I used to feel strongly about protecting the concept of marriage from usage by homosexuals, and I have written about this at length in my Dean's World comments.
But lately I have become convinced from my objectivist son, Max Harris, who is always logical and rational, that the state has no more business regulating relationships between consenting adults than it does regulating the economy, education or anything else not specifically enumerated in the Constitution of the United States.
Marriage is obviously a relationship between consenting adults. Most of us are heterosexual, including me and my wife. So we have a heterosexual relationship, including a heterosexual marriage. But for a smaller percentage of the society, homosexuality and not heterosexuality is the normative relationship between consenting adults. These people are law-abiding and tax-paying citizens and ought to have identical rights to define their own sexual relationships among other consenting adults.
Therefore, I now think Max is right. The rest of us have no business trying to fit homosexuals into our heterosexual mode, and even less business trying to use the state as an enforcement arm of our particular brand of sexuality.
Another consideration is that heterosexual marriage always has been treated as a favorable status under the tax codes of the United States and all its constituent states. But the purpose of taxtaking ought to be focused on raising funds for vital governmental expenses, not for making social policy.
Does this mean that I am approve of homosexual behavior? Except for minors, military personnel on duty, and persons under confinement, human relationships — including sexual ones — ought not to be dependent upon the consent of others.
I am heterosexual, and my own sexual orientation depends on nobody else's approval. Nor do I need the psychological reinforcement of majority consent to seek the physical love of women and not of men.
In addition to all of the above, we ought to have learned by now that the Constitution of the United States ought not to be amended merely to steer the nation around problems that are seen as widespread social ills. We tried that with the national prohibition amendment, only to undo this ill-advised amendment 13 years later.
There is also a suggestion in this matter that determination of the legality of adult relationships other than those involving one man and one woman ought to be left to the states to determine or ignore. A lot could be said for the 50 states to set their own policies in these as in so many other matters.
Finally, there is the question of priority. Right now, the key issue facing America is stopping and rolling back the spread of islamo-fascist terrorism. All of us as Americans ought to stop and consider whether this is an appropriate time to pick fights among ourselves over something as basic — or as fleeting, depending upon your interpretation — of sexual orientation and preferences among consenting adults.
Not at all, Catch. But my sense of history tells me that James Madison would not have thought that a social institution such as marriage needed defining by the great United States Constitution that he and his committee drafted and carefully negotiated retification among the 13 original states.
In addition, I do not think that permitting homosexual marriages will at all affect heterosexual marriages. Other than through adoption, which is not under question here, homosexuals do not typically bring children to life, and we do.
I have thought about this question at length lately. And I am no longer convinced that homosexual marriages or relationships have anything to do with threatening the marriages and other relationships of heterosexuals.
Remember, it is the question of relationships among consenting adults that we are discussing here, not at all the perverse attention that pedophiles pay to children. I am not even certain to what degree, if any, homosexuals in general have any connection with pedophilia or are influenced by them.
Is marriage a spiritual bond as well as one based on companionship? Probably so, depending on the degree of religiosity embedded in the lives of any two people in such a relationship.
But who can say that homosexuals cannot be just as religious — and just as sincerely so — as any heterosexual? You already know from my comments that I reject faith in favor of reason. However, I recognize that many — perhaps most — other people have some degree of faith, and that some of them have have a high degree of such beliefs in their value systems. If so, why can they not believe in such particularist concepts as the divinity of Mary, Jesus, Mohamad, Moses, Buddha, Krishna, etc, and at the same time be homosexuals? And why should they be punished for this with even greater contempt that some persons of faith hold for someone like me who lacks all such faith?
In the end, my argument devolves to this question: Do homosexuals have rights equal to those of all other American citizens? I think the only logical, reasonable and, yes, morally correct answer to this question is that, so long as the manner in which these people conduct their lives do not threaten the rights of the rest of us, then they must have the right to determine how they define their relationships with one another, just as the rest of us do, for love, companionship, or just the mundane tasks of maintaining a household.
I quickly scanned your reply. My apologies if I do not answer in a reasonable time frame. Somehow or other time always eludes me and Friday and Saturday will be very busy days for me. I will definitely respond to issues you raise. The subject matter for myself has some interesting conflictive nuances. Essentially, it does not substantiate to merely an equal rights issue.
I haven't been smoking anything, but I think I'm about to argue against Arnold Harris...by saying that gay marriage might not be the greatest idea. This weirds me out, so I'm just going to stop thinking about it and start riffing, and you can stop me any time.
The argument that, yes, marriage has changed a lot since WWII, but those were bad changes that should be at least partially undone to make life easier for children—that argument seems to me a reasonable one. I do think that conservatives who make it would be on firmer ground if they additionally argued that tax breaks and other entitlements should kick in when people actually go ahead and have children, but that doesn't necessarily vitiate the argument. The number of gay marriage advocates who skate over the issues children add to the equation astonishes me.
Besides, it's also true that a lot of them (the advocates, not the children) are using social approval as one of their bedrock reasons, however much yammering they do about what is and is not anyone else's business. I'm grateful to Jonathan Rauch and Andrew Sullivan for detailing the ways they think being unable to marry makes our relationships harder to sustain. It's difficult emotional territory and not easy to handle as well as they do. But the fact remains that, in the end, using those considerations as a basis for social policy just reinforces the idea that we want everyone else to approve of our sex lives.
Since a lot of people don't approve, that would be a bad tactic even if it were more ethically defensible, but activists don't seem to be able to let it go. Even domestic-partner benefits would probably get more support if the romantic-partner aspect were detached from the issue. (As in, two unmarried straight people who'd agreed to take care of each other for life, in whatever arrangement of beds, could also qualify to assign each other rights to hospital visitation, power of attorney, and Social Security benefits.) You have to resign yourself to the fact that gay relationships won't be in the same category as marriages then, though, and no one seems to be willing to do that.
