Catholic League's Bill Donohue comments on yesterday’s U.S. Supreme
Court oral arguments over Proposition 8 and same-sex marriage:
Charles Cooper, the lawyer defending Proposition 8, urged the high court not to
refocus “the definition of marriage away from the raising of children and to
the emotional needs and desires of adults.” In doing so, he was simply
restating the basic sociological observation that the purpose of marriage is to
serve the best interests of children in the institution of the family. To put
it differently, marriage was not created to make adults happy. Ironically,
Maureen Dowd took Cooper to task today, asking, “Did he miss the last few Me
Decades?” She just doesn’t get it: it is precisely because he didn’t miss them
that he seeks not to sustain them.
Cooper’s adversary, Theodore Olson, shares Dowd’s handicap. He said marriage is
a “personal right,” not “society’s right.” If it were a personal right he needs
to explain why the Framers, and all the jurists since the 18th century, never
discovered it. Also, societies do not possess rights—they have interests. Only
individuals have rights.
In his dissent in the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision that legalized
homosexuality, Justice Antonin Scalia warned that if the laws against
homosexuality are to be jettisoned, then there would be no principled basis
left to proscribe such things as polygamy and incest. He was widely scorned for
saying so. Guess what? Yesterday, Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked Olson if gay
marriage is okay, why not polygamy and incest? Without a trace of evidence, he
said they involve exploitation and abuse. [Note: Only one newspaper in the
U.S., the San Francisco Chronicle, cited her concern in today’s print
edition.]
Olson needs to meet Allen and Patricia Muth. Brother and sister, they have
sought to marry, and they would take great umbrage at the very idea that they
are exploited or abused. Ditto for thousands of women in polygamous
relationships: they love their husbands and their co-wives. Moreover, Kinsey
associate Wardell Pomeroy argued over 40 years ago that incest “can sometimes
be beneficial.” In short, the “Me Decades” are on trial.
മലയാളത്തില് ടൈപ്പ് ചെയ്യാന് ഇവിടെ ക്ലിക്ക് ചെയ്യുക
അസഭ്യവും നിയമവിരുദ്ധവും അപകീര്ത്തികരവുമായ പരാമര്ശങ്ങള് പാടില്ല. വ്യക്തിപരമായ അധിക്ഷേപങ്ങളും
ഉണ്ടാവരുത്. അവ സൈബര് നിയമപ്രകാരം കുറ്റകരമാണ്. അഭിപ്രായങ്ങള് എഴുതുന്നയാളുടേത് മാത്രമാണ്. ഇ-മലയാളിയുടേതല്ല