A Conservative’s View on a Few Things:
Homosexual Marriage.
Right to Life/Pro Choice.
Separation of Church and State.
Pornography v Free Speech.
Gun Control.
Homosexual Marriage
(Can’t find it in the Constitution)
That is, I don’t see a denial of rights. I can marry a person of opposite sex and so can a homosexual; I can’t marry a same-sex person, neither can a homosexual. The Civil Rights issue, insofar as being like blacks is nonsense. Homosexuality may be something that is, at least and in part, genetic, but practicing it is behavior. A black person is a black person whatever they do. There is a large difference between a behavioral and a racial difference.
Nevertheless, although I am opposed to homosexual marriage, I have no personal problem with homosexuals. Having said that I would like to qualify it by saying that I am more ‘Pro Traditional Marriage’ than I am ‘Anti Homosexual Marriage,’ if there is a difference and I think the difference is huge.
I believe that, in a secular sense, any two people who love each other and wish to share their lives and their fortunes should be allowed to do so. As the number of same-sex couples in this category have increased, society has to make allowances for and an accounting to them; however, not at the expense of tradition and the foundation of civilization. A new category needs to be implemented, something like Domestic Partnership or Civil Union.
A Civil Union needs to be defined as a subset of marriage, not because the people involved are inferior, but because their needs are a subset of what marriage is in the first place. All those benefits gained in marriage that have nothing to do with the making and raising families should be granted in a Civil Union, that is where the subset is really defined.
Marriage, as it is employed around the world, and since before recorded history, is not about ‘love’ as such, but about making and raising children. Consider that many cultures arrange marriages; marriages of ‘love’ are a recent development in the history of civilization and have no real base in what marriage is. Even in Western society marriages are still arranged; it is only the ‘common’ folk that let nature take its course insofar as marriage is concerned (and there are still the machinations of mothers everywhere. Jack and Jackie Kennedy’s marriage was arranged, for example.)
Royal marriages are another great example of arranged pairings. Many countries still arrange marriages, even for more common folk, and even while the people, being ‘brokered,’ are still children. There are many reasons for this; ‘breeding’ and ‘fortunes’ are among them. The ultimate purpose is so that the children of the marriage benefit the brokers and perhaps themselves where fortunes are concerned. Inbreeding is avoided; and the best mixing of the gene-pool is a desirable outcome. The point is, in this and all other traditional marriage scenarios, is breeding, something totally missing with same-sex marriage.
Although some of these marriages are fruitless, that is not the common result. Marriage, as far as history and tradition go, is the product of the fruitful mating of the people involved; and that has always been the point. Other benefits granted to those couples have been secondary to the fruitful nature of the matings. How do homosexuals fit this mold?
Homosexual pairings only allow for the secondary benefits due to the sterile nature of their pairings. Of course, in today’s society, adoption is a possibility and a very good thing at that. (Well, maybe; it is to be seen how a child reared by two men or two women will adjust to modern life. There are many hurdles for them, not just the obvious ones of peer-pressure and bullying until [if] gay parenting become common enough to not be an area of differentiation in the school-yard.) I think that homosexual couples, joined in a Civil Union, who adopt should be granted full marriage benefits up to and including being accepted as being married. That needs to be addressed.
The differences between a Civil Union and Traditional Marriage need to be defined and unified between the various states in order to have an orderly society. Civil Unions should also be available, and perhaps mandatory, for heterosexual people who have no plan or are unable to produce children. (A marriage with a woman past menopause should be automatically relegated to a Civil Union, for example; or one with a man/woman who has had a vasectomy/tubal ligation.) That is to say that sterile pairing should be a Civil Union whereas a fertile couple gets married.
The only real differences between the two ‘joinings’ would be the name and certain tax categories. For example, why would a sterile couple be allowed those tax breaks designed to assist a fertile couple in the raising of a family unless there was an adoption? A sterile couple’s status should be ‘upgraded’ to ‘married’ as part of the adoption process.
Obviously this entire concept needs to be debated and settled. The point here is that this Conservative, and many that I’ve heard, is not being homophobic over the issue of marriage, just in support of the traditional or child-rearing definition of marriage. I am in full agreement that homosexuals need certain (secular) protections and rights insofar as insurance, inheritance, and other common rights accorded to other members of society and not denied due to their sexual predilection.
Right to Life/Pro Choice
(Can’t find it in the Constitution)
There are three rights defined (and prioritized, IMHO) in the Declaration of Independence and they are “The right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Without Life there can be neither Liberty nor Happiness; without Liberty there cannot be a Pursuit of anything, much less Happiness.
Abortion denies the baby life but avails the mother of her Pursuit of Happiness; this is a ‘no-brainer’ – the Right to life simply trumps the Pursuit of Happiness. The mother has other options including giving the baby up for adoption. (With the advent of Civil Unions, there will be a much greater need for babies to adopt.) Why this abomination has been allowed in a civilized country, unchecked by any decent restriction is a moral outrage; but things get even worse.
To allow abortions for narrowly defined reasons might be a reasonable, even enlightened in a modern society; but for simple birth control is an outrage against life itself. Some people even want to use the aborted fetus’s for food and or medicine; how is either category not cannibalism?
The very worse usage of this practice is in the procedure commonly called ‘partial birth abortion.’ This abortion is when a full-term baby is delivered to the point of the head ‘crowning’ then stopped and the head punctured with a large hypodermic type pipe and the brain sucked out of the baby’s skull. The dead baby is then delivered as usual and tossed in the garbage.
A judge voided a law disallowing this procedure because it disallows for the health of the mother. How does delivering a baby without a brain differ to any woman’s health from delivering a baby with a brain? Does hearing it cry make the woman sick? How about, instead, killing the mother then delivering the baby by caesarian section? That would account much better for the health of the baby and the mental health of the woman! Everybody wins!
