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Original comment
Response to: "Sex Integration and Responsible Procreation: Good Governance"
Thank you for your interesting and thought-provoking comments.
In many ways, I believe that we are talking about Apples and Oranges. You are addressing the importance of marriage as a social institution. I am addressing, in the first instance, whether it is vital to that institution to define it in such a way that it would exclude a minority of people whose participation is (at least in my view) essentially irrelevant, and, more particularly, whether the U.S. Constitution is an appropriate vehicle for doing such a thing.
To respond to your specific points:
1. & 2. As an essentially ethnocentric person without too much interest in other cultures, I can't speak with any authority on this, but I think a basic 101 course on Behavioral Anthropology would likely refute your premise, at least with respect to many societies that have existed since the beginning of human kind. But let's just stick with the current-day United States. I don't know what percentage of the population is homosexual. Let's say 10%. If 90% of the population is free to engage in the important traditional man-and-woman form of marriage and family, who cares what the other 10% do? They can "marry" too; or they can pretend to be heterosexual in loveless marriages like those two guys on Brokeback Mountain; or they can be non-monogamous gays. What difference does that make to the rest of us? Or to society at large?
3. Unfortunately, what is "self-evident" to some is not self-evident to others. It should have been self-evident, prior to Brown v. Board of Education, that the 14th Amendment prohibited segregation. It is "self-evident" to me that Article III standing is a Separation of Powers issue that only applies to challenges to Governmental action or inaction, and not to the conduct of private citizens; but many federal judges tend to disagree. It is "self-evident" to me that laws passed by Congress to protect patients, workers, and families should not "pre-empt" efforts by States to hold companies responsible for transgressions against their patients, workers, and families; but millions of people, including a majority of the Supreme Court, tend to disagree. It is self-evident to me that the Executive Branch cannot, alone, with no checks and balances, spy on Americans; but our President, claims to disagree.
4. If the "truth" is self-evident and immutable, it cannot be affected by anything that the Constitution says or doesn't say.
5. By that definition, anything could be "constitutional".
6. It's a small-minded way to address a big picture issue.
7. This same logic would allow me to tell you whether you can get a tattoo, pierce your belly-button, or watch a tv show, visit an internet site, or what books you can read.
8. I'm not sure that I completely understand what you are saying, but to the extent I understand what you are saying, the truth of it cannot be altered by what's said, or not said, in the Constitution.
Thanks and best wishes, - Steve
In many ways, I believe that we are talking about Apples and Oranges. You are addressing the importance of marriage as a social institution. I am addressing, in the first instance, whether it is vital to that institution to define it in such a way that it would exclude a minority of people whose participation is (at least in my view) essentially irrelevant, and, more particularly, whether the U.S. Constitution is an appropriate vehicle for doing such a thing.
To respond to your specific points:
1. & 2. As an essentially ethnocentric person without too much interest in other cultures, I can't speak with any authority on this, but I think a basic 101 course on Behavioral Anthropology would likely refute your premise, at least with respect to many societies that have existed since the beginning of human kind. But let's just stick with the current-day United States. I don't know what percentage of the population is homosexual. Let's say 10%. If 90% of the population is free to engage in the important traditional man-and-woman form of marriage and family, who cares what the other 10% do? They can "marry" too; or they can pretend to be heterosexual in loveless marriages like those two guys on Brokeback Mountain; or they can be non-monogamous gays. What difference does that make to the rest of us? Or to society at large?
3. Unfortunately, what is "self-evident" to some is not self-evident to others. It should have been self-evident, prior to Brown v. Board of Education, that the 14th Amendment prohibited segregation. It is "self-evident" to me that Article III standing is a Separation of Powers issue that only applies to challenges to Governmental action or inaction, and not to the conduct of private citizens; but many federal judges tend to disagree. It is "self-evident" to me that laws passed by Congress to protect patients, workers, and families should not "pre-empt" efforts by States to hold companies responsible for transgressions against their patients, workers, and families; but millions of people, including a majority of the Supreme Court, tend to disagree. It is self-evident to me that the Executive Branch cannot, alone, with no checks and balances, spy on Americans; but our President, claims to disagree.
4. If the "truth" is self-evident and immutable, it cannot be affected by anything that the Constitution says or doesn't say.
5. By that definition, anything could be "constitutional".
6. It's a small-minded way to address a big picture issue.
7. This same logic would allow me to tell you whether you can get a tattoo, pierce your belly-button, or watch a tv show, visit an internet site, or what books you can read.
8. I'm not sure that I completely understand what you are saying, but to the extent I understand what you are saying, the truth of it cannot be altered by what's said, or not said, in the Constitution.
Thanks and best wishes, - Steve
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