Same-sex marriage and Constitutional rights

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Sadly, the sexual depravity of modern America far exceeds that of the corrupt Romans in the time of Nero and Caligula. At least then the depravity was limited to the highly placed powers that be. Today it is not only spreading and flourishing among the lower classes, but same-sex marriage has acquired (and it appears will increasingly acquire) the general legitimacy it never enjoyed in ancient Rome or Greece.

All the more sad that this has happened in a largely Christian civilization, which can barely offer the excuse that its morals were cultivated in a pagan spiritual darkness. Catholics and other Christians who defend same-sex marriage cannot claim they are taking the high moral ground, and the path to hell is paved along with their solemnly stated good and tolerant intentions.
 
There’s plenty of anthropological evidence that same sex relationships and same sex marriage was in fact a thing In the ancient and recent past In the world. These are empirical facts. Dismissing them as depraved, corrupt, etc. is to use normative claims. These claims don’t affect the naturalistic fact that these unions have existed for a very long time. Not commonly, sure. But they have existed.
 
Rhubarb said:
There’s plenty of anthropological evidence that same sex relationships and same sex marriage was in fact a thing In the ancient and recent past In the world. These are empirical facts. Dismissing them as depraved, corrupt, etc. is to use normative claims. These claims don’t affect the naturalistic fact that these unions have existed for a very long time. Not commonly, sure. But they have existed.
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When and where? Your source?
 
For those interested in the alleged history of same sex marriage, I recommend this article. It is lengthy, and intended as a rebuttal to William Eskridges’ book attempting to show the presence of such marriages as marriage throughout world history. Here are a few excerpts:

“Professor Eskridge’s attempt to enroll history in his brief for same-sex
marriage is hardly unusual. It is one more worrisome example of the misuse
of history in order to achieve a desired result. Ignorance of, and
indifference to, history are not limited to the young. Once a concern in
the high schools, and then in colleges, it is now in graduate schools, and
in graduates themselves, that both such ignorance and such indifference are displayed.
. . .
And even if that reader feels that something is amiss, it is unlikely that he will take upon himself the task of checking virtually every authority cited by Eskridge, from the Hittites onward. The understandable human reaction is simply to accept most of it, possibly with a vague feeling of unease, but otherwise to be helplessly susceptible to their falsifications.
. . .
Nothing asserted here is accurate. There is no “rich history of same sex marriage” that he has “uncovered,” that was “suppressed in recent Western history, and is only now coming to light.” The “resistance” to same-sex marriage is not limited to “Western culture” with its age-old “anti-homosexual hysteria and bigotry,” but extends to almost every culture throughout the world, including even those, such as Tahiti, that provide an officially sanctioned social role for homosexuals, but do not extend society’s official approval to same-sex marriages.”

Source:
scholarship.law.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1468&context=lawreview
 
Rhubarb said:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_same-sex_unions

Not the best citation but it’s the best I’m going to do so close to final exams. There are citations on the article.
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As you say, not the best source, since same-sex relations are not the same as same-sex marriage. The first have been tolerated in many societies; the second have not … at least until present. But again, the present is a particularly low point of sexual morality in the Western World. And it’s probably going to get a lot lower.
 
Charlemagne_III said:
As you say, not the best source, since same-sex relations are not the same as same-sex marriage. The first have been tolerated in many societies; the second have not … at least until present. But again, the present is a particularly low point of sexual morality in the Western World. And it’s probably going to get a lot lower.
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There are plenty of instances of marriage listed, with citations also provided. I don’t have time right now to chase down the citations so I can’t say with any academic accuracy. I’ve been made aware of instances of same-sex marriage in Asian, American and African cultures before Christianity’s arrival. And it seems that it was a thing (not necessarily common) but a thing in Europe too until Christianity came onto the scene. To me, this suggests that this is a normative matter - that things that are uncommon are less-good than things that are common. This needs an argument. And no matter how you slice it I think there are enough counterexamples to show it false.
 
JimG said:
Polygamy, monogamy, even polyandry, always involved opposite sex couples. That was the constant. Marriage was not always between one man and one woman but it was always between opposite sex persons. In all the history of western civilization, going back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, same sex couples were never legally accepted as marriage, even when they were accepted socially.

There is a reason for this. It is based in human anatomy and anthropology. Human beings come in just two varieties: man and woman. That has always been and will not change. That is the underlying reason for marriage. Man and woman can have a conjugal union, a marital union. Same sex couples can never have a marital or a conjugal union. It is not possible.

