Special Rights And The Federal Marriage Amendment

The Federal Marriage Amendment which has been touted recently in Congress, has little chance of being passed, and for the same reason the equally insane Flag Burning Amendment has-it’s supposed proponents would in reality prefer to keep it alive as an election year issue, election after election, and blame the Democratic Party for keeping it from being passed. And, just as in the case of Kentucky Senior Republican Senator and Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell, when necessary they will find a Republican Senator for whom it is safe enough to “cross party lines” and vote with the majority, on some pretext or another.

There is, however, one major differences in the two proposed “conservative” amendments-

The Flag Burning Amendment should probably be allowed to pass, for no other reason than to keep this inane stupidity from ever again taking up the important, valuable time required to conduct the legitimate business of the American people.

Yet, I can promise you it never will be.

The Federal Marriage Amendment, on the other hand, is an abomination, a perverse distortion of American ideals that would enshrine discrimination into the American constitution of a disliked and reviled, by many, minority group, and it should never be passed.

Yet, there is a better than passing chance that one day, it will be.

As I was explaining today in a comment on a post on the subject by Pissed Off Patricia, in Morning Martini, the Republican Majority are under the gun this year to produce results, and the pressure grows ever greater with each passing year. To understand the reason for this, you need look no further than your local churches, and the mythology of their particular cults, as pertaining to, at least insofar as the more conservative of them go, the word of God as to the true nature of homosexuality.

It has been reviled in sacred scripture as the most heinous of sins, worthy of not only scorn, but even of death. Five entire cities were suppossedly destroyed at least in part, if not wholly, to this evil. It was stated bluntly, in palin language, that it was among the most abominable of sins.

Now, what is the natue of sin? The answer, of course, is that it is rebellion against the word and laws of God. That implies, at least, a purposeful conduct. Therefore, you are presented with the subject of choice. At least when it comes to such matters as homosexuality.

However, it is interesting to note that in most other instances of sin, it is said that people sin because they have a natural sin nature due to the fall from grace perpetrated by the first humans, Adam and Eve. This doesn’t make in any more excusable, only more to the way of presenting an explanation, flawed though it is, as to why human beings cannever possibly attain perfection. Human beings are fatally flawed.

The Apostle Paul seems to have recognized this, and talked of Nero and his Roman Imperial Court as being so debauched, that they were given over to a sin nature. They were so debauched, in other words, so rotten to the core, there was not any hope for them, as that God had given them over to a “reprobate mind”. In a sense, they no longer had any option, no true choice to act in any other way-still, they were evil, and evil is as evil does.

The Apostle Paul himself may have been a homosexual. The fact is he spoke of himself as being weak, frail, infirm, and in additon there is no record of him ever being married. Yet, it is his writings which have had by far the greatest impact on Christian morals, even to this day, in their singlemindedness and rigidity. And this would include sexual and marital matters. “ It takes Richard Nixon to go to China.”

So anyway, the point is that conservative Christians, as well as Muslims and probably Jews as well, honestly believe that to allow gay marriage would be tantamount to an open indication to either one of two things.

To those that believe it is a “choice”, a great many people might actually “choose” the homosexual lifestyle, that over a period of time it would be seen as natural, and this would lead to the wholesale desecration of the sacred rites of marriage, and to the ultimate weakening and eventual doom of society. Men and women, in ever greater numbers, would eventually decide to leave their spouses and engage in a legally recognized marriage with their same sex best friends.

Before long, thanks to radical elitist educators with some sinister “homosexual agenda” more and more innocent children would then be lead to engage in the homosexual lifestyle. Before long, America’s morals would be down the toilet. Seuxally transmitted diseases would explode, tradtional marriages would fall apart in ever more increasing numbers, and the entire culture would disintegrate into a morass of sinful vice and excess. America would, in short order, be a 300 million plus Sodom and Gommorrhah.

Those who believe that homosexuality is not a choice, but is naturally occurring, still are in agreement to an extent. They feel that homosexuality is a test, imposed by God on them, one which they should struggle with every day, with his divine help. To give in to this evil would be therefore to fail the test. To legalize gay marriage,then, would make it easier to give in to those evil urges God has decided to test them with. The net result would be the same, in their opinion.

People who adhere to this belief like to cite studies of the results of gay marriage in certain European countries where it has been made legal, in The Netherlands, for example. They cite statistics that purport to demonstrate how traditional marriages have faltered, have declined, since the legalization of same sex marriage, how there are more divorces, etc.

Without having seen these studies in depth, I can’t really say for sure, except to volunteer the opinion that they are probably skewed. There might be other factors for the decline in traditional marriages which might have as much to do with the high rate of income taxes as anything else.

But when worse comes to worse, I would have to offer the opinion that the true reason for the decline has most probably everything to do with the rights of non-married oppossite sex couples being put pretty much on an equal level as the rights traditoanlly, in times past, reserved for those couples who choose to engage in traditional marriages. If true, this would have nothing to do with homosexual marriages, per se’.

But this as well brings up a whole other issue. Why is it that a traditional, heterosexual marriage, should be afforded special rights? Isn’t that a lifestyle choice? Were they forced to be married? Were they forced to have a child? Or two, or three, or four, etc? Well, am I responsible for that? So they are having a hard time raising their children. How is this my problem? How is it that I or anybody else should be penalized for their freely chosen and engaged in “lifestyle choice”?

How is it that since they have freely decided, on their own initiative, to marry and raise a family, they now have the right to the better jobs, more tax breaks, while I in turn am taxed to pay for their childrens education, and in some cases food, shelter, and even medcial expenses? Aren’t all these “special rights”?

After all, they knew full well what they were getting into when they entered this avenue of their life. Why should anyone but them pay the price for it? And why should their needs be considered of paramount importance over the rights of either same sex couples, married or otherwise, or of heterosexual couples who might choose to share a life together without the benefits and responsibilities of marriage?

In my honest opinion, if a heterosexual couple can marry, raise children, and stand together through all the good times and the bad, while that is commendable, it deserves no special applause. If their marriage is based on reality, and entered into with maturity and reason, and they are willing to work on it, that marriage will last, and flurish and prosper, regardless of the status of same sex couples or of unmarried heterosexual couples.

But, on the off chance that it might effect certain marriages adversely, resulting in an inevitable split-it’s probably just as well.

Still, as I said close to the beginning, there is a slight chance this amendment, if not this year, might someday eventually pass. All it would take is enough demands by that socailly conservative Christian segment of society, enough conservative Republican legislators on the national level to start to realize they have to eventually produce promised results.

As more and more states enact amendments to their own states constitutions to the effect of disallowing gay marriage-many of which, by the way, also include provisions to forbid the recognition of the rights of unmarried heterosexual couples as being on the same level as traditionally married couples-the pressure will beccome greater on conservative legislators, which may as well include some Democrats in addition to Republicans.

One day, they might have to produce. And if and when they do, our country will be the poorer for it.