So what I think will probably happen is this: If gay marriage is foisted on people, legislators are likely just to find a way to transfer benefits away from marriage into some new man-woman category, anyway. They'll call it matrimony or reproductive marriage or what have you, but it'll happen. Activists will have redefined the word marriage in legal terms, but that will have been it. And they'll still be left with their issues.
First the kielbasa with some good Polish beer, then the kiss. My slavic lady is practical as can be, and I bet you are too.
I hope the two young ones are letting you get some sleep at night.
About the issue at hand, which was denying homosexuals a certain fundamental civil liberty, and amending the US Constitution to accomplish this. One of the things I picked up from reading, of all things, the bible, was this:
I think that the suggestion that this is a "wholesale redefintion of marriage" is rather an overstatement. I simply think it's something the states should be allowed to experiment with if they wish. That is the benefit of a Federal system.
If people wish to put forth certain spiritual or social ideals of marriage, they are free to do that in their churches, their synagogues, among their friends and neighbors, and so on. What need for state intervention?
A reality as I see it is that homosexuality has always been with us and will always be and, while some may label it sinful or yucky (as is their right) so long as these folks are not harming each other, we have a reality today we never had 100 or more years ago: whereas in centuries past most people died by the age of 45 or so at the latest, and homosexuals were an underground phenomenon, they were not noticed. Now we have greater wealth, greater mobility, greater lifespans, and these folks are finding each other and making choices.
Let them be free to make them. If the critics are right and it harms them, then the critics are free to offer them counseling or guidance. If the critics are wrong, people can tell them to mind their own business. Whatever. An empirical reality is that they're here and they're queer and let's just let it be. There is no need for massive state intervention here.
And there is no reason to declare that THE STATE is the ultimate determiner of the validity of a marriage. Marriage licenses never existed 200 years ago. They were created as a convenient way for the state and the courts to recognize relationships people were establishing privately. So it would be with gay marriages: neither blessing nor condoning, but merely recognizing the relationship to make life easier for the courts in settling disputes and distributing properties and suchlike. Anything else is up to church, family, philosophy, and what have you.
"I think that the suggestion that this is a "wholesale redefintion of marriage" is rather an overstatement."
Of course, it would be difficult for one to admit that point of view and hold contrary views re:
social experimentation.
Marriage existed 200 years ago. And it existed 2000 years ago. And maybe before that. It isn't just a matter of the marriage licenses.
If one's sole purpose is to get a government approved piece of paper indicating applicant one and applicant two are 'married' then one needs re-examine the nature of social contracts. Or move to San Francisco. They'll provide the paperwork.
So the real question isn't, "denying homosexuals a certain fundamental civil liberty ?" but what is the authentic nature of marriage ?
I admire Arnold Harris more and more all the time. I totally agree with him and his wise son Max Harris. He said everything. And Dean, too.
I will only say this regarding my definition of what marriage is or ought to be. In my opinion, it means that a man or woman vows, before their family or friends or whoever else they care for, before whatever Deity or Deities they worship, or before the mind perceiving objective reality (as Ayn Rand would put it), and before the entire world, to love and to be faithful to one other man or woman till death do they part, or for eternity depending on your theology. All the legal and societal rights, privileges, and obligations that accrue to a married couple are the sauce, so to speak. But the steak, the marriage itself, is the total commitment they make to each other. And I want to see homosexual men and women, as well as heterosexual men and women, make that commitment. I long to make that commitment myself.
And I will not have the state, far less the federal government, "redefine" marriage so as to impede that commitment and banish one minority of consenting adult men and women, however tiny that minority may be, to the bathhouses or worse.
Let's just keep the federal government out of this, period. The President is, more than anything else in this time of War, the Commander in Chief of the armed forces, and that is what he should be doing. Should any federal court be so foolish as to try to force a one-size-fits-all solution on the whole country, then I would certainly support the Barney Frank Amendment to leave marriage to the states, just to avoid a civil war when we are already at War against an external enemy that wants to enslave and/or kill us all.
This is fixed in law. For purposes of discussion, this is definition about which this commenter is speaking:
Marriage: the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a legal, consensual, and contractual relationship recognized and sanctioned by and dissolvable only by law.
And for purposes of discussion, this commenter is not condemning any person or any relationship they might have with any other person.
I think that, as you do, the definition of "marriage" is deeply embedded in the human race. It is far more than 200 or even 2000 years old. It is found in every society, even the most primitive tribal cultures. Most embrace some form of monogamy, although some (a minority but they're there) embrace various forms of group or serial marriage. But the norm in the species Homo Sapiens is some form of monogamy encouraged by social custom and bonded by taboos of varying levels of effectiveness.
The question then is whether this bonding behavior is a creation of state or social action, or whether it's jut something human beings naturally do, and that society can only shape and mold.
I view it as the latter. And so, say, unlike the Catholic Church, I do not see it as a sacrement or an order from on high. I see it as something humans naturally do, like laughing and talking and eating and sleeping. We just do it. Sooner or later a man picks a woman and, if she'll have him, they bond. In most societies, some form of ritual is attached to this.
Humans just plain do this. They don't need to be ordered to do it.
I think marriage licenses are a mere legal convenience for the state to keep track of pesky questions involving credit, inheritance, and so on. It saves the courts and the authorities all sorts of headaches on certain thorny questions.
I think that the Rev. Sensing (no squishy liberal he) once had a very sensible proposal that he published in the Wall Street Journal--that the state stop issuing marriage licenses entirely. The state should simply issue domestic partnership licenses which carried all those same benefits, and should remove itself from the question of what is or is not the "definition of marriage." What constitutes marriage can then be left to church, family, tradition, custom, etc. and, frankly, if you don't like what you see prevailing in your community, you can leave for another one where you like things better.
It all boils down, I think, to whether you believe marriage is sustained by the state, or sustained by biology, faith, and custom.
