Join the Ranks!

Apparently March 31 is the day activist groups have designated as one of their special campaign days. This time it is Transgender Day of Visibility. This is not to be confused with the Transgender Day of Remembrance, Transgender Day of No Longer Calling Yourself Gay Even Though Ex-Gays Don't Exist, or Transgender Day of Attempting to Gender Conform Even Though Gender is a Social Construct.

Remember when it was "gay and lesbian" people who were at the forefront of activism? Well, with things like marriage neutering now the nationwide Court-imposed thing that it is, the activists switched immediately to pushing "transgender," "genderfluid," "non-binary," "genderqueer", "gender nonconforming" despite how many of them insisted neutering marriage was "the last great civil rights issue."

Disunited Methodists

I'm not a member if a United Methodist Church, but my family does have multiple ties to the UMC denomination. UMCs vary widely from place to place. For example, my wife grew up in a UMC in California, and she doesn't recall ever hearing presentation or explanation of the core Gospel until she was attending a university and went to a Christian event with a classmate. She was a bit embarrassed that she'd grown up in a church and yet has missed the central point of Christianity: a proper relationship with Jesus Christ.

The LGBTQQAICDEFGHJKMNOPRSUVWXYZ activists within the denomination are trying to move the organization away from applying what has traditionally been understood as the Biblical teachings of there being men and women, marriage uniting a man and a woman, and reserving sex for marriage.

Remember when the activists said that marriage neutering wouldn't have any effect on churches?

There was a conference in February that address this. If you want the bottom line, skip down to my comments at the end.

Here's what Katherine Jackson reported for Reuters, as I found at Yahoo News (which really got crappy after the most recent corporate acquisition).

The United Methodist Church voted on Tuesday to uphold and strengthen its ban on same-sex marriage and LGBT clergy in a move likely to alienate large numbers of followers who had pushed for reform.

Ban. Ban is loaded language. We're not talking about secular law here. This is a supposedly Christian organization. There's no more a van on "same-sex marriage" than a ban on squared circles or kosher shrimp.

Also, as we'll see, there is no ban on LGBT clergy.

Will He Be Forced to Participate in a Homosexuality Ceremony That Mocks His Faith?

Today, the Supreme Court of the United States heard a case that's exactly what we knew would come about if  marriage neutering advocates were able to get the Imperial Judiciary to do their bidding in fundamentally transforming marriage law, which they did.

"We just want to be left alone."
"Stay out of our bedroom."
"We support tolerance!"
"Nobody will be hurt."

Those were lies.

Politically expedient lies, and now the activists seek exactly the opposite of those lies.

One problem with establishing imaginary "rights" is that error begets error.

An obnoxious pair of maladjusted guys, perhaps motivated by hate, deliberately avoided going to many other cake makers and sought out a well-known devout Christian, who holds longstanding, sincere, mainstream religious convictions clearly protected under the First Amendment, and as a result, will not put his artistic expression to use in support of certain events, some of which have nothing at all to do with LGBTQQUIAPPCDEFGHJKMNORSTVWXYZ people at all.

This man was willing to serve these guys.

He simply wasn't agreeable to provide artistic services for and event they said they wanted, an event that he sees as mocking and violating his religious convictions.

This hasn't stopped they homofascist activist groups from saying that gay people were denied service based on their identity, which is a lie. The guys in question didn't suffer a bit.


Yet, this businessman has had to go through a long, expensive, time-consumer battle to defend his basic rights.

If SCOTUS rules the right way, the activists will liken the ruling to mass murder, and they will try to mess with someone else's livelihood, and they will keep going until they get a favorable ruling, because that's how they operate. If SCOTUS rules the wrong way, the activists will hunt and destroy the livelihoods of any similarly devout Christians that they can.

We knew things would get this way.

5. Parents and employees will lose any "opt-out" leverage they have when it comes to promotions of homosexual behavior or neutered marriage.

6. Religious organizations, congregations, and clergy will be pressured or outright forced to perform, host, and affirm same-sex "weddings", and will be prevented from presenting Scriptural teachings about homosexual behavior or marriage uniting the sexes.

Are we about there?

How about standing up to the activists and telling them they've done more than enough to degrade our lives and destroy good institutiona and programs?

Playing Dumb About the Traditional Family

Note: I am reposting entries I made over at The Opine Editorials. This one is from mid-2011...

Under the headline of "How traditional a family?", Michael McGough blogged at LATimes.com...

When conservative politicians talk about the "traditional family," it's usually by way of denouncing same-sex marriage. But former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania (though no supporter of marriage equality) uses the concept for another purpose: to critique contemporary child-rearing practices.

In 2005, Santorum was criticized for suggesting in his book "It Takes a Family" that working women should give up their jobs and stay at home with the kids.

Actually, the offending passage was gender-neutral: "In too many families with young children both parents are working when, if they took an honest look at the budget, they might confess that both of them don't need to, or at least may not need to work as much as they do."

Yes, that silly Santorum thinks that raising children actually means being present to parent, rather than letting hired help be the primary caretakers. Silly him! What's next? Expecting employees to actually work for their paychecks?

The idea that mothers are superior caregivers for young children is politically incorrect these days, but it's widely held by the social conservatives to whom Santorum appeals.

