SCOTUS, DOMA, Gay Marriage, and Chastity (OH MY!)

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – We seem now to have arrived at a juncture in our collective evolution where things that were once deviant are now no longer deviant.  I asked the question as to: Why was it deemed deviant in the first place?  Of course, one of the things is homosexuality.  One of the other deviant behaviors was extramarital sex.  We can name a few others.  Now that we’ve normalized these things and we have made them as legitimate a part of our lives as anything else or any other practice, what do you think the fallout has been from the “decriminalization” of premarital sex and then what results in that, which is 43 percent of all American children being born to single, unwed mothers?  Check out today’s transcript for the rest…

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  Dr. Carson has been made to apologize for the following. This was on The Sean Hannity Show Tuesday, “Marriage is between a man and a woman.  No group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality, it doesn’t matter what they are, they don’t get to change the definition.”  This then tied the North American Man/Boy Love Association, that’s what NAMBLA stands for, and those practicing in animal — I don’t even want to discuss this — those doing you-know-what with animals, that they are one in the same in deviance with the homosexual.  That’s not how I read this.

There is something to be said about this.  We seem now to have arrived at a juncture in our collective evolution where things that were once deviant are now no longer deviant.  I asked the question as to: Why was it deemed deviant in the first place?  Of course, one of the things is homosexuality.  One of the other deviant behaviors was extramarital sex.  We can name a few others.  Now that we’ve normalized these things and we have made them as legitimate a part of our lives as anything else or any other practice, what do you think the fallout has been from the “decriminalization” of premarital sex and then what results in that, which is 43 percent of all American children being born to single, unwed mothers?  Would you say that has been a societal positive or a societal negative?

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Caller Scott:  Myself, I’d say it’s a travesty.

Mike:  It’s a tragedy.

Caller Scott:  I want to go back to something you were saying earlier.  When Utah joined the union, the government came out and said that a marriage is a man and a woman.  That was put in their state constitution.  If this goes through, just think about some of the issues that are going to go through, challenges and legislation.  It’s going to be — there are a lot of states out there, I imagine Utah could be the first one, to say: You struck this down; we don’t need to be part of the union anymore.

AG:  That’s not the issue.  The issue is whether the federal government should view it as a man-woman union, not the states.

Caller Scott:  It all goes down to the states, not the federal union.

AG:  That’s just not true right now.  If DOMA is stricken down, then it does become a state issue, not a federal government issue.

Caller Scott:  It goes under the Constitution and it also goes under state rights.

AG:  A state can have it viewed as only between a man and woman or however they want to view it, but it’s a state issue.  It is not a state issue right now.  That’s where conservatives are missing the point.  This should be viewed as a state rights issue.  Right now it’s a federal issue.  That’s why, on a number of the Sunday morning talk shows yesterday, conservatives were saying: You can’t have a federalist argument on a certain number of issues but then not want it in this case. That is hypocritical of conservatives.

Caller Scott:  Yes, but the government already defined marriage by striking DOMA, Defense of Marriage Act —

AG:  Tell me why you want the federal government involved in it.

Caller Scott:  I don’t.

AG:  Right, then you would agree with me and say let the Supreme Court strike down DOMA.

Caller Scott:  No, I wouldn’t —

Mike:  Hold on, Scott.  I have to jump in here.  My conversations with Professor Gutzman and my reading of DOMA are not in concert with what is being discussed here.  My understanding of DOMA is that at least part of it upholds state sovereignty and the will of individual states to make their own decisions, should they choose to.  They do not have to accept the decision of another state.  For example, Maryland could say: We have homosexual marriages.  Virginia can say: We don’t recognize it.  DOMA says, and under federalism, that is not an immunity and a privilege so you don’t have to recognize it.  That part of DOMA is constitutional and that is a federalist argument, just to be clear.

As far as the general government wading into the waters of determining what is the character or style of a religious practice, I’m adamantly opposed.  I’m with Andrew on this.  It has no role.  I don’t even want the state legislatures having a role in this.  I think it is a religious procedure.  For the most part, it has been handed down for thousands upon thousands of years in a traditional manner.  It ought to be left up to the people in their ecclesiastical surroundings to determine this.

I looked this up on Thursday because I had to come in briefly before my little spring break and do a commentary for the ABC TV channel.  I was looking for what St. Thomas Aquinas might have said about marriage.  Actually, I was looking for Augustine and any of the fathers of the Catholic Church because they are right smack dab in the middle of all this.  I was able to find Aquinas in Summa Theologiae writing about this and answering some of the questions that were asked of him at the time.  There’s a guy by the name of David Mendez who writes of Thomas Aquinas.  This is what Aquinas wrote, in part, on this subject.  I found this fascinating.

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[reading]

For example, he considers one of the first ingredients for marriage in question forty-five of the Summa when he deals with “The Marriage Consent Considered in Itself.”  Here he considers the past historical elements in marriage whereby women were given away as property and usually negotiated by the father. To this he answers that matrimony as a sacrament is a kind of “spiritual joining together” and it is also a “material joining together” insofar as it relates to the natural goods and desires they both have. It follows from this that since this is a sacrament in its fullest sense then it also follows that consent is its efficient cause because, according to Aquinas, this (as a sacrament) is empowered from above.

Yet, one of his first references to marriage can be found as early as the second part of the second part of the Summa where he deals with whether virginity is more excellent than marriage. In answering his objectors he declares that virginity is more excellent because Christ himself chose a virgin as his mother. However, he does clarify that “though virginity is better than conjugal continence, a married person may be better than a virgin for two reasons. First, on the part of chastity itself; if to wit, the married person is more prepared in mind to observe virginity, if it should be expedient, than the one who is actually a virgin.” Here he quotes Augustine in mentioning that reason and the “Holy Writ” say that marriage is not sinful because it is not that of being a virgin or widowed.

[end reading]

Mike:  There’s much more on this.  Here’s the point that struck me.  Again, here goes old fuddy-duddy, antiquated, ancient, squaresville Mike.  It used to be that one would expect his bride to be to be a virgin, to have been pure, unless she was a widow, of course.  Upon entering the marriage and the consummation of the marriage, certain evidence would be presented that would satisfy that she was indeed, and then the parent would get the dowry, going way, way back here.  There was importance attached to virginity and to the act of the virginity being sacrificed after the marriage was consecrated.

I have not heard anyone even imply that there will be any manner of consideration, or that any manner has been given of the consideration, that the institution of marriage has been won, that has been at least partly based around the act of being chaste and of saving one’s self for the marriage.  Are gays that are soon to be wed, are they going to present themselves in front of the magistrate or parson or priest, whoever is forced or whoever chooses to in whatever denomination perform the ceremony, “Who gives this bride away?” or whatever the terminology is.  Is there even going to be a head fake toward the traditional part of that, about the virgin and virginity?  Granted, heterosexuals have done immense damage to this by shacking up before marriage and all those other things.  I’m fully aware that the virginity part is not a major part of everyone’s tradition today.  That is a part of the tradition.  It seems to me that there is a menu selection here where some are choosing: I want that marriage but I don’t want the virgin part.  Give me the hands-on, lots of experience marriage package.  I’ll buy that license.

End Mike Church Show Transcript