Does The Government Have The Right To Rule On Gay Marriage?

[truthfinder]

You sure about that?? The seem sketchy. What about an infertile couple? they discern that adoption is not for them? are they not married?

The ends of marriage is the procreation of children and marital unity (avoidance of concupiscence and the like would fall under the latter).  There are two ends. 

[Oremoose]

that is what I thought. saying that it was purely for family making was not striking a solid chord.

[4588686]

 

Here is what the popes have taught. To summarize error has no rights, and it is the duty of the state to protects its people both body and  soul.

 

 

 

 

 

Modern civilized capitalist liberal (in the broad, classical sense) democracy is predicated on the fact that error does indeed have a right. That's why we have laws protecting the freedom of speech. 

If error had no right and the state had the competence to determine ultimate, transcendent truth then there would be no point to protecting speech. 

 

The idea that the state has a mandate to protect the soul of a citizen is an inherently totalitarian one. Which is why extremist movements that insist on the competency of the state to enforce a transcendent moral vision, be they theocrats or Stalinists, always descend into dystopian totalitarianism. 

[Anomaly]

Modern civilized capitalist liberal (in the broad, classical sense) democracy is predicated on the fact that error does indeed have a right. That's why we have laws protecting the freedom of speech. 

If error had no right and the state had the competence to determine ultimate, transcendent truth then there would be no point to protecting speech. 

 

The idea that the state has a mandate to protect the soul of a citizen is an inherently totalitarian one. Which is why extremist movements that insist on the competency of the state to enforce a transcendent moral vision, be they theocrats or Stalinists, always descend into dystopian totalitarianism. 

 

Hasan,

I don't agree that MCCLD is predicated on the "fact" that error does indeed have a right.  The laws protecting freedom of speech exist to provide opportunity for new thoughts and new ideas, error or correctness to be determined later.  They're NOT intended to protect the rights of error, per se.

[An Historian]

Modern civilized capitalist liberal (in the broad, classical sense) democracy is predicated on the fact that error does indeed have a right.

Indeed. Hence why it must be opposed, destroyed, and true Christian civilisation restored. Otherwise social justice will never be accomplished and souls will not be saved.

Error has no rights. You have no right to hold to error. The state, the lawful authoritative representative of God on earth, has the right to censure and abjure all errors as God does. The difference is that HIS censure will consist in suffering the fires of eternal damnation.

[4588686]

Hasan,

I don't agree that MCCLD is predicated on the "fact" that error does indeed have a right.  The laws protecting freedom of speech exist to provide opportunity for new thoughts and new ideas, error or correctness to be determined later.  They're NOT intended to protect the rights of error, per se.

 

 

Then why protect demonstrably false ideas and morally awful speech like holocaust denial? 

 

Interested in your thoughts. Saying that error has no right assumes that there is somebody (or collection of people) in society who have the ability to arbitrate truth and back that arbitration up with the force of law. The exception, of course, being demonstrably false claims that directly impact other people (like scams) however even there the cope is pretty limited (you can buy negative ion health bracelets. 

[Anomaly]

Then why protect demonstrably false ideas and morally awful speech like holocaust denial?

Interested in your thoughts. Saying that error has no right assumes that there is somebody (or collection of people) in society who have the ability to arbitrate truth and back that arbitration up with the force of law. The exception, of course, being demonstrably false claims that directly impact other people (like scams) however even there the cope is pretty limited (you can buy negative ion health bracelets.

Maybe I'm nitpicking. The concept that error is protected and defended I think is a misnomer. The freedom of expression and opinion is protected REGARDLESS of opinion or fact it is error. We don't go out of our way to protect error. We go out of our way to allow people to chose error on as their right of free will.

[An Historian]

Maybe I'm nitpicking. The concept that error is protected and defended I think is a misnomer. The freedom of expression and opinion is protected REGARDLESS of opinion or fact it is error. We don't go out of our way to protect error. We go out of our way to allow people to chose error on as their right of free will.

Free will does not grant the right to choose error. The will exists solely to choose between goods. To choose an evil, like error, is an abuse of the will.

[Era Might]

Maybe I'm nitpicking. The concept that error is protected and defended I think is a misnomer. The freedom of expression and opinion is protected REGARDLESS of opinion or fact it is error. We don't go out of our way to protect error. We go out of our way to allow people to chose error on as their right of free will.