I don't know, I agree with the idea that is generally preferable that mothers do the early primary caretaking, but maybe it is because my breasts did not inflate with milk. Maybe it is different for other men? Seriously, there are many ways women are, literally, naturally more suited -  everything from bone structure to hearing to smell to hormones and so many more. You don't have to be a social conservative to hold such an idea, though when you realize that the social Left's insistence that there's no difference between mothers and fathers is a lie that denies such an obvious reality, it may lead you to social conservatism.

Those who fight against idealizing the traditional family play dumb or act like we can't define a "traditional family" or that only a minority of families were what we call traditional at any given time in history.

Brideless or Groomless "Marriage" is a Modern Invention

From that bastion of right-wing ideology, Wikipedia, comes this history of same-sex unions...

While it is a relatively new practice that same-sex couples are being granted the same form of legal marital recognition as commonly used by mixed-sexed couples, there is a long history of recorded same-sex unions around the world.

Emphasis mine. Throughout the entry until we get to the present years, these unions are presented as something other than marriage. It has only been within recent times that any culture, religious system of more than a handful of adherents, or government has started to call brideless or groomless pairings "marriage" and included those "marriages" as the same as the uniting of a bride+groom. The vast majority today still recognize that marriage unites the sexes. Same-sex unions in history were never a widespread and ongoing part of marital systems. If one cleric "married" two men in antiquity, it was an abnormality that wasn't sustained by the culture.

But of course, someone who is willing to deny that the differences between the sexes are significant enough to distinguish marriage from same-sex unions will have no problem spinning history.

The Ideal of Married Mother and Father

All other things being equal, a child is best off being raised by his or her biological father and mother, who are married to each other. Every child naturally has a mother and father.

How did that become such a controversial statement? It used to be taken as an attack on "single mothers" or "fathers" who abandon their children, but that objection has been (temporarily) dropped as most marriage neutering advocates instead focus on objecting by claiming that the ideal is "two parents", including two people of the same gender who are not biologically related to the children. It has become controversial to say "mother and father" are the ideal, because that presents sex-integrating relationships as somehow different and better for parenting than a couple absent one of the sexes.

What used to be accepted and self-evident has been questioned out of political desperation.

Imaginary Rights

[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.

Legislating For Feelings

In the ideals of American tradition, our laws have been meant to protect our God-given personal rights (such as freedom of speech and religion), protect property, and facilitate and protect honest trade. Where our laws erred is when they sought to infringe upon these things, such as with slavery.  Ideally, someone should be free to do with their property and run their business as they choose, as long as they do not infringe upon the rights of others.

In order to rectify past injustices, we implemented laws that prevented employers and landlords from discriminating against people on personal characteristics such as “race”.  But this idea has grown into a nefarious, Orwellian situation where we are now in the disturbing position of passing laws and, even worse - suffering court decisions overturning laws – in an attempt to protect feelings, to keep one person from offending another, to affirm choices in personal behavior that bring nothing productive to general society.

How did we let ourselves be ruled like there is a right not to be offended, or a right to public affirmation of personal choices that should not be society’s concern, especially when these things infringe upon clearly recognized rights to freedom of speech and religion?

I often hear that “freedom of religion doesn’t give you the excuse to perpetrate bigotry”. While some marriage neutering advocates would disagree, I don’t promote bigotry, either in law or personal interaction. However, I do believe that if a gay man wanted to open a business and staff it entirely with other gay men, he should be allowed to do so (without tax funding, of course). Protecting property rights does not mean supporting bigotry. Neither is noticing that there is a difference between the sexes and it is that difference that makes marriage marriage, and also behooves us to license marriage as a state.

When people exercise their rights, sometimes they will do things with which we disagree. Sometimes, someone will be offended, or their feelings will be hurt. That is the price of liberty. As long as someone isn’t harming the physical person of another, slandering or libeling them, or destroying or stealing their property or defrauding them, they should be allowed to do what they want with themselves and their property – including offend someone.

As far as bride+groom marriage licensing hurting the feelings of some gay people – that’s something they should learn to live with or get over. Licenses are issued by the people of a state, and are a privilege – not a right. Like all licenses, we issue marriage licenses for a specific reason, for a specific purpose, and that isn't because we think it is a great idea that this particular couple is planning a life together or that we can see they are in love. We don't issue driver's licenses based on how much we think the person will enjoy driving. A gay person can choose to obtain a marriage license the same way a straight person can. That most gay people do not want to enter in to traditional marriage does not morally obligate the state to change the licensing, despite what any court has ruled.

Finally, just because you have the freedom to do something doesn’t mean you have the right to do something. There can’t be a legitimate right to do what is wrong – only a freedom to do so. And if that wrong infringes on the rights of another, then the freedom to do it will either be curtailed or the action met with legal consequences.

Ideally, anyway.

Neutering Marriage is Not Conservative

Don’t be fooled by marriage neutering advocates who say that neutering marriage is a conservative or limited-government position.

Don’t be fooled by Leftists and other Democrats who say the same thing (Duh… do you think they want to help us?) If it was a conservative or limited-government position, why do you think it was originated and touted by extremists on the Left?

