Brit Libertarians notice something important.

From Spiked:

//There are various reasons for this move from decriminalising homosexuality, which was a very good thing, to the sanctification of homosexuality, which is just weird. But the main one is that over the past two decades, the gay issue has evolved as the perfect way for the new elites to distance themselves from values that have fallen out of their favour. We have seen the weaponisation of homosexuality, the transformation of it by sections of the political and media classes into the focal point for the expression of hostility to the straight world – which means not just people who are sexually straight, but also so-called straight culture and straight values, straightlacedness itself, ways of life that are based on commitment, privacy, familial sovereignty, things that tend to be viewed by the modern cultural clerisy as outdated or, worse, dangerous and destructive. The sacralisation of homosexuality corresponds precisely with the growing denigration by the state and others of the sphere of the family and the ideals of lifelong commitment, because celebrating gayness has become the main and most PC means through which traditional values might be dented and traditional identities called into question, even thrown open to heightened official scrutiny.

This is what explains both the peculiarly speedy and strikingly authoritarian way in which gay marriage has been adopted by governments across the West who otherwise care little for freedom and choice - because officials recognise in it the opportunity to push further their instinctive hostility towards traditional communal and familial ideals that to a large extent exist outside of the purview of the state. Understanding the impulse behind Western officialdom’s feverish adoption of gay marriage is key to understanding what makes this new institution so illiberal and intolerant. Its great driving force is not any commitment to civil rights but rather an urge to coerce, a desire to reshape the views and ideals and habits of the public, to enforce a new morality that elevates individuation over family life, risk-awareness over commitment, and an openness to being guided through life by experts over loyalty to one’s family unit or community.

So when you criticise gay marriage, you’re not just criticising gay marriage, you’re challenging a new moral framework carved out by those who apparently know better than us what our private lives and relationships should and shouldn’t look like. You’re not just an opponent of gay marriage - you’re a moral heretic whose very thoughts and behaviour are seen as deviant, as running counter to a new, apparently better kind of morality. And that, as Eich’s treatment and everything else that preceded it has shown us, simply will not be tolerated.//

Question - How can someone else's marriage affect yours?

Answer - No more husbands and wives in California.

Why is the number "2" so special?

This is a quick and powerful argument about marriage.

Testimony of Ryan Anderson of The Heritage Foundation in support of Indiana HJR3 and H1153 from ADF Media Relations on Vimeo.

Equality Rocks!

Same-sex couples MUST get married or lose benefits.

No more getting the benefits of marriage while "living in sin."

Welcome to the "fresh hell" that we heteros call "divorce litigation."

ROFLMAO

Tolerance - the moment between breathing out one orthodoxy and breathing in another.

Gay Brit couple suing churches for not performing gay weddings.

Wealthy gay dad, Barrie Drewitt-Barlow, says he and his civil partner Tony will go to court to force churches to host gay weddings.

He told the Essex Chronicle that he will take legal action because “I am still not getting what I want”.

A Government Bill legalising gay marriage passed Parliament recently but it included measures to protect churches from being forced to perform same-sex weddings.

Challenge

Mr Drewitt-Barlow said: “The only way forward for us now is to make a challenge in the courts against the church.

“It is a shame that we are forced to take Christians into a court to get them to recognise us.”

He added: “It upsets me because I want it so much – a big lavish ceremony, the whole works, I just don’t think it is going to happen straight away.

“As much as people are saying this is a good thing I am still not getting what I want.”

Lobby

The gay couple shot to fame in 1999 when they became the first British same-sex couple to be named on their children’s birth certificates.

They entered a civil partnership in 2006, and Barrie Drewitt-Barlow has reportedly donated around £500,000 to groups lobbying for same-sex marriage.

Last year the Church of England warned that the Government’s plans to redefine marriage could trigger legal problems and end the 500-year link between church and state.

‘Problematic’

In January this year a leading lawyer cautioned that the plans left the Church of England open to legal challenge.

The Prime Minister was sent a copy of the legal opinion by Lord Carey, a former Archbishop of Canterbury.

In June 2012 Crispin Blunt MP, who was then a Justice Minister, admitted that the Government’s plans could lead to legal issues.

