Have you
considered the possibility that Americans could lose the right to associate
with whom we choose? Do you realize that
the loss of association would also take the freedom to marry whom we choose? Traditional marriage has been around since
God performed the marriage ceremony for Adam and Eve. It has been the “backbone” of societies for
thousands of years. Now there is a very
real possibility that the very institution of marriage will be destroyed in the
name of “marriage equality!”
Traditional marriage has been
under attack for a long time, but the speed of the destruction of marriage has
increased in recent years. This has
happened particularly under the direction of the Obama Administration but federal
judges assisted. The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was introduced in
Congress in May 1996 and passed by “both houses of Congress by large, veto-proof
majorities and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on September 21, 1996. By defining `spouse’ and its related terms to
signify a heterosexual couple in a recognized marriage, Section 3 codified
non-recognition of same-sex marriages for all federal purposes, including
insurance benefits for government employees, social security survivors’
benefits, immigration, bankruptcy, and the filing of joint tax returns, as well
as excluding same-sex spouses from the scope of laws protecting families of federal
officers …, laws evaluating financial aid eligibility, and federal ethics laws
applicable to opposite-sex spouses.
Under
DOMA states could “refuse to recognize same-sex marriages granted under the
laws of other states…. DOMA, in
conjunction with other statutes, had barred same-sex married couples from being
recognized as `spouses’ for purposes of federal laws, effectively barring them
from receiving federal marriage benefits.
DOMA’s passage did not prevent individual states from recognizing same-sex
marriage, but it imposed constraints on the benefits received by all legally
married same-sex couples.”
Mr. Clinton and some legislators
began speaking about repealing DOMA.
Then “the Obama administration announced in 2011 that it had concluded
Section 3 was unconstitutional and that although the administration would
continue to enforce the law while it existed, it would no longer defend the law
in court.” In United States v. Windsor in 2013 “the U.S. Supreme Court declared
Section 3 of DOMA unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth
Amendment.” Since the Supremes made
their decision, judge after judge has struck down laws defining traditional
marriage as a man and a woman.
I have often wondered at the
speed of the destruction of traditional marriage. I found answers to numerous questions in an
article by Stella Morabito entitled “Bait And Switch: How Same Sex Marriage Ends Family Autonomy”
with a second line stating “The goal isn’t equality – it’s abolishing an
institution.” Ms. Morabito began her article: “Abolishing all civil marriage is the primary
goal of the elites who have been pushing same sex marriage. The scheme called `marriage equality’ is not
an end in itself, and never really has been.
The LGBT agenda has spawned too many other disparate agendas hostile to
the existence of marriage, making marriage `unsustainable,’ if you will. By now we should be able to hear the growing
drumbeat to abolish civil marriage, as well as to legalize polygamy and all
manner of reproductive technologies.
“Consider also the breakneck
speed at which the push for same sex marriage has been happening recently. The agenda’s advocates have been very
methodical in their organization, disciplined in their timing, flush with
money, in control of all information outlets, including media, Hollywood, and
academia. And perhaps most telling is
the smearing of any dissenter in the public square, a stigma made de rigueur by Supreme Court Justice
Anthony Kennedy in his animus-soaked opinion that repealed the Defense of
Marriage Act.
“We’ve seen also how the Obama
Administration’s push for same sex marriage has occurred in lockstep with
policies that are hostile to marriage, such as the severe marriage penalty
written into Obamacare.
“Activist judges have taken
their cues from Attorney General Eric Holder who used the DOMA repeal to
proclaim open season on any state that recognizes marriage as an organic (i.e.,
heterosexual) union of one man and one woman.
In their crosshairs are state constitutions, businesses, students,
communities, churches, and all of those bogus `conscience clauses’ that were
written into same sex marriage legislation in order to sway wavering state
legislators to vote `aye.’
“The tipping point came soon
after certain big name conservatives and pundits swallowed the bait on same sex
marriage. Folks like Michael Barone,
John Bolton, George Will, S.E. Cupp, and David Blankenhorn have played a huge
role in building momentum for this movement, which, as we will see, is blazing
a trail to the abolition of state recognized marriage. And whether they know it or not, advocacy for
same sex marriage is putting a lot of statist machinery into motion. Because once the state no longer has to
recognize your marriage and family, the state no longer has to respect the
existence of your marriage and family.
“Without civil marriage, the
family can no longer exist autonomously and serve as a wall of separation
between the individual and the state.
This has huge implications for the survival of freedom of association.
“The notion of marriage equality
was never about marriage or about equality.
It’s all about the wrapping paper.
It’s been packaged as an end in itself, but it is principally just a
means to a deeper end. It is the means
by which marriage extinction – the true target – can be achieved. If marriage and family are permitted to exist
autonomously, power can be de-centralized in society. So the family has always been a thorn in the
side of central planners and totalitarians.
The connection between its abolition and the limitless growth of the
state should be crystal clear. So anyone
who has bought into this movement, or is tempted to do so, would want to step
back and take a harder look.”
This is only the beginning the article. A large portion of it contains a discussion
about “six indicators we’re headed directly for abolishing civil
marriage.” After thoroughly discussing
these indicators, Ms. Morabito declares, “The hard push for marriage equality
was never about marriage. Neither was it
about equality. It’s a convenient
vehicle to abolish civil marriage, whether to rid the world of paternalism,
evade responsibility for children, `privatize’ relationships, or whatever. Abolishing marriage strips the family of its
autonomy by placing it much more directly under the regulating control of the
state.
“Once the state no longer has to
recognize the marriage relationship and its presumption of privilege and
privacy, we all become atomized individuals in the eyes of the state,
officially strangers to one another. We
lose the space – the buffer zone – that the institution of the natural, organic
family previously gave us and that forced the state to keep its distance….”
No comments:
Post a Comment