Federal judge overturns Utah's ban on gay marriage

[dshix]

huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/20/utah-same-sex-marriage_n_4482703.html

This could be the case that finally ends the debate over whether gay people are entitled to the same right to marry as straight people. In my opinion, this is an example of the court functioning as it was intended. Even in a state so deeply under the finger of a religious organization as Utah, this judge had the intestinal fortitude to protect the rights of the minority from the will of the majority. I pray to God that this case is appealed to SCOTUS and upheld, bringing an end to codified anti-gay discrimination.

One at a time. It doesn’t matter what the voters want. The elitists will get their way in the end. Power.

Won’t be long before the elitists do this to every state in the union.

 

[JamesTheJust]

I disagree. Marriage is not a biological imperative, procreation is. There are more then enough sexually active heterosexuals around to cover that.

Catholic morality requires that procreation be within marriage, so, by syllogism, marriage is a biological imperative.

 

[BellsMom]

Catholic morality requires that procreation be within marriage, so, by syllogism, marriage is a biological imperative.

I understand, yet the poster specifically says, " It is not a religious belief, but a biological imperative."

The poster seems to be making a point that even outside of religious beliefs, the point of marriage is still the same. I don’t believe it is.

 

[JamesTheJust]

I understand, yet the poster specifically says, " It is not a religious belief, but a biological imperative."

The poster seems to be making a point that even outside of religious beliefs, the point of marriage is still the same. I don’t believe it is.

Later in the post, JimG says:

Male / female sexual complementarity is a fact of biology, not a religious belief. Biology and anatomy hasn’t changed over the course of several millennia.

 

[JimG]

I understand, yet the poster specifically says, " It is not a religious belief, but a biological imperative."

The poster seems to be making a point that even outside of religious beliefs, the point of marriage is still the same. I don’t believe it is.

Perhaps I should have said that sexual complementarity is a biological fact, and it is that upon which the institution of marriage is based. It is not an “imperative” in the sense that everyone must marry. But all of humanity is comprised of men and woman.

There is only one human act which can result in procreation, and that can only be accomplished between a man and a woman. That’s biology, not religion.

Procreation is indeed necessary for the species to continue, and marriage flows naturally from that fact. Children are born dependent and remain so for 18 to 20 years. Mothers and fathers are needed to raise them. Governments like that families raise children, so they endow marriage with governmental benefits.

Marriage has always been between men and women, even in those era’s in which polygamy was accepted. It has never been between same sex couples, even in societies which accepted same sex couplings, because such unions were of no particular benefit to the state.

So the point is that humanity is comprised of men and women for a reason. Marriage is a natural institution (not always a religious one) and always between man and women. That is a result primarily of biology.

Religions didn’t just one day invent the idea that men and women should get married. It simply accepted the natural order of biology.

Does anyone really think that a same sex coupling is the same as a marriage between man and woman? Biologically it’s not even close. Socially, its not even close.

 

[BellsMom]

It has never been between same sex couples, even in societies which accepted same sex couplings, because such unions were of no particular benefit to the state.

I think that stable family units, whether small or big, with children or without, are a benefit to any state.

Ted Olsen explains it much more eloquently then I could.

newsweek.com/conservative-case-gay-marriage-70923

 

[JimG]

I think that stable family units, whether small or big, with children or without, are a benefit to any state.

Ted Olsen explains it much more eloquently then I could.

newsweek.com/conservative-case-gay-marriage-70923

An excerpt from that article (favoring gay marriage.)

“ It is true that marriage in this nation traditionally has been regarded as a relationship exclusively between a man and a woman, and many of our nation’s multiple religions define marriage in precisely those terms. But while the Supreme Court **has always previously considered marriage in that context, ** the underlying rights and liberties that marriage embodies are not in any way confined to heterosexuals.” (Emphasis mine.)

Why has the Supreme Court always previously considered marriage in the context of man and woman? Perhaps because that has been the context of marriage since the dawn of civilization.

The fact remains that only men and woman can engage in specifically conjugal relations—that is, marital relations. That’s just a fact of human biology. That fact forms the underlying basis of marriage.

To call a relationship which can never be conjugal “marriage,” is worse than a misnomer. It is to give the impossible the seeming appearance of equality with the real.

We can call a marriage between an elderly man and woman a marriage because it can still be conjugal, even though it may not be fertile. But a same sex relationship can never be conjugal, it can never be marital.

It makes little sense to treat two wildly dissimilar relationships as though they were the same, when they can never be the same. To treat them the same thing is to drain the word ‘marriage’ of meaning. And when the word is drained of meaning, the institution follows the path into meaninglessness.