He said the Government is “seeking to protect, indeed, proscribe religious organisations from offering gay marriage”, but he continued: “That may be problematic legally”.

How does same-sex marriage affect you?

Well quite a bit, apparently, if you want to adopt a child.

Russia is not the first country to ban adoption by same-sex couples. Indeed, many countries have taken measures to prohibit adoption by gay or lesbian couples. For the past several years, the top sending countries (the country of origin for the child being adopted) have been fairly consistent: China, Ethiopia, Russia, South Korea and the Ukraine. Both China and Ethiopia expressly ban adoption by homosexuals. Other countries, such as South Korea and the Ukraine, have long required that a couple be married to adopt. However, since the legal recognition of same-sex marriage has been on the rise, many sending countries have amended their laws such that they no longer simply require that a couple be married, but they also mandate that the marriage be between a man and a woman, thus resulting in an implied ban on gay and lesbian adoption.

Prior to the proposed Russian law, Russia was the only one of the top five sending countries that did not have an express or implied ban on same-sex adoption. Once this law passes and is signed into law (which is expected early as this week), none of the top five sending countries will permit adoption by same-sex couples or by lesbian or gay singles. The Russian law, however, is even more discriminatory than that of the other countries in that it does not permit adoption by any single person from country that permits same-sex marriage regardless of the person's sexual orientation. In other words, even single heterosexuals are banned from adopting if from a nation where same-sex marriage is legal. However, if the individual is a citizen of a county that has not legalized same-sex marriage, he or she would still be eligible to adopt. Even China, whose intercountry adoption laws have often been cited as the most stringent in terms of parental eligibility, recently began permitting adoption by single women (previously only married couples were permitted to adopt and marriage was defined as between a man and a woman) regardless of their nationality.

So, it seems that every time the rights of 1% of the population is expanded, the rights of a much larger percentage, and a particularly vulnerable percentage, i.e., children and parents seeking to adopt, is reduced.

This is from The Daily Journal, June 24, 2013.

So, now that the war has been one, it seems, according to supporters of same-sex marriage that there really is...

... no principle that argues against incest and polygamy.

You know those opponents of marriage equality who said government approval of same-sex marriage might erode bans on polygamous and incestuous marriages? They’re right. As a matter of constitutional rationale, there is indeed a slippery slope between recognizing same-sex marriages and allowing marriages among more than two people and between consenting adults who are related. If we don’t want to go there, we need to come up with distinctions that we have not yet articulated well. 

The left is in this bind in part because our arguments for expanding the marriage right to same-sex couples have been so compelling. Marriage, we’ve said, is about defining one’s own family and consecrating a union based on love.//

Welcome to Civilization 3.0, where everyone is so much wiser because they have the internet.

What about married couples who can't have babies?

Edward Feser easily dispenses with one of the pro-gay marriage proponents' "big question":

That some men and women can't procreate is irrelevant. Just as a damaged eye is still for seeing -- that is still its natural end, whether or not it can realize it, and thus still defines the boundaries of its good use (which can be other than, but never contrary to, that end) -- so too our sexual capacities, psychological as well as bodily, are naturally "directed at" physical and emotional union with a person of the opposite sex, whether or not a particular set of organs can fully realize the procreative side and whether or not a particular person's psychological drives have gotten aimed in some other direction. What something happens to "aim" at is not necessarily what it naturally aims at, any more than a vine which grows so as to choke itself off does so naturally in the relevant sense of fulfilling the ends its nature sets for it.

More freedom for us...

...less for you, you underserving bigots.

Bob Schieffer learns why some people actually have a stake in "other people's marriages:"

Now to us in Massachusetts and who have been following the ride of the tolerance police, those sentences are nothing extraordinary but Bob Schieffer had no idea what Tony Perkins was talking about

BOB SCHIEFFER: How is it that bakers and florists are being forced to participate in this? I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying here.

Perkins then educates him

TONY PERKINS: Well, we’re seeing in Washington State, Colorado, and some of the other states that have these anti– anti-discrimination statutes that are being imposed that when a same sex couple comes and says “I want you to take pictures of my wedding or I want you to bake a cake.” And they say, look, my religious convictions will not allow me participate in that, they’re literally being sued by the government, not the individuals, and they’ve even been adjudicated in such places as New Mexico. So we’re going to see a loss of religious freedom. There is no question about it. It’s already happening.

