Kurtz on same sex marriage
Some years ago, Stanley Kurtz wrote a series of articles on the subject of what effect the legalization of same-sex marriage might have on the institution of marriage itself. They make for sobering reading, although (like almost all other social science data) they only show correlation rather than causation. But one wonders why Judge Walker was apparently (as far as I can tell, anyway) not even presented with this data by the attorneys for the state in Perry v. Schwarzenegger: see this and this.
And also see this one is about hidden agendas.
I have long believed (since the beginning of the SSM debate) that if it were really about legal equality for all then they would be pushing for the abolition of marriage rather than SSM. I mean, I have run into people who “don’t believe in” marriage etc. etc. Ergo, since no one was pushing for marriage abolition, I concluded that legal equality for all was not the ultimate goal. Granted, I did not always know what that might be (and I am still unclear) but it was closer to the truth.
I am fairly young (mid-20s) so this has never not been an issue for my generation. I think it is safe to predict that this is not going to end well for anyone.
PS. Why is it that, in these days of supposed post-marriage relationships, is a man with 2 families still considered the ultimate dirtbag?
Were same-sex marriage advocates willing to accept civil unions and rely upon the changing demographics, as the young greatly favor the legalization of SSM and wait for another 10-20 years, SSM would be legalized, state by state.
But of course they are not willing to wait because this is not about marriage, it is about forcing society to accept homosexuality as normal. It’s about using the 14th amendment to force societal acceptance.
But there is an unintended consequence to that legal approach.
SCOTUS ruling that the 14 amendment bars banning same-sex marriage as unconstitutional discrimination, inescapably results in the removal of ALL legal barriers to PLURAL marriage in the US.
Advocates of plural marriage will make the very same, unconstitutional discriminatory 14th amendment…and, they will win because the line of demarcation in who may marry will have been moved from a biologically objective and definite line, to an arbitrary line based upon two alone…which is plainly discriminatory to those who do not accept the restrictions of monogamy.
The consequences in child rearing for entire generations will be severe.
Thanks for the links, neo. Geez, this is depressing.
Here is another good article:
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/08/07/requiem-for-an-ideal/
I think you also have to question the psychological effects on children. There are hormonal signals that help establish bonding between parents and children (especially mothers, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find the fathers included in some way). So what happens to the children when this bonding is not realized, when they can’t depend on a stable relationship? Do they become conditioned to shallower relationships to prevent disappointment when the parental group reconfigures? I know divorce is hard on kids, but at least they have the standards of a normal marriage to help them understand the situation and to orient themselves. What happens when anything goes in alll their known relationships? Quite frankly, I doubt that many of the “experts” cited by Kurtz ever think about these things. Most are probably happy if the kids makes it into a good college and never worry about long-term effects on their ability to form relationships or make personal sacrifices for their offspring. I think the effects on children could be devastating for them and for society as a whole.
One thing Kurtz didn’t mention in his article on Scandinavia was its homogeneity. Our huge diverse society needs stronger smaller scale bonds so children can get their bearings in life.
As an addenda to Expat’s observations; Evolution and biology have a way of trampling certain ideas into the dust. SSM may mean different things to different people but I have yet to see the term “silly” applied. Maybe I missed it.
My guess the kids from normal households will have an overwhelming advantage when it comes to making families, Hollywood and academic propaganda notwithstanding.
I hope future generations laugh at us, we are certainly earning it.
Ann coulter had some comments about the history of the 14 th Amendment, though her article was focused on “anchor babies”, not gay marriage: http://www.anncoulter.com/
Well, Bob, I hope so, too, if there are, indeed, future generations.
However, the whole point is the destruction of marriage, because marriage is a bourgeois institution, and Rousseau said it had to go, like the church, like commercial relationships based on trust an not coercion.
This is also why the dichotomy between social and fiscal conservatives is a false one. We are fighting back, as much as we can, against people who want to replace bourgeois ideas with feudal ones, “by any means necessary.”
Let’s not forget the intense backlash directed to supporters of Prop 8 — I’ll never forget that angry mob attacking an elderly woman, destroying her sign and surrounding her like a pack of ravenous wolves.
The totalitarian impulse is alive and well and it almost universally belongs to the ideological left.
Btw, I should add that a friend of mine was a supporter of SSM until he saw the boorish and irresponsible behavior of Prop 8 opponents. The last straw, he told me, was when he saw several gay men tearing out pages from a bible in front of a church and daring the congregants to stop them. The church in question was supportive of the Prop 8 measure.
It’s not exclusively a question of rights but the desire of a minority to tyrranize the majority.
Does anyone remember the steel girders that formed a Cross found by the Firemen and Rescue Workers in the rubble of the WTC and how it was moved to a place of honor and expected to be made part of any eventual memorial at the site? Does anyone remember what happened to that Cross? At the insistence of the Left it was ordered removed because it did not represent the faith of all the people killed in 9/11. Now, the same groups of Left wing loons are insisting just as loudly that the Mosque must be allowed to be built overlooking Ground Zero because it shows that the 1st Amendment of the Constitution guarantees freedom of expression. After the court decision on prop 8 I thought about this and got a chill. The Judges decision is base on his rejection of 2000 years of Law based on the Judeo — Christian moral codes. This is similar to the Nazi’s claim at Nuremberg that the West had no right to try them based on the Judeo – Christian moral codes since they did not believe or adhere to those codes. The Nazis developed a ‘progressive’ theory of law in which ‘law’ was interpreted as a result of force and social struggle. According to the Nazi legal theory, the legal system should not contain fixed rules of law but evolve in continuous flow as a ‘living law’. If the Judge’s decision is allowed to stand as it is, it will rip a moral hole in the Constitution. Something will fill that hole and judging from what happened to the Cross at Ground Zero and the support for the Mosque, well let’s just say it may be a foreshadowing of things to come.
