Ruth Institute Blog

Radio Derb this week discussed marriage redefinition:

Just as the Brits would much rather have been left alone with their familiar Britishness, without having two million people of utterly alien faith and folkways dumped on them, so Californians would rather be left alone with the familiar institution of marriage as a union of one man with one woman, as a well-tried social unit for the generation and nurturing of children.

Leaving people alone is not what we do in the modern progressive state. If we did, it wouldn’t be progressive, would it? So here’s this federal judge, Vaughn Walker, striking down as “unconstitutional” California’s Proposition 8 banning homosexual marriage, passed by the voters in November 2008.

Just as Muslims, a minority regarded with some level of suspicion and mistrust by great numbers of their fellow-citizens, would be wise to show some sensitivity to majority opinions, so homosexuals, whose private behavior is disgusting to great numbers of their fellow-citizens, should try to avoid making arrogant demands on the rest of us, whatever they think their rights are in law.

As if! The rule of modern society is: The minority is always right, and if the majority disagrees, they are racists, or bigots, or some other nasty thing, and they all need to rectify their thinking.

This is not, when you think about it, a terrifically smart position for a minority to take; but it’s the one they always do take, as minorities, according to current ideology, are exempt from all rules about restraint, forbearance, courtesy, consideration, and respect for other people’s feelings.

Radio Derb also weighed in on the ruling itself:

Just take a close look at the language in Judge Walker’s ruling to see the sneering arrogance of our ruling class.

Quote: “Moral disapproval alone is an improper basis on which to deny rights to gay men and lesbians.” End quote. The proverbial visitor from Mars, reading this, would assume that a right long enjoyed was to be abrogated by Proposition 8. People have been doing this for ever! Now you want to stop them doing it! Yet in fact, the “right” that Judge Walker says is being denied was not even thought of by any human being — well, excluding a few outliers like the Emperor Nero — until about 15 years ago.

If there is widespread moral disapproval of changes to a social custom that has served well for ten thousand years, wouldn’t that be a “proper basis” for not changing the custom? That is of course a conservative point of view, not available to Judge Walker, who has been to law school.

Another quote: “Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples,” end quote. Well, yes, but that’s what most people actually believe: more exactly, we believe that opposite-sex couple-dom is more worthy of state recognition and protection than same-sex couple-dom, regardless of what we may think of any particular couple.

We also believe that monogamy is more worthy of state recognition and protection than polygamy, polyandry, group marriage, or zoophilia. On what grounds would Judge Walker oppose state recognition of those? Or, in the language he would prefer, how can the denial of rights to polygamists etc. be properly based on mere moral disapproval?

What currently unimagined rights will be found beried in the Constitution in the next fifteen years by these high priests of the state ideology? If Roman Emperors are to be our guide, well, one of Nero’s predecessors married his sister. Would “moral disapproval alone” be an “improper basis on which to deny rights” to Californians who desired to follow his example? Whaddya say, Judge?