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- #101
LOL! No. The statist's suppression of/impositions on the free exercise of the Christian's fundamental liberties are not freedom. These things are tyranny, and the Christian is not obliged to choose/tolerate these warts at all.
Got empathy? Are you blind? What is this bias of yours that causes you to lose sight of the distinction between civil liberties and civil rights when it comes to the Christian's plight in the face of an increasingly pagan nation where collectivistic statism is on the rise?
There's nothing stopping a homosexual marrying whomever he pleases. You're not talking about the freedom to marry. You're talking about the government's official approbation/recognition of homosexual marriage and the government's imposition of it on the public and private sector.
Hello!
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So, you're not talking about inherent inalienable rights/unabridgible civil liberties at all. You're talking about civil rights/protections enforced by government against the free exercise of the former, based on sexual behavior that is obviously not compatible with the physiological/biological imperatives of nature or the natural law of classical liberalism.
Right?
So when government grants its official approbation for homosexual marriage, it necessarily imposes the acceptance of if in the public schools, for example, doesn't it? It necessary promotes/advances the notion of its legal and moral rightness and acceptability. And that now impacts the inherent inalienable rights/unabridgible civil liberties of others.
Right?
So you don't believe that fundamental liberties take precedence over the "rights" enforced by government that would suppress the former, and you don't really care if the government violates the fundamental rights of Christians in the public schools as pagans shove their morality on the children of Christians or when the government forces Christians to accommodate pagan behavior against the Christian's prerogatives of free-association and property in the private sector?
Right?
And you dont care that Christians don't really care what homosexuals do as long as the latter don't violate their rights.
Right?
And you don't care that Christians have argued that the government needs to get out of the business of marriage altogether?
Right?
And you don't care that Christians are at the forefront of the fight for educational freedom, universal school choice for this very reason, among others?
Right?
And you don't care that statists (leftists, Marxists, progressives) are bent on using the government to suppress the free exercise of fundamental liberties, impose conformity and acceptance of paganism, materialism, secular humanism and the like, and, therefore, oppose getting the government out of the business of marriage or giving up their control of the schools?
Social Engineering.
The Christian is just supposed to roll over, surrender his fundamental liberties in the face of this tyranny?
Right?
So you're accusing the Christian of what exactly? For exerting defensive political force in the face of the statist's initial force against the Christian's prerogatives of free-association and private property? Against his parental consent and authority in the schools?
Why do you blame the Christian for the dilemma instigated by statists?
You're really not a very reliable defender of the fundamental liberties of classical liberalism or natural law at all, are you?
Okay, let's focus on the concepts, not each other.
Actually, based on my recollections of Two Thumbs posts on various topics over recent years, I am pretty sure he supports the classical liberal position fairly well across the board. In that post I took him as expressing one place he doesn't agree with conservatism is on the issue of gay marriage. In my response to him I tried to present what I believe the classical liberal (modern conservative) point of view really is about that. He may or may not agree with me about that, and that is okay.
The true modern day conservative, aka classical liberal, doesn't give a flying fig who marries who so long as the marriage is between consenting people who are at or beyond the age of consent.
But because our culture values children and we, as a people, are pretty much in agreement that children, who are denied many rights afforded to adults, are rightfully entitled to certain protections. The marriage laws in all 50 states are specifically designed to protect any children that result from husband and wife having sex. With very few exceptions, they serve essentially no other reasonable purpose.
So the issue should always have been how to provide important/necessary benefits to family units for whatever reason do not wish to or cannot marry under existing marriage law. In my opinion that can be done without changing a definition that has endured for all of recorded history.
Fox, the issue in this case goes to the difference between civil liberties and civil rights. The difference between, as you put, someone being free to be all they can be with impunity, as long as they don't violate the fundamental rights of others. A free people are not obliged to accommodate the life choices of others . . . or else there is no liberty. For me, the specific examples are irrelevant, merely illustrative of the pertinent distinction.
I agree. Which is why I made the argument earlier that the issue is not whether gay people should 'marry'. That is something for the gay people to decide for themselves just as heterosexual people decide that for themselves. That is the only view one can take if one believe in unalienable rights and liberty.
The issue of the definition of marriage goes a little deeper and does involve basic rights. Should one segment of society be able to demand that they get their way and whatever is important to anybody else be damned? Is a concept of civil rights to be the ONLY consideration when implementation of those civil rights violates somebody else's unalienable rights? What is more important? That gay people have the same rights and protections as everybody else, or that such rights and protections replace existing laws and policy that others see as important and beneficial to all?
These are not easy questions. But the basic principles involved can be applied to them.
People demanding that society give them what they want at the expense of the unalienable rights of others has created a whole lot of grief, suffering, and injustice for a great many people.