Fred Hutchison
Gay "marriage" is not a "right"
By Fred Hutchison
A recurring theme of the pro-gay letters is that gay marriage is a "right." Saying so does not make it so. When carefully considered the claim does not make sense.
If it is immoral to steal, you have the right to not have your goods stolen — and should expect the state to defend that right. Therefore, you have property rights. If it is evil to murder someone, then every person — except a murderer — has a right to live. If rights are the flip side of the universal moral law, then they cannot be the flip side of a practice which is contrary to the universal moral law. If sodomy and "gay marriage" are against nature and against the universal moral law, they cannot be a right.
The liberal courts have recognized this logical difficulty and have therefore used the right of privacy to legitimize sodomy and gay marriage. They theorize an expansive right to privacy based on an imagined right to self-actualization. There are two fallacies in this approach. 1) Self-actualization cannot be achieved by doing something that is against nature — that is contrary to human design. 2) Self-actualization is not the legal basis for the western laws which respect privacy. Private property is the basis. Because we have a right to own property, we have a derivative right to use that property in privacy.
Gay "marriage" is not merely a practice in the private home. It is a demand for public recognition. To grant this recognition is to confuse an honorable institution — marriage — with a dishonorable liaison — gay coupling. This would confuse the concept and diminish the honor of marriage.
© Fred Hutchison
A recurring theme of the pro-gay letters is that gay marriage is a "right." Saying so does not make it so. When carefully considered the claim does not make sense.
If it is immoral to steal, you have the right to not have your goods stolen — and should expect the state to defend that right. Therefore, you have property rights. If it is evil to murder someone, then every person — except a murderer — has a right to live. If rights are the flip side of the universal moral law, then they cannot be the flip side of a practice which is contrary to the universal moral law. If sodomy and "gay marriage" are against nature and against the universal moral law, they cannot be a right.
The liberal courts have recognized this logical difficulty and have therefore used the right of privacy to legitimize sodomy and gay marriage. They theorize an expansive right to privacy based on an imagined right to self-actualization. There are two fallacies in this approach. 1) Self-actualization cannot be achieved by doing something that is against nature — that is contrary to human design. 2) Self-actualization is not the legal basis for the western laws which respect privacy. Private property is the basis. Because we have a right to own property, we have a derivative right to use that property in privacy.
Gay "marriage" is not merely a practice in the private home. It is a demand for public recognition. To grant this recognition is to confuse an honorable institution — marriage — with a dishonorable liaison — gay coupling. This would confuse the concept and diminish the honor of marriage.
© Fred Hutchison
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