The kritarchy strikes again
We, in our times, have seen the failure of our once-vaunted American system of checks and balances between the branches of government. The Judicial Branch, unchecked, has turned itself into a kind of unelected, standing Constitutional Convention, ignoring the law and the Constitution iself at will and instead enforcing its peculiar ideas about what they should say.
We, in America (as is the case to an even greater extent in Canada) have become a kritarchy- a nation governed by judges. Instead of interpreting the laws, our judges are effectively the ones who make them.
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal by Virginia of a U.S. Circuit Court ruling usurping the right of the legislatures of five states to define marriage, and forcing them- on spurious constitutional grounds- to permit the historical oxymoron of same-sex marriage.
The kritarchy must be brought under control. Marriage is an institution which has historically existed to protect child bearing and child raising, not simply to grant privileges to affectional relationships. There can be no question of laws defining marriage as between a man and a woman being discriminatory, since same-sex relationships are unable to produce children (the question of the law not having specifically banned male-female marriages in which for biological or other reasons childbearing is impossible is beside the point; these exceptional circumstances do not change the uniform common law rationale for marriage throughout the history of the American and English legal systems.)
Moreover, the rarity of monogamy in long-term male homosexual relationships threatens the generic expectation of monogamy in marriage, and the instability of gay and especially lesbian "marriages" is notorious.
The survival of our most basic institution clearly requires at this point that a movement begin to amend the Constitution not to define marriage as between a man and a woman, but rather- somewhat less ambitiously- to simply safeguard the right of the duly elected legislatures of the several states to make that decision themselves, as the Constitution in fact contemplates that they should.
We, in America (as is the case to an even greater extent in Canada) have become a kritarchy- a nation governed by judges. Instead of interpreting the laws, our judges are effectively the ones who make them.
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal by Virginia of a U.S. Circuit Court ruling usurping the right of the legislatures of five states to define marriage, and forcing them- on spurious constitutional grounds- to permit the historical oxymoron of same-sex marriage.
The kritarchy must be brought under control. Marriage is an institution which has historically existed to protect child bearing and child raising, not simply to grant privileges to affectional relationships. There can be no question of laws defining marriage as between a man and a woman being discriminatory, since same-sex relationships are unable to produce children (the question of the law not having specifically banned male-female marriages in which for biological or other reasons childbearing is impossible is beside the point; these exceptional circumstances do not change the uniform common law rationale for marriage throughout the history of the American and English legal systems.)
Moreover, the rarity of monogamy in long-term male homosexual relationships threatens the generic expectation of monogamy in marriage, and the instability of gay and especially lesbian "marriages" is notorious.
The survival of our most basic institution clearly requires at this point that a movement begin to amend the Constitution not to define marriage as between a man and a woman, but rather- somewhat less ambitiously- to simply safeguard the right of the duly elected legislatures of the several states to make that decision themselves, as the Constitution in fact contemplates that they should.
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