When It Stopped Being Against The Law

We have hordes of socons bemoaning the gay marriage ruling of he Supreme Court. Where did this country go wrong? I wrote the following in response to this commenter who was decrying the fact that the Government was no longer following God’s law and was allowing abnormal behavior. I replied:

If it is abnormal behavior shouldn’t it be punished? I think stoning to death is appropriate. Too bad we no longer adhere to the correct religious principles.

Well OK. Stoning may be too harsh. How about jail?

Well OK. No jail. Next thing you know they will think they are just like regular people and will want to marry.

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You fools lost the argument long ago. Give it up.

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Reason magazine has an article up on just where the argument was lost. How Liquor Licenses Sparked the Stonewall Riots.

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Another commenter said it was like we were drag racing toward Gomorrah.

And I said: I want a faster car.

Fortunately Eric has posted a video of the kind of car I’m looking for. And if you watch the video closely you will see two guys kissing. The horror.


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28 responses to “When It Stopped Being Against The Law”

  1. Zendo Deb Avatar

    Lots of “unnatural” stuff around. In vitro fertilization. eye-glasses. Open heart surgery. Hybrid corn.

    Maybe we can modernize the mandate that owners of oxen who kill someone are subject to stoning by saying that if you are responsible for a traffic fatality, that warrants the death penalty.

    Or bring back stoning for sons who don’t honor their fathers.

    The Italians tried to eliminate left-handedness. (Sinister is derived from the Italian word for left-handed.) Maybe that is a good idea.

    When the fork was introduced as cutlery, there was an outcry – it was the Devil’s cutlery after all.

    Interracial marriage was also “unnatural.” And forbidden under the law. (Not just black/white but Asians were targeted on that as well.)

    Etc. ad nauseum.

    So choose carefully.

    “Gimme that old-time religion, gimme that old-time religion, it’s good enough for me.

    Oh I like Aphrodite, yes I like Aphrodite, though she doesn’t wear her nightie, she’s good enough for me.”

  2. Zendo Deb Avatar

    Actually the earliest “prediction” about this dates to when marriages based on romance, replaced marriages based on family arrangements. Pre-Victorian, as I recall.

    After all, if marriage is question of who I love, rather than who my family chooses for me….

  3. Frank Avatar
    Frank

    Another commenter said it was like we were drag racing toward Gomorrah.

    Why does that bring to mind a picture of Bill Bennett dressed as Dame Edna riding a scooter?

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/12/Bill_Bennett_by_Gage_Skidmore.jpg/220px-Bill_Bennett_by_Gage_Skidmore.jpg

  4. Frank Avatar
    Frank

    There is a statement in the gay marriage ruling comparing freedom from prosecution after Lawrence with blind justice:

    But while Lawrence confirmed a dimension of freedom that allows individuals to engage in intimate association without criminal liability, it does not follow that freedom stops there. Outlaw to outcast may be a step forward, but it does not achieve the full promise of liberty.

    Outlaw to outcast to what? Sorry Justice Kennedy but a large segment of Christians, and every current Republican candidate for president, will continue to see us outcasts, judicial rulings be damned. The backlash has already started with Alabama to stop issuing marriage licenses for anyone, straight or gay, while Rand Paul proposes to end all government involvement in marriage, including civil ceremonies.

    I’m getting less libertarian all the time. And Rand Paul can screw his VAT tax in disguise proposal. He lost me with it.

  5. CapitalistRoader Avatar
    CapitalistRoader

    The backlash has already started with Alabama to stop issuing marriage licenses for anyone, straight or gay, while Rand Paul proposes to end all government involvement in marriage, including civil ceremonies.

    This is win-win from my libertarian perspective. Aside from enforcing contracts, why should a government entity be involved with personal relationships?

  6. Bram Avatar
    Bram

    The WAY this ruling was made has greatly offended me. Sure looks like they decided the case on politics, then tried to twist the verdict into the 14th Amendment. Would have been much better off the just enforce state contracts.

