DEAR EDITOR:
Ms. Pampuch, in the current marriage debate you are making a
tremendous effort to defend a position that is not defensible by
the arguments that you are trying to use. This has led you into
making a series of specious claims that do not really relate to the
subject at hand.
DEAR EDITOR:
Ms. Pampuch, in the current marriage debate you are making a tremendous effort to defend a position that is not defensible by the arguments that you are trying to use. This has led you into making a series of specious claims that do not really relate to the subject at hand.
You claim that state support of marriage constitutes a violation of the separation of church and state. The fundamental assumption you make here is that marriage is a religious institution. Sorry, ma’am, but that just ain’t true. As far as I am aware, heterosexual marriage is universal in every society that survived long enough to get recorded: Neolithic hunter-gatherers, Shinto spirit worshippers, Hindu pantheists, … shoot, even the Wicca’s do hand fasting. Religions recognize marriage; they didn’t create it. Marriage is secular.
Marriage is not necessary to sustain commitment or caring. Those exist in plenty without marriage. Do you have any siblings or relatives that you actually like? Many of us do. Marriage does not preserve property. Quite the opposite, ask any man who has been through divorce court.
Clearly, the only thing that requires the body of law that is marriage is raising children.
You argue that since we do not follow Hebraic law, we should eliminate all Christian tradition. Really bad idea. As a nation, we have spent the last century repudiating, one after another, the customs, laws, and traditions that shaped America at its founding. In so doing we have turned a corner from an honest, expanding, prospering nation to one that is corrupt, declining, and muddling its way toward poverty. As others on your side have pointed out, we no longer practice marriage as our ancestors would recognize it. As a result we are, as a society, dying. Take a look at population trends in the U.S. and Europe. Especially in northern Europe where they have taken the lead on this anti-Christian stuff.
Since marriage constitutes a set of special privileges, you could make an argument based on violation of equal application of law (14th Amendment). From what I’ve heard so far, that’s the core of the liberal position. The counter to that is that the government has a compelling state interest to maintain the quality and quantity of the electorate. There is an enormous body of psychological work that underlines the importance of child-rearing practices and environment in training voters. There is an even more enormous body of historical precedent that says exactly the same.
Have you given any thought to how society will change by switching from heterosexual to omnisexual? You can find lots of examples in history, ain’t none of ’em purty. If we follow the normal sequence, in about two generations a third to a half of men won’t give a darn about women.
Plato (Symposium, c. 380 BC) records a dinner party discussion where not a single guest thought that love could exist between a man and a woman. Is that what you want for your daughters?
Stuart Allen, Gilroy
Submitted Monday, March 22 to ed****@ga****.com