Schieffer seems to be totally caught off guard by this, as evidenced by his hesitation in the following question.

BOB SCHIEFFER: How many– how many lawsuits have been filed on that? Because I must say this is under my radar. I haven’t– I haven’t heard this.

But, but, but...it was all supposed to be rainbows and butterflies, and the next thing Bob Schieffer learns is that he is marching with the jackbooted fascists.

I'd cry if I wasn't laughing.

Basically, the Supreme Court has sacrificed another word on the altar of the "euphemism treadmill."

Marriage is going to become a word that will be avoided like "gay" and "partnership."

Monsignor Pope makes a proposal:

So the bottom line is that what the secular world means by the word “marriage” is not even close to what the Church means. The secular world excluded every aspect of what the Church means by marriage. Is it time for us to accept this and start using a different word? Perhaps it is, and I would like to propose what I did back in March of 2010, that we return to an older term and hear what you think.

I propose that we should exclusively refer to marriage in the Church as “Holy Matrimony.”

According to this proposal the word marriage would be set aside and replaced by Holy Matrimony. It should be noticed that the Catechism of the Catholic Church refers to this Sacrament formally as “The Sacrament of Matrimony.”

The word “matrimony” also emphasizes two aspects of marriage: procreation and heterosexual complementarity. The word comes from Latin and old French roots. Matri = “mother” and mony, a suffix indicating “action, state, or condition.” Hence Holy Matrimony refers to that that holy Sacrament wherein a woman enters the state that inaugurates an openness to motherhood. Hence the Biblical and Ecclesial definition of Holy Matrimony as heterosexual and procreative is reaffirmed by the term itself. Calling it HOLY Matrimony distinguishes it from secular muddle that has “marriage” for its nomen.

After failing to do her fargin' job...

.. in defending the law passed by the People of California, the California Attorney General celebrates her dereliction of duty, despite the fact that Prop 8 is still the law.

Worth reading.

Scalia dissents rips Justice Kennedy's opinion to shreds:

Dissenting from this morning's opinion on the Defense of Marriage Act, Justice Antonin Scalia – as expected – holds nothing back.

In a ripping dissent, Scalia says that Justice Anthony Kennedy and his colleagues in the majority have resorted to calling opponents of gay marriage "enemies of the human race."

But to defend traditional marriage is not to condemn, demean, or humiliate those who would prefer other arrangements, any more than to defend the Constitution of the United States is to con- demn, demean, or humiliate other constitutions. To hurl such accusations so casually demeans this institution. In the majority's judgment, any resistance to its holding is beyond the pale of reasoned disagreement. To question its high-handed invalidation of a presumptively valid statute is to act (the majority is sure) with the purpose to "dis- parage," "injure," "degrade," "demean," and "humiliate" our fellow human beings, our fellow citizens, who are homo- sexual. All that, simply for supporting an Act that did no more than codify an aspect of marriage that had been unquestioned in our society for most of its existence— indeed, had been unquestioned in virtually all societies for virtually all of human history. It is one thing for a society to elect change; it is another for a court of law to impose change by adjudging those who oppose it hostes humani generis, enemies of the human race.

Scalia says that the court's holding – while limited to the Defense of Marriage Act – is a sure sign that the majority is willing to declare gay marriage a constitutional right.

It takes real cheek for today's majority to assure us, as it is going out the door, that a constitutional requirement to give formal recognition to same-sex marriage is not at issue here—when what has preceded that assurance is a lecture on how superior the majority's moral judgment in favor of same-sex marriage is to the Congress's hateful moral judgment against it. I promise you this: The only thing that will "confine" the Court's holding is its sense of what it can get away with.

And, he says, the holding will short circuit the debate over gay marriage that should have been carried out in the states.

In the majority's telling, this story is black-and-white: Hate your neighbor or come along with us. The truth is more complicated. It is hard to admit that one's political opponents are not monsters, especially in a struggle like this one, and the challenge in the end proves more than today's Court can handle. Too bad. A reminder that disagreement over something so fundamental as marriage can still be politically legitimate would have been a fit task for what in earlier times was called the judicial temperament. We might have covered ourselves with honor today, by promising all sides of this debate that it was theirs to settle and that we would respect their resolution. We might have let the People decide.

