Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 3:20am

Relics of Barbarism

 

 

Opponents of homosexual marriage often point out that this will lead to the effective end of marriage, as the impetus will be to deem any relationship between adults to be marriage if the parties wish to call it marriage.  An article in Slate, that never failing font of what passes for thinking on the mainstream Left, proves the accuracy of that prediction.

It’s also hard to argue with the constitutional freedom of religious expression that legalized polygamy would preserve. Most polygamous families are motivated by religious faith, such as fundamentalist Mormonism or Islam, and as long as all parties involved are adults, legally able to sign marriage contracts, there is no constitutional reason why they shouldn’t be able to express that faith in their marriages. Legalized polygamous marriage would also be good for immigrant families, some of whom have legally polygamous marriages in their home countries that get ripped apart during the immigration process. (It’s impossible to estimate exactly how many polygamous families live here, since they live their religious and sexual identities in secret. Academics suggest there are 50,000 to 100,000 people engaged in Muslim polygamy in the U.S., and there are thousands of fundamentalist Mormon polygamist families as well.)

 

And if she wants to marry a man with three other wives, that’s her damn choice.

In 1856 the first Republican party platform contained this plank:

Resolved: That the Constitution confers upon Congress sovereign powers over the Territories of the United States for their government; and that in the exercise of this power, it is both the right and and the imperative duty of Congress to prohibit in the Territories those twin relics of barbarism–Polygamy, and Slavery.

When the Republicans won in 1860 they wasted no time in attacking slavery and polygamy, and by the end of the Lincoln administration both of these relics of barbarism were illegal.

It is a trite saying that the more things change the more they stay the same.   What the Left embraces in regard to social issues is in many ways reactionary rather than revolutionary.  In regard to abortion it is the old right of the Pater Familias to put to death newborns dressed up as Mater Familias.  Polygamy now makes a comeback.  An embracing of homosexuality is merely a reprise of the ancient Greeks and Romans at their most decadent.  How long before slavery puts in a reappearance, perhaps under the guise of genetically modified humans with strong backs and limited intelligence.  I have long thought that Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World has proven the most prophetic of the many books of the last century to guess the future.  However, perhaps the age we are now living in could be better deemed Brave Old World.  If the powers that be succeed temporarily in their obvious undeclared war against Christianity, there is no telling how far we will regress.

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T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Wednesday, April 17, AD 2013 5:32am

Forget cats and dogs. Spay and neuter liberals. [Seen on facebook.]

Amy
Amy
Wednesday, April 17, AD 2013 8:15am

In the minds of liberals it is a woman’s “own damn choice” so long as she doesn’t choose something like giving up her job to stay home and raise her own children. Then she is “anti-feminist” or just plain wrong. Same with Sarah Palin “choosing” to carry her Down syndrome baby to term and raise him. This has become a world upside down where truth is a lie, and wrong is right. I keep telling myself that I have to stop watching the news because all of this is just making me sick. We have had a holocaust 9 times over in this country with 54 million children aborted. Celebration of gay “marriage” and every other kind of deviancy. Not sure how much more I can take. God help us all.

philip
philip
Wednesday, April 17, AD 2013 9:08am

Amy-
Your not alone.
God will help us.
Trust in His Mercy and His timing.

c matt
c matt
Wednesday, April 17, AD 2013 9:20am

Forget cats and dogs. Spay and neuter liberals.

They seem to do that to themselves fairly well. The problem is they continuously poach from the despised “breeders”.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Wednesday, April 17, AD 2013 10:14am

In Europe, the courts have had to address the question of polygamy, when citizens of one country, say Algeria, enter into a marriage there that is actually or potentially polygamous and then come to settle in France, where marriage is strictly monogamous.

The way the courts approached it was to ask themselves whether the relationship between a man and the ladies living under his protection in a polygamous union is sufficiently analogous to the relationship of husband and wife as described in the Code Civil to make it just to apply the same rules to them. Otherwise, there would be a real danger of the courts creating obligations, rather than enforcing them.

The same question can arise in relation to succession to moveable and immoveable property, the owners of which are citizens of and domiciled in a foreign country.

Basically, the courts refused matrimonial relief in such cases, but recognized rights of succession under the laws of the parties’ citizenship.