It is not that same sex marriage is the only thing that will destabilize and sink marriage. Obviously not. That destabilization was begun with contraception, continued with the acceptance of divorce, serial monogamy, extramarital relations, and cohabitation. Marriage had to first be nearly destroyed in order for same sex ‘marriage’ even to be envisioned as possible. So same sex unions won’t be the cause of the death of marriage, just the final nail in the coffin of marriage, because it finally takes the very essence out of the institution and still calls it by the same name.

Contraception unlinked children from marriage; divorce unlinked permanence from marriage; extramarital sex unlinked commitment from marriage; now, same sex unions unlink even the essential sexual complementarity from marriage. Is it dead yet?

 

[Yerusalyim]

I think that two consenting adults should be able to marry… Not ANYONE. And obviously, ancestral relationships can lead to severe consequences, so yes there is a vested interest in restricting them. And yes, marriage is a constitutional right per Loving V Virginia.

Why restrict it to simply TWO adults? Why not more? If society has an interest in restricting ANY marriages it has the right to restrict ALL marriages. Loving did not state that anyone can marry anyone…otherwise…Loving could be cited for plural and incestuous marriages. Incestuous marriage has a MUCH LONGER history than does same-sex marriage. I refer you to Cleopatra…the result of 300 years of incestuous marriages.

 

[Personanongrata]

Unfortunately, several gay couples (obviously in states where gay marriage is legal) have already sued Catholic churches for the right to get married there. Thus far the cases have been thrown out, but it proves that the desire to not just get married there, but to force us to let them does in fact exist.

And you are right - a black couple does not want to be married in a church operated by the KKK and I can find no case of THEM suing the KKK for the right to do so, which really should tell you where the real difference and real intolerance rests here.

I am sure you have a source for this right???

 

[Personanongrata]

Are you comparing your own Church, divinely instituted by Christ and guided by the Holy Spirit, to an organization which lynched, terrorized, and hated an entire demographic based on skin color?

No, but the principal is the same.

 

[Farsight001]

I am sure you have a source for this right???

Google it. Its not some sort of well-kept secret for which information isn’t easily available or something.

No, but the principal is the same.

Um…lol…no, not even close.

 

[HappyCatholic01]

Are you advocating the violent overthrow of the government?

Sounds like late night radio (or the “History” channel.) Just to be clear, the people on late night radio are entertainers. They make their money by being outrageous and selling books and DVDs. The more outrageous they can be, the more conspiracies they can concoct, the more books and DVDs they sell and the more money they make. It is a business like any other.

Getting back to the topic of the thread. The chances are this ruling will be “stayed” on Monday pending the appeal process. The judge that overturned the law was a recent appointee of Obama’s (elections have consequences.)

No, why? I simply seize as in win control in the ballot box. In the end, using immoral means is never worth it.

 

[rossum]

Google it. Its not some sort of well-kept secret for which information isn’t easily available or something.

I did. All I found were a few gay couples planning to sue the Church of England in the UK. I could not find any examples of a gay couple actually proceeding to court against the Catholic Church. No doubt you were more successful in your search than I was. A link would help.

rossum

 

[_Abyssinia]

Federal court refuses to halt same-sex marriage in Utah

National Organisation for Marriage released a statement on Thursday condemning the decision by Judge Robert Shelby

nomblog.com/38671

 

[SuperLuigi]

This is very disappointing.

 

[SuperLuigi]

Though it sounds like a good cause, secession of states from the US is not economically, militarily, or structurally feasible today.

It’s got my support! More states just make federal control even harder.

 

[SuperLuigi]

The idea of marriage being between man and woman is lately spoken of as if it were a religious belief. It is not a religious belief, but a biological imperative. Male / female sexual complementarity is a fact of biology, not a religious belief. Biology and anatomy hasn’t changed over the course of several millennia.

Finally! :clapping:

 

[SuperLuigi]

=EmperorNapoleon;11521294]That debate has been over for decades.

That comment makes no sense, as you’ve been debating it on here for quite some time.

Marriage was defined as a civil right by the Supreme Court almost 40 years ago.

I don’t think the Founders would be terribly keen on the idea of the courts deciding what is a right and what isn’t. :tsktsk:

If you mean Loving V. Virginia, that’s already been discussed and that was specifically about straight, interracial marriage and was also a decision based on economics.

So-called “gay marriage” doesn’t benefit the state with long-term economics.

Sometimes the courts are needed to save society from itself and protect the minority from tyranny of the majority.

That’s what every side says when the courts give them their way. When they don’t, as Jason Lewis says, “then they are the ones screaming about states rights”.

Courts tend to make terrible policy, which is why we have the legislative branch.

