For Those Who Think SSM Is A "Distraction" Or A Minor Issue...
I beg you to take a look at what's going on in Massachusetts and ask yourself honestly whether you think this would be a good development nationwide.
Here's one item among many: [emphasis in the original]
In 2006 the Parkers and Wirthlins filed a federal Civil Rights lawsuit to force the schools to notify parents and allow them to opt-out their elementary-school children when homosexual-related subjects were taught. The federal judges dismissed the case. The judges ruled that because same-sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts, the school actually had a duty to normalize homosexual relationships to children, and that schools have no obligation to notify parents or let them opt-out their children! Acceptance of homosexuality had become a matter of good citizenship!
Think about that: Because same-sex marriage is “legal”, a federal judge has ruled that the schools now have a duty to portray homosexual relationships as normal to children, despite what parents think or believe!
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May '10
Re: For Those Who Think SSM Is A "Distraction" Or A Minor Issue...
Impossible. The Constitution demands that each state honors the others' contracts. In this case, some states will refuse to do so.
The Constitution assumes some degree of cultural homogeneity.
May '10
Re: For Those Who Think SSM Is A "Distraction" Or A Minor Issue...
I'm with Aaron. I don't think the states have the authority to change the nature of marriage. Nor do I think the Union can long endure if it tolerates radical injustice in the name of "states' rights". To use the force of law to declare a same sex relationship the moral and legal equivalent of marriage is a serious injustice.
Though I think it's scandalous that liberal aggressions against bedrock truths make it necessary, I favor an amendment to the Constitution defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
May '10
Re: For Those Who Think SSM Is A "Distraction" Or A Minor Issue...
Foxman
katievs
You really think it's a minor issue that courts and public schools are foisting an alien morality on an unwilling public? · 2 minutes ago
Society at large foists all sorts of alien morality. Materialism for one. Why is this one such a big deal? · 1 hour ago
If society were to declare materialistic atheism the law of the land and then the teachers were to begin teaching it as truth in public schools, I would be equally appalled.
Aug '10
Re: For Those Who Think SSM Is A "Distraction" Or A Minor Issue...
And so's picking your nose. So's premarital sex. My public school tried to normalize the latter, but not the former, for some reason. However, students were allowed to opt out of the biggest dose of normalization, "sex-ed".
One problem here seems to be bad logic. If families cannot opt out of the "major educational encounters" that normalize homosexual relationships, how come they can already opt out of "encounters" such as "traditional sex-ed"? (I shudder to use the phrase "traditional sex-ed" to describe what goes on in public schools, but at this point, sex-ed normalizing "nontraditional" heterosexual arrangements is a tradition in public schools.)
Fred's right. State education is too sick to live. Pretty much everything about it perverts. Not just morals, but the learning process, too.
You have to be pretty perverted to argue that anything that's legal -- whatever it is -- should be normalized. That is a sickness extending well beyond the SSM debate.
Edited on May 15, 2012 at 4:20pmMay '10
Re: For Those Who Think SSM Is A "Distraction" Or A Minor Issue...
To be clear, the role of government in regard to marriage has always been to recognize marriage and to establish contracts and privileges around it, rather than to introduce and to govern it. Sacramental marriages precede and transcend civil laws. If our government collapsed tomorrow, what married person would believe himself or herself freed from marital union?
Even state governments do not have the authority to alter marriage. True marriage is not founded in law, though many laws in any society are based upon marriage.
Local governments might be authorized to introduce civil arrangements which mimic marriage customs. Since the rise of irreligion, civil unions have become common. Churches generally accept these as genuine marriages, but not based merely upon assertions of civil law. The Catholic tradition of annulment recognizes that not everything called marriage is indeed marriage.
So, if heterosexual civil unions are feasible, why not also homosexual civil unions? Because no such union fits the necessary conditions of marriage.
I don't claim to be an expert on this subject. But there's my two cents.
May '12
Re: For Those Who Think SSM Is A "Distraction" Or A Minor Issue...