Don’t be fooled by self-identified Republicans and conservatives who have been fooled by the people above.

It isn’t conservative to call a brideless or groomless pairing a marriage. It’s an entirely new concept about 15 years old, in direct conflict with thousands of years of universal human history, legal traditions, and religious practices.

Having it be official government policy that the uniting of a bride and groom is no different than a brideless or groomless pairing is not a limited government position. Rather, it imposes government-enforced social engineering on the people and will lead to further family breakdown and more dependence on the government.

How Exactly Do We Get Government Out of Marriage

After years of saying that marriage was “nothing more than a piece of paper” or “oppressive to women”, the Left’s assault on the family has, as you are certainly aware, temporarily switched to insisting that it is vitally important for two lesbians be able to enter into such oppression by being able to legally “marry” without a groom, and if you don’t agree, it means you want to beat little girls to death for being tomboys.

Some on the Left, many libertarians, and some weary conservatives who mistakenly think it will get the whiny homosexuality advocates to shut up say, “Get government out of marriage!”

Oh, it may sound nice. However, what it really is, in addition to being the Left’s real goal in the matter (after they use neutered “marriage” to beat down anything that depicts heterosexual behavior as qualitatively different from homosexual behavior) is… impossible.

It is impossible to get government out of marriage.

Someone might say that government didn’t get into marriage until only a few hundred years ago, but they are neglecting to mention that before that, churches functioned as government, at least to some extent. With the secularization of government, the government has unavoidably retained involvement in marriage.

From a strictly legal perspective, what exactly is marriage? 



1) First and foremost, it is a financial partnership. Unless (and sometimes even if) there is an extensive, thorough, and valid prenuptial agreement that provides otherwise, marriage involves the mingling of assets and sharing of earnings acquired during the marriage. As such, in determining the amount of child support owed to a child of Spouse A, Spouse B’s income can also be taken into account. This financial partnership can also be evidenced in credit scores, judgments, etc. That marriage is a financial partnership is demonstrated severely in the event of a divorce. 

2) In most places, marriage provides default paternity. This is supposedly to protect children (and their mothers) from abandonment, but it also reduces the likelihood taxpayers will be on the hook to care for needy children and their mothers, and it also aids men who want access to their offspring and to include their offspring as dependents and beneficiaries.

3) Marriage provides default next-of-kin status. For example, absent a directive that says otherwise, if man gets into a car accident and is rushed to a hospital in critical condition, his next-of-kin makes medical decisions for him. If he has a girlfriend, but not a lawful wife, then his parents, siblings, or children will be making the decision, no matter how long he’s been seeing that girlfriend. However, if he’d married that girlfriend the year before, she is now next-of-kin. Our immigration laws also take kinship into account. As such, that same man can’t import his girlfriend as easily as he can import his wife. I frequently take and make calls on behalf of my wife, something I couldn’t do if she was not my wife.

4) Marriage provides default beneficiary status. This is much like the point above. 

5) Marriage is more intimate than a citizen's relation to the state. In certain circumstances, spouses can’t be compelled to testify against each other in court.

Marriage used to be a license to live together and have sex, but that has been almost entirely removed from the legalities of marriage. For the most part, people are now entirely free to associate in these ways without a marriage license.

Given these realities, how is it possible to get government out of marriage? 

Yes, the government can stop issuing and keeping marriage licenses, but all that would do is create more private paperwork and increase the involvement of courts, which are part of government. 

How would assets be split up in the event of a divorce or breakup? The same way as when there is a dispute between roommates - by courts, which are government. Some people will say spouses should not have joint accounts or community property anyway, but is that really the family culture we want to foster?

Yes, government can leave women entirely in control of their newborns, forcing men to sue if they want to be involved or women to sue if the man does not want involvement, and again, that would involve the courts, which are government. 

A lot of people don’t have wills, trusts, advanced directives, and other paperwork they should, and without a state marriage license, courts will have to get involved more. One of the arguments of marriage neutering advocates has been that brideless or groomless couples shouldn’t have to do all of that extra paperwork. Marriage abolitionists want EVERYONE to have to do all of that extra paperwork.

So spouses would no longer be exempt from testifying against each other? Do you want someone to have to walk on eggshells in front of their spouse for fear that the government could compel their spouse to rat them out for even thinking about the most minor offenses, or blowing off steam with figures of speech?

Why should the government “get out of marriage” but not “get out of birth”? Or, why are there government birth certificates? If you say birth certificates help protect a child’s rights, I maintain that a marriage license also does this. The natural process of birth is almost always preceded by a natural joining of a man and a woman, no matter how temporary. The paperwork deals with these realities.

No state in the union created marriage. States have simply recognized and recorded something that already existed, because such unions bring together both sexes, create a new unit that is the basic building block of families and society, usually join two families, and usually create the next generation of citizens. Abandoning state marriage licensing would only “get the government out of” an extremely tiny percentage of marriages - ones that never involve children, last until both spouses die simultaneously, never involve one spouse being unable to make their own medical decisions, etc. In reality, getting rid of state marriage licenses would bring more government into our lives, because marriage licenses are a paperwork shortcut.

