It's about civil rights
This video is fantastic! Warning for some bad language. Also, I'd qualify what he says about Christian marriage with "in SOME Christian churches" and I'd point out that in most places gay marriage is already illegal, so what he's really talking about is constitutionalizing the ban against gay marriage, but otherwise I couldn't agree with him more.
If you can create a law that enforces your system of morality, then you can create a law that enforces someone else's system of morality. If you create the precedent now, you're gonna see it again. Right now we're banning gay marriage. Tomorrow we're banning church. The law is identical.
posted by Bad Methodist @ 8:16 PM
7 comments
7 Comments:
Can you delete my sith comment, I'm anonymous at last.
That's a good libertarian argument. A government which you empower to crush someone else's rights can also crush yours.
Even though I know you don't like "slippery slope" arguments... my main thing on this issue is that the people of the USA have always voted their own "moralities" into law, sometimes that doesn't last long (see prohibition.) But I have an aversion to our decisions being made by lawyers and courts and not by the people.
But one of the major reasons there is a judicial branch is to protect the minority against "an interested and overbearing majority." If 60% of the people think slavery is okay, that doesn't make it right for slavery to be legal. If 60% of the people think segregation is fine, that doesn't make it right. If 60% of the people think they should be able to decide for other people with whom they form lifetime commitments, that doesn't make it right. That's the judiciary's PURPOSE, to protect individual rights.
But the government is for the people, by the people. Let the people vote on an issue first. We're skipping *the people* on this whole issue... it's gone from
"it's just not done" straight to the courts. I don't think the constitution should be amended, but I think the people have the right to decide. Then, if it actually ends up that the voters have passed a law that actually DENIES equal rights, then yeah that's the place for the courts.
So is the purpose of the courts in our system to enforce morality or enforce the law?
Overall I agree with his commentary. However, I think he paints Christianity with too broad a brush.
There are 2 polar ends of Christianity with an entire spectrum in between.
As far as slippery slopes are concerned -- within the realm of religion -- who really cares if the Church of Later Day Saints blesses unions between multiple people. Lord knows Solomon had his share of wives. The MCC and Unitarian Universalists have been performing same sex marriages for decades. The Baptists probably will never perform them.
What a religious body chooses to do is mostly their business. excepting such atrocities as human sacrifice.
Within the civil realm there should be no differences in what rights are granted.
We all know that as much as we love the idea of democracy that we do not live in one. We live in a republic and that is a VERY GOOD thing.
Most people are neither smart enough nor nice enough to make all the laws fair for everyone.
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