In a charming editorial this morning, The New Paltz Journal applauds Maine voters for narrowly defeating (53% to 47%) a proposal that would’ve legalized same-sex marriage, but chides them for not defeating the proposal more soundly. (Needless to say, I have now and forever canceled my subscription to The New Paltz Journal’s RSS feed; no questions asked.)
Good…This time the voters had to undo something that the Maine legislature and governor had pressed upon them.
These measures for real and actual marriage between one man and one woman should be winning by five to one vote margins, or better
I’d be the last person to reject the citizens’ right to reject what the usurpers in government force upon them, but this is not that. This is simply projection of one’s own preferences on to the broader mass of the populace, using the full force of government—supported (as always) by the violent process of “democracy“.
Listen close because I will say this once, and only once:
Freedom is not a fucking popularity contest.
Proponents of same-sex “marriage” could be outnumbered and outvoted and outrepresented in the legislature by a margin of 100:1, and I would still offer them my unqualified support. We should not reserve civil liberties only to those who fit a “perceived mold of inclusion” (.doc).
The fact of the matter is that government should not be at all involved in the sanctification of marriage, homo- or hetero- or poly- or whatever. Unfortunately, government has arrogated to itself, the power to grant privilege and regulate and license the hell out of what many believe to be the most-sacred of human relationships. Don’t let all that privilege go to your head.
The NPJ concludes with a slew of neo-theo-con propaganda, which apparently is the default “Plan B” in the absence of basic human decency. Read carefully, more ignorant words have perhaps never been written:
“[G]ay marriage” is both an attack on the meaning of marriage and an attack on meaning itself, an attempt to make 2 + 2 = 5.
…The “gay marriage” thing is not about getting people to accept “equality,” it’s about getting them to accept a lie.
The “equality” sword is one which cuts both ways. Make no mistake about it: heterosexual “marriage” of the one man, one woman variety, is in its current incarnation, very much a state-granted privilege, and nothing more. If the NPJ wants to argue that gay marriage isn’t about equality, let them first renounce all of the state-sanctioned inequalities from which they benefit.
No? Very well then: If you feel threatened in any way by some complete strangers’ same-sex marriage, then this speaks volumes about the sanctity and foundation of your own own, heterosexual relationship: your relationship only has meaning because you are able to exclude others from experiencing the sorts of love, fidelity and friendship that you are privileged enough to enjoy.
Few things are more morally bankrupt than joy accruing to privilege by exclusion.
“Needless to say, I have now and forever cancelled my subscription to The New Platz Journal’s RSS feed; no questions asked.”
Ah, but it could provide you with so much blagging material! Look what the New York Times and Sojourner’s does for the LRC/Mises crowd (Bill Anderson in particular)!
I was a irritated with Martins post yesterday about that Hokanson wretch where he is approving of the monopoly on force and mixes it with a little religion.
I’ve read this guy since the mid 90′s in usenet.
Things are what they are, not something else.
Marriage is based in the opposition and complementarity of the two sexes. It is rooted in the biology of human beings. Marriage is not simply some kind of narrative that can be applied anywhere to anyone, trying to make something into what it is not.
Marriage has a real meaning involving real fundamental facts of biological complementarity, and it is at the foundation of society.
It cannot be legislated into reality anymore than it can be legislated into being something other than what it is.
There are things deeper than conceits. Much deeper.
As for abortion: every human life begins at conception. That is a biological fact. The unique genetic identity of each individual is formed at that moment and is ready to dynamically unfold. There is no such thing as a person/non-person duality. That person you see in an infant is the person who would have been killed by an abortion.
Truth is the foundation of liberty, which is not anything as worthless as a bottomless pit of options.
Word. Love it when you get out of economics into other areas.
s/NPJ/NPG/ and s/Platz/Paltz/
I doubt that “marriage” is rooted in our human biology any moreso than it is in the biology of any other mammal (where it is not rooted in biology). If this were true, I’d suspect that after 10,000 years of recorded history, we’d be faring better than a coin-flip’s odds.
If as you say, it can’t be legislated, then why do you neo-cons always resort to legislation? And why, for Christ’s sake, are you so afeard of “teh gay”?
Your relations are your relations, Keep them however you prefer. Whether you call these relations “marriage” or “zoop” is entirely beside the point; as you note, it doesn’t alter what it is. Everyone else’s relations, on the contrary, are none of your God damned business. Grow up, and deal with that fucking fact of reality.
