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02/27/2008
Nobody's free to put a pause on societal assessment
Denouncing the recent New York Appellate Court ruling that said the Empire State must recognize same-sex marriages performed in other locales, Focus on the Family's Brian Hausknecht has made the following comment:
“If a couple hundred years of custom, practice and legal support for traditional marriage doesn't amount to a very definite public policy, then nothing does”
A comment to which we respond:
Yea, Brian? You really want to use the 'it's been that way for a chunk of time, so it's clearly right' line of logic here? Because you might want to consider a few things before making such a simplistic argument.
For starters, our history is filled with wrongs that went unchallenged for years before people rose up and demanded better. And even within marriage specifically, there have been many short-sighted limitations that have been lifted in order to make the concept more Loving. So it's just silly to look at marriage and say that a lock-solid policy has been set by virtue of its ability to chug along in a certain fashion for a certain period of time. Like so many other notions, reasoned reconsiderations of this concept have strengthened us as a people.
But beyond that, what we are talking about here is not really even a change in the custom or practice that surrounds marriage. And in terms of legal support, the change is simply a common sense one. This is about simply opening up recognition of ALL marriages that have already been performed in a legal manner. NY state doesn't have one of those nauseating DOMA laws like so many of our other states, so they have more of a freedom to set this precedent. So while the state sorts out where they will inevitably go in terms of marriage equality, with this ruling New York has set in place a policy that will simply recognize everyone who has paid their money, gotten their certificate, sealed the deal (and hopefully received some nice gifts) in areas where their nuptials are legal. The bastardization of public policy would be to deny the state this right.
Brian, you assert that if the long-held tradition doesn't define public policy, then nothing does. Well, you're right -- Nothing did define policy in a way that prevent the appellate court from casting this ruling. Now we ask that you please stop trying to define the future by the past, or define righteousness by stagnant viewpoints that have long been in need of a revisiting.
County Appeals Ruling that Attacks Traditional Marriage in New York [Citizenlink]
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