3.19.2004
Unions--Marriage--Blah Blah Blah!
I am of the opinion that if there is a moral component to the definition of "marriage," it should be up to the people getting married to figure that out.
The Social Contract should never be utilized as an ultimate instrument of morality. It remains a contract of our obligations as citizens to our government and our government's obligation to us. When we start attempting to use it as a moral instrument, we start to degrade the purpose for which it was written: to establish freedom, justice, and equity for all Americans, not just some of them.
If religious institutions wish to limit who they will or will not marry, it is their right to do so as private institutions. The government is obligated to treat everyone the same and not to become overly involved in the individual moral decisions of it's citizenry, but to protect their right to reasonable self-determinism.
When I say "reasonable self-determinism," I am allowing for the fact that we do NOT live in a democracy, rather a democratic republic. We do not have absolute freedom to do anything we wish without reprocussions or consequences. There is an established body of laws that attempts to protect everyone from harm caused by the negligence or deliberate actions of another. These are reasonable provisions for which we all must give consent as citizens. Should we choose not to, we will find ourselves behind bars.
Reasonable self-determinism, does not give the government or anyone else the right to determine consentual adult behavior. Anywhere that our legal system has done this, they have done it at their own peril. We have seen the legacy of prohibitive legislation-ignorance of the basic rule of economics: if there is a demand, there will be a supply. Along with this, we have seen a society that is far more eager to attempt to stop the effects of harm rather than face its causes.
There is little doubt in my mind that homosexuality is deviant behavior. There is little doubt in my mind that it goes against the basic laws of nature for the purposes of procreation and survival of the species. However, there is also no doubt in my mind that there will always be enough people who find the opposite sex as appealing as ever, men and women will pair off as they have since the dawn of time, and babies will continue to be born "the old fashioned way," despite the doomsayers who are so terribly threatened by what other consentual adults do with their lives.
It is not up to the government to arbitrate what is moral or immoral outside the clearly defined boundaries of the Social Contract. It is up to the individual citizen to make those determinations for themselves. Anything less and we are unwittingly exchaging our Social Contract for "Social Engineering."
TANSTAAFL!
© 2004, J.S. Brown
0 comments
I am of the opinion that if there is a moral component to the definition of "marriage," it should be up to the people getting married to figure that out.
The Social Contract should never be utilized as an ultimate instrument of morality. It remains a contract of our obligations as citizens to our government and our government's obligation to us. When we start attempting to use it as a moral instrument, we start to degrade the purpose for which it was written: to establish freedom, justice, and equity for all Americans, not just some of them.
If religious institutions wish to limit who they will or will not marry, it is their right to do so as private institutions. The government is obligated to treat everyone the same and not to become overly involved in the individual moral decisions of it's citizenry, but to protect their right to reasonable self-determinism.
When I say "reasonable self-determinism," I am allowing for the fact that we do NOT live in a democracy, rather a democratic republic. We do not have absolute freedom to do anything we wish without reprocussions or consequences. There is an established body of laws that attempts to protect everyone from harm caused by the negligence or deliberate actions of another. These are reasonable provisions for which we all must give consent as citizens. Should we choose not to, we will find ourselves behind bars.
Reasonable self-determinism, does not give the government or anyone else the right to determine consentual adult behavior. Anywhere that our legal system has done this, they have done it at their own peril. We have seen the legacy of prohibitive legislation-ignorance of the basic rule of economics: if there is a demand, there will be a supply. Along with this, we have seen a society that is far more eager to attempt to stop the effects of harm rather than face its causes.
There is little doubt in my mind that homosexuality is deviant behavior. There is little doubt in my mind that it goes against the basic laws of nature for the purposes of procreation and survival of the species. However, there is also no doubt in my mind that there will always be enough people who find the opposite sex as appealing as ever, men and women will pair off as they have since the dawn of time, and babies will continue to be born "the old fashioned way," despite the doomsayers who are so terribly threatened by what other consentual adults do with their lives.
It is not up to the government to arbitrate what is moral or immoral outside the clearly defined boundaries of the Social Contract. It is up to the individual citizen to make those determinations for themselves. Anything less and we are unwittingly exchaging our Social Contract for "Social Engineering."
TANSTAAFL!
© 2004, J.S. Brown
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