[Thanks for stopping by and commenting, it's always nice to be able to see in to the mind of someone who's no qualms about denying people their due equality.]
@MikeGogulski – You missed s/canceled/cancelled in P1!!! Thanks for pointing out the other edits, though :)
Humans are not “any other mammal.” That’s why we don’t attempt to explain people eating their own feces by saying that “dogs do it.” We have recourse to reason.
The phenomenology of sex, what it is, what it is not, is not that difficult a chore. It requires some thinking, but not terribly much.
Marriage proceeds, as I noted, from the opposition and complementarity of the two sexes. It is a fundamental social institution, and it is fundamentally moral (in its mutual commitment), but it is also what it is. It isn’t something that can be cut and pasted onto any sort of relationship.
Two things that are explicitly not equal do not predicate “equality.” The law of identity isn’t suspended because the state is somehow perceived as being over-involved.
Your attempt to nominalize marriage with the “whatever you call want to call it” ploy would not, I trust, work so well for you if someone were trying to nominalize liberty. Lefties try that all the time by telling you that you aren’t free if the state isn’t providing you with free stuff as the means to be free.
This is a serious matter, the question of what marriage is and what it isn’t, precisely because its meaning is so thoroughly buried in time and tradition. The lurch of postmodern Marxists (and that is precisely what they are) to convert marriage from being about something real into something that is mere narrative is part and parcel of a much larger attack on social institutions. Hayek understood this with precision. We cannot know or understand everything and there is a huge amount of knowledge imbedded in traditions that is not easily or accurately decoded and made sense of in immediate terms, but when it must be done, we have careful thinking to do. Glib will take you quickly to social breakdown when it is the foundations of society that you’re being glib about.
I am not trying to nominalize marriage. Your relationship is your relationship, and uniquely so. It is not impacted in the slightest, by anyone else’s relationship, no matter what they choose to call it or how they choose to arrange it.
I’m saying it doesn’t matter what name we give to “X”. You’re interpreting that as a redefinition of “X”. It is a subtle distinction which requires some thinking, but not terribly much.
I’m just asking you to get your hands off of other people’s relationships. If you want to marry in the Roman Catholic church, with all the appurtenances and privileges (bestowed by the Church of course) accruing thereto, then have at it. If the gay I went to high school with wants to cohabit with his partner, neither you, nor he, should be afforded any special privileges on either account, nor the subject to any special persecutions.
The biological fact that you (and your spouse) can probably produce offspring, and that he (and his partner) can’t, is irrelevant to the question: Should we respect each other’s privacy enough to let one another live our respective lives, fulfill our respective values and desires, so long as we aren’t harming others?
I answer this unconditionally in the affirmative.
Martin,
What you wrote in the first paragraph of your comment is exactly why the argument in the rest of your comment is fatally flawed.
@Neverfox, thanks! It’s been a long time since I read that article, and RL is Win as always.
“…Life liberty and the pursuit of happiness…”
It seems to me that by excluding a segment of the population from marriage (marriage being a horseshit legal institution at this point anyway) they are by definition being denied their happiness. I don’t know how that can jibe well with anyone, unless you simply see what you think is right as the only course of action and thus those who disagree with you are always wrong.
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You folks can go on arguing the tiniest segments of the diversion if you want but the thing that galls me is Martin, like the collectivists, has no problem using the monopoly on force when it suits him and chastises it when it doesn’t and that is a contradiction in philosophy. I’m disgusted right now and see nothing further to use here.
“[A]nd that is a contradiction in philosophy…” For sure, it is. And you’re right to emphasize that it is, principally speaking, the force that bothers me.
Ya know, after pondering it for a spell its not the contradiction that bothers me, for I see that everywhere, but as far as Martin goes, it’s the outright deception behind all of this.
For many years he led me and many others to believe he was anti-state but all along, under the surface, he has been an advocate of the monopoly on force.
Make no mistake, if you advocate anything to do with the state you advocate ALL of the state.
Like freedom, and enslavement, you are either for it or against it, there is no middle ground.
The only thing this gov’t can do to please me is to cannibalize itself and the sooner the better.
You are way too narrow-minded and opinionated for my taste.
See ya!
I’m narrow-minded? lulz.
One of the funniest things I’ve ever heard.
What’s *narrow* about my opinion on wide open freedom?
The government should always protect the minority against oppression and abuse by the majority. This is a clear case where they did not. Unfortunetly contemporary government is only concerned with prostituting itself to the majority votes.