Comments on: Is Marriage a Constitutional Right or Merely a Governmental Benefit?

By: Daniel

Daniel — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:11:44 +0000

Marriage is by no means a right…it was first and foremost established by religion as a means of uniting religious couples under God. Marriage precedes formal government, therefore the govt has no true right to re-define it at the expense of a religious majority for the benefit of a secular minority. More to the point, gay Marriage is unconstitutional, because it violates the protections afforded to religion in the first amendment.

Progressive judges however, have seen fit to transform court views into law. Judges are supposed to interpret law, not make them through activist views.

The simplest answer to this nonsense is for gays to petition the govt for more expanded civil union charters. These are the secular equivalencies to Marriage, and therefore do not violate the first amendment in any way.

By: Dan S.

Dan S. — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 19:15:02 +0000

RE: "In theory the government could repeal the marriage laws and simply treat every person as an separate individual and ignore the commitments and promises that they make to each other, or at most the state could treat these commitments as "contracts" which might be different (and difficult to prove) for every couple."

AND "There is another way of looking at this – that the marriage laws regulate not only the relationship between the spouses but that these laws also define and establish the family as well."

Hmmm…I think you may have reached a backdoor solution to several issues of 'marriage' that could fall under the separation of church and state!

Revise the 'marriage' laws to be completely under the domain of the various religions. Government need not be involved with personal issues at that level.

Establish 'family' legislative rules, in the form of contracts, that govern the relationships/benefits/privledges/responsibilities of couples who choose to contractually join their lives and assets as a unit.

At best, this could defuse the debates over who gets to be a family, and at least, it could open up many employment opportunitites for U of A Law grads.

By: larry d.

larry d. — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:11:01 +0000

Taking all that into account maybe the most accurate poll question would be something to the effect of, "Do you think gay couples should be given the same access to adopting children as heterosexual couples?"

I'm not sure you'd get that same 63 percent number, however.

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 01:58:09 +0000

The courts seem to have avoided this question when they were handling polygamy cases.

There are some similarities here. Societal morality and trying to 'hold the line' on traditional marriage.