I honestly do not recall sexual preference of either kind showing up in my grade school education. Multiplications Tables, yes. Spelling Bees, I was in one. History became Social Studies, and that was a little watered down (more like the Cliff Notes version than what I have read about as an adult, but then again, maybe that's as it should be - Christopher Columbus did make the definitive, game-changing discovery of America even if he didn't actually get to the continent ... and the rest of the story is very much the "adult" version).
But Mommy & Daddy, Daddy & Daddy, Mommy & Mommy? I get the distinct feeling that (like I suspect is portrayed in the American remake of The Birdcage) that is what you learn at home, taking what makes sense of what you've learned there to school.
Dec '10
Re: For Those Who Think SSM Is A "Distraction" Or A Minor Issue...
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
...
You have to be pretty perverted to argue that anything that's legal -- whatever it is -- should be normalized. That is a sickness extending well beyond the SSM debate.
It's totally predictable. Dennis Prager has been saying this would happen for years. Gender nullification is central to the arguments for same sex marriage. Marriage is an institution about children and the only rationale for SSM in this regard is that there are no gender distinctions important enough to rearing children that marriage should be limited to male/female. The great cultural leveling continues apace.
Nov '10
Re: For Those Who Think SSM Is A "Distraction" Or A Minor Issue...
Aaron Miller
This is one of many issues that makes me doubt that the States can remain United for much longer. I care about the freedoms of die-hard liberals, but I'm no longer sure that what we gain by sharing a government with them...
Spot on, Aaron. There is very little common morality that remains -- moral presuppositions constituting the deep "background" or self-evidence and which do not have to defend themselves before the tribunal of (liberal, liberationist) "reason."
The Founders understood extremely well that there are certain things that are simply NOT debatable, or even contemplatable, because they are, quite frankly, insane. SSM case in point. When one gets down to it, the very fact that we are debating SSM on Ricochet shows you just how far we have fallen into nihilism.
Doing so is really at the level of defending against "when did you beat your mother?" or explaining why pushing grandmother down the stairs is wrong.
Edited on May 15, 2012 at 2:17amJun '10
Re: For Those Who Think SSM Is A "Distraction" Or A Minor Issue...
etoiledunord
On some TV show, they were showing the interior of a Catholic cathedral in Salt Lake City. It was beautiful. It was big too. I may join you in Utah. I don't drink. I don't smoke. I could fit in. :) · 5 hours ago
And in the spirit of ecumenical friendship, the LDS church made a large contribution to a major renovation of the cathedral, which is about a five minute walk east of the LDS temple. It's big, though not like the European cathedrals. It is stunning inside. I've walked through it scores of times. It's a place where the spirit dwells.
Feel free to move here; there are more Catholics here than you think. But if you live in a swing state, please wait until mid-November. I think we've got Mitt covered here in Utah.
Edited on May 15, 2012 at 2:34amJun '10
Re: For Those Who Think SSM Is A "Distraction" Or A Minor Issue...
katievs
If Obama gets his way, all this is coming to Utah too.
"First they came for Massachusetts, but I'm not from there, so I did nothing...." · 5 hours ago
No doubt. If they federalize it, there'll be nowhere to hide.
Dec '10
Re: For Those Who Think SSM Is A "Distraction" Or A Minor Issue...
katievs
...
Though I think it's scandalous that liberal aggressions against bedrock truths make it necessary, I favor an amendment to the Constitution defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
As usual, you've expressed my sentiments better than I ever could have, Katie.
Federalism won't work in this case because of enforcement of contracts and equal protection claims. Traditional marriage and our parental rights to teach our children our values will only be protected by an amendment. Prager has been arguing this as well, even before Congress.
May '11
Re: For Those Who Think SSM Is A "Distraction" Or A Minor Issue...
Guns are legal, too.
May '12
Re: For Those Who Think SSM Is A "Distraction" Or A Minor Issue...
Aaron Miller: To be clear, the role of government in regard to marriage has always been torecognize marriage and to establish contracts and privileges around it, rather than to introduce and to govern it.
(...)
I don't claim to be an expert on this subject. But there's my two cents. · 16 hours ago
Perhaps not, but you do make some finely honed points, seriously undervalued at $.02.
Jun '10
Re: For Those Who Think SSM Is A "Distraction" Or A Minor Issue...
