Rapid Collapse

Gone By Lunchtime

It is coming rapidly.  Opponents of the legal recognition of homosexual "marriage" have argued that it has opened the door to any form of cohabitation being recognised and protected by the state.  Proponents of homosexual "marriage" to date have scoffed.  That has never been their intention (they protest) and anyone suggesting that state sanctioned polygamy will follow in the train of homosexual marriage is either an ignorant emotive alarmist, or deceitful and misleading in their argumentation. 

Believe me, says the homosexual, we want only this--that the state recognise the genuineness of our "love" and want that to be recognised and protected by allowing us to enter into marriage.  We reject and oppose this privilege and honour being given to anyone else, they say.  Maybe.  Let's grant for the sake of argument that the Louisa Walls of this world are genuine honest brokers when they argue this way.  But the principles upon which they have built their case apply equally to any form of willing cohabitation.  Thus, a federal judge in the United States has recently ruled that of course the arguments for homosexual "marriage" must apply equally to other forms of human co-habitation.

This from Ken Klukowski:

In a game-changer for the legal fight over same-sex marriage that gives credence to opponents’ “slippery slope” arguments, a federal judge has now ruled that the legal reasoning for same-sex marriage means that laws against polygamy are likewise unconstitutional.  In his 91-page opinion in Brown v. Buhman, on Dec. 13, U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups struck down Utah’s law making polygamy a crime. In so doing, he may have opened Pandora’s Box. [Emphasis, ours]

Hitherto, the legal reasoning recognising and institutionalising and protecting marriage has rested upon the following principles:

For over 5,000 years of recorded human history, marriage laws worldwide were about providing a social structure for producing and raising children. These laws simply acknowledged the biological reality that only sex between a man and a woman can produce a baby, and that, correspondingly, that every child born into the world has two parents, one of which is a man, the other a woman.

Marriage laws were designed to secure parental rights for that man and woman over the child they had created, and also imposed strict duties and obligations on each of them for raising that child. As part of that, those laws also bound the man and woman to each other, imposing obligations of sexually exclusivity, mutual care, and support.

Those laws were created for the nurturing of those children, and assign the gender role of demanding the man’s protection and support of the woman during pregnancy and once the children were born. They were designed primarily for the protection of children, and secondarily for the support of women.

A man and woman would form a new family to act as a single unit in society, and care for any children resulting from their monogamous sexual relationship. Thus, marriage has been defined as the union of one man and one woman. More precisely, it is the union of (1) two consenting persons, (2) of opposite biological sex, (3) who are not close blood relatives.

But the introduction of no-fault divorce changed all that.  It made marriage subject to a mere change of mind, which meant marriage was a volitional contract into which one might enter and leave freely and, therefore, the institution itself, being subject to human desires and volition, could not in principle be refused to any couple (or group of humans) who so desired it.

The new conception of marriage, rooted in the proliferation of no-fault divorce laws in the 1970s and the sexual revolution, is that marriage is about personal happiness and fulfillment. People should be free to form whatever relationships they find personally satisfying and to follow whatever their personal sexual inclinations are to engage in whatever form of sexual behavior they find gratifying.

If, therefore, you have a right to officially recognize those homosexual relationships through redefining marriage to include same-sex couples, then there is no reason to say it cannot include more than two people, so long as everyone is a consenting adult.

The successful lawsuit has been concocted deliberately to cover all forms of multiple co-habitation.

This lawsuit is the brainchild of Prof. Jonathan Turley at George Washington University. He’s designed a two-step strategy, piggybacking on same-sex marriage: first, decriminalize polygamy, then assert a right to official recognition of polygamy.

As Turley explained in previous court filings, he believes there is a “right to self-determination of private relations and family matters free of government intrusion.” He noted that many oppose polygamy, and goes on to assert that polygamists “are entitled to protection from such majoritarian animus and bias vis-à-vis their private lifestyles and relations. Their status under domestic law is a civil rights issue deserving the same protections afforded to homosexuals and other minority groups.”

The exact legal arguments for same-sex marriage equally apply to multiple-person marriages. Turley acknowledges that marriage laws that do not include both are “a tool for the imposition of a uniform moral agenda or tenets on citizens.”

Turley then goes on to make clear he is not only arguing for the form of polygamy technically called polygyny, which is one man with multiple women. In other words, he also argues for a right to polyandry (one woman with multiple men) and polyamory (multiple men with multiple women).

As this reasoning proceeds through the courts, ultimately up to the Supreme Court, both Islamic groups and libertines will be anticipating a final recognition of their particular form of marital degeneracy.  How will the Supreme Court likely rule?  At this stage the following can be argued with certainty: provided the US Supreme Court remains consistent with its earlier argumentation on the matter, the Court will most certainly uphold the lawsuits as constitutional--that is, will rule that people have a constitutional right to enter into any marriage of whatever stripe, and that state and society are bound to recognise them.   

It all began back in 2003:

In its 2003 Lawrence v. Texas case, the Supreme Court overruled previous sexuality precedents by declaring unconstitutional laws that made homosexual sodomy a crime, holding that although the Constitution says nothing about sex or marriage, there is nonetheless a right to consensual sexual activity between adults that government cannot regulate. This was over the vigorous dissent of conservative justices, who said that the Constitution commits such questions of marriage and morality to the states and the democratic process, and that therefore federal courts have no power to impose their own moral judgments.

The Lawrence case lays the foundation that has been cited for a decade now in court to make the case for a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. If government cannot forbid homosexual conduct, this argument goes, then neither can it deny those who define themselves by homosexual behavior to officially recognize any such relationship as a marriage. It began a political, religious, and philosophical debate in America between two different definitions of marriage and family. [Emphasis, ours]

So, we see how this is going to roll.  

In New Zealand, the argumentation over homosexual "marriage" was never about constitutional matters.  In this enlightened land we cut straight to the chase.  If two homosexuals "loved" each other and consented to live in marital bonds, they could not be gainsaid or denied.  The law had to recognise their relationship as legitimate marriage.  Anything less was discriminatory and in breach of human rights.  Pandora's Box is well and truly opened here--only constrained by whether fifty percent of the parliament will vote yea.  So, eventually someone will come along and use the guilt-ridden argument that restrictions against polyandry, polygamy, and polyamory represent nothing more than majoritarian animus, then, throw in a couple of poster boys and girls living in such relationships, and parliament will fold by lunchtime.

It's going to be an interesting ride.  To be sure, this legal and moral revolution will cause great damage, but it is a devolution which Christians need not fear.  After all, this is the ordinary way of divine working.  When a culture rebels against God (as ours has done) it pleases the Lord gives it rope until it well and truly hangs itself upon the gibbet of its own making.  So He warned Israel, and so it came to be.  When it is utterly lost and without hope, when its arrogant strutting is no more, then a culture may just reconsider.  Like the Prodigal Son, it may reach the point of such degradation and desperation, that the Father's house begins to seem just a bit more attractive than it once did.  It is when a culture becomes so desperate in its self-imposed degradation that the meanest condition in God's house seems far better than their own that a nationwide repentance can commence. 

It is when the darkest night of sin falls that the light of Christ's Gospel shines most brightly upon the lamp stands of His people.