthy couples” are just now realizing the benefits of a clearly worded “power of attorney” as opposed to the “vague” protections afforded by a marriage license.
Indeed, save for issues involving minor children (usually covered under seperate codes, because; unbelieveble as it might sound, couples sometimes have children without the benefit of marriage), most issues that “same sex” advocates cite as their reason for “needing to be married” now require specific “powers of attorney” even in the case of man/woman married couples (i.e. the Mary Schiavo case where the husband wanted to suspend further extraordinary efforts to maintain his wife on life support) or are acknowledged by many to be preferrably served by such “powers of attorney”. Changing our laws, indeed our social and cultural traditions to assuage open ended whining by eternal victims, particularly when ample provisions in current laws exist to address the same objectives has never been good public policy.
Imagine how convoluted and chaotic our legal system would be if we had to cater to every conceivable nuanced argument in a preemptive manner? Personally, I’d like to own an elephant as a pet. Unfortunately; public health and nuisance laws (none of which speak to the issue of elephant ownership with any specificity) prevent me from doing so in my “particular community”. If it was left up to me, I’d be able to own that elephant unless each and every conceivable law that I might run afoul of specifically stipulated to impediments to pachyderm ownership. If I found that they did, I’d want a rhineocerous.
Many same sex marriage advocates would cite the “tyranny of the majority” as reasoning for trying to effect these changes through the courts rather than legislatively. However, allowing our courts to usurp the will of the people, changing our laws simply because a very vocal minority “wants what they want and they want it now” is nothing less than “tyranny of the minority”.
When it’s all said and done, the courts be damned, the will of the people, a majority of the people, even if it’s the most meager plurality, is the only possible basis for a democracy.
Hi David, since you are a native Texan I’m sure you are familiar with the term “riding the fence”. I agree with you on the basis that the government shouldn’t have the right to dictate certain issues such a licensing marriage. However, you can not be lukewarm about your beliefs. Meaning that your a Christian and you dont believe in gay marriage yet you would be willing to take the steps to support it because it is their right. I dont believe that the problem is with the marriage, because if they are living together in their eyes aren’t they already common law married. And I believe that the fight should be with insurance companies whom are making these rules on certain coverages. After all isn’t that the reason for their marriage is for benefits? If you can name anyone as your life insurance beneficiary why not health insurance, 401K, S.S., and dependants for taxes after living together for a year or more. Thats the real issue. Some of these issues already need to be addressed anyway, all of our systems are failing and frankly we need to address the issues that effect everyone. In that instance we will be addressing those other issues as well.
As a citizen of the United States, we should all be appalled, no matter our religious convictions, when our constitution is used to obstruct personal liberties. If you study the process of creating a constitution, in any society, it for the express purpose of empowering the people with rights against the government. For the people of Texas to vote an amendment to the constitution which effectively denies a liberty from the State to any class of people is an enormous travesty and wholly against the principals of a constitution.
as a christian i believe dearly that marriage is soley between a man and a woman. The bible says that homosexuality is an abomination.