Homosexual Marriage and how SCOTUS failed the Country

THEY SAY:  Don’t force your morality on me.

THEY SAY:  Baking the cake/ taking the photos of a gay wedding is not endorsing gay marriage, it is just a contract

QUOTE: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice… (Preamble to the U.S. Constitution)

QUOTE: [T]he legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions (Danbury Baptists Letter)

QUOTE: Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one’s own responsibility. (Catholic Catechism)

QUOTE: When the first word link is forged, the first speech censured, the first thought forbidden the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.  “The Drumhead” (ST: TNG)

I SAY:  The Supreme Court of the United States declared homosexual marriage a Constitutional right.  However, in declaring something Constitutional or unConstitutional, they are invoking the Founding Fathers.  They are saying that they believe the original drafters of the Constitution would hold this opinion on the matter at hand.  The Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has severely strayed from this.  While letters such as Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists is not part of law, it does offer insight to what the Founding Fathers were thinking when they drafted the Constitution.  After all, Jefferson was one of them.

However, declaring such a right is holding an opinion, which Jefferson denounced.  The “insurmountable wall” was to protect the Church from the government, not the other way around.  However, this is not to say that the Church was to be superior to the Government, rather it is to say that the Church should be able to voice its opinion free of government interference.  The people at large should be free to accept or reject the proclamations of the Church.  It is the job the SCOTUS to preserve and promote discussion, not to make decisions of law like this.

If not this, then how should the government be run?  By for and of the people.  The roll of the SCOTUS is to mediate between Congress and the President, not make moral proclamations.  The proper place for the development of laws should be Congress or referendums of the people.  However before SCOTUS ruled, different states had referendums both endorsing and opposing gay marriage.  We cannot say “the will of the people be done” supporting one referendum while denouncing another.  To do this is to chain us all.  The issue of homosexual marriage is a States' rights issue as much as it is about marriage itself.

Government may prevent, permit, or promote an action.  The proper role of the Court is to prevent slander or defamation of character in order to help promote insightful discussion in the public forum while permitting gay marriage.  To do this while the public debates and discusses how the law should be read is the true role of the Courts in this country.

If baking the wedding cake or doing the photoshoot is just a contract (and not an endorsement of gay marriage) as they say, then why is it so important that the cake be made by that baker or the pictures taken by that photographer.  After all, it is just a contract.  The courts failed the public by ignoring this question in favor of making the moral judgement.  The proper ruling would have been to protect the business while saying that the gay couple held the right to contract with a business willing to do the service.

As a different example, I love my Easter ham.  It is my favorite meal of the year.  However, should I protest in the streets when a jewish deli won’t sell me my ham?  Or, would the more mature response be to go purchase my ham from a business that will.  I could even buy from the jewish deli products which they do sell.

The reason laws are to come from the Congress is to help insure that different perspectives are voiced and recognized.  We are a Nation established for “rule by for and of the people.”  In order to achieve this ideal, we need to make the people the central source of developing laws.  Any “advancement” which our society makes, should come from the people, not the social engineering of the Courts.

Love and Abortion: Irony with Extreme Prejudice

I got this message from a longtime friend (I’ll call Jane Doe, not her real name) on Facebook.  We had been neighbors growing up in the ‘70s and ‘80s.  Since then, I had moved out of state.  We then reconnected over the internet.  We occasionally debated Democrat/ Republican politics.  I am actually not a Republican, but I am, socially, a moderate conservative.  Then, by e-mail, I received notice of this posting.  Soon after Jane made this post, she cut the friend’s link between our accounts.  This issue for me (abortion in general) is such an emotional one, even for me personally, that I had to step away from my computer numerous times to collect my thoughts.

In her attempt to “spell things out” for me, I could not help but notice how this is saturated in irony.  Right from the start saying she says “[a]ll men oppress women no matter their political, cultural or religious beliefs.”  She says this with the thesis that abortion is a way for women to “claim their independence.”  It would be foolish to say that there is no oppression of women.  However, to make such a sweeping statement as “[a]ll men oppress women” is disconcerting to say the least.  The easy sound-byte answer to this is what of men who support abortion?  Are such allies of abortion oppressing women just by being men?  However, this is to easy of an answer to leave it here.

The irony starts with the history of abortion in the modern world.  Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood) would agree with Jane that women have an inherent drive to improve their lives.  I personally, have little admiration for Sanger’s work, however, she did make an important point.  She also saw abortion as specifically a tool for men to keep women oppressed.  One of her specific arguments is the inherent health risks involved with the procedure.  Even in today’s political environment of having abortion legal, there are still cases where women die on the table specifically because of abortion.  Coat-hanger abortions (while did occur) was never conducted at the rate the propagandists claimed.  It was a lie perpetuated by a man in order to get abortion legal.  The irony is most poignant with the case of Kermit Gosnell (a man!).  Women going to such horrible conditions to claim their “what is best for their health and future” is beyond me.  Then, there is Uncle Pervert who chauffeurs young women to an abortion clinic in order to cover up his oppression.  Yes, there are men who oppress women. 

The Supreme Court (all men at the time, not one woman on the panel) ruled in favor of abortion through Roe v. Wade (remember that “all men oppress women regardless of their political beliefs”).  Today, some of the strongest (and most controversial, therefore well known) opponents to abortion (especially within the Catholic Church) are actually women.  Lila Rose of “Live Action,” became famous for holding some of the first undercover videos within a Planned Parenthood.  Then, Abby Johnson left her job as a general manager of a Planned Parenthood office specifically because of an experience assisting in an abortion.  She even wrote a book about the event.  Now, even the young “Roe” of Roe v. Wade (Norma McCorvey) has regretted her decision to participate in the case.  She is now a strong advocate against abortion.  Both Abby Johnson and Norma McCorvey have been baptized into Christianity as part of their leaving the “abortion community.”  So, lets look at other religions and at Christianity specifically.

There are men who subscribe to pagan beliefs.  Some of these belief systems worship the feminine, often in terms of the “Earth Mother.”  The feminine is most associated with creation, fertility, motherhood, etc.  According to Jane, “all men oppress women regardless of their religious… beliefs.”  I would be hard pressed to see how such a belief system makes women “second class citizens” as Jane would have us believe.  Moreover, I don’t understand how men participating in such belief systems is an oppression of women.

Lets now look at Christianity.  Christ (as a man on Earth) extolled such teachings of “love your neighbor as yourself,” “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” “love one another as I have loved you.”  However, this theme of love did not stay within the Gospels.  St. Paul wrote “and if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing” [1Cor 13: 2].

However, how are we to define “love.”  Is love merely the “rubber-stamping” of another person’s beliefs and actions?  Is it endorsing whatever beliefs or agendas society tells us is acceptable?  Or, is love challenging and helping others to rise above their anger and heal from their pain?