This is just a blog post. It is not a historical or legal analysis of the issue of same-sex marriage. It does pull together some sources and words to review . I may write more about this soon. In a recent US Supreme Court Case a five to four majority held that under the due process clause of the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment it was unlawful for States to withhold marriage licenses from same sex couples because it infringed their liberty to exercise the right to marry.
There is a great deal to say about marriage and I have written about it in various places here in the blog and elsewhere. I do not wish to see sodomy laws restored as they once existed but I do not believe this is a legal decision that is excusable. It is consistent with the vast wasteland in which extended family, monasteries, religious orders, clubs and many other institution are deprived of vitality and homosexuals must come out of the desert to invade the home of heterosexual love which is most defiled by their lifestyle that might otherwise be tolerated by many people who cannot tolerate it here. This is not federal squabbling over civil unions but mandated gay marriage. This is what I expect of America, exactly what I expect.
Friday, June 26, 2015 was a day to be remembered. It was not a day to be surprised. In the midst of the current stream of development of law and society in the U.S. it’s not very surprising that the Supreme Court of the United States has decided to precipitously require all states to recognize same sex marriage and to do so in a very particular way. All sides of the debate and case agreed that marriage was among the fundamental institutions of society.
It is not sufficient cause for the court to wish not to redefine marriage in all jurisdictions just because it’s a fundamental institution that is of the greatest importance to countless citizens.
There really is nothing that the Supreme Court will not do. Not really…
Michelle and I kiss on our wedding day.
Justice Scalia in his passionate and angry dissent states that more or less this is the end of any recognizable American government. I think that this is about the closest to the truth that we can get. The realization that the whole system is simply shot. What loyalty can it honestly demand?
Those civil consequences—and the public approval that conferring the name of marriage evidences—can perhaps have adverse social effects, but no more adverse than the effects of many other controversial laws. So it is not of special importance to me what the law says about marriage. It is of overwhelming importance, however, who it is that rules me. Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. The opinion in these cases is the furthest extension in fact—and the furthest extension one can even imagine—of theCourt’s claimed power to create “liberties” that the Constitution and its Amendments neglect to mention. This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves.
The question of what American freedom means is a question that I have discussed recently as well as in many other posts. But I think my recent post is the most relevant and you can read it here. The question of what comes next is not yet clear.
I also have written about gay marriage and the Supreme Court before as well and you can read that post here. The future and present troubles as I have said were no surprise to me.
There is little doubt that the sting is being felt. Governor Bobby Jindal of my state, former Governor Mike Huckabee of the neighboring state of Arkansas are both presidential candidates and both have committed themselves to running against this Supreme Court decision. There will surely be others who oppose this decision. A prominent and influential catholic intellectual Fr. Robert Barron has laid out some of his thoughts on the issue here. My local Catholic Ordinary, Bishop of the Diocese of Lafayette has sent out a letter opposing this decision and exhorting many to act in conscience against its most dreaded consequences.
The last two paragraphs here are from Chief Justice Roberts dissent. They embody reasoned procedural and legal arguments I mainly support. The dissent by Roberts is not going to be a paragraph which almost anyone will adopt in every particular. I think there are other objections he makes which are also important.
I want to say that I find this society in hundreds of ways moves against my beliefs, conscience, tastes, preferences and inclination, moral convictions and sense of… values all the time. I am not asking to be seen as someone like Roberts who appeals to the people at the edge of doom. Doom has long been here for me.
Nor do I choose to use this to hide behind only on legal and procedural grounds. I personally oppose same sex marriage. The LGBT community mostly loves the Supreme Court and in turn are loved by those they respect. I mostly don’t. The LGBT community mostly has views about the interface of personal, communal and societal relationships which I despise. Although I have had many LGBT friends I increasingly do not desire the personal friendship of new people and increasingly have drifted apart from many friends LGBT and otherwise. The LGBT community has long labored to make this change this way and I have not long labored to oppose them. I have been busy doing other things in a society and a world I do not much respect. We are different. I am not surprised when they are winning when we oppose each other on an issue. I see the world they are trying to win almost as a very large horror movie.
But Roberts is not me. He is the Chief Justice and this is whay he does not like the decision.ERr
“Although the policy arguments for extending marriage to same-sex couples may be compelling, the legal arguments for requiring such an extension are not. The fundamental right to marry does not include a right to makea State change its definition of marriage. And a State’s decision to maintain the meaning of marriage that haspersisted in every culture throughout human history canhardly be called irrational. In short, our Constitution does not enact any one theory of marriage. The people of a State are free to expand marriage to include same-sexcouples, or to retain the historic definition.
Today, however, the Court takes the extraordinary stepof ordering every State to license and recognize same-sexmarriage. Many people will rejoice at this decision, and I begrudge none their celebration. But for those who believe in a government of laws, not of men, the majority’s approach is deeply disheartening. Supporters of same-sexmarriage have achieved considerable success persuading their fellow citizens—through the democratic process—toadopt their view. That ends today.”
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