 

[rossum]

So-called “gay marriage” doesn’t benefit the state with long-term economics.

Irrelevant. An infertile heterosexual couple can get legally married, even if there is no prospect of children. Fertility has never been a precondition of marriage.

rossum

 

[_Abyssinia]

.

pi.vu/B2ax

To form a real marriage, a couple needs to establish and live out the kind of union that would be completed by, and be apt for, procreation and child‐rearing. Since any true and honorable harmony between two people has value in itself (not merely as a means), each such comprehensive union of two people – each permanent, exclusive commitment sealed by organic bodily union – certainly does as well.

Any act of organic bodily union can seal a marriage, whether or not it causes conception. The nature of the spouses’ action now cannot depend on what happens hours later independently of their control – whether a sperm cell in fact penetrates an ovum. And because the union in question is an organic bodily union, it cannot depend for its reality on psychological factors. It does not matter, then, if spouses do not intend to have children or believe that they cannot. Whatever their thoughts or goals, whether a couple achieves bodily union depends on facts about what is happening between their bodies.

It is clear that the bodies of an infertile couple can unite organically through coitus. Consider digestion, the individual body’s process of nourishment. Different parts of that process – salivation, chewing, swallowing, stomach action, intestinal absorption of nutrients – are each in their own way oriented to the broader goal of nourishing the organism. But our salivation, chewing, swallowing, and stomach action remain oriented to that goal (and remain digestive acts) even if on some occasion our intestines do not or cannot finally absorb nutrients, and even if we know so before we eat.

Similarly, the behavioral parts of the process of reproduction do not lose their dynamism toward reproduction if non‐behavioral factors in the process – for example, low sperm count or ovarian problems – prevent conception from occurring, even if the spouses expect this beforehand. As we have argued, bodies coordinating toward a single biological function for which each alone is not sufficient are rightly said to form an organic union.

Thus, infertility is no impediment to bodily union and therefore (as our law has always recognized) no impediment to marriage. This is because in truth marriage is not a mere means, even to the great good of procreation. It is an end in itself, worthwhile for its own sake. So it can exist apart from children, and the state can recognize it in such cases without distorting the moral truth about marriage.

Of course, a true friendship of two men or two women is also valuable in itself. But lacking the capacity for organic bodily union, it cannot be valuable specifically as a marriage: it cannot be the comprehensive union on which aptness for procreation and distinctively marital norms depend. That is why only a man and a woman can form a marriage – a union whose norms and obligations are decisively shaped by its essential dynamism toward children. For that dynamism comes not from the actual or expected presence of children, which some same‐sex partners and even cohabiting brothers could have, and some opposite‐sex couples lack, but from the way that marriage is sealed or consummated: in coitus, which is organic bodily union.

1. Still in the Public Interest

Someone might grant the principled point that infertility is not an impediment to marriage, and still wonder what public benefit a marriage that cannot produce children would have. Why, in other words, should we legally recognize an infertile marriage?

Practically speaking, many couples believed to be infertile end up having children, who would be served by their parents’ healthy marriage; and in any case, the effort to determine fertility would require unjust invasions of privacy. This is a concern presumably shared by revisionists, who would not, for example, require interviews for ascertaining partners’ level of affection before granting them a marriage license.

More generally, even an obviously infertile couple – no less than childless newlyweds or parents of grown children – can live out the features and norms of real marriage and thereby contribute to a healthy marriage culture. They can set a good example for others and help to teach the next generation what marriage is and is not. And as we have argued and will argue, everyone benefits from a healthy marriage culture.

What is more, any marriage law at all communicates some message about what marriage is as a moral reality. The state has an obligation to get that message right, for the sake of people who might enter the institution, for their children, and for the community as a whole. To recognize only fertile marriages is to suggest that marriage is merely a means to procreation and childrearing – and not what it truly is, namely, a good in itself. It may also violate the principle of equality to which revisionists appeal, because infertile and fertile couples alike can form unions of the same basic kind: real marriages. In the absence of strong reasons for it, this kind of differential treatment would be unfair.

Finally, although a legal scheme that honored the conjugal conception of marriage, as our law has long done, would not restrict the incidents of marriage to spouses who happen to have children, its success would tend to limit children to families led by legally married spouses. After all, the more effectively the law teaches the truth about marriage, the more likely people are to enter into marriage and abide by its norms. And the more people form marriages and respect marital norms, the more likely it is that children will be reared by their wedded biological parents. Death and tragedy make the gap impossible to close completely, but a healthier marriage culture would make it shrink. Thus, enshrining the moral truth of marriage in law is crucial for securing the great social benefits served by real marriage.