Leftists who say “get the the government out of marriage” are like abortion advocates who want to implement King Solomon’s “solution” of cutting the baby in half. Are we, as a society, to say that people who do not want to be married by clergy or are unable to find willing clergy (perhaps Atheists or noncongregants of whatever sort) should not be able to get married? No more marriages by judges, justices of the peace, or other secular officials?

As written by DarwinCatholic:

The state cannot duck the situation, because arbitrating property disputes is one of its most basic purposes, and determining who constitutes a household is one of the basic elements of resolving property disputes.

As James Joyner put it:

Now, I suppose we could replace it with a set of complicated contracts:  wills, powers of attorney, adoptions, and so forth.  But that would be much more burdensome than a single legal act that solves the issues.  And there’s always the chance of sudden death that puts things into legal limbo before the parties would have an opportunity to execute a particular contract.  Say, one parent dies during childbirth or just before.  Now, custody is a non-issue if the couple is married.   If the parents were in a mere business relationship consecrated by a series of contracts, it would be murkier and require legal wrangling at a particularly emotional time.

Presumably, all of that’s solvable.   But, essentially, you’d be re-creating civil marriage under another name.   Which seems rather pointless, since we already have it.

The state gets involved in marriage because it unites a man and a woman in the kind of a relationship that naturally creates new citizens, even if not every single relationship does. The state is involved because of biological realities, not because of claimed attractions or love. The state and society simply do not have the same interest when there is no bride or there is no groom, and that is why brideless or groomless pairings were not considered or recognized as marriage in any culture in history, even ones where homosexual behavior was openly accepted and celebrated. 

Is It Time For Churches to Ignore State "Marriage" Licenses?

I'm bumping up this old entry. I should probably write a new version soon.



As marriage neutering activists have tied up courts across the country and shoehorned their talking points into television shows and other media, some members of the clergy have said they don't mind or even support the neutering of state licenses, because according to them, state marriage licenses have nothing to do with church wedding ceremonies. I have suspected that most clergy making such statements are either full of dung (hey, that’s Biblically appropriate language) or haven't thought through what they’re saying.

How could it be tested?

What it would take is for a couple to approach a such member of the clergy and ask to get married by that person in his or her church. If the clergy agrees, the couple could then explain that this would not be a legally recognized marriage as they would not have a state marriage license, because both of them are still legally married to other people. Those marriages were performed at a county office, by a non-clergy officiant, and that they both consider those marriages dead, perhaps because of infidelity on the part of their partners (a Biblical justification to divorce).

Would the clergy still perform the wedding? If not, then they were not being honest or coherent in their statements that state licenses are a separate matter. If they would perform the wedding, then at least they would be consistent.

What is marriage, according to the Bible?

They Seem To Have Skipped Over Something

Something that made the social networking rounds is the graphic found at this link. Supposedly, it is "How to Explain Marriage Equality to an Idiot"

Tired of hearing the rightwing nutjobs claim that if gays and lesbians can get married, soon people will be marrying their dog or their toaster? Here's a handy dandy chart to help you patiently explain the obvious differences.

Good use of "handy dandy", too. Extra points for that.

Notice what's missing?

The common question asked by people who, like every great civil rights leader in history, like every major religious tradition, like every person involved in writing and adopting the Constitution, and like every President up through this writing, understands that marriage unites a bride and a groom, is "If we change marriage laws to include homosexual relationships, why not polygamous relationships, incestuous relationships, pedophiliac relationships, relationships with animals, and relationships with inanimate objects?"

The text and the graphic completely ignore polygamous and incestuous relationships. I can only guess as to why. Here are my guesses:

1. These people want those relationships to get marriage licenses, too.

2. They realize the same justification they use for neutering marriage licenses also applies to polygamous and incestuous relationships.

Of course, we all know it is ridiculous to compare same-sex relationships to heterosexual polygamy and incest. After all, the latter two kinds of relationships have been historically recognized as valid marriages.

Oh, and by the way, homosexual people can get married, whether they want to or not. What we're opposed to is equating nonmarital relationships, including brideless or groomless relationships, to marriage, not "gays getting married".

Regarding adults marrying children: There are organizations pushing to lower the age of consent, and organizations that advocate the "rights of children" in a way that would also support a child being legally able to consent to marriage over the objections of their own parents.

Regarding "marrying" animals: There are governments seriously considering recognizing some (non-human) animals as persons. Why wouldn't such persons have the right to marry other persons?

And yes, some people have "married" inanimate objects.

The point is, the marriage neutering activists, like the marriage defenders, believe that marriage means something and that whatever doesn't fall into that category isn't marriage. It is a dispute of definitions, not a matter of hatred. The definition that marriage unites a bride and groom has been the universal definition through all of the cultural differences. Two men can't consent to marry each other any more than they can consent to an ash tray being food. Without both a bride and a groom, it isn't marriage, and that some governments have recently said otherwise only shows those governments to be defective, along the line of a government that would label water as cow's milk. One bride, one groom IS marriage equality.

We have our own graphic for people having a tough time understanding this.

Oral Arguments at SCOTUS Over State Resistance to Marriage Neutering

Today is the day.

