#17 The defense of marriage is not 'discrimination.' Marriage has for millennia meant the union of a man and a woman. To label the defense of that age-old standard 'discrimination' is to indict the grand sweep of human history and every civilized nation that has ever existed. Attempts to raise the red herring of 'bias,' only debase public debate and distort the central question, which is, whether marriage is a malleable social construct silly putty in the hands of judges to be reshaped as they deem fit or whether marriage is what it has been since creation, the union of one man and one woman for life.
If it is, as proponents suggest, discrimination to deny same-sex couples the privilege of marriage, then it is also discrimination to deny the privilege to anyone else who wants to get married. Who else wants to get married but is denied by the state? Many people. And as soon as this taboo is broken, watch them line up.
How long do you suppose it will be, once same-sex marriage is a reality, before brothers want to marry sisters? How long do you suppose it will be before sisters want to marry sisters? How long do you suppose it will be before brothers want to marry brothers?
How many same-sex marriage advocates want to go down that road?
If incestuous marriages don't scare you off, how about marriages involving more than two people? What possible reason could we find for "discriminating" against threesomes, foursomes, fivesomes, etc.?
A man in Great Britain was in the news a few years back who wanted to marry his dog. How could we possibly "discriminate" against an idea like that?
The truth is that most of us do believe in discrimination. In fact, we discriminate every day when we make choices. I'm not sure you can live without discriminating – between good food and bad, between safe conduct and unsafe conduct, etc.
Discrimination can be a good thing – a necessary component of life. It's a bad thing only when we use it prejudicially against people because of immutable circumstances – like the color of their skin.
People who are homosexuals, transsexuals, transgendered people, intersexuals, lesbians and metrosexuals are characterized in those ways because of their conduct, their behavior, their choices.
Those folks have exactly the same rights as heterosexuals. They can marry one member of the opposite sex. No one forces them to do so. But they have that right.
This system has worked pretty well for the last 6,000 years. We tamper with it at great peril to our society.
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Gay couples should have access to the same rights as heterosexual married couples, New Jersey's Supreme Court ruled today. But it's possible that lawmakers will designate civil unions, not marriage, as the route to provide such rights. "Only rights that are deeply rooted in the traditions, history, and conscience of the people are deemed to be fundamental. Although we cannot find that a fundamental right to same-sex marriage exists in this state, the unequal dispensation of rights and benefits to committed same-sex partners can no longer be tolerated under our State Constitution," said the ruling, written by Associate Justice Barry Albin.