Thursday, April 17, 2014

Freedom of Marriage

                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….”

                The entire article is very thought-provoking.  I can now see more clearly why progressives are pushing same-sex marriage on us and why the push has been so rapid.  I believe it is part of the plan to destroy society as we know it.  I hope you will read the article and then spend some time pondering the implications of the same-sex marriage movement and what would be the outcome in the United States and the world if traditional marriage is destroyed.  I too believe the institution of traditional marriage is a wall of separation that protects our freedom of association guaranteed by the Constitution.  Do you agree?  

No comments:

Post a Comment