It wasn't all that long ago that the Supreme Court of the United States handled a marriage neutering case and indicated that the federal government, despite having the Defense of Marriage Act, had to defer to what states called marriage licenses. Thus, if a state had issued a "marriage" license to a groomless couple, the federal government had to recognize them as married for tax purposes.

Will the Court now turn around  and say, "Never mind! States must listen to the federal government on this matter since the federal government (federal courts) are requiring states to neuter their licenses."?



In the prior case, the Court did not find that there was a right to get a state marriage license without a bride or without a groom, only that if a state issued licenses in those cases, the federal government had to recognize them.



It would seem to me that if the 14th Amendment or any other part of our Constitution required states to neuter their licenses, SCOTUS should have said so back then. Ah, but maybe these dances in the courts aren't about ensuring that people have their rights, but rather social engineering at a calculated pace?

There are many larger issues involved here beyond the laws of one state or another, including the nature of rights and what makes something a right, the role of the federal judiciary, the role of states in licensing marriage, and public policy as it relates to family.



Even the MSM, or Marriage Neutering Media, is admitting that the Notorious RBG has more or less announced her decision to support neutering marriage ahead of hearing oral arguments. The shrieking and whining and general hysteria would be unbearable if Scalia had indicated his intention to rebuff the marriage neutering activists. RBG and perhaps another pro-neutering member of the Court should recuse themselves, but of course everything has to be sacrificed on the altar of esteeming homosexual behavior, whether it is sound precedent, obvious differences between men and women, protocol, and anything else that keeps the activists from being able to force everyone to celebrate their orgasms.

The best ruling SCOTUS could issue is to indicate that when they said the federal government needs to defer to states, they meant it, and thereby overturn most of the federal court decisions.


The people who say that neutering marriage, especially through federal judicial activism, will have no result other than simply allowing two men or two women to get a marriage license are either lying or severely naive. The naive people fail to grasp how marriage is part of a systematic way things are organized, both legally and socially.

However, there are ways SCOTUS could rule that could have devastating results beyond the specific issue of marriage neutering, including, but certainly not limited to:

• They could explicitly establish that men and women are interchangeable. Federal law does not currently indicate this. The "Equal Rights Amendment" was never ratified and women are not required, as men are, to register for the draft.
• They could explicitly establish that people who identify as homosexual are a class in the same what that people born black are a class, needing the same kind of civil rights protections.
• Establishing a disconnect in law between marriage and parenting, indicating that marriage has nothing to do with raising children.
• New rights can be created.
• Opening the door wide to removing other requirements in state marriage licensing, such as those restricting the licenses to two unmarried people and restricting the licenses to people who do not have a close degree of consanguinity or previous affinity.

It is possible they could allow the federal rulings imposing marriage neutering stand without explicitly doing these things as a settled matter, but would they handle it that way? And in the long run, won't any ruling they make advancing the neutering of marriage empower the activists to do those things?

Maybe you're somebody who thinks all of those things would be great. And if you honestly admit that, I can respect where you are coming from even though I strongly disagree. But if you've been lying about it, well, you'd better hope that the tactics and precedents you have been using don't come back to bite you when they are used for something you don't like. And if you have just kind of gone along with what you think would make your friends and family and fictional television characters happy, you're in for a rude awakening if the homofascists gain more power. Hopefully, your awakening will not come too late.

Click on the tags to this post for previous postings about this topics.

No Means No

Are we obligated to enshrine something into law simply because a minority has asked us to?

The answer, of course, is no.  Even if that group thinks it is their right, that does not obligate us to do anything and should not obligate a court to rule in their favor. Any group can get organized and ask for something, and then claim that their group is being treated unfairly if they don't get what they want. Any group can claim that something is a right, but it doesn't make it so.

When someone asks for a change in how a state issues licenses, such as marriage licenses, they are asking us (the people of the state) for something. We have the freedom to say "no".

People have a right to form voluntary associations - or not - and to offer their consent - or not.  So, if two women want to share a life together, they are free to do so, and if they can convince someone else to perform a ceremony for them, they can have one or they can even do one themselves. However, just as one woman can't force another woman to live with her, no group can force someone else - such as the people of a state - to consent to change marriage licensing.

Judges are representatives of the people. However, if the people, through their direct vote, have made their nonconsent clear, judges should not counter that.

There simply is no right to a state-issued license, and equal access to that license is already provided.

No means no. No court should force your belief – the belief that you should get a marriage license from us even though you are without a groom or without a bride - on the rest of us.

It's Reasonable to Defend Marriage

Bumping this up from May 2013:

Amy Hall at Stand to Reason blogged around the SCOTUS hearing on the marriage cases. She pointed out that "It's Not About Equality":

The term “marriage equality,” if it means “the right to marry whomever you want,” is simply not an accurate term for what same-sex marriage supporters are advocating—not if they favor any restrictions whatsoever (age, number of people, incest, etc.). The truth is that nearly everyone does favor a definition of marriage that has boundaries and thereby denies “marriage equality” to some category of couple (or group).

As you’re likely to hear this term often this week while the Supreme Court is reviewing Prop 8, below is a reposting of “We’re Arguing Definitions, Not Rights” that can help you move your conversations past the charge that you want to deny people equal rights to the real question: What is marriage?