Gays are forming pair bonds. I think they don't need our approval for this. There are a number of legal headaches that can be solved by giving them some sort of recognition of their status, and also there is an argument for simple fairness, which some would call an "emotional" argument but which I would say is entirely rational: there's nothing wrong with trying to be fair to people. Civil society is built on trying to basically be fair in how we deal with people under the law, regardless of whether we like them or not.
Paul, who exactly are the Wisconsin Synod Lutherans? Sort of like the Missouri synod, but two states up the map and one state over?
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I've done some serious thinking about this entire question of homosexual bonding, or marriage, or whatever you want to call it. partly prodded by my objectivist son, as I indicated in my first comment.
Max Harris, one of my three sons, is neither a homosexual nor is he a religious believer. But in addition to having a fine mind honed on the sharpening stone of reason, he is one of the most ethical people I have ever come across, and that attitude stamps its mark on all his relationships. One of the ways I define ethics, for these purposes, is the readiness of a person to practice in private exactly what he or she preaches in public.
One time when I was expounding to him about what I thought were threats to marriage in general posed by homosexual bonding under the same desigation, he asked me to think about the following considerations:
First, what exactly is marriage, and if no children are to be born from such a relationship, why must it be limited to persons of the opposite sex?
Second, how exactly do homosexual relationships threaten my heterosexual relationship with my wife in general and our marriage in particular?
Third, what element of the original Constitution of the United States authorizes the federal government to regulate marriage?
Fourth, what element of the original Constitution of the United States authorizes the federal government to levy differential taxes based upon existence (or lack of it) of a bonding contract between two individuals regulating their personal, sexual and household relationships?
The fact is, I could find no answers that suitable to contradict Max's questions. And to say otherwise would have been akin to contradicting the spherical shape of planet Earth.
So I will restate what I said in one of my earlier comments on this post: Do homosexuals have rights equal to those of all other American citizens? I am sure everyone knows that the answer is, and must remain, "yes".
Arnold, the Wisconsin Synod Lutherans (officially known as the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod) are indeed like the Missouri Synod, only theologically even more conservative. Southern Wisconsin is (as you might guess from their name) one of their strongholds— growing up in a small town near Madison, I had several friends in school who happened to be Wisconsin Synod. There are also a number of them over here in northeast Iowa, but I don't deal with them much: ecclesiastically speaking they keep to themselves and have zero interest in ecumenical relations.
I picked them out of thin air because Wisconsin Synod Lutherans are usually hardheaded, left-brain, unyielding, outspoken, and they stick to their guns without giving a damn whether anyone else agrees or disagrees with them. Also, unlike many conservative Protestant groups, Wisconsin Synod folks are not at all moralistic in their attitudes or behavior— they know how to have a good time, and they love good beer.
Ummmm, except for the element of faith, does this bear some resemblance to our favorite heathen here on Dean's World? (Once again, sorry about that coffee and your keyboard... :)
Paul, the Wisconsin synod people sound like my kind of folk, except for the theology or maybe even the cosmology upon which I expect that all theology is based.
But assuming that all versions of the bible say more or less the same thing in spirit if not in language, the quote that comes to mind is the one I cited in a comment to Janelle.
"Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil."
The spirit of the old-time Protestant America whose ways are the very basis of the great American culture is that each of us has free will to good or bad, and that we have individual responsible to do what is right in any given instance. And I hold to that notion, with or without the christianity.
That means that even if all my friends stand in the street baying like wolves about the sexual lives of other adult Americans, not only will I not join in with them, but I will work to defend the right even if it costs me whatever personal popularity I might enjoy at any moment.
I'm not saying from any of this that I favor homosexuality or its practices. What I am saying is that I have come to think that their sexual practices are none of my damned business, and certainly not the business of the government, so long as it involves only consenting adults, and their practices cost me nothing in the way of extra tax dollars, and the rest of this kind of standard that I apply to almost everything else.
Whether what they do might be sinful or not, how in hell could I know? I don't particularly put much stock in concepts such as "sin", and in any case, I don't think that infant children are born in such a status of sin in any case. And if there is such a thing as sin, it more correctly applies to people who systematically pump up hatred in themselves and others, in regard to people who are born to be different from themselves.
Anyway, enough of this crap. We need to unite America in defense of liberty and its associated freedoms. We are not going to accomplish that making public war against America's homosexuals.
And Paul, don't get the idea from any of what I've written here that this represents some sort of basic switch away from my philosophy of conservatism. It's just that I no longer see what sexuality has to do with political or even social outlook.
On the other hand, restrictions in our basic freedoms established for anything less than some immediate and pressing reason — such as to stop the damned terrorists from destroying our cities and the lives of our citizens — is always an unsupportable idea. Sort of like trying to take away my guns just because some moron thinks they look ugly and threatening.
(Ugly and menacing they sometimes are, but the practical outcome of that depends strictly on whether some other well-known type of moron gets his or her hands on such a firearm. And in my circle, we take pains to make sure that doesn't happen.)
I don't know if you will see this Arnold but I sure know you are absolutely right about the government getting into the business of sexual practices. I don't want to hear about homosexual practices or hetrosexual practices. That is to be kept in deceny and in peoples bedroom either way your sexual preferences are.
This nation was founded on Protestant America whose ways ARE THE VERY BASIS of OUR GREAT AMMERICAN CULTURE!
Absolutely we are GIVEN FREE WILL to be good or bad in any given instance.
We need to focus on what is going on with the terrorist coming here and keep our focus on the war, our troops and our security holes right here on our soil.
I beleive you should have got the green borders on your last two posts as well.
I broke in here even after saying I would stop posting. It is my friend that is here that typed this for me and he knows you and I tell the truth. I am definetly a christian following Christ. And one thing I do know is judging instead of understanding is the very essence of true christianity. No sin, doing evil, lying, stealing and on and on is what is considered wrong. Sin is a word that people have used in trying to accuse or belittle or say, if I steal, if I lie, it is not as bad as adultry...yes it is. Wrong is wrong and that is truly what sin is. The true goodness is in someone like yourself that is not following a practice of *a religion*, but rather knowing what is right or wrong. We have all sinned, done wrong...Period. It's what you do to fix the mistake, forgive and try not to do wrong, sin in that manner or other matters that are deceitful and evil.