  7. Randy Avatar
    Randy

    I feel sorry for the social conservatives among us. Their religious beliefs, doctrines and dogmas make it almost impossible for them to recognize or understand the ongoing long-term social/political trends arrayed against them; trends which began several centuries ago. They are an anachronism and don’t yet realize it. Their explanation for the West’s long-term march towards social liberalism is that the Devil is on the loose. They are victims of their own willful ignorance.

    Beginning several centuries ago, our civilization began slowly migrating from a supernatural understanding of reality to a naturalistic, materialistic understanding of reality. This migration is still in process. The migration was due to discoveries (Copernicus, Galileo, etc.) that challenged the old, supernatural understanding of the world. And this has only multiplied in the last few centuries as we’ve learned so much in the past 400-500 years. The other factor in this migration was the political revolution from the divine right of kings and fealty to the RCC to democratic institutions and self-governance. These two things together have worked together to loosen the grip that religious institutions had on politics and morality for several millennia.

    Religious conservatives in America believe in self-governance as long as it comes with the understanding that God is the final authority or ruler (IOW, the religious have veto power on everything). It’s a fairly common trope among social conservatives that the whole purpose of political freedom is to pursue/worship God. If you aren’t doing that or if you are living a life outside of their proscribed religious mores, you are abusing or misusing your freedom. The reality is that religious conservatives are still tied to a supernatural understanding of reality, with God, the Bible, and religious dogmas the final authority on everything. To do otherwise is to risk God’s righteous wrath.

    And that seems to be the real gripe among religious conservatives. No one but themselves takes their political/religious doom-saying seriously any more. A few decades ago they could blow the religious dog whistle on political issues and a large segment of the population would rally to their call. That’s no longer the case and that frustrates them to no end. Religious beliefs are not as relevant to politics and morality as they once were.

    Religious conservatives find themselves in the unenviable position of being the modern day equivalents of buggy whip manufacturers during the rise of horseless carriages. They are tied to an old order that is discredited to one degree or another in the minds of more and more people. Religious support for segregation; Jim Crow; the religious imagery of the KKK; the RCC sex abuse scandal; their flogging of creationism in the face of evidence to the contrary; etc.; have all worked to discredit religion’s standing in the public sphere. And due to the confirmation bias believers have toward their beliefs and institutions, they can’t understand how these events or positions of the past and present have undermined religious authority.

    IMO, religious conservatives made a long-term strategic error when they began espousing their marriage of politics and religious dogmas as public policy solutions 40 years ago. They thought the religious dog whistle still worked. But without realizing it, over the last 40 years they’ve put it to the public to choose between the old order based on religious supernaturalism and dogma (aka superstition) or the new order based on naturalistic materialism and human rights. It never occurred to them that more and more people would embrace the new order and reject the old.

  8. captain*arizona Avatar
    captain*arizona

    religion is a form of deviant sex. christian fundamentalism is an un natural sex act. That is why religion is anti sexual for the same reason repressed homosexuals beat up gay people.

  9. Zendo Deb Avatar

    Rand Paul is going to have a hard time removing government from the marriage game.

    Not to mention the question of what to do when you travel abroad? Who gets to make medical decisions if someone becomes sick and there is not “spouse” as defined by the EU or Mexico or the Bahamas? Medical powers-of-attorney are routinely ignored.

    Depending on who does the counting the number of “rights” conferred by marriage (including everything from Social Security Survivor benefits, who has authority to make funeral arrangements) is between 1100 and 1500.

  10. Simon Avatar

    Zendo,

    Are Churches competent to marry people?

  11. Kathy Kinsley Avatar
    Kathy Kinsley

    I actually agree with Bram on this one. I’m unhappy about HOW it was made. (I DO like end – I DO NOT like the means.)

    There was no constitutional basis to that decision. At least none I can read.

  12. Frank Avatar
    Frank

    Randy, an excellent synopsis of the situation. Very insightful.

