Skip to main content

Non-sequiteur of the day

"This is the beginning of
a unique institution. Get in
the cave, b----h!"
David Anderson:
Marriage . . . is a unique institution in human history that has shaped civilization before written history.
 Other than that unquestionable Source of Sources (the Hebrew Bible), exactly how do we know that marriage was shaping civilization before people started writing?

The archaeological find of the millenium?  Eve's wedding ring?

As for the incredibly ethnocentric statement that marriage is a "unique institution," somebody really needs to do some research (even throughout the Judeo-Christian tradition) to discover that the history of marriage includes some rather wide variations, and has almost always existed for economic rather than "spiritual" purposes.

In fact, the Western definition of marriage is among the most restrictive in history.

But, hey, don't let actual history get in the way of a good diatribe on history as evangelical Christians would like it to have been.

So this primary season think about the candidates who see marriage equality as a constitutional right, and don't think that a particular view of the King James Bible should rule a secular society.

Comments

kavips said…
I dug this out of my archives. It was also a response to the idea that heterosexual marriage is natural law and therefore sanctioned by the Constitution, a claim once made by the same person who is the subject of your post today.....

http://kavips.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/comment-rescue-hot-sex-and-natural-law/

Eric Dondero said…
So then, why don't we just abolish marriage altogether Steve? Have the courage of your convictions. If you believe what you say in this piece, than one must assume that you're just anti-marriage altogether.

Oopsie, that's probably not a winning position for the Libertarian Party of Delaware, so you're probably not willing to say that out loud.
Anonymous said…
@ Eric

Marriage is not a function of government; it neither has the right to sanction, condone, restrict, endorse or regulate. It certainly cannot abolish (to use your words).

Marriage is a Sacrament in my religion. It’s meaning and requirements begins and ends with the church. My marriage is recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, I could give a rat’s ass what the State of Delaware thinks.

Most (all) Libertarians believe that what consenting adults do in their bedroom does not need the sanctioning (license) of the State. Libertarians are not pro or anti marriage. Your entire point is pointless.

John Galt
LaoTze said…
I would love to have government out of marriage. If we decide it is helpful to have a public registry of civil union to allow for such things as end of life decisions, I'm fine with that. But my marriage and Mr. Galts marriage are vastly different things. That's good.
kavips said…
Abolish marriage altogether???? Just because same sex couples want the same rights as opposite sex couples? So you are going to abolish marriage altogether... Ok.. Let's do it..

However, the same results could be achieved by simply letting those people who wanted to get married do so, and letting those people who didn't want to get married, also do so....

That makes more sense than abolishing all marriage, and thereby pissing off EVEN MORE people... duh....
Dana Garrett said…
Personally, I'm for the idea of getting the state out of the marriage recognition business altogether. Let the state recognize civil unions only, something that can be done by filling out a form. Leave marriage to religions or other groups to regulate as they wish. But if the state doesn't quit the marriage-recognition business, then it should recognize homosexual marriages. Otherwise the dictum "equality under the law" has no meaning.

Popular posts from this blog

Comment Rescue (?) and child-related gun violence in Delaware

In my post about the idiotic over-reaction to a New Jersey 10-year-old posing with his new squirrel rifle , Dana Garrett left me this response: One waits, apparently in vain, for you to post the annual rates of children who either shoot themselves or someone else with a gun. But then you Libertarians are notoriously ambivalent to and silent about data and facts and would rather talk abstract principles and fear monger (like the government will confiscate your guns). It doesn't require any degree of subtlety to see why you are data and fact adverse. The facts indicate we have a crisis with gun violence and accidents in the USA, and Libertarians offer nothing credible to address it. Lives, even the lives of children, get sacrificed to the fetishism of liberty. That's intellectual cowardice. OK, Dana, let's talk facts. According to the Children's Defense Fund , which is itself only querying the CDCP data base, fewer than 10 children/teens were killed per year in Delaw

With apologies to Hube: dopey WNJ comments of the week

(Well, Hube, at least I'm pulling out Facebook comments and not poaching on your preserve in the Letters.) You will all remember the case this week of the photo of the young man posing with the .22LR squirrel rifle that his Dad got him for his birthday with resulted in Family Services and the local police attempting to search his house.  The story itself is a travesty since neither the father nor the boy had done anything remotely illegal (and check out the picture for how careful the son is being not to have his finger inside the trigger guard when the photo was taken). But the incident is chiefly important for revealing in the Comments Section--within Delaware--the fact that many backers of "common sense gun laws" really do have the elimination of 2nd Amendment rights and eventual outright confiscation of all privately held firearms as their objective: Let's run that by again: Elliot Jacobson says, This instance is not a case of a father bonding with h

The Obligatory Libertarian Tax Day Post

The most disturbing factoid that I learned on Tax Day was that the average American must now spend a full twenty-four hours filling out tax forms. That's three work days. Or, think of it this way: if you had to put in two hours per night after dinner to finish your taxes, that's two weeks (with Sundays off). I saw a talking head economics professor on some Philly TV channel pontificating about how Americans procrastinate. He was laughing. The IRS guy they interviewed actually said, "Tick, tick, tick." You have to wonder if Governor Ruth Ann Minner and her cohorts put in twenty-four hours pondering whether or not to give Kraft Foods $708,000 of our State taxes while demanding that school districts return $8-10 million each?