Showing posts with label gay rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gay rights. Show all posts

Monday, June 29, 2009

"Gay pride" parade can't redefine marriage

Chicago's Gay Pride Parade dazzles - Chicago Breaking News
You want to live with your same-sex partner? Fine, go ahead. The law should not infringe upon your rights to pick your friends and those you live with. You claim to be gay? Who asked?

Parade or no parade... marriage by its nature is heterosexual. Homosexual relationships are not equipped by nature for producing either children or parents. Does this mean that gays should be treated as less than full citizens? Of course not, but it does mean that heterosexual marriage produces vital and necessary benefits that society has a just and legitimate interest to protect.

This is why traditional heterosexual marriage should be defended, and why not every partnership should be considered equivalent to marriage. Certain restrictions are necessary to protect both individuals and society.

You can't marry a 5-year old. You can't marry three people simultaneously. You can't marry someone who's already legally married, or your daughter, brother, or mother. You can't marry a person who is unable or unwilling to give free consent. You can't marry a dead person, or one who isn't yet born, or a squirrel or a tree. And you can't marry a person of the same sex.

For the good of society marriage should not be redefined to satisfy the demands of any interest group. And the law should make no attempt to recognize as "marriage" any relationship that is not between one woman and one man.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Chicago school to march in Pride Parade

Chicago school to march in Pride Parade - Chicago Tribune
It's tragic that the school children are being indoctrinated to think that engaging in immoral homosexual acts is normal and good, something to be celebrated.

Most people experience temptations to immoral and destructive behavior of one type or another. But a person who repeatedly gives in to destructive desires ends up hurting himself and those around him, and increasingly loses the ability to differentiate between right and wrong. He gradually becomes enslaved to his desires, and loses the ability to rationally choose his actions freely.

Homosexual feelings or desires are just that: feelings. Feelings are personal, but they don't determine your identity as a person any more than your taste in music. Like any feelings, they urge you to make a decision: to recognize what is good, and pursue it... or to recognize what is harmful, and to avoid it.

What children need to see is, yes, tolerance and respect toward all kinds of people. But they also need to be taught that not all actions are good, and not all desires are for healthy and good things. Some desires, such as homosexual inclinations, should be rejected as harmful and unworthy of mature consent.

True human freedom isn't the ability to do everything you desire. It's the ability and struggle to do what is good and avoid what is bad.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Does prohibition of gay marriage deny the fundamental rights of gays?

Prop. 8 stands; more ballot battles ahead
California's voters, not its courts, are the final judges of same-sex couples' right to marry. And even if they're barred from marrying, gays and lesbians are not the victims of unconstitutional discrimination...

The main legal argument by Prop. 8's opponents - two groups of same-sex couples, local governments led by the city of San Francisco, and a collection of civil-rights, gay-rights and feminist organizations - was that the state Constitution contains a 'core guarantee' of equality that limits voters' amendment powers. A minority group's fundamental rights, they argued, should not be subject to repeal by majority vote.

The opponents of Proposition 8 have a point: that a minority group's fundamental rights should not be subject to repeal by majority vote. Yet for the public to take measures to preserve the ancient, heterosexual institution of marriage does not do anything of the sort.

The state has a legitimate interest in protecting heterosexual civil marriage, and among these protections are regulations about who may enter into it with whom. A man may not marry his four year-old son. A woman may not marry her father or brother, or a chimpanzee. A man may not marry a dead woman, or three other women simultaneously. These restrictions do not deny my rights, but promote the good of society by respecting and favoring traditional marriage between one man and one woman.

Yes, a minority group's fundamental rights should not be subject to repeal by majority vote. But that's not the issue. The issue is whether a majority of the people should be forced to tolerate a redefinition of traditional civil marriage to accommodate the demands by a vocal minority, demands which undermine both marriage and weaken society.

And most people in most states oppose redefinition of marriage in this way.