  13. Frank Avatar
    Frank

    As you read the decision it is clear they are basing it on an expansion of rights through precedent starting with Loving and ending with Windsor. The strongest argument is that more than half the states already allow same sex unions in one form or another, and that by not extending it nationwide undue harm would occur to married couples and their children who move or travel into states where it is outlawed. The 14th Amendment equal protection clause is the determining factor.

  14. CapitalistRoader Avatar
    CapitalistRoader

    Rand Paul is going to have a hard time removing government from the marriage game.

    Individual states could easily stop issuing marriage licenses. Instead, they could just enforce contracts if called upon to do so via the judicial process. If two (or more) people enter into a contract that says they are married, then they are married. You don’t need any government entity to sanction the marriage.

    As for Social Security and other federal clustefucks, tough crap. Let the Fed’s figure out how to apportion Social Security benefits to whoever is married to whoever. It might just provide an impetus to get the Fed’s nose out of people’s private lives. Spouses are eligible for their ex’s benefits if they were married >=10 years. With increasing life expectancy, one worker could have as many as five or or six ex-spouses sponging off of taxpayers, those ex’s never having paid into the SS system but receiving benefits nevertheless.

    It used to be that one of the left’s rallying cries was Keep the government out of the bedroom. How times have changed.

  15. CapitalistRoader Avatar
    CapitalistRoader

    …and that by not extending it nationwide undue harm would occur to married couples and their children who move or travel into states where it is outlawed. The 14th Amendment equal protection clause is the determining factor.

    Then by the same logic, a concealed carry permit for a Vermont resident should be equally valid in New York state, right? Otherwise undue harm could occur to the Vermonter who is forced to go without his concealed weapon whilst visity the Big Apple. Equal protection and all.

  16. Frank Avatar
    Frank

    CR, good point, but you know they will find a reason not to be consistent – because guns.

  17. Bram Avatar
    Bram

    CapitalistRoader – Yes, if this Court was not completely political, that would be the logical conclusion.

  18. T Avatar
    T

    “You fools lost the argument long ago. Give it up.”

    Ah! Tolerance! Spoken as a bonafide leftist.

  19. Kathy Kinsley Avatar
    Kathy Kinsley

    Again, I’m agreeing with Bram. There are quite a number of other “equal protection” (guns especially) arguments that I’m quite sure the Supreme Court will never hear – or if they do, they will somehow manage to ignore THIS ruling.

    This was only superficially about the 14th – the 14th was an excuse, not a reason.

    Mind you, I’m happy about the outcome, but I think it would have happened anyway, in all 50 states. It would have taken more time, but that’s the way the people are tending.

    Hopefully the drug thing will go the same way I expected gay marriage to go – because I seriously doubt the Supreme will ever strike down the drug laws as unconstitutional -and if they aren’t, why did outlawing booze take an amendment? Last I heard, it too qualifies as a “mind-altering substance”.

    Cheers!

  20. Brett Avatar
    Brett

    We never lost the argument, fool.

  21. Man Mountain Molehill Avatar
    Man Mountain Molehill

    -Add me to the list of people who don’t mind the result, but resent the way it was imposed by judicial fiat. The Irish did it right.

    -There is a religious argument for freedom,that one can’t exercise one’s free will by rejecting sin if said sin is illegal. See Albert J. Nock for this argument.

    -The argument for and against government involvement in marriage in libertarian circles, (as usual between anarcho-capitalists and minarchists) boils down to either government has no legitimacy for anything, including marriage or that a marriage is, or should be, an enforceable contract, and the government has a legitimate role in contract enforcement as the last resort. Not sure where I come down on this one…

    Frankly, the socons can eff off and die. I wish they would start their own religious whackjob party so they can take their 5% of the vote and lump it. I want Republican and Democratic parties that live up to their actual names. A Hamiltonian party and a Jacksonian party. A few minor religious and communist parties to suck up the loony vote and the real public can get down to some real issues. Or something… Whuts on TV?