As to how we deal with first-trimester abortions, how about some nice, tight restriction on that as well. Oh, we need to give the woman more choices? It would seem like the woman on an abortion table already made a lot of bad choices already; why should we think she’s making a good one now? OK, what circumstances should be allowed? Children under eighteen-years-old (pick an age, 15?); victims of rape, incest (redundant?), the father/mother has a disease that is threatening to the baby or mother; what else? Simple birth control is hideous!
Separation of Church and State
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;…
First of all there is no such statement or definition as ‘Separation of Church and State’ in the Constitution. The First Amendment is very, very simple in stating that Congress (which the Constitution just defined) cannot establish a religion (as with England’s Church of England) nor could it prohibit anyone’s free exercise of any religion. It doesn’t say that Congress or the Federal Government can’t recognize that religion exists, nor prohibit it from sponsoring religions, just not any one over the others.
For example, there is nothing in the Constitution that says that school vouchers can’t be given for parents to use for religious schools, it would just not have any say in which religious school it could or couldn’t be used in. That would be the sole choice of the parents.
Another example would be that the Federal Government would have no say in any religious involvement that any State might get involved in. The Constitution says Congress is prohibited, not the States, and (in the Tenth Amendment) the States (or the People) have jurisdiction of all things not in the domain of Congress. That is, if Rhode Island decided to establish Wicca as the Church of RI, then the Federal Government would have no say over it and RI would have its state religion insofar as the people of RI let their State Government get away with it.
As far as that goes, the Federal Appellate Court had no jurisdiction whatsoever insofar as the case of Judge Moore [and his sculpture of the Ten Commandments in the State Supreme Court of Alabama] was concerned. That was a clear violation of the State of Alabama’s rights as stated in the Tenth Amendment (The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.)
How could this issue be any simpler? Organizations like the ACLU obfuscate the First Amendment so that their lawyers can get experience (and, later, big-buck clients) by twisting this issue in order to promote either atheism or, at least, anti-Christianity. They do seem to leave Judaism and Islam alone, even where public displays are concerned. (It is noteworthy to remember that the Ten Commandment sculpture of Judge Moore and others were described as symbols of Christianity! They got away with that in spite of the real fact the Ten Commandments (and Moses, the law-giver) predates Christianity by several millennia!)
This issue is the very heart and soul of our country, how we survive as a nation will depend on how this issue, more than any other, is resolved. It is time for the social pendulum to start swinging to the right; we are way too far left in this, as well as the other, issues.
Pornography v Free Speech
Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…
No right is absolute. You can’t scream “fire” in a theater, nor print slander against another citizen, for example. The problem lies in where to draw the line. Civilization and culture depends on where that line is. Too broad and there is anarchy; too fine and there is tyranny.
Just because ‘pornography’ is indefinable, legally, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. We all have an understanding of what it is, but we all differ on where to draw the line. So what? Some of the original definitions by the Supreme Court made great sense; let the individual communities define it for themselves. Then the ACLU argued against various community standards and the Supreme Court tripped on its own feet. They started to second guess the communities, that they originally empowered, and said that they, the Supreme Court, was the Supreme arbiter of community standards.
Once the Supreme Court abdicated its decision to the ACLU then there were no standards allowed. How long will child pornography restrictions go on? With no standards or definition of what pornography is, how long can modifying it with ‘Child’ get by? If sticking a horse penis up a woman’s nose isn’t pornography, than how can sticking a horse penis up a six-years-old girl’s nose be ‘child pornography?
Not to worry, liberal people, soon there will be no child pornography laws on the books either. With no definitions of pornography how long, after all, can there be a definition of Child Pornography?
Let’s get some common sense back into the country and let town council’s and city’ board of directors (or whatever) decide what level of open, written and pictured sexuality that can be displayed in store shelves, theaters and video rental places. The community should say where this material is distributed. Let them define, as best they can, what constitutes pornography and what age can either view and/or participate in it.
I believe that adults should be able to have access to explicit sexual material, but I do not believe that it is in the best interest of growing children to have that same access. There needs to be some regulation and the community level is where it should be. Everybody’s interests should be assuaged by demanding that there be some outlet for adults to have access, but allow communities to restrict what is and isn’t available elsewhere.
Note, again, that only Congress is prohibited here, not the States, nor the people! The Supreme Court is, once again, out of its jurisdiction! The ACLU needs a muzzle!
Gun Control
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Alexander Hamilton, who wrote this amendment, summed up the meaning and purpose of it in the Federalist Papers by telling us that it was to insure that the people always had the final control over the new government that they (the founding fathers) were proposing in the event that it (the Government) got out of control!
It would seem, to project his thesis to the present, that the government shouldn’t have any armament that the people were restricted from! No weapon in the military arsenal should be prohibited, just regulated. All weapons should be available to, at least, organized militias.
The way that firearms are relegated in the Military is a good example of how they should be regulated to the people; all soldiers have rifles and assault weapons, squads have heavier weapons (machine guns), platoons have more (anti-tank weapons, mortars), etc. Local, State and Multi-State Militias should have the same organization and access to armaments. Individuals can have pistols, shotguns, and assault weapons, community militias (gun clubs, etc.) should have access to automatic weapons and light machine guns; County Militias should have mortars, anti-tank and ant-aircraft weapons; etc. to where a multi-state militia might have bombers and any weapons that the military has.
The only regulation should be taxes levied by the BATF and the size of the militia that different classes of weapons can be distributed to. Atom bombs should have a large tax stamp from the BATF and only be allowed in very large, multi-state militias! (The number of states involved would also need to be regulated, but no more than a super majority for the top weapons should be needed.)
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