Thursday, November 20, 2003

WHAT'S IN IT FOR THE REST OF US?
On Legislating Same-Sex "Marriage" vs. the Common Good


One of the most fundamental principles upon which civil law is based is the concept of "the Common Good," i.e., what is best for the stability and healthy growth of society as a whole. For example, society as a whole benefits greatly when laws and policies are enacted which give deference and certain advantages to men wed to women and vice versa. Why? Because, among other things, it is from these unions that children --and future citizens-- spring. And the happier, more well-adjusted, and more stable the children, the happier, more well-adjusted, and more stable --and more productive-- are the citizens they become.

Moreover, even without children coming from their unions, the evidence has shown since the beginning of recorded history that married adults tend to be happier, more well-adjusted, and more stable --and more productive-- as couples than they are as singles. This in turn makes the whole fabric of society stronger and more resilient, particularly because marriage is as much about, if not more about, shared life goals, shared interests, shared enterprises, and shared values than it is about shared beds.

Hence, the protection and strengthening of this timeless and universal institution of monogamous, one-man-and-one-woman-for-life is for the Common Good. And it's no accident that every human society on every continent on this planet since Homo Sapiens arose on the planet has had laws protecting it as well as giving special deference to it. Contrariwise, none of them --with the possible exceptions of ancient Sparta or a handful of polygamous tribal cultures-- has ever legalized or otherwise given the social stamp of approval to "alternative life-style" "unions." That's because they weren't stupid, even if they may have been "intolerant" and "unenlightened" by presumptuous modern Western secularist standards.

Yet all this seems to have been completely forgotten by the four judges sitting on Massachusetts' highest court this week. In fact, they've completely ignored, if not completely jettisoned, the principle of the Common Good when they decided instead that, in essence, official recognition of unions between two adults should be based solely on the whims and preferences of the two adults in question --i.e., merely because "they love each other." In fact, the judges themselves said as much, and there can be no other explanation for their decision; for in what ways can same-sex "marriages" serve the Common Good, as outlined above? The answer is "none," for --by their very nature-- they cannot.

Wednesday, November 19, 2003

MASSACHUSETTS' COUNTERFEIT MARRIAGE PROPOSAL:
Devalueing Marriage the Way "Counterfeit Money Devalues the Real Thing"


In yesterday's USA Today, op-ed guest columnist Tony Perkins focuses on the central absurdities and disasterous implications of the Massachusetts Supreme Court's asininely arrogant decision to radically redefine marriage by lifting the state ban on same-sex marriage:

....Marriage is the most fundamental institution of society. The law does not create it, it merely recognizes it. Marriage exists to bridge the gap between the sexes by bringing a man and a woman together in the context that is best for the reproduction of the human race and for raising children to be responsible adults. Healthy families are beneficial to the state.

A large and growing body of social science research has shown that husbands and wives and their children are happier, healthier and more prosperous than adults or children in any other living arrangement. The benefits conferred upon marriage under the law are not an entitlement — they are a recognition of the benefits that marriage confers upon society.

Other research has shown that same-sex relationships lack permanence and fidelity. Therefore, if such unions are recognized as "marriage," those values will be further stripped from the ideal of marriage that is held up to our children.

The deliberate creation of motherless and fatherless families will have the government's highest stamp of approval. Expanding the definition of marriage will weaken the institution, not strengthen it, in the same way that counterfeit money devalues even the real thing.....

Next to come down the pike, as surely as we stand here, is the legalization of polygamy and group "marriage," if not incest as well --the end result being the end of marriage itself.

Far fetched? Paranoid? Absurd? NOT REALLY, as Stanley Kurtz, a research fellow with the Hoover Institution, points out.
MARRIAGE: "NOTHING TO DO WITH GETTING CHILDREN WHAT THEY NEED":
Columnist Maggie Gallegher's Analysis Cuts Through Massachusetts B.S.


Observes Gallagher in her column today:

Four judges in Massachusetts, ruling in a same-sex marriage case, have decided that children don't need mothers and fathers, that marriage has nothing to do with getting children what they need. Marriage is a passing plaything of the latest fashionable ideology, a toy for adults with graduate degrees to tinker with, at their pleasure.

[These judges] displayed their own massive ignorance about marriage, its history and its public purposes. Four people claim that "the government creates marriage." There is no rational reason, they claim, for the state legislature to require that for a marriage you need a husband and a wife, who can become a mother and a father for their children.

So why have marriage at all?, Gallagher asks. Because [quoting the judges]:

"Civil marriage anchors an ordered society by encouraging stable relationships over transient ones. It is central to the way the Commonwealth identifies individuals, provides for the orderly distribution of property, insures that children and adults are cared for and supported whenever possible from private rather than public funds, and tracks important epidemiological and demographic data."

Translation: "So that the civil government can operate more efficiently" and, as Gallagher points out, in this mindset,

"Marriage is whatever the adults want. People have a right to conduct a great social experiment on children because, well, adults want to do it, and doing your own thing is the new law of the land.

As one philosopher pointed out long ago regarding pantheism, if everything is God then there is no such thing as God, for there is no dictinction between the Creator and the created. Likewise, the bottom line is that if marriage can be any and every sort of "relationship" between any and every sort of couple --i.e., there are no dictinctions to be made between marriage and mere coupling-- then, ultimately, there's no such thing as marriage.

Tuesday, November 18, 2003

MASSACHUSETTS COURT LEGALIZES GAY MARRIAGE:
Plans Now Underway to Legalize All Other Unions


In the wake of its decision to lift the ban on same-sex marriage, the Massachusetts Supreme Court will soon be hearing cases in support of other non-traditional unions.

Consider, for example, the efforts of the National Association of Narcissists to seek the legalization of same-person marriage. Or the campaign by the animal rights advocacy group, People for Equal Treatment of Animals, promoting the right of their members to marry their pets. Then there are all those guys who are married to their jobs, their golf clubs, their remotes, or their SUVs --but with no legal recognition whatsoever.

How unfair.

But let not your heart be troubled, at least if you live in Massachusetts: It's only a matter of time.
INTRODUCING "THE PERKY PAPIST":
A Promising New Blog Penned by the Irrepressible Meg Quinn...


...a very talented Catholic writer, and a friend of yours truly.

May her tribe --and content-- increase!

Monday, November 17, 2003

"WAS TERRI BEATEN IN 1990?"
Nat Hentoff Continues His Inquiry Into the Terri Case


This past Friday, in the latest installment of his columns on the Terri Schindler-Schaivo case, Hentoff notes that a Federal agency, the Advocacy Center for Persons With Disabilities (ACPD),

...has sent Michael Schiavo's lawyer a request that he authorize the release of Terri Schiavo's medical records. There was initial resistance, but the records have been turned over.

The purpose for this request by the ACPD is to be better able to determine if husband and guardian Michael Schiavo was telling the truth about how his wife underwent the heart failure which resulted in her brain damaged and quadraplegic condition.