Marriage: Equality, Morality & The Supreme Court

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"The concern is that redefining marriage as a genderless institution will sever its abiding connection to its historic traditional procreative purposes, and it will refocus..refocus the purpose of marriage and the definition of marriage away from the raising of children and to the emotional needs and desires of adults...of adult couples." ~ Attny: Charles J. Cooper

This week the United States Supreme Court heard arguments on the Constitutionality of California's Prop 8 which banned gay marriage in that state, and the Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA) which defines marriage within the United states as a gender specific union between a man and a woman. These are two powerful arguments with far reaching implications for all Americans and not only Californians or Hawaiians, (the venues from which these issues arose) and those individuals in states in which gay marriage is also the law. The Court's decision, estimated to be announced in June or July 2013, is set to be interpreted as the standard on the issue of gay marriage for the country, and of course, has sparked a renewed debate between those who hold views of traditional marriage and others who claim that the fight for gay marriage is a civil right's fight and specifically a fight for marriage "equality".

To be clear, the ONLY arguments that the court can consider are legal arguments. Explicitly moral arguments cannot be considered by the court even if the subject has moral implications as both of these issues obviously do. With that said, what is being legislated and promoted is a secular sense of modern moral relativism or relativistic thought regarding the issue of homosexuality in general and the acceptance of the practice or behavior as "normal".

Transcripts Available

Prop 8
DOMA

What amazed me, as I listened to the banter from the Justices and the responses from the lawyers, especially them in favor of the homosexual right to marry, was the need to make the assumption that homosexuality and homosexual marriage was publicly accepted. In fact in the DOMA argument, Attorney Ms. Kaplan,  claimed that the American opinion of homosexual acceptance had undergone a "sea-change" since 1996, when these issues began to arise in the court of public opinion. Although she was hard pressed to provide evidence of her assertions, (especially in light of the fact that over half the country has through referendum and legislative acts, rejects the homosexual definition and version of marriage) she at least argued like she really believed it.

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In The Defense Of Marriage

American Catholics Call All To Defend Marriage And Reject Notions Of Bigotry

In a Jan 12th, 2011 release, the American Conference Of Catholic Bishops released a statement calling on all Christians and all people to defend the traditional views of marriage as being between one man and one woman as well as reject the notion commonly promoted by the homosexual extremists that those who oppose gay marriage are bigoted. Outlining the problem as being beyond the Catholic Church and its agenda, the latter part of the statement said:

"For example, in New Jersey, the state cancelled the tax-exempt status of a Methodist-run boardwalk pavilion used for religious services because the religious organization would not host a same-sex "wedding" there. San Francisco dropped its $3.5 million in social service contracts with the Salvation Army because it refused to recognize same-sex "domestic partnerships" in its employee benefits policies.Similarly, Portland, Maine, required Catholic Charities to extend spousal employee benefits to same-sex "domestic partners" as a condition of receiving city housing and community development funds. 

In short, the refusal of these religious organizations to treat a same-sex sexual relationship as if it were a marriage marked them and their members as bigots, subjecting them to the full arsenal of government punishments and pressures reserved for racists. These punishments will only grow more frequent and more severe if civil "marriage" is redefined in additional jurisdictions. For then, government will compel special recognition of relationships that we the undersigned religious leaders and the communities of faith that we represent cannot, in conscience, affirm. Because law and government not only coerce and incentivize but also teach, these sanctions would lend greater moral legitimacy to private efforts to punish those who defend marriage."

In essence the statement introduces the notion that the government, by redefining marriage, as President Obama has committed and vowed to do, vicariously become agents supporting religious discrimination. In

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