[This entry is a little dated now, but the principles behind it endure because the truth doesn't change.]
Leftists love to say something they want is a "right". They think merely stating that something is a right should end debate.
In recent years, we've heard a lot from Leftists and those they've bamboozled that homosexual couples have a "right to marry" and that "marriage equality" is a "right".
Discussions about these matters need to be clear about what is being addressed: Are we talking about the freedom to have a ceremony and share lives? Or are we talking about getting a state-issued "marriage" license?
I personally know homosexual couples who "married" years before any country or state starting calling such pairings "marriage". Were my homosexual friends lying about getting married? That seems to be the implication of marriage neutering advocates, including those in the MSM, who refer to laws including the bride+groom requirement as "bans on gay marriage". However, what neuterists are referring to is not a basic freedom of association, but getting a state-issued license, often in violation of the freedom of association and the right to vote. There is a right for two (or more) people of whatever sex to personally associate with each other as they wish. There is not a right to force the rest of us to license such relationships and call it marriage.
Where do marriage neutering advocates get this notion that state-licensed marriage ia a right? They usually cite Loving v. Virginia, but while that is an effective emotional manipulation, logically the connection doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
The right to marry is not enumerated in the Constitution, but the Constitution exists to tell government what it CAN do, and not to list all of our rights. Oh, but look. Our founding documents and the discussion surrounding their adoption indicate that we have property rights, free enterprise rights, freedom of religion, the right to associate – or not – with whomever we want. Those seem to me to be in conflict with the "right" to force other people who have voted to keep marriage licensing to instead neuter those licenses so that they are no longer marriage licenses but "any two people of age, not closely related and neither of whom is currently married to other" licenses. The people who wrote and adopted the Constitution and all of the Amendments did so with no thought whatsoever that a brideless or groomless pairing must be licensed by states. Also, it appears that individuals and their private businesses should not be forced to participate in ceremonies they do not support.
It brings me once again to the larger question of rights. What are rights and where do they come from? Not all freedoms and entitlements are rights. Quite often, laws that some people think give them rights are actually infringing on the rights of others. A "right" to own a slave in America violated the rights of the person enslaved against their will. Our founders maintained that rights come from God (or Nature, for those of you who get queasy at the thought of God), not the government. The government exists to protect our existing rights, and should be limited to as not to infringe on our rights. That was the thinking. It was the kind of thinking that looked as rights as something that never obligate others without their consent or without a crime being committed. But these days, it seems like things become "rights" simply because someone wants them to be.
We have the right to free speech because we were born with the ability to communicate. We only have the right to marry in so far as we can find someone willing to be our spouse and something willing to perform the wedding.
I have an experiment I want to try and I encourage you to try it as well. The next time someone you are in communication with refers to the "right to marry", try asking them one or more of the following questions:
"How did you decide getting a state-issued license is a right?"[1]
"What makes something a right?"
"How do we know the difference between what is a right and what isn’t a right?"
"Do you think there are still undiscovered rights out there that we'll be talking about in the future, the way we talk about marriage now, but people didn't thirty years ago?"[2]
"Does voting something into effect make it a right? If so, does that mean that if there is a subsequent vote that goes differently that there is no longer a right to that thing?"
"Does a court decision make something a right? If so, does a subsequent reversal by a court mean that the right no longer exists?"
Clearly, when someone talks about a "right to same-sex marriage", they reveal their understanding that rights exist independently of the law, whether they realize that or not. They are claiming there is a right to something, and that laws should be passed to reflect that. That is the obvious conclusion, because most states and the federal government currently don't recognize brideless or groomless pairings as marriage.
Now, over the years there were rights of individuals that were wrongly infringed upon as policy by the government, or the government's failure to protect those individuals. Thankfully, those errors were corrected. But the rights were not new – we simply stopped the government from infringing upon or failing to protect the rights of those individuals – the same rights that others enjoyed unencumbered by government infringement. The "right" to get a state "marriage" license without a bride or without a groom is new. Nobody had that right before.
So what makes something a right? Hollywood darlings saying it is? Polls? Congressional vote? Or do rights come from something or someone transcendent, like God? It's pretty sad if we think something is a right just because a we want a whiny group of activists to shut up already.
Our rights come from God. The best government protects those rights instead of infringing upon them, and the rights of one individual do not infringe upon those of another.
Previously:
Rights Are Not Handouts, and Handouts Are Not Rights
Leftists love to say something they want is a "right". They think merely stating that something is a right should end debate.
In recent years, we've heard a lot from Leftists and those they've bamboozled that homosexual couples have a "right to marry" and that "marriage equality" is a "right".
Discussions about these matters need to be clear about what is being addressed: Are we talking about the freedom to have a ceremony and share lives? Or are we talking about getting a state-issued "marriage" license?
