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I am posting in parts this letter that I originally wrote to SCOTUS concerning their upcoming decisions for homosexual marriage. This went through three drafts in which each draft is completely different and rearranged based on inputs I received from my colleagues.
I really thought earnestly about how to frame the arguments and when to hold back in certain places, and how aggressive I needed to be. I will never meet these justices and this is my only shot.
As I mentioned in previous posts, as a theonomist I certainly recognize that natural law arguments are useful, and I use them here. While I feel that these arguments are effective, I fully understood that these arguments in and of themselves are not fully and logically sufficient unless you fully refer back to the transcendental standard. I wasn't fooling myself into thinking that they were actually logically (biblically) sufficient.
I had to try to balance this issue with the immediate and focused intent of getting the message across for the justices to be convinced to uphold (traditional) marriage. Especially since I will never meet these justices, I had to think of a way that they will actually read through my entire letter without them throwing it in the trash after the first page.
My approach would have been much more forward if I were to actually have a sit-down with them but since I cannot, I made the tactical decision to focus more on the natural law arguments and hint at the transcendental aspects. (I also put in references that I used, which appear in the later parts of the letter).
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March
29, 2013
The
Chief Justice of the United States
Justice
Scalia, Justice Kennedy, Justice Thomas , Justice Ginsburg, Justice Breyer, Justice
Alito
Justice
Sotomayor, Justice Kagan
The
Supreme Court of the United States
1
First Street, NE
Washington,
DC 20543
Dear Mr. Chief Justice, Justice
Scalia, Justice Kennedy, Justice Thomas, Justice Ginsburg, Justice Breyer,
Justice Alito, Justice Sotomayor, Justice Kagan,
My name is Christopher Lee. Before I
proceed, I want to thank each of you for your service to our country in the
Supreme Court. I have been following the court cases regarding Proposition 8
and DOMA and I would like to humbly offer some insights into the sociological
and moral dimensions of this issue. I hope you will find this information
helpful. First, let me be clear. This issue isn’t whether homosexuals are made
in the image of God who deserve to be treated with love and respect. They are,
and they do. Below are the typical arguments made for homosexual marriage, and
my responses:
Claim 1) Marriage
is a voluntary union of persons in a committed relationship
Response 1) How something is phrased can certainly
affect how one views that particular thing. This is true with homosexual marriage.
Very subtly, we have begun to talk about marriage as a union of persons in a committed relationship, rather than a union of a man and a woman. Never
before has marriage been spoken about in this way and the implications are
profound. This shift in terms has been attendant to a shift in how we think
about marriage. Unconsciously we begin wondering: if marriage is really the
union of persons in a committed and loving relationship, why shouldn’t
homosexuals be allowed to participate in this institution?
The
only problem with construing marriage in these terms is that this has never
been how it was understood since the beginning of human history, even among
cultures like ancient Rome which might have been most inclined to understand
marriage as the union of persons. Those who take this view must acknowledge
that throughout most of human history the laws, customs, culture and language
built up around marriage was apparently based on a misunderstanding of what
marriage actually was, for until recently no one understood that marriage has
actually always been the union of persons. It would be difficult to say that
the Framers of the Constitution thought of marriage as a union between two
persons, and not one man and one woman.
Now to be fair, the fact that
marriage has never been understood as a union of
persons does not itself prove
the new concept. However,
at a minimum it does establish that it is a new concept, a novel definition
that is discontinuous with the institution of marriage as it has been
understood and practice for thousands of years. This is something the champions of gay
marriage are reluctant to acknowledge, since their case for “equal access”
depends on maintaining some degree of continuity with the norms of an existing
institution. This pretence of continuity enables them to form their
arguments in quantitative terms, as if they were merely expanding the pool of
people who can get legally married, rather than qualitatively altering the very
essence of what marriage is.
Claim 2) It’s not enough to have partnership. The
title of marriage is
something special and homosexuals are
entitled to it.
Response 2) As Chief Justice Roberts mentioned, there
is something special about the label “marriage.” But to simply change the
meaning of marriage would be doing
exactly the opposite of what homosexual marriage advocates are hoping for.
If the term “marriage” were now to not exclusively apply to one man and one
woman, the term has no standard anymore, becomes meaningless since we can
define it any way we want, and has no boundaries. Logically, marriage could
then be applied to incestual relationships and polygamous relationships.
---------------------Part 2 next time....
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