Carle Zimmerman traces the varieties of marriage in his book “Family and Civilization.” The common evolution was from polygamy (in periods of weak central government) to domestic families (man, woman, children) in periods when government could assure the safety of its population. On rare occasions, family structure did break down almost entirely, atomized to individuals rather than families. Those were the times of most social upheaval and chaos. Families really are the foundation of society, and marriage is the foundation of family.
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There’s a lot more to the natural institution of marriage than this, as well. Why do you think societies universally have sought to regulate human sexual behavior? Because it is procreative. It is powerful. It goes to the essence of humanity and affects everyone. It is not an act in isolation.

And particularly it is the male-female sexual union that is so powerful, and of such social (and thus State) interest, because it can result in offspring.
**
Marriage is the institution that formalizes and recognizes biological families. That is its essential and irreplaceable, irreformable purpose. The simple natural fact of it is that only male-female sexual unions can result in biological families, and so there really is no compelling social or state interest to have an institution like marriage for any other purpose.**

Marriage is intended for children, ultimately, and more than anyone else. It forms families for the sake of the care, rights, and inheritance of children, and the legal regulation thereof, providing a means of easily and naturally associating (recognizing the association, really) of children with their biological parents. It provides rights of children upon their parents and attaches responsibility for children to their biological parents.

This is so foundational to civilization and so common-sensical that most people have a hard time even stating it – it’s too obvious, too taken for granted.

But we disrupt it now at our own peril.
Edit: The most serious problem in the coming century will be that of underpopulation and de-population. Most nations have declining fertility rates, which will drastically affect economies and social support systems in the near future.
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Very true. A declining and aging population is absolutely devastating to an economy. A growing population is generally a tremendous boon to an economy, except where there is such pre-existing instability and corruption that really an economy is just in tatters anyway (think of much of the third world – population growth is not the cause or symptom of their problems).
 
Arandur said:
There’s a lot more to the natural institution of marriage than this, as well. Why do you think societies universally have sought to regulate human sexual behavior? Because it is procreative. It is powerful. It goes to the essence of humanity and affects everyone. It is not an act in isolation.

And particularly it is the male-female sexual union that is so powerful, and of such social (and thus State) interest, because it can result in offspring.
**
Marriage is the institution that formalizes and recognizes biological families**. That is its essential and irreplaceable, irreformable purpose. The simple natural fact of it is that only male-female sexual unions can result in biological families, and so there really is no compelling social or state interest to have an institution like marriage for any other purpose.

Marriage is intended for children, ultimately, and more than anyone else. It forms families for the sake of the care, rights, and inheritance of children, and the legal regulation thereof, providing a means of easily and naturally associating (recognizing the association, really) of children with their biological parents. It provides rights of children upon their parents and attaches responsibility for children to their biological parents.

**This is so foundational to civilization and so common-sensical that most people have a hard time even stating it – it’s too obvious, too taken for granted.

But we disrupt it now at our own peril.**

Very true. A declining and aging population is absolutely devastating to an economy. A growing population is generally a tremendous boon to an economy, except where there is such pre-existing instability and corruption that really an economy is just in tatters anyway (think of much of the third world – population growth is not the cause or symptom of their problems).
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I quite agree. The fact that so obvious a fact as the nature of man and woman as sexually complementary beings is now taken as an option or as an ancient curiosity is itself an indication of the fall of reason in our own time. It’s not a good sign.
 
Charlemagne_III said:
As you say, not the best source, since same-sex relations are not the same as same-sex marriage. The first have been tolerated in many societies; the second have not … at least until present. But again, the present is a particularly low point of sexual morality in the Western World. And it’s probably going to get a lot lower.
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You’ve made a subtle shift there. It seems perfectly reasonable to suppose that same sex “legal marriage” was less common than same sex “relationships.”

However, it does not follow that same sex “legal marriage” was therefore not tolerated when relationships were. There are reasons other than “a societal lack of tolerance” that would explain why a society would not have implemented legal definitions for homosexual marriage. One big one might be simple frequency. Estimates put the gay population at around 1% of the total population, so it seems reasonable that governments might not have found the issue to be of enough societal significance to legislate about.
 
Rhubarb said:
There are plenty of instances of marriage listed, with citations also provided. I don’t have time right now to chase down the citations so I can’t say with any academic accuracy. I’ve been made aware of instances of same-sex marriage in Asian, American and African cultures before Christianity’s arrival. And it seems that it was a thing (not necessarily common) but a thing in Europe too until Christianity came onto the scene. To me, this suggests that this is a normative matter - that things that are uncommon are less-good than things that are common. This needs an argument. And no matter how you slice it I think there are enough counterexamples to show it false.
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You’ve been made aware of something but you can’t tell the specifics? 🤷
 
JapaneseKappa said:
You’ve made a subtle shift there. It seems perfectly reasonable to suppose that same sex “legal marriage” was less common than same sex “relationships.”