Our terroist are EVIL. That is the absolute number one priorty and you are 100% right, good post.
Janelle wants me to introduce myself. I am Don, her faithful friend spending the week-end with her. She had been feeling when she left her apartment someone was coming in and we needed to get her company going. She is pretty devestated, after coming home from her doctor appointment, her home had been robbed. I feel horrible for her as she is such a good woman and we will always remain friends. I am going to her management office and see if we can get her out of this place since she lives alone.
She has told me from just after a few of your posts her deep admiration for you and how you showed her so much kindess and wrote to her a few times because you grew to care. And she RAVES about your honesty, your candor and the love and respect for your fine lady. She does seem to be the very essence of a loving wife.
God Bless You...OOPS...she asked me to say,
Here's Looking at You Kid! (She is smiling, God I am happy to see that in her. She is wearing hand braces until her surgeory in about two weeks.
Don Reitsma of Chicago, and soon one of her members on her board, giving me tax breaks...(what a lady for that too!) to help her fund a deep dream she has had since she was a young Mother, and found a missing piece in her heart many years later through no fault of her own.
She is an amazing woman and has helped hundreds of people in three non profit groups. And here she goes again...Inspirational Journeys. Org. and Janelle'song. Org. I will meet the man she says reminds her of you, Charles Prince that loves to see her when she comes in to visit him on Wednesday's. He is an impressive man and she says he has energy like a teen. I've read the magazine he is editor of from, Max Lucado's church that reaches millions worldwide. When she is better he wants her on board.
Thanks Arnold, and this is from one man to another.
Be Well
You did show once again Arnold what your core values are and those values are why I have tremendous respect for you.
The essence of true chritianity is understanding, not judging, forgiving and going forward be it man or woman and not sinning again in what you were forgiven for. Striving to be a decent moral person in your values and conduct yourselves, treat others as you so want to be treated. Being wise in your words not tearing down and destroying because the words from your mouth say so much about you and can offend others.
Sorry. I'm heading to a pharmacy that is open 24 hours, the doctor ordered a mild anxiety pill for my dear friend so she can get some sleep, she had so much stolen.
This is Don Catch and I believe exactly as you do about homosexual and marriage. I grew up Catholic along with my parents. I am now going to a church in a suburb of Chicago, Oak Lawn. It is a Wesleyan church. This is one of our founding churches here in the United States.
Janelle does know the whole quote you gave above very well and was addressing the part Arnold referred to. She feels all sins are equal. She does not feel a homosexual should feel they should not feel welcome in a church. She has her feelings about homosexual marriage and she keeps some things to herself. She feels Reverand Sensing is heading in the right direction. She respects all religions but is weary of the radicals that attacked us and many other freedom lands that have been killed due to the radicals.
I really can see how you could spend a lot of time here but I came to help her out and she asked me to type her feelings. Her hands are in braces. She respects MANY others that frequent here. Her appreciation is to Arnold and his openess on this subject. She does not say if she feels it is right or wrong. I am the one that disagree's with homosexuals lifestyle and that is my right, so let's make that clear.
This just meant a lot to her and I wanted to do this for Janelle.
Don, I am truly sorry your lady Janelle is in pain from arthritis and that her house was burglarized. That you are helping her marks you as a good guy, because in the end, good deeds count for a lot more than just good words, except in cases where the good words ARE the good deeds.
Catch, I'm not certain about the meaning the rest of that bible quote that I used. I guess I will have to depend on someone who knows the bible better, like Paul Burgess, to explain it.
Everybody, I'm overwhelmed by the multiple green borders in comments for a single post, which in the scale of things on Dean's World, is sort of singular.
The older I get, the more I try to live in accord with what I think is a useful and ethically solid philosopy, and to do so in concord with my fellow man and woman. But in order to turn such an attempts into accomplishments means that you have to be utterly honest with yourself, casting out prejudice, false premises and mindless unreason.
There's a lot of that going around in connection with the entire question of sexuality in general and homosexuality in particular. And I should know, because for a long time I've been one of one of the people that I'm now asking the rest of this society not to be. Whenever anyone would treat homosexuals and their rights to equality with contempt, I would be there hee-hawing like the rest of the jackasses, insisting on the righteousness of all this with the pride of some sort of tin-horn southern Wisconsin lucifer.
Well, to hell with all that. If something is wrong, I aim to say so, and if something is right, I aim to say so as well. If you folks are going to pump me up by giving me green borders around my comments for lecturing hundreds and maybe thousands of you all at once, I guess I owe to all of you to act like a straight shooter. For most of us, that more properly describes what we say to one another rather than how well we put slugs into downrange paper targets. And that certainly applies here on this finest of the blogsites that I have run across.
No, I don't pray like many of you do, maybe even most of you. For me, that would be another profound form of fakery. But I want to hit the sack each night and greet the sunrise the next morning knowing that I told truth as I saw it, and that I helped sustain justice where I saw it lacking.
And I think that if every one of us does something like that, we will all have the pride that comes from knowing we defended the right, each of us in some small way. If I've got this correctly, that's the way Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, Lincoln and all the other great men designed and built America, wasn't it? The idea, that if democracy in general and American as a stable republican democracy in particular are to be made to work, we all have to work at it just as if all the citizens were part of one great team?
So that's part of what I had in mind when I got involved in this particular topic once again on Dean's World a few days ago. But the other part of it was thinking of the response of Richard Cheney, vice president of the United States, and his answer recently given to the question of a constitutional amendment that would have stripped away the civil rights of his own daughter, a homosexual. He stood with the right. And if he can do that, so can the rest of us.
Catch, thank you for the explanation. I now understand the second clause to be a reinforcement of the first.
