You will be hearing more about the fact that marriage is a regulated activity - and not a right. I sent the following to Frank Rich following his article blasting P-E Obama for inviting the Rev. Mr. Rick Warren to do the inaugural invocation.
The points I make terrify the Gay Revisionists and their supporters. So long as they can keep the conversation focused on a bogus "right" to be married - and keep people brain dead enough to not take their "criteria" for the right to be married to its logical end-points, they will dominate the public debate.
The purpose of this short form of what will become a fuller article on this issue is to quickly illustrate that if you use the Gay Revisionists' criteria of 1) Consenting adults; 2) who desire a committed relationship; 3) that bestows on them the benefits of marriage, then you immediately open up marriage to Polyamorists, polygamists, incest, and a host of others who will then use the sophomoric Gay Revisionist criteria to rationalize why they too have the "right" to be married.
Of course, the NY Times and Mr. Rich will never answer these issues; to do so destroys the Gay Revisionists' Big Lie that marriage is a right, self-evident as such through deependency upon the criteria cited above. But then, who ever said that Mr. Rich and the NY Times understand the concept of debate - they still live in a world of believing freedom of the press belongs to whomever owns it. They slime, and then permit no reply.
But reply there will be, regardless of their totalitarian practices. Actually, I'm waiting to see how P-E Obama responds to their snipping. In case you haven't noticed, he's not very good about accepting nagging criticism, and the Gay Revisionists are the biggest group of nags in America.
Enjoy this summary response; I'll post more as I develop the topic.
As always, please circulate this among your email lists, blogs, and others with whom you connect. The quicker we destroy the Gay Revisionists' Big Lie that marriage is a right, the quicker we restore sanity to the marriage debate.
Pass this on to your friends, email lists, and blogs. The address for this article is:
http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2008/12/marriage-is-not-right-blasting-gay.html
To get all that appears in Reading Between the Lines, go to the home page at:
http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/
Link! Link! Link!
Kenneth
+++++++
Mr. Rich and the Gay Revisionists he promotes need to deal with the reality that marriage is not a right; marriage is a regulated activity licensed by the state.
The Gay Revisionist (GR) position is that any two consenting adults, desiring a "committed relationship" that enjoys the benefits that marriage bestows have an unconditional "right" to marry. The state, the GRs contend, has no interest in the marriage beyond filing it as a public record.
But that isn't the way it works in America - or anywhere else on Earth. From the beginning of recorded history, no one anywhere on Earth has ever had a "right" to marry.
Around the globe, marriage is not a right - it is a regulated activity. Every government ever instituted from tribal councils to nation-states have created qualifications that regulate who does, and who does not, qualify for the state's permission to marry, manifested in the modern form as a marriage license.
Nobody anywhere on Earth has a "right" to get married - everyone must meet whatever qualifications the state sets to get a license - the license being the government's permission to marry. The marriage participants must meet certain criteria to qualify for the state's permission to receive a state-issued license.
The Gay Revisionists ignore this reality. They focus on the state's regulation of gender, acting as though this is the one and only criterion involved.
But the state also regulates age, the number of participants in a marriage, current marital status, mental fitness, familial relationship, time between applying for the license and when it becomes effective, how long the license stays effective, who can perform the ceremony, the number and qualifications of witnesses to the ceremony, when and how the license must be returned to a particular state authority to create a permanent record in the public files, and physical fitness in terms of being free of specific diseases, among others.
Let's test the Gay Revisionist criteria of consenting adults desiring to enter into a committed relationship. If the GR position were adopted, then what interest does the state have in the number of participants in the marriage?
Using the Gay Revisionists' criteria of the desire of consenting adults to enter into a committed relationship, the Polyamorists can reasonably ask, "Who are the Gay Revisionists to play 'god' and limit it to two people? We want an unlimited number of consenting adults who want to enter into a committed relationship and enjoy the benefits of marriage. Why only two? Why not 10, or 50, or an unlimited number of persons?"
Why not indeed? A hundred consenting adults desiring a committed relationship among themselves is just as vulnerable a regulation as is gender. So, adopt the Gay Revisionist position on what constitutes a valid state interest in who marries and now you have an unlimited number entering into a marriage to satisfy the Polyamorists' "right" to marry.
The Polygamists now ask, "Who are the Gay Revisionists and the Polyamorists to play 'god' and regulate how many adults can enter into marriage simultaneously? If gender and number of participants in a marriage are out the door, then so is marital status - being limited to one marriage at a time - out the door with it."
What are the Gay Revisionists going to say? The Polyamorists and the Polygamists meet the Gay Revisionists' criteria of consenting adults desiring a committed relationship that bestows the benefits of marriage.
Now let's get to the more shocking marriages: An adult parent and his or her adult child want to marry. Or what about all the adult children - and the adult children of those adult children - wanting to marry? Or what if adult siblings want to marry?
Who are the Gay Revisionists to play god and say "No!" to their desires? They are consenting adults, desiring to enter into a committed relationship that enjoys the benefits of marriage.
They meet the Gay Revisionists' criteria - and with today's birth control technology, the argument that children produced by the marriage run the risk of genetic deformity is a non-starter; society can ensure only genetically healthy embryos go through gestation, or the couple in the case of male and female can submit to permanent sterilization.
So despite the Gay Revisionists' ballistic rage at this example, the truth is that it too meets the Gay Revisionists' terms: Consenting adults, desiring to enter into a committed relationship, enjoying the benefits bestowed upon that relationship by marriage.
It is the logical end point of their argument that marriage is a right. If marriage is a right, and not a regulated activity - then each scenario above is a valid implementation of that "right."
The repulsive thought of countless adults in countless marriages, including incestuous ones, is why marriage is not, and never has been, a "right."
Marriage is a regulated activity, and will remain so, no matter the sophomoric arguments arising against it.
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