My Two Cents, And Yet Not Mine
By Mitch Berg
I happen to like this view of marriage – not just gay marriage – and the difference between moral between religious law, by Rabbi Schmuley Boteach:
And he’s right – straights have done plenty of destroying of marriage.
July 7th, 2015 at 7:53 am
Mitch, you’ve obviously not been paying attention to Swift’s 1st Law: If something is a detriment to society, there is a skulking leftist behind it.
The destruction of marriage was started with the imposition of the “No fault divorce” in 1969. No fault divorce was the brainchild of the Soviet Union. It’s purpose, as with all leftist initiatives, was the destabilization of society.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-fault_divorce
#GayWeddingDressUpDay serves the same purpose, with the added benefit (for leftists) of destroying not just families, but the very concept of families. It’s their scorched Earth policy.
Of course, it also provides a toll free, direct route to the destruction of organized religion.
July 7th, 2015 at 8:14 am
Western (and much of the rest of the world) based a stable society on:
1) God (think natural law and natural rights)
2) Family (Mom, Dad, kids)
3) Civic and social groups (church, fraternal groups, the most local level of government)
4) Government was there to provide national defense, insure interstate commerce, schools were more controlled locally/state level).
Now our rights are government given/government denied.The Supreme Court decides what the constitution says, even if it doesn’t say it. The government takes care of us, not family.
And not to be dramatic, but I believe we are on the way to the criminalization of Christianity. I believe the left when they say they want to get rid of us. See Oregon baker as an example. A $135,000 fine for not participating in a homosexual wedding.
July 7th, 2015 at 10:49 am
Rabbi Boteach at least shows the difference between how Jews and Christians think of sin.
Why do you need civil unions? You don’t have civil unions for roommates, even if the roommates have sex once in a while. Why should the the person who shares my job-subsidized health insurance be the same person who gets my SS survivor benefit? What governmental interest is involved in joining those benefits together?
July 7th, 2015 at 10:55 am
Chuck, All totalitarian movements need to destroy all mediating institutions between the individual and the State. It is always this way. It is why the supposedly pro-worker communists crush independent trade unions. It is why the federal government wants to sideline or control the states, and tell churches who they will marry and what they will teach.
July 7th, 2015 at 1:48 pm
There was a time, PM, when linking those benefits together made sense simply because there was one financial engine for a family. These days that’s not the case, unless it comes to alimony/child support in court, in which case there is in practice if not in actual law.
And as far as gay marriage, I remember when Civil Unions became the law in Vermont and many gays in IBM were very concerned that IBM wouldn’t be covering their partners unless they were actually joined in a Civil Union. Practically, many of the gay IBMers had the same worries about civil dis-union and the effects that would have on their benefits and the costs they’d incur.
July 7th, 2015 at 3:08 pm
NERD….I worked for a company that gave benefits to “domestic partners”. It was painful reading their rules to who qualifies as a “domestic partner”. They didn’t want….say if I knew someone underemployed or self-employed, they didn’t want me to declare him my domestic partner, just to get the health insurance.
What they meant, but couldn’t say it……they wanted you to certify that your domestic partner and you weren’t just roomates, but ummm, you know, ummmm “intimate”, if you know what I mean.
July 8th, 2015 at 4:30 pm
It surprises me that Boteach misses what I consider a very clear lesson from the Torah–that civil government has a role in setting the ground rules for dissolution of a marriage. He and I may differ on the criteria for divorce–I’d say adultery or other grievous sin, I’m guessing he’s more lenient–but the fact of the matter is that government specifies the ground rules for divorce for the same reason the Torah does, and more or less proceeds from the same justification; to protect weaker vessels like mothers and children.
Now some sort of civil union for all might be good, especially for those whose next of kin is remote, deceased, or estranged, but it ignores the fact that government isn’t into family law because they like wedding cakes and ice sculptures and the like, but rather because the dissolution of marriage tends to impoverish mothers and children and fill welfare rolls.
And in that light, same sex mirage may end up doing the same thing that no fault divorce did–distance ourselves from the responsibility to take care of our loved ones and concentrate on what makes us haaaapppppyyyyy. Could be really, really bad if it continues this way.
(and to be fair, divorce rates started spiking around 1950, when people realized their war brides and war husbands were hasty and bad decisions, and this got worse in the sixties, but I don’t think no fault helped)
July 9th, 2015 at 6:42 pm
It surprises me that Boteach misses what I consider a very clear lesson from the Torah–that civil government has a role in setting the ground rules for dissolution of a marriage.
Come again? Maybe I misunderstood something. Torah says absolutely nothing about marriage being a civil union nor that civil government has any say. By Jewish law, only marriage considered valid is a religious one, and it takes a freakishly large panel of rabbis to dissolve it – you have to plead your case for dissolution in front of them.
July 10th, 2015 at 11:10 am
JPA–point well taken. Couple of quick questions:
1. I would have (obviously) assumed that a view of the obligations of men toward one another would lead Jews to endorse at least a portion of Mosaic law as civil law–more or less to give the gentiles some of the protection Jewish women and children have. Yes, no?
2. Does the difficulty in getting a divorce depend on what kind of Judaism one practices (besides the obvious “secular” having no rabbinic trouble at all)?