I think anyone can see the common sense utility of this sage biblical advice, unbelievers as well as believers. In the years leading up to my birth in 1934, people in Germany indeed followed a multitude to do some of the most massive evil the world has seen, and all those people most certainly reinforced each other in the evils of the hitlerite gang.
You, as the profound believer that I imagine you to be from your comments, probably would tell me that those Germans not only suspended their beliefs in justice and righteousness, but went so far as to transfer their loyalties from their traditional christian faiths back to paganism and made Adolf Hitler their god on earth. And I would agree that this is exactly what the seriously believing national socialists among them did.
From which, I would deduce that if people are going to shuck belief in a traditional value system that kept a society afloat and more or less at peace with itself and its neighbors for an extended period, they should not trade in these beliefs for the false currency of totalitarianism.
The FMA will never pass unless the Supreme Court pulls a Massachusetts and says the Constitution allows/requires gay marriage.
And it'll be like what happened when the fat lady backed up into the propeller.
/Disaster.
//yes, dumb, but no dumber than the extremists on both sides of this debate
But lately I have become convinced from my objectivist son, Max Harris, who is always logical and rational, that the state has no more business regulating relationships between consenting adults than it does regulating the economy, education or anything else not specifically enumerated in the Constitution of the United States.
Marriage is obviously a relationship between consenting adults. Most of us are heterosexual, including me and my wife. So we have a heterosexual relationship, including a heterosexual marriage. But for a smaller percentage of the society, homosexuality and not heterosexuality is the normative relationship between consenting adults. These people are law-abiding and tax-paying citizens and ought to have identical rights to define their own sexual relationships among other consenting adults.
Therefore, I now think Max is right. The rest of us have no business trying to fit homosexuals into our heterosexual mode, and even less business trying to use the state as an enforcement arm of our particular brand of sexuality.
Another consideration is that heterosexual marriage always has been treated as a favorable status under the tax codes of the United States and all its constituent states. But the purpose of taxtaking ought to be focused on raising funds for vital governmental expenses, not for making social policy.
Does this mean that I am approve of homosexual behavior? Except for minors, military personnel on duty, and persons under confinement, human relationships — including sexual ones — ought not to be dependent upon the consent of others.
I am heterosexual, and my own sexual orientation depends on nobody else's approval. Nor do I need the psychological reinforcement of majority consent to seek the physical love of women and not of men.
In addition to all of the above, we ought to have learned by now that the Constitution of the United States ought not to be amended merely to steer the nation around problems that are seen as widespread social ills. We tried that with the national prohibition amendment, only to undo this ill-advised amendment 13 years later.
There is also a suggestion in this matter that determination of the legality of adult relationships other than those involving one man and one woman ought to be left to the states to determine or ignore. A lot could be said for the 50 states to set their own policies in these as in so many other matters.
Finally, there is the question of priority. Right now, the key issue facing America is stopping and rolling back the spread of islamo-fascist terrorism. All of us as Americans ought to stop and consider whether this is an appropriate time to pick fights among ourselves over something as basic — or as fleeting, depending upon your interpretation — of sexual orientation and preferences among consenting adults.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
In addition, I do not think that permitting homosexual marriages will at all affect heterosexual marriages. Other than through adoption, which is not under question here, homosexuals do not typically bring children to life, and we do.
I have thought about this question at length lately. And I am no longer convinced that homosexual marriages or relationships have anything to do with threatening the marriages and other relationships of heterosexuals.
Remember, it is the question of relationships among consenting adults that we are discussing here, not at all the perverse attention that pedophiles pay to children. I am not even certain to what degree, if any, homosexuals in general have any connection with pedophilia or are influenced by them.
Is marriage a spiritual bond as well as one based on companionship? Probably so, depending on the degree of religiosity embedded in the lives of any two people in such a relationship.
But who can say that homosexuals cannot be just as religious — and just as sincerely so — as any heterosexual? You already know from my comments that I reject faith in favor of reason. However, I recognize that many — perhaps most — other people have some degree of faith, and that some of them have have a high degree of such beliefs in their value systems. If so, why can they not believe in such particularist concepts as the divinity of Mary, Jesus, Mohamad, Moses, Buddha, Krishna, etc, and at the same time be homosexuals? And why should they be punished for this with even greater contempt that some persons of faith hold for someone like me who lacks all such faith?
In the end, my argument devolves to this question: Do homosexuals have rights equal to those of all other American citizens? I think the only logical, reasonable and, yes, morally correct answer to this question is that, so long as the manner in which these people conduct their lives do not threaten the rights of the rest of us, then they must have the right to determine how they define their relationships with one another, just as the rest of us do, for love, companionship, or just the mundane tasks of maintaining a household.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
I quickly scanned your reply. My apologies if I do not answer in a reasonable time frame. Somehow or other time always eludes me and Friday and Saturday will be very busy days for me. I will definitely respond to issues you raise. The subject matter for myself has some interesting conflictive nuances. Essentially, it does not substantiate to merely an equal rights issue.
You are my hero. If I'm ever in Wisconsin, I owe you a big kiss.
The argument that, yes, marriage has changed a lot since WWII, but those were bad changes that should be at least partially undone to make life easier for children—that argument seems to me a reasonable one. I do think that conservatives who make it would be on firmer ground if they additionally argued that tax breaks and other entitlements should kick in when people actually go ahead and have children, but that doesn't necessarily vitiate the argument. The number of gay marriage advocates who skate over the issues children add to the equation astonishes me.
Besides, it's also true that a lot of them (the advocates, not the children) are using social approval as one of their bedrock reasons, however much yammering they do about what is and is not anyone else's business. I'm grateful to Jonathan Rauch and Andrew Sullivan for detailing the ways they think being unable to marry makes our relationships harder to sustain. It's difficult emotional territory and not easy to handle as well as they do. But the fact remains that, in the end, using those considerations as a basis for social policy just reinforces the idea that we want everyone else to approve of our sex lives.