And for a collection of links to more posts and resources discussing this issue, see “Three-Judge Panel Strikes Down Prop 8.”

From "We're Arguing Definitions, Not Rights:

1. Nearly everyone who thinks the government ought to issue marriage licenses favors defining marriage in some way. That is, they favor excluding some combinations of people (polygamy, incest, etc.), not individuals, from the definition. Even judges. Even you!

All laws discriminate between behavior and/or limit the definition of something.

2. You can't consistently argue that by excluding certain combinations of people, traditional marriage violates equal rights—unless you also argue to remove every single boundary from the definition of marriage and say anyone can marry anyone, in whatever combination of numbers they like.

If the argument is consenting adults have the right to get "marriage" licenses with anyone they want to, then yes, all restrictions on adult relationships would have to be dropped to include everyone.

3. If you're not willing to argue this, then you're for having a definition with boundaries, which puts you on equal footing with the traditional marriage supporters.

4. So the question is, which definition should we use? It's fine for you to argue that your definition of "two people who love each other" is better than my definition of "one man, one woman," or someone else's definition of "one man, multiple women," but we need to start off by understanding that we're arguing definitions, not rights.

Precisely. Everyone has the same rights now. Everyone would have the same rights if licensing is neutered.

It's not unconstitutional to adopt either my or your definition, as long as it's applied equally to every individual. Remember that the Constitution doesn't recognize rights for combinations of people; rights only belong to individuals.

That's a very important point.

So one can't say that a man and five women have a right to get married; one can only say that each individual man or woman has the right to enter into marriage (no individual is excluded). This right is then acted upon according to the boundaries set by the state's definition of what marriage is—boundaries which are equally applied to every individual. You would like to equally apply the boundary of "two people who love each other" (excluding some other combinations), and I would like to apply the boundary of "one man, one woman" to each individual equally.

Later, she wrote Now We Wait for the Ruling

Over at First Things, Glenn Stanton comments on some good questions the Justices asked. I tracked down one of the quotes he cited from Justice Sotomayor to get more of the context:

SOTOMAYOR: Mr. Olson, the bottom line that you're being asked—and it is one that I'm interested in the answer: If you say that marriage is a fundamental right, what state restrictions could ever exist? Meaning, what state restrictions with respect to the number of people…the incest laws, the mother and child…I can accept that the state has probably an overbearing interest on protecting a child until they're of age to marry, but what's left?

OLSON: Well, you've said in the cases decided by this court that the polygamy issue, multiple marriages, raises questions about exploitation, abuse, patriarchy, issues with respect to taxes, inheritance, child custody, it is an entirely different thing. And if you—if a state prohibits polygamy, it's prohibiting conduct. If it prohibits gay and lesbian citizens from getting married, it is prohibiting their exercise of a right based upon their status.

The first mistake Olson makes here is that he thinks people are being denied marriage because of their sexual orientation (i.e., “their status”). This has never happened. There is no test whatsoever for sexual orientation when a person applies for a marriage license. There is no class of people being told they’re not eligible for marriage. In fact, the exclusion of same-sex couples (that’s same-sex couples, not homosexual citizens) from marriage isn’t about prohibiting something on the basis of bad conduct or the status of a group, it’s about the definition of marriage.

Marriage was not something developed to make homosexual people sad.

If marriage is a particular thing, then everyone has a right to take part in that institution as it stands, regardless of their personal characteristics. But to be part of the institution, they must be part of the institution. They don’t have a right to change that institution into something different simply because they don’t want to be part of it the way it is.

Imagine a public park builds a tennis court so that people can come to play tennis. Nobody should be denied the right to play tennis games there. Period. It’s a public park, open to all. One day, a group of basketball players comes to the park, wanting to play a game, but they find they can’t play basketball on a tennis court. They immediately go to City Hall to complain: “Everyone has the right to competitive exercise with a ball on that court! We’re being denied our rights based on our status as basketball players!” Can you see the problem? The fact that they don’t want to play tennis doesn’t give them the right to demand that the government build a different court at the park. Their right isn’t to “competitive exercise with a ball” (tennis shares that in common with basketball, but it can’t be reduced to that), their right is to play tennis on that court, just like everybody else.

Or, as I like to say, a chess club has no right to demand status as an NFL team, requiring that the NFL sanction chess-playing. Football is not chess.

It’s Not a Ban on Gay Marriage

Marriage amendments, such as the California Marriage Amendment, voted in as Proposition 8, and "defense of marriage" laws are often referred to in news articles, commentaries, and other media as "bans on gay marriage."

I frequently point out that this phraseology is inaccurate and misleading – and I don't like it when it is used by "marriage defenders" or the marriage neutering crowd.

I maintain that "same-sex marriage" is an oxymoron akin to "dry liquid".

Even granting that a man could marry a man, or a woman could marry a woman, the use of the phrase "ban on gay marriage" is still sloppy.