I personally know homosexual couples who "married" years before any country or state starting calling such pairings "marriage". Were my homosexual friends lying about getting married? That seems to be the implication of marriage neutering advocates, including those in the MSM, who refer to laws including the bride+groom requirement as "bans on gay marriage". However, what neuterists are referring to is not a basic freedom of association, but getting a state-issued license, often in violation of the freedom of association and the right to vote. There is a right for two (or more) people of whatever sex to personally associate with each other as they wish. There is not a right to force the rest of us to license such relationships and call it marriage.
Where do marriage neutering advocates get this notion that state-licensed marriage ia a right? They usually cite Loving v. Virginia, but while that is an effective emotional manipulation, logically the connection doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
The right to marry is not enumerated in the Constitution, but the Constitution exists to tell government what it CAN do, and not to list all of our rights. Oh, but look. Our founding documents and the discussion surrounding their adoption indicate that we have property rights, free enterprise rights, freedom of religion, the right to associate – or not – with whomever we want. Those seem to me to be in conflict with the "right" to force other people who have voted to keep marriage licensing to instead neuter those licenses so that they are no longer marriage licenses but "any two people of age, not closely related and neither of whom is currently married to other" licenses. The people who wrote and adopted the Constitution and all of the Amendments did so with no thought whatsoever that a brideless or groomless pairing must be licensed by states. Also, it appears that individuals and their private businesses should not be forced to participate in ceremonies they do not support.
It brings me once again to the larger question of rights. What are rights and where do they come from? Not all freedoms and entitlements are rights. Quite often, laws that some people think give them rights are actually infringing on the rights of others. A "right" to own a slave in America violated the rights of the person enslaved against their will. Our founders maintained that rights come from God (or Nature, for those of you who get queasy at the thought of God), not the government. The government exists to protect our existing rights, and should be limited to as not to infringe on our rights. That was the thinking. It was the kind of thinking that looked as rights as something that never obligate others without their consent or without a crime being committed. But these days, it seems like things become "rights" simply because someone wants them to be.
We have the right to free speech because we were born with the ability to communicate. We only have the right to marry in so far as we can find someone willing to be our spouse and something willing to perform the wedding.
I have an experiment I want to try and I encourage you to try it as well. The next time someone you are in communication with refers to the "right to marry", try asking them one or more of the following questions:
"How did you decide getting a state-issued license is a right?"[1]
"What makes something a right?"
"How do we know the difference between what is a right and what isn’t a right?"
"Do you think there are still undiscovered rights out there that we'll be talking about in the future, the way we talk about marriage now, but people didn't thirty years ago?"[2]
"Does voting something into effect make it a right? If so, does that mean that if there is a subsequent vote that goes differently that there is no longer a right to that thing?"
"Does a court decision make something a right? If so, does a subsequent reversal by a court mean that the right no longer exists?"
Clearly, when someone talks about a "right to same-sex marriage", they reveal their understanding that rights exist independently of the law, whether they realize that or not. They are claiming there is a right to something, and that laws should be passed to reflect that. That is the obvious conclusion, because most states and the federal government currently don't recognize brideless or groomless pairings as marriage.
Now, over the years there were rights of individuals that were wrongly infringed upon as policy by the government, or the government's failure to protect those individuals. Thankfully, those errors were corrected. But the rights were not new – we simply stopped the government from infringing upon or failing to protect the rights of those individuals – the same rights that others enjoyed unencumbered by government infringement. The "right" to get a state "marriage" license without a bride or without a groom is new. Nobody had that right before.
So what makes something a right? Hollywood darlings saying it is? Polls? Congressional vote? Or do rights come from something or someone transcendent, like God? It's pretty sad if we think something is a right just because a we want a whiny group of activists to shut up already.
Our rights come from God. The best government protects those rights instead of infringing upon them, and the rights of one individual do not infringe upon those of another.
Previously:
Rights Are Not Handouts, and Handouts Are Not Rights
Notes:
[1] Not even bride+groom couples have a right to state-issued licenses. A state doesn't have to issue marriage licenses at all. The people have found it beneficial for states to issue marriage licenses, so we do. Since the licenses are equally available to women and men, regardless of their sexual orientation, there is no violation of equaly access or equal protection. Some people might say those licenses are issued against their will, but this is where democracy comes in to play. Most people want the state to issue marriage licenses. The people have more interest in bride+groom pairings than brideless or groomless pairings, and society is perpetuated by the joining of men and women.
[2] Some marriage neutering supporters have called in the last great rights struggle, but even if a nationwide "right" to neutered licenses is invented, the Left will always invent new "rights" that "must" be granted.
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