The Defamation of Marriage and the Rise of American Totalitarianism
The defamation of marriage in our federal court system is a national disgrace. The more jaded among us, the biker gangs and the Chinese and Russian communists, are laughing hysterically. Who can blame them? But all Americans should pay attention. It's more than a charade; it's a darkening. by Paul Benedict
(libertarian)
Sunday, August 8, 2010
From the edited version of the "Proponents Defense of Proposition 8" (Walker's ruling p. 6), it is hard to tell how well ProtectMarriage.com argued in defense of that crazy California proposition (Prop. 8) that marriage is between a man and a woman. For instance, Proposition 8 is, first about preserving the definition of marriage in our laws, and not, as ProtectMarriage has argued (p.6), about preserving marriage itself. A marriage is a marriage and always will be a marriage despite the absurdities of people. However, in protecting the definition of marriage, Proposition 8 is foremost a defense of the 'right to marry' enshrined in federal and state law. Neither the plaintiffs, the majority of voters, nor the judiciary have any authority to infringe upon this natural right of a man and a woman to join in marriage. That the courts have led the charge, not to preserve this right to marry, but to deprive the people of the legal recognition of this right is prima facieevidence that the helm of our constitutional government is sinking, and, like the stern of the Titanic, an American totalitarianism rises.
Additionally, some of ProtectMarriage.com's arguments sounded like they were the wrong ones for this particular judge. For instance, arguing that "We should not accept a court decision that may result in public schools teaching our own kids that gay marriage is ok..." (p. 7) is like arguing natural rights before a hereditary monarch.
However, even in the midst of extrapolating from the defense of Proposition 8 (hereafter known as "marriage is between a man and a woman") what could be inflamatory placards for pro-gay-marriage picket signs, even Judge Walker acknowledged one very sound premise argued by ProtectMarriage. It's a premise that leads to the conclusion that the revolutionary proposition that marriage is between a man and a woman should never be struck down by any branch of the judiciary, state or federal. Judge Walker's summary of this part of the argument reads, "...If the gay marriage ruling [of the California Supreme Court] is not overturned, TEACHERS COULD BE REQUIRED to teach young children there is no difference between gay marriage and traditional marriage" (p.7). His emphasis is on "could" focuses on what he perceives as an open door to refuting the claim of ProtectMarriage.com. During the campaign for Proposition 8, the gay community repeatedly denied that teaching gay marriage to Kindergartners was on the agenda. Apparently, the good judge felt it was time to refight the campaign, not in the public square where the dirty masses have no brains, but in the sanctity of his safely, elite, intellectually pure courtroom.
Additionally, based on Judge Walker's conclusion that asserting that marriage is between a man and a woman "targets gay and lesbians specifically due to sex (p.120)," he seems to have surprised everyone by taking the words "no difference" to mean no "qualitative" difference. In other words, he seems to indicate that all who say that marriage is between a man and a woman intend to teach that same sex couples cannot be successful parents or that their commitment to each other is in some way inferior to that of heterosexual couples. He has taken, apparently without asking clear follow up questions, the plaintiff's position that those who espouse the outrageous claim that marriage is between a man and a woman do so to intentionally disparage same sex couples. Nothing could be farther from the truth. This is not California. That is not the California voter. Everyone recognizes that the differences between same sex unions and marriage that sane people wish to preserve are factual, biological, and historic.
Because of Walker's apparent prejudices and his massive omissions, it is hard to tell whether ProtectMarriage.com completed the argument they began when explaining the need to preserve the California's outrageous proposition that marriage is between a man and a woman. Surely, they made the case that the reason teachers could be required to teach what is either deceptive or an outright lie (that same sex marriage is the exact same thing as marriage between a man and a woman) is that the plaintiff's case insists on a designation that is either deceptive or an outright falsehood. Certainly, ProtectMarriage explained that the plaintiffs give no alternative definition of marriage and send, therefore, every branch of family law into an endless morass of absurdity. Did ProtectMarriage explain that since the "right to marry" in federal law refers to a commitment between a man and a woman based, not on a ring, not on a license, but on biological joining that can only be accomplished between a man and a woman? Did ProtectMarriage.com complete the argument by establishing that redefinition of marriage strips all Californians of their federally held right to marry? If they did not, they most assuredly should have.
It is, nevertheless, apparent that ProtectMarriage made a sound and vigorous defense of the benefits of marriage to children and the state's profound interest in the weakest among us. This is a sound argument, and in happier days such words would never have fallen unheeded to the ground. But these are perilous times. These are the days of a social obsession with an equality of outcomes so complete and total that no aspect of civil life is spared it's intrusion. Instead of showing the natural compassion for the weak that must be part of a judicial temperament, Judge Walker fixated on bizarre celestial visions of equal protection. Instead of erring on the side of caution, Judge Walker put the state's interest in assuring the will of the poeple with regards to the welfare of their children aside. As a result, one who seems unfit for the judgments of law has set himself up as the final authority and arbiter of the benefits of family to children. Judge Walker accepted novel studies over the proven wisdom of the ages. He did this because, in American society today, this is true enlightenment.
These are the days of the leveling of our land. There can be no excellence because there can be no failure. It does not matter whether you study hard and become an outstanding physician who is able to help people in ways no one had ever thought about before; your outcome must be the same as your neighbor's. It does not matter whether you've chosen to do drugs all through high school, the state must provide for your college education and the best health care that everyone else's money can buy. Likewise, if you are a homosexual it is just not fair that you can't be married like everyone else, even though it is physically impossible. We have been making excuses for everyone in society. Why? Not because those whom we excuse are made free. (Some even suggest that it is because in excusing men and women we make slaves.) No, it is not compassion but an obsessive craving for a self-deceptive, idolatrous ideal that drives this madness. A fear of the truth, like the Tower of Babel, is being, block by block, lifted from the cheering masses of smug, useless "intellectuals" that populate the useless corridors of our universities. Only the rise of a totalitarian state could defy the natural light of liberty completely enough to satisfy craving for self importance.
Most of the working poeple in America could care less about this new religion of egalitarianism. However, the elite of our educational system have all seen this idol or been part of its celebration. The wise have seen the eye of Sauron and gone the way of Saruman.
Western society's "new" ideology, its a "new" religion, is one so psychotic it can tolerate none other. Its first creed is that "all truth is relative." Hence its others: "all choices are virtue," "all choices are equal," and, therefore "no choice has a consequence." This is not a happy time in California where the merit of the family is not in the state interest. This is not a happy time in the United States when "equal protection" is exalted above sanity in a farce beyond historic parallel. The notion that some choices are a blessing to the individual and to his country is a notion that can no longer be tolerated. The conclusion is unacceptable, so no fact that leads to such conclusions can, ipso facto, be valid. Today we are closer to the days of the monkey-courts of the French Revolution than we were last week. An American totalitarianism is rising.
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