Those of us who oppose marriage neutering are often accused of supporting discrimination.
I'd like to confess.
I'm guilty as charged.
Yes, defending marriage involves discrimination.
But those pushing to neuter marriage, or as they would put it, pushing for "marriage equality" – they discriminate as well in everything, including their position on marriage licensing.
The truth is, we all discriminate. We couldn't function if we didn't. We discriminate against staying in bed longer or getting up earlier. We discriminate between eating this or eating that. We discriminate in whether or not to ask any given person for a date or whether or not to accept a request for a date. In decisions large and small, we discriminate - and we should. In addition, all of our laws discriminate - separating what is legal from what is illegal.
So, yes, defending marriage is discrimination, but not illegal, unfair, immoral, arbitrary, or unconstitutional discrimination.
What our laws can't Constitutionally - and shouldn't - do is discriminate against individuals on the basis of their ethnicity, sex (with some exceptions), or, in many places, sexual orientation.
Bride+groom marriage licensing doesn't. Nor does neutered marriage licensing. But the burden of proof in most states and at the federal level, rests on those who are pushing to neuter marriage to show that bride+groom marriage licensing unconstitutionally discriminates, necessitating a change.
They have failed to do so. That an individual does not want to participate in something to which he or she has access does not mean the access isn't there.
Note that even neutered marriage licensing still discriminates – against groups of three or more, individuals who are already married to other people, couples consisting of close relatives, and so forth.
Setting some criteria for state licensing of anything is appropriate and constitutional. Marriage defenders usually have just one more criterion than the marriage neutering advocates – that both sexes are represented in this voluntary association that is seeking public sanction as marriage.
(This is modified from an entry originally posted at The Opine Editorials.)
I'd like to confess.
I'm guilty as charged.
Yes, defending marriage involves discrimination.
But those pushing to neuter marriage, or as they would put it, pushing for "marriage equality" – they discriminate as well in everything, including their position on marriage licensing.
The truth is, we all discriminate. We couldn't function if we didn't. We discriminate against staying in bed longer or getting up earlier. We discriminate between eating this or eating that. We discriminate in whether or not to ask any given person for a date or whether or not to accept a request for a date. In decisions large and small, we discriminate - and we should. In addition, all of our laws discriminate - separating what is legal from what is illegal.
So, yes, defending marriage is discrimination, but not illegal, unfair, immoral, arbitrary, or unconstitutional discrimination.
What our laws can't Constitutionally - and shouldn't - do is discriminate against individuals on the basis of their ethnicity, sex (with some exceptions), or, in many places, sexual orientation.
Bride+groom marriage licensing doesn't. Nor does neutered marriage licensing. But the burden of proof in most states and at the federal level, rests on those who are pushing to neuter marriage to show that bride+groom marriage licensing unconstitutionally discriminates, necessitating a change.
They have failed to do so. That an individual does not want to participate in something to which he or she has access does not mean the access isn't there.
Note that even neutered marriage licensing still discriminates – against groups of three or more, individuals who are already married to other people, couples consisting of close relatives, and so forth.
Setting some criteria for state licensing of anything is appropriate and constitutional. Marriage defenders usually have just one more criterion than the marriage neutering advocates – that both sexes are represented in this voluntary association that is seeking public sanction as marriage.
(This is modified from an entry originally posted at The Opine Editorials.)
PW: "Setting some criteria for state licensing of anything is appropriate and constitutional. "
ReplyDeleteNot all criteria pass that test. Some criteria might be constitutional while other criteria would not be.
If requirements are enforced with the sole purpose of excluding a class of individuals, that's akin to the literacy tests and poll taxes that were once used to exclude a class of people from voting. and that practice was not allowed to stand.
So when it comes to that one criterion for marriage licensing on which we disagree - the requirement that the parties be of the opposite sex, thus excluding anyone whose chosen mate is of the same sex - what is the purpose of that exclusion ? That might show whether or not it passes reasonable tests for fairness, or whether it is constitutional.
OK, it's time to come clean since they're on to us. Our religious scriptures, doctrines & traditions about marriage, and our family law traditions, going back thousands of years all over the world, were nothing more than one enormous, extended, elaborate, extremely secret, worldwide, omnicultural, panreligious, omniethnic, interclass conspiracy put together for the sole purpose of hurting the feelings of homosexual people.
DeleteThe really difficult part was getting the Greeks, every Founding Father who wrote and adopted our Constitution (including the Amendments, like the 14th), every President of the United States, every Supreme Court Justice, every single great historical religious leader, every great historical moral or civil rights leader (including Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr) and even most gay rights leaders and every head of state to go along with the ruse for so long. Somehow, we managed to keep publications as diverse as Time, Newsweek, Cosmo, and Playboy from talking about it until relatively recently.