Since a lot of people don't approve, that would be a bad tactic even if it were more ethically defensible, but activists don't seem to be able to let it go. Even domestic-partner benefits would probably get more support if the romantic-partner aspect were detached from the issue. (As in, two unmarried straight people who'd agreed to take care of each other for life, in whatever arrangement of beds, could also qualify to assign each other rights to hospital visitation, power of attorney, and Social Security benefits.) You have to resign yourself to the fact that gay relationships won't be in the same category as marriages then, though, and no one seems to be willing to do that.
So what I think will probably happen is this: If gay marriage is foisted on people, legislators are likely just to find a way to transfer benefits away from marriage into some new man-woman category, anyway. They'll call it matrimony or reproductive marriage or what have you, but it'll happen. Activists will have redefined the word marriage in legal terms, but that will have been it. And they'll still be left with their issues.
First the kielbasa with some good Polish beer, then the kiss. My slavic lady is practical as can be, and I bet you are too.
I hope the two young ones are letting you get some sleep at night.
About the issue at hand, which was denying homosexuals a certain fundamental civil liberty, and amending the US Constitution to accomplish this. One of the things I picked up from reading, of all things, the bible, was this:
"Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil."
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
If people wish to put forth certain spiritual or social ideals of marriage, they are free to do that in their churches, their synagogues, among their friends and neighbors, and so on. What need for state intervention?
A reality as I see it is that homosexuality has always been with us and will always be and, while some may label it sinful or yucky (as is their right) so long as these folks are not harming each other, we have a reality today we never had 100 or more years ago: whereas in centuries past most people died by the age of 45 or so at the latest, and homosexuals were an underground phenomenon, they were not noticed. Now we have greater wealth, greater mobility, greater lifespans, and these folks are finding each other and making choices.
Let them be free to make them. If the critics are right and it harms them, then the critics are free to offer them counseling or guidance. If the critics are wrong, people can tell them to mind their own business. Whatever. An empirical reality is that they're here and they're queer and let's just let it be. There is no need for massive state intervention here.
And there is no reason to declare that THE STATE is the ultimate determiner of the validity of a marriage. Marriage licenses never existed 200 years ago. They were created as a convenient way for the state and the courts to recognize relationships people were establishing privately. So it would be with gay marriages: neither blessing nor condoning, but merely recognizing the relationship to make life easier for the courts in settling disputes and distributing properties and suchlike. Anything else is up to church, family, philosophy, and what have you.
Of course, it would be difficult for one to admit that point of view and hold contrary views re:
social experimentation.
Marriage existed 200 years ago. And it existed 2000 years ago. And maybe before that. It isn't just a matter of the marriage licenses.
If one's sole purpose is to get a government approved piece of paper indicating applicant one and applicant two are 'married' then one needs re-examine the nature of social contracts. Or move to San Francisco. They'll provide the paperwork.
So the real question isn't, "denying homosexuals a certain fundamental civil liberty ?" but what is the authentic nature of marriage ?
I will only say this regarding my definition of what marriage is or ought to be. In my opinion, it means that a man or woman vows, before their family or friends or whoever else they care for, before whatever Deity or Deities they worship, or before the mind perceiving objective reality (as Ayn Rand would put it), and before the entire world, to love and to be faithful to one other man or woman till death do they part, or for eternity depending on your theology. All the legal and societal rights, privileges, and obligations that accrue to a married couple are the sauce, so to speak. But the steak, the marriage itself, is the total commitment they make to each other. And I want to see homosexual men and women, as well as heterosexual men and women, make that commitment. I long to make that commitment myself.
And I will not have the state, far less the federal government, "redefine" marriage so as to impede that commitment and banish one minority of consenting adult men and women, however tiny that minority may be, to the bathhouses or worse.
Let's just keep the federal government out of this, period. The President is, more than anything else in this time of War, the Commander in Chief of the armed forces, and that is what he should be doing. Should any federal court be so foolish as to try to force a one-size-fits-all solution on the whole country, then I would certainly support the Barney Frank Amendment to leave marriage to the states, just to avoid a civil war when we are already at War against an external enemy that wants to enslave and/or kill us all.
This is fixed in law. For purposes of discussion, this is definition about which this commenter is speaking:
Marriage: the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a legal, consensual, and contractual relationship recognized and sanctioned by and dissolvable only by law.
And for purposes of discussion, this commenter is not condemning any person or any relationship they might have with any other person.
I think that, as you do, the definition of "marriage" is deeply embedded in the human race. It is far more than 200 or even 2000 years old. It is found in every society, even the most primitive tribal cultures. Most embrace some form of monogamy, although some (a minority but they're there) embrace various forms of group or serial marriage. But the norm in the species Homo Sapiens is some form of monogamy encouraged by social custom and bonded by taboos of varying levels of effectiveness.
The question then is whether this bonding behavior is a creation of state or social action, or whether it's jut something human beings naturally do, and that society can only shape and mold.
I view it as the latter. And so, say, unlike the Catholic Church, I do not see it as a sacrement or an order from on high. I see it as something humans naturally do, like laughing and talking and eating and sleeping. We just do it. Sooner or later a man picks a woman and, if she'll have him, they bond. In most societies, some form of ritual is attached to this.
Humans just plain do this. They don't need to be ordered to do it.
I think marriage licenses are a mere legal convenience for the state to keep track of pesky questions involving credit, inheritance, and so on. It saves the courts and the authorities all sorts of headaches on certain thorny questions.
I think that the Rev. Sensing (no squishy liberal he) once had a very sensible proposal that he published in the Wall Street Journal--that the state stop issuing marriage licenses entirely. The state should simply issue domestic partnership licenses which carried all those same benefits, and should remove itself from the question of what is or is not the "definition of marriage." What constitutes marriage can then be left to church, family, tradition, custom, etc. and, frankly, if you don't like what you see prevailing in your community, you can leave for another one where you like things better.
It all boils down, I think, to whether you believe marriage is sustained by the state, or sustained by biology, faith, and custom.