Okay, I don’t want to be a hater – and the libertarian in me says that everyone should be able to privately express anything that does not infringe on the rights of others
But, that’s not what this debate is about.
Do citizens have the right to legislate their moral beliefs on institutions that are specifically recognized by the state?
Isn’t that what the judge ruled against?
The judge’s logic is fundamentally flawed: from child support to 1st degree murder ALL CRIMINAL and CIVIL LAW IS ABOUT MORAL DISAPPROVAL.
There are no mathematical proofs, no thermodynamic principles no hard fast rules of nature that tell us what is right and what is wrong. Ultimately, WE DECIDE – not a judge, not a legislator, not a President, but the citizens of the United States and (in this case) the voters of California decide what is right and what is wrong.
Geoffrey Britain,
Right you are.
The judge’s removal of morality as a basis for voter disapproval has opened up the doors for not only plural marriage and its variations (polygamy, polyandry, and pluralistic unions) but incestuous marriage and all its variations.
If unchallenged, many of from the judge’s statements on this ruling are chilling in their inception.
Iowahawk takes things to their logical conclusion:
http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2010/08/wedgeapalooza.html
tnx expat, I needed the laugh.
expat, Iowahawk scores again! ROFL!!.
Vieux Charles and Geoffrey Britain, you two are on the right track. If marriage must be opened to all minority groups who desire such, then it leads to all that you have mentioned (polygamy, polyandry, incest, etc.) and some we may have overlooked. Under the judge’s standards nothing is really off limits.
But, as you say, VC, our laws are formed on the basis of widely recognized and accepted principles of morality. When a judge can strike down laws that are widely recognized and acceptable to the populace, it opens the way for ………legislating from the bench. Does it not?
expat, you read my mind, I was totally trying to post that same article earlier!! (except firefox crashed and I gave up)
If it were not yet another sign of late-stage societal decadence and decline, the concept of gay marriage would be a laugh since there is no such thing as gay marriage.
Forget that gays are not gay. Homosexual marriage does not exist since the adjective contradicts the noun. It’s like saying rectangular circle.
Marriage is the term for the man-woman-children-family thing. Take away any of those elements and what you have is not a marriage. The day they say there is such a thing as gay marriage is the exact day when the man-woman-child-family thing gets a new name…and the exact day when gays will say they want to be that thing too.
But it will never be that thing, and the crying will never stop either.
At least until enough good people stand up and call ‘Enough!’
Richard,
Count me as one of the people who supported homosexual marriage until I saw the reprehensible behavior by some of the homosexual activists in California. Now I think the government should get out of the marriage business entirely.
Fenelon,
I hear this thing about government getting out of the marriage business all over the place. What does this do to all the default government policies on income, taxes, property, parental rights and responsibilities, etc.? Would this mean that every married couple would have to see a lawyer every month to update their legal status? Even with all today’s exceptions, government recognition of marriage with its responsibilties does give a certain social stability. Why should heterosexual couples who want a traditional family be forced to join a church? The argument that homosexuals can also be parents doesn’t work with me because there is no way that their parenthood resulted from sex with their partner. Attributing the institution of marriage solely to religious belief is an attempt to divert attention from its wider social functions.
It’s about love, legal union, personal responsibility, and no one else’s business. This is “one” that Conservatives and Progressive should agree on.
nyyo:
The raising of chlidren and their socialization into resposible adults IS our business, since we’ll all have to live with the cosequences of this social engineering experiment.
There is nothing irresponsible about the idea of same sex parents. People who are ethical who love, teach, and care for children are being responsible. It’s more like a deconstructing of a social engineering that says it can only be one way. I’m in a heterosexual marriage, but if another couple that is same sex and are hopefully as I’ve generally described then it’s none of my or any ones business, it’s none of your business.
I know this isn’t a religious blog, but this is what happens when we as a society turn our back on God. I could be wrong, but I’ve always believed that monogamy was more a Christian concept than anything else. Without a common moral background / perspective, there’s no real reason to insist on one man-one woman.
I was an atheist for 25 years, and believed even then that the judeo-christian beliefs in society to be ever so important due to the civilization that developed around such values. Yes, even while these ideals were poorly practiced.
If homosexuals can marry, than I can see no justification why marriage must be restricted to just 2 people, or why brother and sister cannot marry. After all, people control their own fertility now, so birth defects and the like are minimal.
As for the judge divining that people voted a certain way out of baseless moral judgment, I am beyond appalled. There’s no test for why people vote the way they do, whether it for good or ‘bad’ reason. The judge cannot read minds.
Also – marriage predates our government – who is the judge (or any on the left) to redefine it? Prop 8 was brilliant in that it was affirming something, and was not ‘against’ anything in its wording.
Love between two unrelated adult human beings let’s say “yes”. Incest and bestiality let’s say “no”
Simple.