Note that the question arises where the foreign marriage is merely potentially polygamous and the man has only one wife. The question is the kind of union they entered into.

The courts are just muddling on, with no help at all from the legislature and precious little from the jurists.

trackback
Wednesday, April 17, AD 2013 12:25pm

[…] Bloggers Out! – Rch. Collins New Sheep Smell – Amanda Castro, The Patient Wanderer Relics of Barbarism – Donald R. McClarey JD, The American Catholic Martin Luther, the Edward Scissor-Hands of the […]

Jason
Wednesday, April 17, AD 2013 12:58pm

And if she wants to marry a man with three other wives, that’s her damn choice.

It seems that it would actually not be just her damn choice, but at least 4 other people’s damn choice too.

We just might choose things people don’t like.

What if the other three wives don’t like that choice?

Damn details.

Bill Sr.
Bill Sr.
Wednesday, April 17, AD 2013 5:00pm

The reason we have a rapidly evolving secular society is that currently a major portion of our citizens have been raised in homes without a mother and father who have or planned to be married to each other for life and were mostly educated in schools where God and prayer had been excluded from the curriculum. When family life where children were welcomed as a gift from God by two god fearing adult parents, one working and the other at home, and not seen as an accidental by-product of sheer physical passion there was a good chance for them to become responsible members of society. Unfortunately modern living, led by the uncontrolled lust in the hearts of mankind and liberalism always enticing boast of freeing mankind from the bonds of religious scruples, in the last century handed evil the lethal weapons to destroy families.
The beauty and wonder of the Conception of a child in the womb of its mother was chosen as a target at the very beginning of socialism and its liberal agenda to accomplish the “fundamental transformation of America” way before the current regime and their announced messiah appeared on the national scene. The cry from the desert of dome was that the world God had made for us was in grave danger of Over Population. We had to save the earth from being over run with new life? The pictures accompanying every deceitful article echoing that cry were not of cute toddlers in their mother’s arms or on happy playgrounds or in pleasant classrooms learning of the beauty of God’s good earth. No, we were shown starving skin and bone figures in poor countries of Africa and Asia where Christian missionaries were trying to bring the truth of the gospels to the people. Ironically this deceitful campaign gained support at a time when tens of millions of innocent humans all over the world had just been ritually slaughtered by godless dictators and imperial rulers before, during and after World War II.

Contraception in all its forms, as part of the selfish passion for freedom from individual responsibility, was hailed as a redeeming blessing for not only married couples who wished not to have the obligation of raising a family but also to any and all who desired to be romantically involved prior to or in lieu of marriage. The personal benefits and blessing of conjugal love which God had reserved for married couples to procreate were transformed and disguised as simply human rights compassionately made available by the secular progressives to everyone without having to pledge eternal companionship or bare the obligations of parenthood. Giving those with a taste for such freedom, the media offered public cover by naming their cause a Sexual Revolution. Driven by the desire to avoid personal responsibility¸ rejecting any mention of chastity, this was the harbinger of societal perversion as well as the precursor and foundation for what eventually became our own national plague, Abortion.

One might easily define the demise of American family life by its two most revealing concepts, contraception and abortion. One opposed the creative nature God granted to the union of a man and a woman joined in Holy Matrimony the other sought to challenge the very involvement of God in the equation. Both have at the center of its premise the denial that man is the product of the goodness and abundance of God’s love and that man was not made in His image and likeness. Therefore, there is no such thing as procreation and God had no designated design for the ability of mankind to reproduce.

Nicholas Jagneaux
Wednesday, April 17, AD 2013 5:32pm

Donald,

Thank you very much for posting the Huxley-Wallace interview.

If there is anyone who skipped it: do yourself a favor and watch it. It may be nearly 30 minutes, but it sure beats just about any other thing you’ll watch today.

Why, o why, don’t we have interviews like this anymore? Wallace was direct but polite; he allowed Huxley ample time to give his replies; and he followed up with meaningful questions. There were no distracting graphics appearing and scrolling across the screen. It was an honest dialogue.

And, they didn’t shout at each other.