Gays are forming pair bonds. I think they don't need our approval for this. There are a number of legal headaches that can be solved by giving them some sort of recognition of their status, and also there is an argument for simple fairness, which some would call an "emotional" argument but which I would say is entirely rational: there's nothing wrong with trying to be fair to people. Civil society is built on trying to basically be fair in how we deal with people under the law, regardless of whether we like them or not.
I don't think you could have surprised me any more if you had announced to us all that you had just become a Wisconsin Synod Lutheran.
(Sorry, Arnold, didn't mean to make you spray coffee all over your keyboard! :)
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I've done some serious thinking about this entire question of homosexual bonding, or marriage, or whatever you want to call it. partly prodded by my objectivist son, as I indicated in my first comment.
Max Harris, one of my three sons, is neither a homosexual nor is he a religious believer. But in addition to having a fine mind honed on the sharpening stone of reason, he is one of the most ethical people I have ever come across, and that attitude stamps its mark on all his relationships. One of the ways I define ethics, for these purposes, is the readiness of a person to practice in private exactly what he or she preaches in public.
One time when I was expounding to him about what I thought were threats to marriage in general posed by homosexual bonding under the same desigation, he asked me to think about the following considerations:
First, what exactly is marriage, and if no children are to be born from such a relationship, why must it be limited to persons of the opposite sex?
Second, how exactly do homosexual relationships threaten my heterosexual relationship with my wife in general and our marriage in particular?
Third, what element of the original Constitution of the United States authorizes the federal government to regulate marriage?
Fourth, what element of the original Constitution of the United States authorizes the federal government to levy differential taxes based upon existence (or lack of it) of a bonding contract between two individuals regulating their personal, sexual and household relationships?
The fact is, I could find no answers that suitable to contradict Max's questions. And to say otherwise would have been akin to contradicting the spherical shape of planet Earth.
So I will restate what I said in one of my earlier comments on this post: Do homosexuals have rights equal to those of all other American citizens? I am sure everyone knows that the answer is, and must remain, "yes".
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
I picked them out of thin air because Wisconsin Synod Lutherans are usually hardheaded, left-brain, unyielding, outspoken, and they stick to their guns without giving a damn whether anyone else agrees or disagrees with them. Also, unlike many conservative Protestant groups, Wisconsin Synod folks are not at all moralistic in their attitudes or behavior— they know how to have a good time, and they love good beer.
Ummmm, except for the element of faith, does this bear some resemblance to our favorite heathen here on Dean's World? (Once again, sorry about that coffee and your keyboard... :)
But assuming that all versions of the bible say more or less the same thing in spirit if not in language, the quote that comes to mind is the one I cited in a comment to Janelle.
"Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil."
The spirit of the old-time Protestant America whose ways are the very basis of the great American culture is that each of us has free will to good or bad, and that we have individual responsible to do what is right in any given instance. And I hold to that notion, with or without the christianity.
That means that even if all my friends stand in the street baying like wolves about the sexual lives of other adult Americans, not only will I not join in with them, but I will work to defend the right even if it costs me whatever personal popularity I might enjoy at any moment.
I'm not saying from any of this that I favor homosexuality or its practices. What I am saying is that I have come to think that their sexual practices are none of my damned business, and certainly not the business of the government, so long as it involves only consenting adults, and their practices cost me nothing in the way of extra tax dollars, and the rest of this kind of standard that I apply to almost everything else.
Whether what they do might be sinful or not, how in hell could I know? I don't particularly put much stock in concepts such as "sin", and in any case, I don't think that infant children are born in such a status of sin in any case. And if there is such a thing as sin, it more correctly applies to people who systematically pump up hatred in themselves and others, in regard to people who are born to be different from themselves.
Anyway, enough of this crap. We need to unite America in defense of liberty and its associated freedoms. We are not going to accomplish that making public war against America's homosexuals.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
On the other hand, restrictions in our basic freedoms established for anything less than some immediate and pressing reason — such as to stop the damned terrorists from destroying our cities and the lives of our citizens — is always an unsupportable idea. Sort of like trying to take away my guns just because some moron thinks they look ugly and threatening.
(Ugly and menacing they sometimes are, but the practical outcome of that depends strictly on whether some other well-known type of moron gets his or her hands on such a firearm. And in my circle, we take pains to make sure that doesn't happen.)
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
This nation was founded on Protestant America whose ways ARE THE VERY BASIS of OUR GREAT AMMERICAN CULTURE!
Absolutely we are GIVEN FREE WILL to be good or bad in any given instance.
We need to focus on what is going on with the terrorist coming here and keep our focus on the war, our troops and our security holes right here on our soil.
I beleive you should have got the green borders on your last two posts as well.
I broke in here even after saying I would stop posting. It is my friend that is here that typed this for me and he knows you and I tell the truth. I am definetly a christian following Christ. And one thing I do know is judging instead of understanding is the very essence of true christianity. No sin, doing evil, lying, stealing and on and on is what is considered wrong. Sin is a word that people have used in trying to accuse or belittle or say, if I steal, if I lie, it is not as bad as adultry...yes it is. Wrong is wrong and that is truly what sin is. The true goodness is in someone like yourself that is not following a practice of *a religion*, but rather knowing what is right or wrong. We have all sinned, done wrong...Period. It's what you do to fix the mistake, forgive and try not to do wrong, sin in that manner or other matters that are deceitful and evil.
Our terroist are EVIL. That is the absolute number one priorty and you are 100% right, good post.
Janelle wants me to introduce myself. I am Don, her faithful friend spending the week-end with her. She had been feeling when she left her apartment someone was coming in and we needed to get her company going. She is pretty devestated, after coming home from her doctor appointment, her home had been robbed. I feel horrible for her as she is such a good woman and we will always remain friends. I am going to her management office and see if we can get her out of this place since she lives alone.