But that the majority will not do. Some will rejoice in today's decision, and some will despair at it; that is the nature of a controversy that matters so much to so many. But the Court has cheated both sides, robbing the winners of an honest victory, and the losers of the peace that comes from a fair defeat. We owed both of them better. I dissent.

Also, it's worth reflecting that a San Francisco resolution defining Catholics as members of a subversive organization was considered to be totally "OK" with the Ninth Circuit.

Good to know were everyone stands.

The other shoe is dropping.

After years of portraying gay couples as like regular couples, but cuter, and now that the revolution appears to have been won, liberal magazines are beginning to share that gay "marriage" will be essentially different from heterosexual marriage...presumably because gay marriage is missing a certain something we call "women," who don't typically see the "upside" in permitting their husband have sex with other women.

Surprise!

The dirty little secret about gay marriage: Most gay couples are not monogamous. We have come to accept lately, partly thanks to Liza Mundy’s excellent recent cover story in the Atlantic and partly because we desperately need something to make the drooping institution of heterosexual marriage seem vibrant again, that gay marriage has something to teach us, that gay couples provide a model for marriages that are more egalitarian and less burdened by the old gender roles that are weighing marriage down these days. 

But the thorny part of the gay marriage experiment is sex, and more precisely, monogamous sex. Mundy writes about an old study from the '80s that found that gay couples were extremely likely to have had sex outside their relationship—82 percent did. That was before AIDS and the great matrimony craze in the gay community. She also tells the story of Dan Savage, who started out wanting to be monogamous until he and his partner had kids, and then they loosened up on that in order to make their union last. “Monogamish” is what he calls his new model. But as Mundy asks, can anyone out there imagine a husband proposing that same deal to his pregnant wife?

Yes, we can imagine the response to such a proposition.

It wouldn't be pretty, we imagine.

A logical analysis of the Supreme Court's decision on Gay Marriage.

Bryan Cross writes:

The majority argument in yesterday’s Supreme Court decision regarding DOMA is primarily a legal argument, which I do not intend to address. But there is a related moral argument, which is relevant to the post above, and similar to the argument President Obama made in his second inaugural address, which I discussed in comment #57 above.

The argument goes like this:

(1) A law limiting marriage to the union of persons of the opposite sex restricts persons of the same sex from marrying each other.

(2) The legal restriction disallowing persons of the same sex from marrying each other injures and harms persons who wish to marry others of the same sex, depriving them of rights and responsibilities, while not injuring persons who wish to marry others of the opposite sex.

(3) A law is unjust if it injures or harms some persons and not others.

Therefore,

(4) A law limiting marriage to the union of persons of the opposite sex is unjust.

The argument is valid, but its soundness hangs on premise (2). Premise (2) presupposes that marriage is not a natural institution naturally limited to persons of the opposite sex, but can instead be whatever the civil law stipulates it to be, even including same-sex unions. As I explained in footnotes 5 and 7 above, only if marriage is in essence whatever the civil law stipulates it to be would it be harmful or injurious to some persons for the civil law to define marriage in such a way that those persons could not enter into marriage.

If, however, marriage is in essence a natural institution ordered to the procreative union between persons of the opposite sex, then the civil authority has no power to make marriage possible between persons of the same sex. And since no injury or harm is done to persons by not doing what one has no power to do, a civil law recognizing marriage to be only between persons of the opposite sex, and thus restricting persons of the same sex from marrying each other does not injure or harm persons who wish to marry persons of the same sex. So the argument above depends for its soundness on the presupposition that marriage is not a natural institution naturally limited to persons of the opposite sex, but is instead open to be whatever the civil law stipulates it to be. That presupposition, however, is precisely what is in question between the two sides of this dispute. (See, for example, this excerpt from Robert George’s Conscience and Its Enemies.) So the argument above fundamentally begs the question, i.e. presupposes precisely what is in question between the two sides.

In defense of Matrimony.

Taylor Marshall suggests a defense of marriage based on defending "matrimony":

Imagine someone at a cocktail party asks you, "Are you in favor in marriage equality?" What do you say? Are you against equality?!

