By Kevin Rex Heine, Section News
Posted on Fri Mar 29, 2013 at 02:47:01 PM EST
Tags: "You Shall Not Commit Adultery", gay marriage debate, reasoned philosophical discussion, Abraham Lincoln, shifting public perception of the "central idea", constitutional premise, enumerated federal powers, enumerated federal authority, enumerated federal jurisdiction, checks and balances, separation of powers, state sovereignty, California Proposition 8 (2008), Dave Agema, Michigan's Republican National Committeeman, unity based on a principled platform, Dennis "the Menace" Lennox (all tags)
To say that the gay marriage debate has heated up in Michigan, especially in Republican political circles, is perhaps an understatement. All that RNC Committeeman Dave Agema did was repost a medical journal article (written by Frank Joseph, M.D.) to his FaceBook page, and the next thing you know, all manner of media-funneled venom is targeted at the man. The national party, which has not one, but two sections in their 2012 National Platform speaking about defending traditional marriage, has gone on record as keeping their distance on this one (even though it's been shown, on this website, that the "filthy homosexuals" headline was intended as a sensationalistic distortion of the facts), and the state party is leaving Dave to defend himself on his own. Why they're doing so is a matter for discussion another day.
It occurs to me, though, that a key reason for the discoherent response from social conservatives in this debate is because we are allowing the pro-homosexual advocates (even within our own party) to define the terms of the debate. In doing so, we're allowing them to preemptively neuter every argument we're advancing, because we're allowing their premises to stand unchallenged. I think that, if we're going to have a reasoned philosophical discussion of this matter, then a constitutional premise is a more useful way to handle this.
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