9th Circuit Court of Appeals: Still looney after all these years

[myotch]

(02-10-2012 01:20 AM)Tchaiko Wrote:  I believe it all comes down to the Orwellian concept: "All [people] are equal, but some [people] are more equal than others." "We can do _____ because it's always been done, but we won't let you do it because there's no historical precedent for your kind doing things like that. We're all equal, though. "The non-traditionals are tasked with proving why they should be allowed to have certain freedoms when it should be the job of those who want to restrict freedom to prove why it needs to be restricted.

Orwell wrote the better book. Huxley made the better prediction.

Redefining "marriage" isn't Orwellian newspeak as much as it is trivializing the term (the Huxley-an concept of dystopia features a society obsessed with both trivializing and self-indulgence).

Like I said before, marriage as it is practiced now is older than civilization and society. Civilization has been built on the concept of marriage and family as the basic unit. To what societal benefit do we retrofit the concept of marriage for those who have been historically excluded from marriage? To what importance do we, as a society, give this new definition of marriage? To what concept of liberty do we owe the government licensing and regulation of homosexual couples in the recognition of their relationship? It only serves to validate the orientation, and to allow the government to mediate the dissolution of the relationship.

Many types of heterosexual relationships are banned, as well, and government has an interest in not allowing some people to get married. In this way, as seen throughout the history of civilization, marriage has always been somewhat exclusionary. Typically, as history progresses, there seems to be MORE, not less, restriction on who exactly can marry whom, and restrictions include the existing relationship of people intending to marry (brothers and sisters, cousins), age of the people intending to marry, etc.

No law can actually force people to not have consensual sex, mind you. But the state does have an interest to refuse licensed marriage between two people who don't fit certain criteria.