First, notice that there is a difference between "gay" and "same-sex". I don't know of anyone who is asking that the sexual orientation of the individuals obtaining a marriage license together be noted anywhere in the paperwork. It has never been part of the process. Consequently, a man of any sexual orientation and a woman of any sexual orientation have always been able to obtain a marriage license together, provided neither one was currently married to someone else, and provided they were not close relatives and were of age. A gay man could marry a lesbian or a straight woman. Likewise, a straight man could marry a lesbian. All of these combinations have happened more than once.

When and where neutered marriage licensing occurs, there is nothing preventing two straight men from obtaining such a license together, nor two straight women – provided they meet all of the requirements (marital status, age, non-relation). Thus the phrase "same sex" is more accurate than "gay".

The word "ban" is also wrong. Our marriage laws are no more a "ban" on same-sex marriage than they are a "ban" on polygamy.

Same-sex (and presumably homosexual) couples were having "marriage" ceremonies for years before any state our country neutered their marriage laws. They have exchanged rings, have had a minister officiate, have lived together, have referred to each other with spousal designations, have changed names, have held receptions and gone on "honeymoon" vacations, so on and so forth. Employers and other organizations could recognize them as married if they so chose. Neither California's Marriage Amendment, nor any other similar law prohibits any of this. Thus, it is not a ban.

Incestuous marriages have been recognized in the past, though now they are actually banned as people are prosecuted in most places for sexual activity among consenting adults who are closely related. People go to jail for this activity – forget about being a denied a state-issued marriage license.

Some – not all - states in the USA had actual bans on "interracial" marriage in the past that were struck down by a SCOTUS decision. Marriage neutering activists frequently compare this to the situation with neutered marriage licensing, but the comparison is flimsy.

With the adoption of the California Marriage Amendment or any other such law in other states, no couples were forced to split up or forced to stop living together. Not a single legal entitlement was lost, as the federal government has never recognized a same-sex coupling as marriage, and California still treats domestic partners as spouses. Contrary to a shameful television ad, no Mormon missionaries forced their way into the homes of sex-same couples to destroy or take their property.

Affirming traditional marriage licensing is not a "gay marriage ban". Such language is used by media outlets who abandon objectivity and engage in advocacy and manipulation.

John Eastman Explains The Law

The Public Discourse continues to churn out worthwhile reading, including this writing by Dr. John C. Eastman on Judge Roy Moore and the Alabama Supreme Court's recent actions in regards to marriage neutering.

The US Supreme Court has set a precedent upholding the right of states to define marriage as the union of husband and wife. All federal and state judges—including those in Alabama—are bound by that precedent.

That's right. In the DOMA case and others, SCOTUS indicated federal law had to defer to state law in marriage licensing.

Our nation’s elites have convinced themselves that a judicial order by a single federal court trial judge, no matter how wrong or contrary to existing precedent, is the “law of the land” and must be followed unquestioningly.

Only when it goes in their favor.

Decisions of the lower federal courts—what the Constitution calls “inferior courts”—are not binding on the state courts. If the lower federal courts in a state interpret the Constitution in a way that conflicts with the interpretation adopted by the state courts, neither decision has binding effect on the other.

The US Supreme Court has held that “A decision of a federal district court judge is not binding precedent in either a different judicial district, the same judicial district, or even upon the same judge in a different case.” Only the Supreme Court of the United States, which sits at the pinnacle of both judicial systems, can resolve such conflicts.

Bet you didn't see that in your newspaper.

Second, it is important to note that the federal court order at issue was entered by a single federal trial court judge, who serves on the US District Court for the Southern District of Alabama, one of three federal district courts in Alabama. That court has jurisdiction over only thirteen of Alabama’s sixty-seven counties.

While a federal district court order declaring a state law unconstitutional and enjoining its enforcement can have statewide effect if there is a statewide official involved in the case before the court, that order can only bind the defendants named in the suit, their officers and agents, and “other persons who are in active concert or participation with” them, as specified in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The order cannot bind people not before the court or acting in concert with them.

Under Alabama law, probate judges—who are responsible for issuing marriage licenses in Alabama—are judicial, not executive officers, and are entirely independent of the executive branch of government. Therefore, the order issued to the Attorney General of Alabama did not and could not bind probate judges.

Facts are so inconvenient, aren't they?

The big irony for those accusing Chief Justice Moore and his fellow justices of ignoring the allegedly binding effect of the lower federal court order is that the lower federal court itself refused to follow US Supreme Court precedent—precedent that is as binding on that lower federal court as it is on Alabama Supreme Court and Alabama county probate judges.

In 1972, the US Supreme Court upheld a decision by the Minnesota Supreme Court holding that a state’s man-woman marriage law was not unconstitutional. That decision, Baker v. Nelson, is binding on the lower courts, both federal and state, even though it was only a summary disposition.

And I'll note again that this was AFTER Loving v. Virginia, which itself did not neuter any state marriage licenses.

How many of the people (wrongly) insisting that Moore is not following the law have cheered on all of the people who violated the law in initiating brideless and groomless "marriages", such as in California, in order to get the matter back into courts?

The problem with Dr. Eastman is that he writes as though protocol, consistency, logic, & reason matter. None of those things matter in these cases. Sheer power is all that matters, and the marriage neutering crowd has gained enough power to impose its will on everyone. Everything must be sacrificed on the altar of esteeming homosexual behavior.

