{"id":5741,"date":"2013-04-04T07:33:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-04T12:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stonescryout.org\/?p=5741"},"modified":"2013-04-04T07:33:00","modified_gmt":"2013-04-04T12:33:00","slug":"marriage-equality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/?p=5741","title":{"rendered":"Marriage "Equality""},"content":{"rendered":"

Episode 36 of my podcast, "Consider This!"<\/a>, came out this morning. Here’s the (slightly edited) script for one of the segments regarding the call for "marriage equality".<\/p>\n

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When the Supreme Court took up two cases regarding same-sex marriage recently, Facebook lit up with red equal signs of people proclaiming their support for what they call \u201cmarriage equality\u201d. And that\u2019s how I\u2019ve heard the debate framed by supporters for years, as an issue of equality. One group gets to do something that another group doesn\u2019t. Where\u2019s the sense of fairness, of everyone<\/i> being equal under the law? <\/p>\n

Well, to understand the underlying problem here, let\u2019s take two other<\/i> areas where one could demand equality. Let\u2019s look at voting and driving. Are you for voting equality and driving equality? Should some voting or driving laws be different for different people, or not even available at all to some? <\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take a group of people I\u2019ll call blind<\/i> people. Now, should they have both voting and<\/i> driving equality? I\u2019m going to hazard a guess that you said yes to voting but no to driving. I don\u2019t need to be a mind-reader to get that one right. But, but, equality! What about equality? Shouldn\u2019t we really be taking to the streets and demanding the Supreme Court rule on driving equality for the blind? <\/p>\n

No, of course we shouldn\u2019t. But why equality for one thing and not another? Steven Smith, a Professor of Law at the University of San Diego, wrote an article using this example<\/a> of why we treat the two situations differently.<\/p>\n

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That is because an ability to see is not a relevant qualification for voting, but it is<\/i> a relevant qualification for driving. We know this, though, not by applying the idea of \u201cequality,\u201d but rather by thinking about the nature of voting and of driving. Probably there is no disagreement about these particular conclusions. But if you did happen to encounter a good-faith disagreement, you would not be saying anything helpful if you thumped the table and declared that \u201cblind people should be treated equally.\u201d You would only be begging the question.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

You can\u2019t drive if you\u2019re blind, or under a certain age, or haven\u2019t taken a driving test. Heck, you can\u2019t vote if you\u2019re a felon, or under a certain age, or mentally incompetent. So even with voting, there are inequalities. And therefore, just demanding marriage equality, without considering the nature of marriage, is useless.<\/p>\n

And so what, then, is<\/i> that nature of marriage? That\u2019s the next logical question, and something I will be taking up in a subsequent episode. Until then, I have another link in the show notes to a rather lengthy paper by the Heritage Foundation<\/a> on what marriage is, why it matters, and the consequences of redefining it. I\u2019ll be pulling points from it for when I tackle this subject later on. You may want to take a look at it and perhaps write or call with your thoughts to be included in the episode.<\/p>\n

But this foundation of the issue of equality needs to be laid first. Suffice to say, for now, that just spouting \u201cEquality\u201d with your fashionable, red equal sign doesn\u2019t really mean much. It\u2019s not an argument. It\u2019s not a reason. It\u2019s just a slogan.<\/p>\n

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If you want to let me know what you think, call 267-CALL-CT-0 (267-225-5280) for the feedback line, or e-mail considerthis@ctpodcasting.com<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Episode 36 of my podcast, "Consider This!", came out this morning. Here’s the (slightly edited) script for one of the segments regarding the call for "marriage equality". When the Supreme Court took up two cases regarding same-sex marriage recently, Facebook lit up with red equal signs of people proclaiming their support for what they call […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[940,14,9,47,20,245,939],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-consider-this","category-culture","category-doug","category-homosexuality","category-judiciary","category-marriage","category-podcasts"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5741\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}