 

I'd argue that error does have a right, just as failure does, because those are often the only roads to truth and success. "Error" in a social context is always relative to the limited consciousness and political objectives of a particular society. To say "error has no rights" assumes that we live in a static society where truth and error are not conditioned. One century's sedition is another century's hindsight. Thoreau expresses this well:

 

We might try our lives by a thousand simple tests; as, for instance, that the same sun which ripens my beans illumines at once a system of earths like ours. If I had remembered this it would have prevented some mistakes. This was not the light in which I hoed them. The stars are the apexes of what wonderful triangles! What distant and different beings in the various mansions of the universe are contemplating the same one at the same moment! Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another? Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant? We should live in all the ages of the world in an hour; ay, in all the worlds of the ages. History, Poetry, Mythology!—I know of no reading of another's experience so startling and informing as this would be.

 

The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well? You may say the wisest thing you can, old man—you who have lived seventy years, not without honor of a kind—I hear an irresistible voice which invites me away from all that. One generation abandons the enterprises of another like stranded vessels.

 

I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. We may waive just so much care of ourselves as we honestly bestow elsewhere. Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our strength. The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a well-nigh incurable form of disease. We are made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do; and yet how much is not done by us! or, what if we had been taken sick? How vigilant we are! determined not to live by faith if we can avoid it; all the day long on the alert, at night we unwillingly say our prayers and commit ourselves to uncertainties. So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant. Confucius said, "To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge." When one man has reduced a fact of the imagination to be a fact to his understanding, I foresee that all men at length establish their lives on that basis.

Edited December 28, 2014 by Era Might

[4588686]

Maybe I'm nitpicking. The concept that error is protected and defended I think is a misnomer. The freedom of expression and opinion is protected REGARDLESS of opinion or fact it is error. We don't go out of our way to protect error. We go out of our way to allow people to chose error on as their right of free will.

 

Right. I think we're saying the same thing in different ways.

 

We don't actively seek to sanctify error. But we recognize that the utility of protecting the right to be wrong far outweighs the utility of doggedly stamping out what their magic book announces is error precisely because modern liberal society recognizes that no individual or set of individuals has privileged access to truth. We just get the government out of the game of arbitrating truth and falsehood because we recognize that it's really beyond the capacity of the state. A side effect of that is that we do indeed insist that people have a right to be wrong and that, indeed, error is often a part of the process. I think that Einstein is a good example of this. The man held out for a long time against the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. He was doggedly wrong. However his wrongness spurred a lot of innovative thought proving how and why he was wrong. We protect error because if somebody had said 'Einstein, you are wrong, error has no right, stop spreading your falsehood' that would have been a retardant on intellectual progress. 

 

We protect holocaust deniers because we recognize that (a) they are an extreme outlier of wrongness and it would be difficult or impossible to create a generalizable rule that outlawed their ilk that didn't (b) also harm peripheral beliefs that, while eccentric, may have a grain of truth mixed in with their craziness 

[Not A Real Name]

Free will does not grant the right to choose error. 

 

Exactly.  Unfortunately though we live in a time when the majority of people equate freedom with "licence." 

[4588686]

Exactly.  Unfortunately though we live in a time when the majority of people equate freedom with "licence." 

 

 

Yeah. We should go back to the good old days of Catholic theocracy. 

[An Historian]

Yeah. We should go back to the good old days of Catholic theocracy.

There was no such thing, really. But we should definitely go back to the old days of Catholic Europe.

[Not A Real Name]

Yeah. We should go back to the good old days of Catholic theocracy. 

 

I do not know what that has to do with anything, but I would welcome a Catholic theocracy.   Freedom is not the ability to do what you want, but to do what you ought.   You are free to drive, but you are not free to drive recklessly.  Speed limits do not take away your freedom to drive, they keep you from abusing that freedom.  

 

You're idea that freedom is license, is not a view which a civilized society runs on. 

[4588686]

Indeed. Hence why it must be opposed, destroyed, and true Christian civilisation restored. Otherwise social justice will never be accomplished and souls will not be saved.

Error has no rights. You have no right to hold to error. The state, the lawful authoritative representative of God on earth, has the right to censure and abjure all errors as God does. The difference is that HIS censure will consist in suffering the fires of eternal damnation.

 

 

This is all laughable. There is no God. Your beliefs are just a silly superstition. And your totalitarian goals, while morally appalling, would be frightening they weren't so irrelevant. 

 

Good thing that an open society protects your right to hold these silly and disgusting beliefs.