    -In any case, I expect that some long-established gay couples will quietly tie the knot. Meanwhile, there will elaborate, spectacular and absolutely fabulous celebrity gay weddings. Followed just a few weeks later by some elaborate, spectacular and absolutely fabulous celebrity gay divorces. (I watched me some old time movie called the Gay Divorcee. Sheesh, aint got nothin about no gay weddin, just some fool dancing around a lot)

    -And the rest of the world is burning. I was never a big Poe fan, but something in the current political climate reminds me of The Red Death.

  22. Simon Avatar

    Brett,

    Billy Sunday lives! Or sumptin.

    The rotting corpse will be declared the finest of perfumes. Only the elect (and some of the elected) will have sufficient discernment to appreciate the ineffable effluence.

    We are not dead! We are just zombies. And zombies never die. Why look at all the masses still worshiping at Heliopolis.

    The Pope is a communist. Won’t be long now.

  23. Brett Avatar
    Brett

    Nice set of straw dolls, Simon

    2+2=5, comrades, and don’t you forget it.

    The imposition of thought control on an unwilling populace is not winning the argument. It is the practice of tyranny.

    The central progressive idea is nothing more than might makes right. That still isn’t true.

  24. Frank Avatar
    Frank

    Socons: Ah…if we could only go back to original meaning of the Constitution…the Supremes need to stay the hell out of marriage…yes, the good old days before Loving when most states still outlawed miscegenation…when states could still pretend that discrimination was allowed because of Federalism…when states had rights and individuals didn’t.

  25. Simon Avatar

    Brett,

    In case you hadn’t noticed no one took anything from you. You can still marry a woman. Although I generally advise against it. Perfidious creatures.

  26. Man Mountain Molehill Avatar
    Man Mountain Molehill

    In any case, we can always trust our judicial masters to render nothing but the most carefully reasoned, logical decisions
    fully based in the constitution and respectful to the full history of English and American jurisprudence, Anglo-Saxon common law and Magna Carta. (Manga Carta is something else entirely)

  27. Randy Avatar
    Randy

    Brett says:

    The central progressive idea is nothing more than might makes right. That still isn’t true.

    (emphasis mine)

    Speaking of straw men.

    And the irony of a believer* arguing against “might makes right” never gets old.

    A good portion of religious apologetics is an exercise wherein believers make excuses for the atrocities ordered by or committed by god or his followers as morally justified. Their position is that if god did it or ordered it, it is, by definition, moral. IOW, might makes right.

    One example of this is the Exodus story** and the murder of the first born Egyptian males.

    Per the story, on several occasions, prior to god sending in the Grim Reaper to take the lives of these Egyptian boys, the Pharaoh was ready to let the Hebrews leave. Per the story, on these occasions when Pharaoh was ready to let the Hebrews go, god stepped in and “hardened Pharaoh’s heart” against letting his people go. IOW, god toyed with Pharaoh so he could get to the point where he could send in the Grim Reaper to do his dirty work.

    To me, god comes off like a sadistic bully in this story, but for the fundamentalist Jew or Christian, what god did in this story is hunky dory because god can do no wrong.

    So Brett, please don’t pretend to be against the idea that “might makes right”. Believers who defend the right of god to do as he pleases in all circumstances is at its very essence an argument that (divine) might does make right.

    * I assume Brett is a believer of some type because the only people I’ve found that oppose SSM are theists of one stripe or another.

    ** I don’t believe the Exodus story to be true. I think it’s ancient Hebrew propaganda used to dissuade tribe members from seeking the sweet life in Egypt vs. staying on in Palestine where life was much more difficult. I use the story here because fundamentalist Jews and Christians believe it to be true and defend god’s actions taken in it as moral.

  28. Man Mountain Molehill Avatar
    Man Mountain Molehill

    You would think that the Egyptians would have noticed a series of supernatural disasters followed by a vast army of slaves escaping, but there’s nothing about any of that.

    The closest thing to Exodus in Egyptian history is the tel-el-armana letters, which include a provincial governor complaining to pharaoh about raids into his territory from a tribe of dessert nomads called Habiri.