by Diane Rufino
My state of North Carolina is the latest state to face a possible erosion of traditional marriage. The question will be: How will its people react? Marriage is a solid bedrock foundation of communities – the source of modeling, morality, and values. The lessons children learn go far beyond the mere words that parents speak.
Redefining marriage as a genderless institution has consequences. First, public schools will be legally required to teach same-sex marriage on an equal footing with traditional marriage. It will therefore take away the most fundamental right that parents have – to raise their children according to values they hold dear and according to their rights of religious conscience. James Madison said: “Conscience is the most sacred of all property – our greatest possession.”
Look at the situation in the schools in Massachusetts, where same-sex marriage has been legal since 2004. One can find the book “King & King” by Linda de Haan and Stern Nijland in their elementary school libraries. The book tells the story of a queen who decided it was time for her son, the prince, to marry. He rejects every princess she offers. Finally the last candidate enters, and the prince feels “a stir in his heart.” But it was for one princess’s brother, Prince Lee. The two men marry and the book reads: “Everyone lives happily ever after.” On the last page, the two princes kiss, with a red heart covering their mouths.
The book glorifies the idea that it’s perfectly OK to have same-sex marriage.
A grade school boy in California returned home from school and asked his mother: “Mom, am I gay?” She wanted to know why he would ask such a question. He told her that his teacher told the class that “anyone can be gay.” Children shouldn’t be confronted with such questions. They shouldn’t have to entertain such possibilities or have to deal with such unnecessary confusion. Growing up is hard enough.
Parents have a tough enough time raising their children with proper values and morals and they can’t keep fighting with a school system that wants social change rather than social stability. Providing a definition to the institution of marriage in NC would help ensure that teachers assign classic reading and not books like “King & King.”
Forloveofgodandcountry's Blog 
“his teacher told the class that “anyone can be gay.” Children shouldn’t be confronted with such questions.”
So very much so. So now, my ultimate question is why the refusal to open the findings to determine which party stands in the demented light, since that is what we are all being accused of, the contention over the soundness of civil minds? Do the findings for those whom have been exposed reveal a deterioration in the unintended sphere, health, social contentment, aptitudes and in any other long-term findings?
Also, using the Author of nature as a guide, which conviction is most likely to press to resolve, debate the impact inwardly from the highest seat. Yes, if “judgment must first” come from the house of God, our shaking out this wrinkle should also remind us to reinvigorate dialog with the offending models of Christ bearing leaders. For starters, to regain strength of the bear minimum, begin to popularize the unfavorable train of true converts from such a life. As it could be here.
“[H]is teacher told the class that “anyone can be gay.” Children shouldn’t be confronted with such questions.”
So very much so. So now, my ultimate question is why the refusal to open the findings to determine which party stands in the demented light, since that is what we are all being accused of, the contention over the soundness of civil minds? Do the findings for those whom have been exposed reveal a deterioration in the unintended sphere, health, social contentment, aptitudes and in any other long-term findings?
Also, using the Author of nature as a guide, which conviction is most likely to press to resolve, debate the impact inwardly from the highest seat. Yes, if “judgment must first” come from the house of God, our shaking out this wrinkle should also remind us to reinvigorate dialog with the offending models of Christ bearing leaders. For starters, to regain strength of the bear minimum, begin to popularize the unfavorable train of true converts from such a life. As it could be here.
God Bless!
Michael S.
We do not need a marriage Amendment. Just stick to the Dictionary’s definition of the word. If you did that, you will find multiple forms of marriage. You also have people who claim that marriage is strictly between a man and a woman. Really?
Marriage is a State issue. It has always been. States have the right to define it, regulate it, and legislate it for the “health, safety, welfare, and morality” of its people. Marriage comes under the traditional “police powers” that define a state’s reserved powers. The Supreme Court, nor the President, nor the Congress has the right to turn a reserved state power into a “federal issue.” The government cannot turn the country into a “one-size-fits-all” model when it comes to issues and policies that have been reserved to each individual state by the Constitution. Allowing the states to retain their individual character (whether that is not agreeable to people or special interests or certain minority groups or not) is exactly what the “federal” nature of our government system is all about. To be clear, our country is not “one consolidated nation” and never has been. It is a federation of states, predicated on the division of government power between the federal government (authorized only as to those objects expressly enumerated in the Constitution) and the individual states (all those powers NOT expressly delegated to the federal government; hence the term “reserved” powers). The 10th amendment re-states and re-enforces this structure. The 10th amendment was not only insisted by the states in their decisions to ratify the Constitution and their decision to join into a Union of states, but in the preamble to the Bill of Rights, the States emphasized exactly WHY they insisted on the first ten amendments: “To prevent misconstruction or abuse of the federal government’s powers and to best insure the beneficent ends of its institution.”
