IS MARRIAGE A RIGHT? Mark Tardiff replies to Matt Taylor
Matt Taylor's addition of a "authoritarian" framework goes a long ways towards meeting my objection. He wonders, however, whether "this line of discussion is headed toward a debate over the authority of Christian scriptures." As for myself, I accept the authority of the Christian scriptures. However, I do not want to move the discussion in that direction as a matter of principle: I believe that appeals to authority have to be to the authorities accepted by all those who are part of the discussion.
What other authority can we appeal to? I will make a proposal: we should accept as an authority the Constitutions of the United States as understood by the Founders. The qualification "as understood by the Founders" points us to a general recognition of "nature and nature's God" as the Declaration of Independence puts it. Atheists, of course, will not accept this. However, my contention is that if we start from an atheistic premise no defense of human rights is possible, so our original question no longer has any meaning. Turning to our specific question, I am pretty sure that our founders would not have approved of SSM. I imagine that, once they got over their astonishment that such a question was even raised, they would deny that it was part of the rights they intended to defend. (Here is another difference with interracial marriage: the founders were aware of the contradiction between the institution of slavery and the principle that "all men are created equal.")
What about the adaptation to the changes in society? The founders' principle is that political sovereignty resides with the people, who delegate necessary authority to their representatives. Hence I conclude that it should be the people who introduce changes into the understanding of the Constitution, if such becomes necessary. I consider the Goodridge decision a judicial usurpation of power. It cannot be justified even on what Matt calls "communitarian" grounds because four judges are not society, much less on "authoritarian" grounds if we accept the authority of a Constitution established by "we, the people."
posted by Eve at
4:26 PM | link
Post a Comment
<< Home