I have not studied a Supreme Court opinion in more that 35 years. Even that long ago, I noted a disposition among some justices to reason their way to absurd conclusions.
Varnum v Brien, decided by the Iowa Supreme Court on April 3, 2009, provides a classic example of intellectual versatility. The court concluded that the duly enacted Iowa statute defining marriage as a contract between one man and one woman violates the state constitution's equal protection clause.
To get to its foregone conclusion, the court had to begin by rewriting the statute. The Iowa law said nothing about sexual orientation. The law applies equally to persons of both sexes and of all sexual orientations.
The problem is that the court doesn't seem to know that marriage is a contract; a special kind of contract, one which is affected with the public interest.
The right to make contracts is one of the fundamental freedoms protected by our constitutions. No government permission is required to make a contract to buy a house, or form a partnership, or sell a car. Why do people have to get a license from the government to get married? Because the contract of marriage is affected with the public interest.
Marriage is, at its core, a mating contract. It is the agreement between a man and a woman which enables them to procreate human beings. That's why marriage is so special, so important, so solemn an undertaking. That's why the state regulates marriage, dictates who can marry, at what age, what degrees of consanguinity can marry, what formalities must be observed, how many people one can be married to,and how and why marriages can be dissolved.
The conception of a human being requires an egg from a female and sperm from a male. The DNA of every person is drawn from both parents. Logic, tradition and common sense dictate that both parents should have bonds of affection, responsibility, and dedication with the products of their cohabitation.
Every civilization known to man has had its protocol for marriage. From the most primative tribes to the most sophisticated empires, the natural roles of mothers and fathers are recognized and observed.
Two people of the same sex cannot procreate human beings. They cannot mate. They cannot be mates. It is physically impossible. How then, can they enter into a mating contract? Even the cerebral members of the Iowa Supreme Court cannot make that happen.
What they have done is to redefine marriage by eliminating its core identity as a mating contract. Having asserted that marriage is merely one form of a living arrangement, they then conclude that there is no substantial difference between homosexual and heterosexual unions.
The Iowa decision is another example of permissiveness in high places. If you read the court's opinion, you will see that they were terribly impressed with what nice people the plaintiffs were; school teachers, doctors, lawyers, responsible citizens. And all these nice people want is for the state of Iowa to place it's imprimatur on the form of sexual gratification they prefer.
The courts have already declared laws against sodomy to be unconstitutional. The law allows homosexuals to live together, to adopt children, to leave property to each other, to make any kind of living partnership they prefer. Those incidents are not enough for them. They want their sexual relationship to be equated with that of a man and a woman united in marriage.
Varnum v Brien is an exercise in political correctness which defies logic, common sense, history and the common good. It flies in the face of the will of the people. It is another unhappy example of the black robe syndrome; the mystic infusion of superior wisdom and judgment that is supposed to accompany the installation of judicial officers.
If I'm understanding your above logic correctly, a marriage is a contract (founded on ideals of society through 'public interest') between a man and a woman for the purpose of procreation. Your logic clearly leads to the conclusion that homosexual partners should not be allowed to enter into marriage, as procreation cannot happen.
ReplyDeleteHowever, do you also maintain that a man and a woman, one or both of whom suffer infertility, should not be able to marry? Procreation is impossible, thus your definition of the marriage contract would prevent them from marriage.
The Iowa law declaring marriage to be a contract between a man and a woman did not say that either or both of them must be fertile or that they must plan to have children. The issue in the Iowa case was whether the people of Iowa, acting through their duly elected representatives do or do not have the legal power and right to define marriage as a contract between a man and a woman, of a certain age, not within a specified degree of consanguinity, and not already married to another. Laws of that kind have been made by the people for centuries. The notion tht they are all of a sudden a vioation of the constitution is an example of judges trying to change the culture by edict. It is legally and morally wrong.
ReplyDelete