With Trump’s great gift to America of a federalist Supreme Court, everything old is new again. The abortion battle, which was fought for half a century with dignity and resolve by the people of life, is now rightly being settled at the state level, allowing Americans once again to have cultural control of their home regions and to vote with their feet. Meanwhile, the radical Left, realizing it has lost its favorite centralized power tool, is frantically trying to wield its insipid and doomed Congressional majority to legislate its agenda nationwide. In this sorry civil state of affairs, must we once again take up the struggle for the definition of marriage?
I’ll go first: marriage is the union of one man and one woman for the purpose of building a stable home in which to rear whatever children God (or fate, for you seculars) sees fit to give them.
This is the only definition that makes sense. Why? Because one man and one woman is the only combination of human beings that can produce another human being, and because every human being has one father and one mother. Period. This isn’t “theocratic religious fundamentalist patriarchal misogyny” — it’s objective truth. And because one man and one woman is the only combination of human beings that makes more human beings, society has an interest in regulating and stabilizing this one particular relationship, because the children it produces are society’s future.
It’s logical. It’s objectively, provably true. And it’s beautiful in its simplicity and perfection. Done.
But just as Leftists cannot come up with a definition of something as basic as a “woman” (an adult female human being), they also have to tinker with the perfection of marriage. And as happens every time they do this, the departure from objective truth into subjective feeling and fantasy will open the door to endless renditions and reconfigurations.
In 1996, Congress overwhelmingly passed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). DOMA established the federal definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Sen. Joe Biden voted for it and President Bill Clinton signed it into law. A generation later, the House has just passed what it calls the “Respect for Marriage Act” with a sizable majority that included 47 Republicans. It’s unclear if this act can get through the Senate right now or, if such a bill became law, whether it could pass the 10th Amendment’s reservation to the states and the people all powers not explicitly granted to the federal government. (As an aside, it’s nice to see Democrats rediscovering the proper role of the legislative body, anyway.)
Related: House Passes Same-Sex Marriage Bill With Support of 47 Republicans
The “Respect for Marriage Act” would repeal DOMA, force states to give full faith and credit to couples married under other state laws (a nifty trick that never works for gun rights, somehow), sic the U.S. Attorney General on anyone who violates the act, and grant injured parties the right to file civil suit against the offensive offender in a U.S. district court.
Having lost their SCOTUS magic dictator wand, Leftists are attempting to fashion a Congressional wand. While this is closer to how it’s supposed to work, the problem, as always, is their absolutism. They act as though the Right is as eager to break up same-sex couples as we are to force 10-year-old girls to give birth. Spoiler alert: we aren’t.
The main problem with dictating same-sex marriage is the way it tramples on the beliefs of religious and conservative Americans. It forces people who define marriage as the union of a man and a woman to refer to same-sex couples as “married.” This is deeply offensive to many decent people who wish no harm but also don’t want to have words put in their mouths. This disagreement could easily be resolved by referring to the whole statutory arrangement as a civil partnership. But that’s not good enough for the left: they want to force Christians and Conservatives to mouth their beliefs.
Perhaps the act will make its way into law. In that case, the Left will be reminded that laws are subject to interpretation and refinement. If the Left chooses to define marriage as anything other than the union of one man and one woman (for which there is a logical, truthful rationale), they will open up a great big can of worms. What legal argument can be made for a romantic requirement in such a union, once procreation is out of the picture? It then becomes indefensible to limit the relationship to same-sex couples but restrict it from siblings, parent-child pairs, or polygamists. Why can’t a farmer leave the family business to his daughter without her having to sell it to pay inheritance tax? Why can’t spinster sisters designate one another as next of kin for legal purposes and hospital visits?
As the inevitable cases make their way through the court system, we shouldn’t be surprised if the whole mess winds up back in front of the Supreme Court someday.