How many people heard Mark Davis take on a gay partisan yesterday during Rush's show? The conversation was highly revealing. The caller made statements like "I would never allow you to adopt (children) because you're a bigot." He made further references to personal habits like diet, smoking, and drinking as the basis for adoption denial. Think about that because the conversation revealed the true totalitarian nature of gay/progressive activists. It's all about imposing their morality on the rest of us. And they would do so to the n'th degree given a chance.
May '10
Re: For Those Who Think SSM Is A "Distraction" Or A Minor Issue...
I just noticed that you didn't answer the question whether you thought this would be a good development nationwide?
Do we want to make all legal references to "mother" and "father", not just obsolete, but actionable? Do we want public schools spending time and money instructing children to think homosexuality is perfectly normal and acceptable? Do we want Christian parents, teachers and pastors treated as bigots for maintaining that homosexual acts are immoral?
The American experiment is grounded on "the given" in human nature. The legalization of SSM is a radical assault on "the given".
Jun '10
Re: For Those Who Think SSM Is A "Distraction" Or A Minor Issue...
I heard that too. Davis divided the gay marriage issue into three spheres. The personal, the social, and the legal. Davis had no problem with gay marriage ceremonies, no problem with family and friends of the gay couple recognizing that they're now committed to each other for life. That's fine, Davis said. He's only against it where it creates a new legal framework that forces him, Mark Davis, to recognize "gay marriage" as the same thing as a traditional marriage. The unintended consequences of making "gay marriage" the legal equivalent of traditional marriage we can't even imagine right now.
Sep '10
Re: For Those Who Think SSM Is A "Distraction" Or A Minor Issue...
Don't forget, kids are pretty smart. At some point they figure out there is no Santa Claus. My experience with pre-teens who are getting mild forms of this propaganda in school is they aren't buying it. I don't even have to make a case. They think it's ridiculous. Seeing the desperation of their teachers to spin things furiously, they are turning away and questioning more. Once you realize there is no Santa Claus, then the Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny get closer scrutiny.
How many of us have come to our views, and solidified them, after hearing, almost exclusively left-wing arguments and beliefs?
I'm not saying these practices should be tolerated, I'm reporting that there are limits to how lefties can misrepresent reality and get away with it, and I'm predicting they are inadvertently pushing kids to formulate opinions about.... the propagandists themselves.
Edited on May 15, 2012 at 4:25pmJun '10
Re: For Those Who Think SSM Is A "Distraction" Or A Minor Issue...
etoiledunord
I heard that too. The unintended consequences of making "gay marriage" the legal equivalent of traditional marriage we can't even imagine right now. · 7 minutes ago
Sure we can! Just let your imagination run for a bit. Everybody engaged in this thread right now would be arrested for thought crimes. Teaching your children that gay marriage is wrong would be grounds to have them taken away. There is no limit to what these radicals would demand. It's the nature of totalitarianism.
May '10
Re: For Those Who Think SSM Is A "Distraction" Or A Minor Issue...
I agree with you here, Franco.
What they are trying to do here is use political and legal force to deny reality. That won't stand in the long run, since truth will out. But it can do an awful lot of harm before it's exhausted itself. See Soviet Union, history of.
Aug '10
Re: For Those Who Think SSM Is A "Distraction" Or A Minor Issue...
Western Chauvinist
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
...
You have to be pretty perverted to argue thatanything that's legal -- whatever it is -- should be normalized. That is a sickness extending well beyond the SSM debate.
It'stotallypredictable.
Agreed. Perversion often is, when you think about it.
The way I see it, the perversion of sexual norms is part of the wider perversion that comes from public schools pretending to be "nonjudgmental" when in reality, between the capricious enforcement of PC taboos and the Lord of the Flies hierarchy of youths with nothing really engaging to do and no "judgmental" traditional norms to constrain their behavior, public schools are one of the most barbarically judgmental environments left in modern society.
Humans are judgmental creatures. We can either exercise judgment informed by wisdom and virtue -- which will be tempered by kindness, since kindness is a virtue. Or we can pretend not to judge and end up judging viciously as a result, since we no longer take the trouble to train our judgment.
I'm a great fan of the essay Why Nerds are Unpopular. Yes, public schools really are like that.