However, it does not follow that same sex “legal marriage” was therefore not tolerated when relationships were. There are reasons other than “a societal lack of tolerance” that would explain why a society would not have implemented legal definitions for homosexual marriage. One big one might be simple frequency. Estimates put the gay population at around 1% of the total population, so it seems reasonable that governments might not have found the issue to be of enough societal significance to legislate about.
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More to the point, homosexuals never until modern times thought they had a chance of getting same-sex marriage through as an institution. The reasons might vary from culture to culture, but the overriding reason would be the natural law that societies have always recognized until modern times. This natural law morality has fallen apart as society becomes increasing relativistic. It is now fashionable to kill one’s own unborn child as it is fashionable to marry a same-sex person.

Moral relativism opens the door to loose morals and depravity.

Natural law morality flows from the recognition that a Supernatural Law rules all of Creation, and that we deny that law and its Lawgiver at our own peril.
 
Just because the constitution doesn’t forbid it, doesn’t mean it should define it. Marriage predates the Constitution and the US. The Supreme Court does not make law. It just decides if a law complies with the US Constitution. Therefore, I would say because marriage has already been defined and precedent has already been set, if not explicitly, then implicitly, the Supreme Court should not be providing a false definition in order to appease a few.
 
casey_cates said:
Just because the constitution doesn’t forbid it, doesn’t mean it should define it. Marriage predates the Constitution and the US. The Supreme Court does not make law. It just decides if a law complies with the US Constitution. Therefore, I would say because the definition has already been defined and precedent has already been set, if not explicitly, then implicitly, the Supreme Court should not be providing a false definition in order to appease a few.
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Then, as I believe, the constitution is, and was intended to be a living document. Remember, the founders established the Supreme Court.
BTW, many of them were Deists…not Christians as is so often claimed. Just read their writings.
 
oldcelt said:
Then, as I believe, the constitution is, and was intended to be a living document. Remember, the founders established the Supreme Court.
BTW, many of them were Deists…not Christians as is so often claimed. Just read their writings.
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It is a living document in the sense that it can be amended? But with regard to SSM, it is not amended at this time. That would take an Act of Congress not the Judicial Branch. (You know, that crazy balance of power thing.) The SC cannot change the Constitution, they can only work with what they have. As it stands, marriage has always been defined in the US and the eyes of the Court as between one man and one woman. If that it is to be changed, then technically, it should be changed by Congress who is supposed to represent the people, not by judicial activism. Not that I am advocating that it be changed at all but that’s the system we have…
 
casey_cates said:
It is a living document in the sense that it can be amended? But with regard to SSM, it is not amended at this time. That would take an Act of Congress not the Judicial Branch. (You know, that crazy balance of power thing.) The SC cannot change the Constitution, they can only work with what they have. As it stands, marriage has always been defined in the US and the eyes of the Court as between one man and one woman. If that it is to be changed, then technically, it should be changed by Congress who is supposed to represent the people, not by judicial activism. Not that I am advocating that it be changed at all but that’s the system we have…
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Why would something that is not specifically forbidden require an amendment? BTW, where is marriage even mentioned in the entire document? I must have missed that.
 
Because if the US wants to legally define something, they should do it through Congress who makes laws. If they don’t want to define it, then they can leave it up to the States who each make up their own definistion as they have done up to now. That is why wer’re called the United States of America. Because the US Govt is only supposed to have limited powers specifically defined in the Constitution. Each state is supposed to be able to have autonomy to create its own laws unless it conflicts with the Federal Law. Since federal law does not define marriage, if the US wants to do that, they need to do it in Congress which creates laws. But in looking at any previous cases in front of the Supreme Court regarding marriage, because there is no other definition and the definition that pre-dates the Court is that of one man and one woman, traditional marriage already has precedent. SSM does not.
 
casey_cates said:
It is a living document in the sense that it can be amended? But with regard to SSM, it is not amended at this time. That would take an Act of Congress not the Judicial Branch. (You know, that crazy balance of power thing.) The SC cannot change the Constitution, they can only work with what they have. As it stands, marriage has always been defined in the US and the eyes of the Court as between one man and one woman. If that it is to be changed, then technically, it should be changed by Congress who is supposed to represent the people, not by judicial activism. Not that I am advocating that it be changed at all but that’s the system we have…
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Marriage is not mentioned in the US Constitution at all, so perhaps you and I have no right to marriage either. Maybe our marriages should be dissolved. As it stands, “working with what they have” gay people have as much constitutional right to marry as you and I.
 
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