Posted 31 July 2012 - 09:48 AM
[quote name='swmr545' timestamp='1343755317' post='446175']
My question to those holding to the religious based arguments for what marriage is/should be; and to supermom saying that Christianity shouldn't have to "change" and accept a new definition of marriage, how literal do you take the bible?
Are you attempting to live your life to all the rules laid forth in the bible (Leviticus says that a woman is unclean during a certain time of month and must offer "two young pigeons or two turtles" for the sin of being unclean)?
Which bible are you abiding by? If Christianity shouldn't change and accept new definitions, which denomination are you? Are you Catholic or an Orthodox Christian? How do you feel about the splits and new definitions that have marred Christianity (I'm assuming change in the religion is bad after so much resistance to it by supermom)?
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Regardless of what your religious teaching are, the government cannot use a religious test when it comes to laws. All laws must have a legitimate government interest in order to pass the lowest level of scrutiny from a judge. Granted, this brings in a judge's own opinion, but for the most part, they get their rulings right.
Now if the purpose of marriage is about producing children, and if this is a legitimate interest of the government, then the questions of fertility are legitimate in being asked. If the government is concerned about increasing our population, and sees marriage as the only way of achieving this, then all persons must submit to a fertility test prior to marriage. If you can't procreate, you can't marry.
However, SCOTUS has already ruled marriage to be a "fundamental right" and that this right should reside in the individual and "cannot be infringed upon by the state." Whethet or not courts accept this ruling for marriage equality associated to the 14th Amendment remains to be seen, but it has been cited in the Prop 8 case.
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One thing that I haven't seen explicitly in this thread, but has been reference to, is the idea of the "traditional marriage".
Again, this goes back to changing definitions and how they have been accepted by society. Not too long ago, it was against the law for different races to marry (see above quote from SCOTUS), nor was it considered weird that women were considered to be the property of their husbands.
In the early Christian church, there was no religious ceremony in regards to marriage. The church base its marriage traditions on those of ancient Rome and Greece. It wast until the 1500s that the church got involved (damn, there goes the whole, it's religious in origin argument) and created canon law to treat it as a sacrament.
The stranglehold that religion had ended with the Protestant Reformation (Martin Luther believed marriage to be a "worldy" thing, leading to the state becoming involved with marriage...look at Henry VIII). It wasn't until around the 1800s, that marriages performed outside of the church were considered legal. Now, another "tradition" of marriage was the dowry...when will that tradition be reinstated here in the West?
The idea that marriage was "patented by God" is bull. Look to various cultures before their perversion at the hands of Christianity and you will find many various examples of marriage within their respective societies.
Christianity is trying (with success) to reassert itself as the judge and jury in our lives. We constantly talk about how bad theocracies are and point to the Muslim nations and Sharia law, yet we are more than willing to accept theological beliefs being ingrained into our laws. During the GOP presidential campaign, Santorum said that our laws must be in sync with God's laws...the response he got from the crowd wasn't one of shock and horror, but cheers.
Get religion out of our government and my life. If I want to abide by the rules laid forth in whatever religion I decide to believe in, then I shall live in accordance to those rules in my private life and not try to impose my religion's rules into your life by hijacking the government. Let religion be a guidance to you, but just as you don't want us defining your religious beliefs, I don't want you defining my secular beliefs, nor do I want your religion defining my secular rights.
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Hi swmr545, I always like your comments. But this sounds like a legal treatise. Here's how I see things:
1) I agree that the religious argument is invalid by itself. You are right.
2) While I do think that marriage was meant for creating families, as its social purpose, with the role of raising the next generation, this is not about a clinical test for fertility. Not every man/woman marriage needs to crank out kids in order to be considered legitimate. That would be an infringement of the government on individual choice. If NO married couples decided to have kids, it would become an issue. But here's what is important: you cannot make the claim that same-sex marriages are just like infertile opposite-sex marriages, because it's a different situation entirely. Same-sex partners do not have a choice, but rather they have an inherent inability to create children together, and this holds true for the entire category. This is NOT the same as saying that some opposite-sex couples won't or can't have children, because this does not invalidate the category of man/woman marriage. Do you see?
If I thought marriage was a right, with a sole purpose of recognizing consenting adults who wanted to be married to show commitment and receive legal advantages, then gay marriages would not invalidate that category, whether or not they had kids. But that's not how I view the purpose of marriage. (That's how I view the purpose of domestic partnerships.)
3) [quote] SCOTUS has already ruled marriage to be a "fundamental right" and that this right should reside in the individual and "cannot be infringed upon by the state." [end quote]
That was unfortunate, but I don't have to agree with what the SCOTUS decides. They are just people like us, and have no more insight than we do into the rationale for gay marriage. I reject their viewpoint that marriage is a right. As I see it, they asked the wrong question, so naturally arrived at the wrong answer.
4) [quote] One thing that I haven't seen explicitly in this thread, but has been reference to, is the idea of the "traditional marriage". [end quote]
I thought I captured the concept admirably in my first long comment. :-)