It's like the question, "Have you stopped beating your wife?" There is no satisfactory way to answer that question.

Okay, so here's what you do in that situation. Change the word. Go with matrimony. 

Matrimony comes from the Latin matrimonium. It is a compound of two words: mater meaning "mother" and the suffix monium signifying "action, state, or condition."

Matrimony refers to the conception of babies in the mother's womb. The very word refers to the primary use of holy matrimony. 

We must stress that matrimony is an institution for having babies. Traditionally, the ceremony for matrimony symbolized and focused on this reality.

As matrimony became sterile through a contraceptive mentality over the last 50 years, homosexual unions (100% biologically sterile) became fully acceptable. 

So stress matrimony. Use that word and explain to people what it means. Matrimony entails motherhood!

Same-sex marriage is not a faith issue...

... according to the Archbishop of Canterbury...

I take it he means that there are sociological and logical reasons of the kind he identifies to oppose same-sex marriage:

The result is confusion. Marriage is abolished, redefined and recreated, being different and unequal for different categories. The new marriage of the Bill is an awkward shape with same gender and different gender categories scrunched into it, neither fitting well. The concept of marriage as a normative place for procreation is lost. The idea of marriage as covenant is diminished. The family in its normal sense, predating the state and as our base community of society – as we’ve already heard – is weakened. These points will be expanded on by others in the debate, I’m sure, including those from these benches.

For these and many other reasons, those of us in the churches and faith groups who are extremely hesitant about the Bill in many cases hold that view because we think that traditional marriage is a corner stone of society, and rather than adding a new and valued institution alongside it for same gender relationships, which I would personally strongly support to strengthen us all, this Bill weakens what exists and replaces it with a less good option that is neither equal nor effective. This is not a faith issue, although we are grateful for the attention that government and the other place have paid to issues of religious freedom – deeply grateful. But it is not, at heart, a faith issue; it is about the general social good. And so with much regret but entire conviction, I cannot support the Bill as it stands.

Homosexual students at GWU try to get Catholic priest fired for being...

...Catholic and daring - daring! - to affirm two-thousand year old position on love the sinner, hate the sin.

But don't worry about same-sex marriage. That will never be used as another lever to deny faithful Catholics access to the public square.

I thought only conservatives made this kind of comparison!

Apparently, there is at least one Columbia professor who thinks that incest can be equated to homosexuality...but in "the good way."

The lawyer representing a professor charged with incest with his 24-year-old daughter has questioned why the alleged affair has been made public. 

David Epstein was charged last week with one count of incest for what was allegedly a consensual three-year sexual relationship with his daughter.

The political science professor at Columbia University, 46, allegedly slept with her between 2006 and 2009.

Epstein, who specialises in American politics and voting rights, is also said to have exchanged twisted text messages with the woman during their relationship. 

Matthew Galluzzo, defending Epstein, has said that even though his daughter had emerged as a victim in the case, she could 'best be described as an accomplice'. 

He told ABCNews.com: 'Academically, we are obviously all morally opposed to incest and rightfully so. 

'At the same time, there is an argument to be made in the Swiss case to let go what goes on privately in bedrooms. 

'It's ok for homosexuals to do whatever they want in their own home. How is this so different? 

'We have to figure out why some behaviour is tolerated and some is not.'

So, let's be rational about this:
It's about love?  - Check

Consenting adults? - Check

Can we question whether it's really a choice? - Check

Privacy of own bedroom - Check

Looks like he's good to go.

Surprise!  Rational, empirical, non-invidious differences can be drawn between same-sex and opposite sex couples.

Baseball Crank has collated the information.

From the It Can't Happen Here files...


From the Telegraph:

Gay Danish couples win right to marry in church

Homosexual couples in Denmark have won the right to get married in any church they choose, even though nearly one third of the country's priests have said they will refuse to carry out the ceremonies.

They have won the "right" to coerce other people to compromise their freedom of conscience.

I'm old enough to remember when the Left thought highly of "freedom of conscience."

Of course, back then, "freedom of conscience" involve issues that were important to Leftists, like being a Communist and not being forced to take an oath to defend the Constitution.