Don the Kiwi
Wednesday, April 17, AD 2013 9:13pm

Sadly, last night our government MP’s voted to change the definition of marriage to allow same sex couples to be “married”.
They refused to put it to a referendum because, even though 6 months ago a majority of people were for it, that has changed around to a majority being against it.
So there it is – the next step, polygamy, reduced age of consent, speaking against homosexuality will be a crime, ministers and marriage celebrant will be prosecuted for refusing to officiate a gay marriage etc. etc……….
So NZ gathers momentum down the slippery slope to a totally decadent society.
God help us.

philip
philip
Wednesday, April 17, AD 2013 10:22pm

Don the Kiwi-
Please don’t loose hope.
When there seems to be no possible way, God makes a way. In all of our grief we must remain hopeful. The outcomes, the sorrows and the slope seemingly upon us is in time a passing cloud. Our hope is not in man or the world but it is in the One who conquered the world, sin and death.
In Him let us be filled with Joy, and give others great reason for our Joy in a clouded world.
Peace Don.

Ivan
Ivan
Wednesday, April 17, AD 2013 10:34pm

If and when the homosexual perversion of marriage goes through, one can be sure that polygamy would be next line. Watch out for stories from Slate about how children from these arrangement are doing famously well at university, and have the ambition of working with the poor in Mongolia. These motivated stories never fail with the brain-dead Republicans, who would then go misty-eyed recalling that we are all God’s little chill’un. The Muslims are biding their time; they know that the left is battering the doors of Christian civilisation for them.

William P. Walsh
William P. Walsh
Thursday, April 18, AD 2013 2:04am

If homosexual marriage becomes “the law of the land”, it will herald the beginning of religious persecution and the end of religious freedom. Libertinism is replacing liberty. Everything evil and morally repugnant for millennia is being enshrined into law while ordinary innocent and indifferent behavior is being criminalized. While this has been in progress since Roe v Wade, it seems the pace has quickened under the current administration. While we strive to keep our anger focused in a righteous direction, it becomes a burden to be in an almost continual state of being ticked off. Oh when, oh when will we have surcease?

philip
philip
Thursday, April 18, AD 2013 5:51am

The beginning of religious persecution and the end of religious freedom was a comment made by Mr. Walsh which is being proven to be true today. Mr. Bill Sr. has given a portrait of our landscape which in my opinion is spot on.
Now What?
Mr. McClairey is a master of History and it’s re-playing in modern times.
So let us go into the breach, knowing full well that in the end Righteousness will prevail.
Let us continue to voice the truth to all who will lend ear. Above all be not afraid.

Kevin
Kevin
Thursday, April 18, AD 2013 8:30am

Having young children growing up in current times causes me even more alarm when I consider our plunge into darkness. Believe me, what passes for Catholic schools – at least in the North East – offer little defense against the onslaught and often seem to invite it in. My children attend as the best alternative available, which is not the same thing as best choice and does not guarantee a Catholic education.

The Apostles and early Christians faced much the same thing, although perhaps their world was more intellectually honest. Anyway their venue was to go out an preach, live the example and to suffer when called upon to give witness to the unreasonable. Perhaps many of us are aching to find the venue where we can spread the Good News to our synical world but like me, have not exactly found that venue. Sure it is most important in our small circles, but I mean some kind of organized movement for evangelization. The cyberworld seems like an obvious tool, but blogs that only the faithful read only encourage us. And at least my diocese to too timid and like so many places, manages the status quo.

Any ideas?

Kevin
Kevin
Thursday, April 18, AD 2013 8:33am

How did I ever spell cynical with an s? Mea culpa.

philip
philip
Thursday, April 18, AD 2013 9:11am

Kevin-
I have witnessed great Catholic home schooling programs. Five or more families construct a group and use guidelines provided by diocese. Watertown WI has an excellent program headed by Ginny and Matthew Smith.
The children have exceeded grade levels above their peer group, and Latin is one of the second languages taught. Also encouraging is the emphasis on Chasity and C.C.C.

Seek this in your community if you are so inclined.

I also ask you to keep an ear open to grassroots like Stand Up for Religious Freedom. We tried to bring the HHS mandate to the public square in hope of educating the public, however MSM ignored the well organized events. Go figure!
Keep trying is all we can do, and prayer.

trackback
Saturday, April 27, AD 2013 8:42am

[…] Relics of Barbarism – Legalize Polygamy! No. I am not kidding. Yup, one thing really does beget another. At least we’re being open and honest about it now. […]

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