During the Massachusetts ratifying convention, delegate Fisher Aims argued for a provision in the Constitution that would later become the Tenth Amendment: “A consolidation of the States would subvert the new Constitution, and against which this article [the Tenth Amendment] is our best security. Too much provision cannot be made against consolidation. The State Governments represent the wishes and feelings, and the local interests of the people. They are the safeguard and ornament of the Constitution; they will protect the period of our liberties; they will afford a shelter against the abuse of power, and will be the natural avengers of our violated rights.”
In “selling” the Constitution to the States that had reservations or were skeptical of it, and potentially would not ratify it, a series of “promises” and assurances” were provided to them in the form of explanatory essays on the meaning and intent of the Constitution. These essays are collectively known as The Federalist Papers.” They are a collection of 85 essays primarily written by two important founding state leaders, New York’s Alexander Hamilton and Virginia’s James Madison (primary author of the Constitution). (New York’s John Jay, who would be appointed to the Supreme Court, wrote 3 of the essays). Having the essays written by respected leaders from NY and VA was particular significant because those states were 2 out of the 3 states who were not only supremely powerful (Massachusetts was the third), but they had powerful anti-Federalist forces working in them to help prevent them from adopting the Constitution. In Federalist No. 32, Alexander Hamilton wrote: “An entire consolidation of the States into one complete national sovereignty would imply an entire subordination of the parts; and whatever powers might remain in them, would be altogether dependent on the general will. But the plan of the convention aims only at a partial union or consolidation, the State governments would clearly retain all rights of sovereignty which they before had, and which were not, by that act, exclusively delegated to the United States.”
In Federalist No. 39, James Madison wrote:
First, in order to ascertain the real character of the government, it may be considered in relation to the foundation on which it is to be established; to the sources from which its ordinary powers are to be drawn; to the operation of those powers; to the extent of them; and to the authority by which future changes in the government are to be introduced.
On examining the first relation, it appears, on one hand, that the Constitution is to be founded on the assent and ratification of the people of America, given by deputies elected for the special purpose; but, on the other, that this assent and ratification is to be given by the people, not as individuals composing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong. It is to be the assent and ratification of the several States, derived from the supreme authority in each State, the authority of the people themselves. The act, therefore, establishing the Constitution, will not be a national, but a federal act.
That it will be a federal and not a national act, as these terms are understood by the objectors; the act of the people, as forming so many independent States, not as forming one aggregate nation, is obvious from this single consideration, that it is to result neither from the decision of a majority of the people of the Union, nor from that of a majority of the States. It must result from the unanimous assent of the several States that are parties to it, differing no otherwise from their ordinary assent than in its being expressed, not by the legislative authority, but by that of the people themselves. Were the people regarded in this transaction as forming one nation, the will of the majority of the whole people of the United States would bind the minority, in the same manner as the majority in each State must bind the minority; and the will of the majority must be determined either by a comparison of the individual votes, or by considering the will of the majority of the States as evidence of the will of a majority of the people of the United States. Neither of these rules have been adopted. Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a federal, and not a national constitution.”
Because The Federalist Papers were “relied upon” by delegates in the state ratifying conventions as to the meaning and intent of the terms and provisions of the Constitutions, they become material documents in the interpretation of the Constitution and the nature of our government. So, for the federal government to assume it has the supreme power to legislate and make decisions for the American people, as a whole and on any object it deems necessary, regardless of the boundaries defining the individual states and ignoring the 10th amendment, is a power it never had and never will.
Although I’m a bit long-winded, this is the reason I say that marriage is a state issue.
The lamest argument against same sex marriage I can think of is that it will negatively affect children who have same sex parents. Really? Aside from the redundancy associated with same sex parenting, any real arguments made against the legal recognition of same sex parenting relies largely on faulty logic.