Ron Scott wrote: > I understand that opponents of gay marriage are turning the > battle for a proposed Constitutional Amendment into a referendum > on sexual practices. This is precisely why I think the initiative > will fail and probably fail convincingly. The problem is that > long ago statutes prohibiting various sexual acts were repealed.
I don't know for myself that opponents are taking exclusively that approach, although I have no doubt that a sizeable number might. Similarly, I would imagine that many others have taken a purely religious approach, in the context of SSM being against the laws of God. But to me it all comes back to a point I made a while back, and if I sound like a broken record, I apologize. To me, we're not talking about merely a legal or a social privilege, or whether a given relationship is compatible with nature, although undoubtedly there will continue to be those discussions. Rather, we're talking about a core value that was supposed to transcend individual, religious, and ethnic views, and gets to the root of our identity as a nation and a society. So when a locale such as San Francisco goes out and says, "We believe this basic definition of marriage ought to change, and everyone else ought to abide by the same," it wouldn't be much different if they went and said, "Well, we don't believe that life or liberty are fundamental values compared to prosperity or wealth, so we'll officially put the former on the back burner, regardless of what the laws or the Constition might say." In both cases, the result is the same, because we are dealing with something that is basic, fundamental, and sacred--and I stress again, not from a narrow religious point of view, but in terms of it being a foundation of our society. Stated from as secular of a point of view as I can muster: When a society seeks to tinker with basic foundational values without seeking even a minimum of consensus within that society, let alone any soul searching to know if what it is doing is right, it is playing with fire. And as the saying goes, you can't play with fire and not get burned. > In many states, same sex couples have been allowed to adopt > children and, of course, by way of artificial insemination or > with the aid of a willing male SSA women have been able to bear > natural children. But again, to me, whether SSM marriages can have children, or whether traditional marriages do not is besides the point. In fact, the way I think of it is this: If children are born to an SSM or domestic partner relationship, and an increasing minority or plurality ratify the move as legitimate, we are chipping away at a basic value. When children are born outside of marriage, and it is similarly ratified as being legitimate, we are chipping away at a basic value. When children are born to a plural marriage that has been prohibited by the laws of the land, we are arguable chipping away at a different value, that being the rule of law. When the same relationships exist absent any children, we have a similar result. When we seek to terminate the lives of unborn children _without cause_ save it were the convenience of the biological participants (I dare not use the term mother and father in that instance), we chip away at yet another core value. And when we seek to relegate religion and its associated institutions to the fringes of society, holding the same to be irrelevant at best, and perhaps even a hinderance, I would submit we are chipping away at a value as fundamental as that of life...in other words, our liberty. Now off of my soap box, /Sandy/ Thank you for listening. :) --- >From the ZION List intake mailbox at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Rabinowitz Family -- Spring Hill, Tenn., U.S.A. http://www.firstnephi.com ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// /// ZION LIST CHARTER: Please read it at /// /// http://www.zionsbest.com/charter.html /// ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// --^---------------------------------------------------------------- This email was sent to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?aaP9AU.bWix1n.YXJjaGl2 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For Topica's complete suite of email marketing solutions visit: http://www.topica.com/?p=TEXFOOTER --^----------------------------------------------------------------
