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The Marriage Immigrants
When immigrants move to a country of their own free will, they have an obligation to adapt to their adopted country’s values. This doesn’t mean abandoning their old culture entirely or pretending that the new one is beyond reproach, but at the very least it means giving up aspects of it that are incompatible with their new one. After all, if you think your adopted culture is worth immigrating to, you should want to try to keep and cherish it basically as you found it.
As of this Friday, gay people across the nation are now immigrants to marriage culture. Some of them have been here for a while — I personally know gay couples who’ve been legally married five times longer than I — while most are freshly off the ship. Like all voluntary immigrant populations, they have a positive duty: to assimilate to the culture they chose to adopt and to do so with enthusiasm.
That probably means not only being as married as your straight peers, but more so. In practical terms, that means being more monogamous than straight couples, less prone to divorce, and even more interested in your children’s (should you have any) welfare. And if you’re so inclined, think what a powerful message it would be for marriage if you said that sex only belongs within marriage, even for you.
Moreover, don’t be a jerk about it, or (continue to) use the law to further your victory. If someone doesn’t want to celebrate your marriage, leave them be. The tradition of people objecting to others’ marriages is probably only a few minutes younger than marriage itself. It’s rude when straight people try to force approval from others, and the same goes for you.
Much of the opposition to same-sex marriage comes from the belief that the institution of marriage will make no sense — and will have no form — if sexual complimentariness is removed. You say (and I agree with you) that to the contrary, marriage has a real and important meaning when extended to homosexuals. Do yourself and marriage a favor. Prove yourselves right through your actions. I’ll be rooting for you.
Published in General, Marriage
Truly, in this cultural death match, some of us believe the stream of society moves around certain unmovable truths, and others believe the truths just float along with the stream of society.
We have no anchor — no bedrock. Rule of capricious men has overcome rule of law (both man’s and Nature’s). The words on Solomon’s ring echo through the ages: “This too shall pass.” Our respite from paganism was all too short.
Oh, there’s an anchor, and a foundation. The anchor does not require that you acknowledge it.
The Gods of the Copybook Headings always get their due.
My favorite poem, and very aligned with “This too shall pass.” Either the West will acknowledge the truth, or pass from being the West.
Dennis Prager says this is the formal end of Judeo-Christian America. I agree. Some will see that as a good thing, as ethical monotheism makes moral demands they don’t like. As the progenitor of small-l liberal society, I think we’ll find Judeo-Christian ethics’ successor deficient, at best.
One of my high school best friends just got engaged to the guy he’s been dating for at least a decade. I think they’ve got a really good chance to make it.
If they are two individuals who have found a certain happiness, so be it. That is on them and is their own affair. It is also completely and utterly irrelevant to the question at hand.
I certainly do not begrudge them their happiness, nor do I approve of it. A man or woman who abandons their family and commits adultery is rather happy as well I imagine, I do not approve of that either.
I particularly object to those using the force of law to demand I approve of such.
Can someone explain to me why Elena Kagan and Ruth Bader Ginsburg were not expected to recuse themselves from rendering an opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges given that they have officiated at gay weddings?
(((Can someone explain to me why Elena Kagan and Ruth Bader Ginsburg were not expected to recuse themselves from rendering an opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges given that they have officiated at gay weddings? )))
Well I know Clarence Thomas officiated at one one of rush’s previous weddings, I bet they all have done a wedding or two… If they all recused, then what?
Performing a wedding in a state that had legalized SSM wouldn’t mean that a person couldn’t still rule that each state had the right to determine the issue for itself. It wouldn’t even mean that a justice couldn’t have their minds changed by the briefs and arguments of a subsequent case. Recusal would only apply if the justice had a personal stake or interest in the outcome of a case. Unless you think justices might want to legalize marriage to start some super lucrative side business performing gay weddings, performing a legal gay wedding doesn’t really present a conflict of interest requiring recusal.
Since we are pretending that Gays are really only trying to have what straight people have, how about if they stop suing people for not supporting their way of life?
Different groups of people have always had marriage traditions that are foreign to others. And it was never considered bigotry to not participate in the ways of marriage belonging to another group.
So if someone does not agree with your marriage ritual, even if they make their livelihood from supporting other marriage rituals… leave them alone. Gay people’s ritual has changed, everyone else’s is the same as always, and nobody gets offended, or they didn’t until Gays got involved.
Can you imagine a Jew suing a Catholic priest for not performing their marriage because they are not Catholic? It isn’t bigotry. It is a difference of religion. A difference of conscience. And none of anyone else’s business.
If someone has a religious view that is different than your view… leave them alone! Find someone who agrees with you and accept that in matters of conscience people will hold things dear, that others find insulting. That is just life.
You may think you belong to the same religion, but you don’t if something as basic as marriage is in dispute, it is an entirely different belief system, and none of your business.
Get over it.