Homofascists Sure Like to Attack Christians and Abuse Black History

Apparently, Twitter user Lithobolos ‏@Lithobolos didn't think my longtime pen pal could handle disagreeing with me himself, so he decided to jump in with the standard homofascist marriage neutering talking points, and most recently tweeted this out, along with a picture of two men (I think they're men - I guess we're not supposed to assume these days) kissing.

Weird people like @PlayfulWalrus find the best deal of these two getting married offensive. #lgbt #tcot #uniteblue

Notice that it was not written in response form, and along with the hashtags, is an obvious plea for help from fellow fascists.


The discussion was about whether people like bakers, florists, and photographers should be forced (at gunpoint, ultimately) to either participate in an event that mocks there sincerely held convictions, one of the most enduring & widely held convictions in human history - that marriage unites a bride and groom - or be forced out of a business.


Is it really "weird" of me to support liberty over fascism? To support the First Amendment rights of business owners? The arguments I have been making are not about whether I'm personally offended. It is about freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and free markets.

Dr. Ryan Anderson on Marriage Equality

Dr. Ryan Anderson: Marriage Equality and Marriage Reality at the Supreme Court

Valuing Diversity

The Left, or champions of "equality", have been insisting for many years that diversity, including gender diversity and gender integration, makes an organization stronger and is generally beneficial. It is good, we have been told, for the military, for universities (including dorm rooms), colleges, and other schools, it is good for businesses and the workplace, it is good for hospitals, fire departments, and police departments, it is good in who provides our entertainment and information, it is good for leadership in charities, civic organizations, scouting, and churches, it is good for country clubs, and it is good for legislative bodies.

Gender diversity is good. Gender diversity makes us stronger. Gender diversity brings benefits to those involved. Gender diversity is required.

Right?

And yet, some of the very same activists who've been telling us this for years in their news releases, their picketing, their lawsuits, their plays, literature, and media productions, their classrooms, and any other way they can, suddenly contradict their claims when it comes to parenting, and when it comes to marriage, with or without parenting (though most marriages involve parenting).

Literally the same people who insist gender diversity makes organizations stronger deny it makes a gender-diverse relationship any different (let alone better) from a same-sex relationship, or adds anything important to parenting. They really want us to believe that everything they've said about gender diversity when it comes to everything else somehow doesn't apply to family.

We have overwhelming data that the absence or virtual absence of their father in their home while growing up correlates to many negative indicators in adolescents and adults. We don't have nearly as much information about the absence of mothers, so let's just stick with the absence of fathers. Many of those "fatherless" children had at least one other adult in the house in addition to their mother, including an aunt, a grandparent, etc. However, that isn't the same as having a father. Those who advocate that groomless marriage or same-sex parenting is no different than or at least not lacking anything worthwhile in comparison to the bride+groom union want us to believe that the absence of a father is entirely rectified by the presence a second female guardian. However, just as no man can satisfy a homosexual woman's desire for a woman, no woman, no matter how great a person she is, no matter how much she may love the mother of those children, can fulfill the need children have for a father.

Unfortunately, the neutering of state marriage licensing makes it official state policy that there is no difference. This is an insult to both men and women, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, and to our intelligence and innate sensibilities. This is anti-science.

Neutering state licenses means that bride+groom unions can't in anyway way be encouraged or incentivized or preferred over brideless or groomless unions under the law or in any program relying on taxpayer funds. For example, adoption or foster care agencies under state control or receiving any state funds can't prefer a bride+groom couple over a groomless union in placing children. They have to operate as though
giving a child two mothers and giving a child a mother and a father is the same thing. It obviously isn't.

We're all better off recognizing and encouraging bride+groom unions and parenting within such unions, but under neutered licensing, we'll have much less ability and fewer ways of doing that.

Studies also indicate that intentional parenting is generally better than "oops, we got pregnant" parenting, but it would take a substantial increase in the size and reach of government to even try to ban the latter to give every child the former. However, all it takes to set aside gender-inclusive unions as special, and thus hold up in our public policy the value of fathering, is a pair of already-there government documents, and maintaining the bride+groom requirement - the worldwide, historically celebrated core of marriage - in state marriage licensing.

It doesn't exactly encourage men to marry when or before having children, nor stick around to father their offspring, when we have public policy and a culture that disrespects them and insists they bring nothing of value to marriage nor parenting. But hey, it isn't like we're having any difficulties these days with fathers being around for the children, right?

The Left should abandon its absurd, self-contradictory claims that heterosexual unions are no different than homosexual unions. Leftist homosexuality advocates have proven effective at organizing and appealing to emotion and wielding their power, but just because they can get precedents and common sense tossed aside, judicial activists to rule for them, and elected officials to abandon their obligations, protocols, and ethics doesn't mean they should press ahead with the neutering of marriage, which would ultimately leave everyone, including them, worse off. Their efforts are more admirably spent on fighting the criminalization of homosexuality abroad and fighting actual prejudice, homelessness, assault, vandalism, bullying, suicide, domestic violence, substance abuse, mental illness, and sexually transmitted diseases, which are real problems in "gay and lesbian communities".


Previously:

Bride-and-Groom is the Right Side of History

The Ideal of a Married Mother and Father