She has told me from just after a few of your posts her deep admiration for you and how you showed her so much kindess and wrote to her a few times because you grew to care. And she RAVES about your honesty, your candor and the love and respect for your fine lady. She does seem to be the very essence of a loving wife.
God Bless You...OOPS...she asked me to say,
Here's Looking at You Kid! (She is smiling, God I am happy to see that in her. She is wearing hand braces until her surgeory in about two weeks.
Don Reitsma of Chicago, and soon one of her members on her board, giving me tax breaks...(what a lady for that too!) to help her fund a deep dream she has had since she was a young Mother, and found a missing piece in her heart many years later through no fault of her own.
She is an amazing woman and has helped hundreds of people in three non profit groups. And here she goes again...Inspirational Journeys. Org. and Janelle'song. Org. I will meet the man she says reminds her of you, Charles Prince that loves to see her when she comes in to visit him on Wednesday's. He is an impressive man and she says he has energy like a teen. I've read the magazine he is editor of from, Max Lucado's church that reaches millions worldwide. When she is better he wants her on board.
Thanks Arnold, and this is from one man to another.
Be Well
You did show once again Arnold what your core values are and those values are why I have tremendous respect for you.
And to gather the benefit of the entire meaning of the quotation read all of it:
"Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment. (Exodus 23:2)
The essence of true chritianity is understanding, not judging, forgiving and going forward be it man or woman and not sinning again in what you were forgiven for. Striving to be a decent moral person in your values and conduct yourselves, treat others as you so want to be treated. Being wise in your words not tearing down and destroying because the words from your mouth say so much about you and can offend others.
Sorry. I'm heading to a pharmacy that is open 24 hours, the doctor ordered a mild anxiety pill for my dear friend so she can get some sleep, she had so much stolen.
Janelle does know the whole quote you gave above very well and was addressing the part Arnold referred to. She feels all sins are equal. She does not feel a homosexual should feel they should not feel welcome in a church. She has her feelings about homosexual marriage and she keeps some things to herself. She feels Reverand Sensing is heading in the right direction. She respects all religions but is weary of the radicals that attacked us and many other freedom lands that have been killed due to the radicals.
I really can see how you could spend a lot of time here but I came to help her out and she asked me to type her feelings. Her hands are in braces. She respects MANY others that frequent here. Her appreciation is to Arnold and his openess on this subject. She does not say if she feels it is right or wrong. I am the one that disagree's with homosexuals lifestyle and that is my right, so let's make that clear.
This just meant a lot to her and I wanted to do this for Janelle.
Don Reitsma
Chicago, Illinois
IMO this issue will be decided by the Supremes in due course. But that's another subject.
Catch, I'm not certain about the meaning the rest of that bible quote that I used. I guess I will have to depend on someone who knows the bible better, like Paul Burgess, to explain it.
Everybody, I'm overwhelmed by the multiple green borders in comments for a single post, which in the scale of things on Dean's World, is sort of singular.
The older I get, the more I try to live in accord with what I think is a useful and ethically solid philosopy, and to do so in concord with my fellow man and woman. But in order to turn such an attempts into accomplishments means that you have to be utterly honest with yourself, casting out prejudice, false premises and mindless unreason.
There's a lot of that going around in connection with the entire question of sexuality in general and homosexuality in particular. And I should know, because for a long time I've been one of one of the people that I'm now asking the rest of this society not to be. Whenever anyone would treat homosexuals and their rights to equality with contempt, I would be there hee-hawing like the rest of the jackasses, insisting on the righteousness of all this with the pride of some sort of tin-horn southern Wisconsin lucifer.
Well, to hell with all that. If something is wrong, I aim to say so, and if something is right, I aim to say so as well. If you folks are going to pump me up by giving me green borders around my comments for lecturing hundreds and maybe thousands of you all at once, I guess I owe to all of you to act like a straight shooter. For most of us, that more properly describes what we say to one another rather than how well we put slugs into downrange paper targets. And that certainly applies here on this finest of the blogsites that I have run across.
No, I don't pray like many of you do, maybe even most of you. For me, that would be another profound form of fakery. But I want to hit the sack each night and greet the sunrise the next morning knowing that I told truth as I saw it, and that I helped sustain justice where I saw it lacking.
And I think that if every one of us does something like that, we will all have the pride that comes from knowing we defended the right, each of us in some small way. If I've got this correctly, that's the way Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, Lincoln and all the other great men designed and built America, wasn't it? The idea, that if democracy in general and American as a stable republican democracy in particular are to be made to work, we all have to work at it just as if all the citizens were part of one great team?
So that's part of what I had in mind when I got involved in this particular topic once again on Dean's World a few days ago. But the other part of it was thinking of the response of Richard Cheney, vice president of the United States, and his answer recently given to the question of a constitutional amendment that would have stripped away the civil rights of his own daughter, a homosexual. He stood with the right. And if he can do that, so can the rest of us.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
I thought it in the interest of accuracy that if one quotes from the bible, the quotation ought include the whole sentence.
The sentence above can be understood in other biblical editions to read:
"Thou shalt not follow the multitude to do evil: neither shalt thou yield in judgment, to the opinion of the most part, to stray from the truth." or
"Do not be moved to do wrong by the general opinion, or give the support of your words to a wrong decision."
I think anyone can see the common sense utility of this sage biblical advice, unbelievers as well as believers. In the years leading up to my birth in 1934, people in Germany indeed followed a multitude to do some of the most massive evil the world has seen, and all those people most certainly reinforced each other in the evils of the hitlerite gang.
You, as the profound believer that I imagine you to be from your comments, probably would tell me that those Germans not only suspended their beliefs in justice and righteousness, but went so far as to transfer their loyalties from their traditional christian faiths back to paganism and made Adolf Hitler their god on earth. And I would agree that this is exactly what the seriously believing national socialists among them did.
From which, I would deduce that if people are going to shuck belief in a traditional value system that kept a society afloat and more or less at peace with itself and its neighbors for an extended period, they should not trade in these beliefs for the false currency of totalitarianism.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI