GOP Platform 2008 on Preservation of Marriage
The 2008 Republican Platform, Values section, topic Preserving Traditional Marriage, reads as follows:
Preserving Traditional Marriage
Because our children’s future is best preserved within the traditional understanding of marriage, we call for a constitutional amendment that fully protects marriage as a union of a man and a woman, so that judges cannot make other arrangements equivalent to it. In the absence of a national amendment, we support the right of the people of the various states to affirm traditional marriage through state initiatives.
Republicans recognize the importance of having in the home a father and a mother who are married. The two-parent family still provides the best environment of stability, discipline, responsibility, and character. Children in homes without fathers are more likely to commit a crime, drop out of school, become violent, become teen parents, use illegal drugs, become mired in poverty, or have emotional or behavioral problems. We support the courageous efforts of single-parent families to provide a stable home for their children. Children are our nation’s most precious resource. We also salute and support the efforts of foster and adoptive families.
Republicans have been at the forefront of protecting traditional marriage laws, both in the states and in Congress. A Republican Congress enacted the Defense of Marriage Act, affirming the right of states not to recognize same-sex “marriages†licensed in other states. Unbelievably, the Democratic Party has now pledged to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, which would subject every state to the redefinition of marriage by a judge without ever allowing the people to vote on the matter. We also urge Congress to use its Article III, Section 2 power to prevent activist federal judges from imposing upon the rest of the nation the judicial activism in Massachusetts and California. We also encourage states to review their marriage and divorce laws in order to strengthen marriage.
As the family is our basic unit of society, we oppose initiatives to erode parental rights.
| More from Roger F. Gay
Stumble It!
September 24th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
1.
The underdog status of males in society is not cureable by constitutional ammendments that preserve marriage alone.
2.
It is not only supreme court judges that have a history of re-creating equivalent institutions in liu of the real thing. Leading males, for lucrative careers and good salaries, acting in every sphere of the bearreaucracy have part-taken in this nasty process.
3.
At this point in the process of moral degeneracy of society, it will take much more than mere republicanism to stem and reverse the tide.
September 24th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
Limiting the depth of the political objective to a restriction to opposite-sex couples is superficial. Even the last sentence, As the family is our basic unit of society, we oppose initiatives to erode parental rights. tells us they accept the destruction of those rights up to this point. After decades of destroying the institutions and civil rights, here is where they draw the line in the sand.
I’ve said it many times before. Democrats are good at creating initiatives to destroy America. Republicans are good at cementing the results in place.
September 24th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
poiuyt:
Perhaps I take advantage of the fact that you spelled republicanism with a small r; so I can differentiate it from the party’s platform.
The Constitution defines a republic and a return to Constitutional republicanism would go a long way toward solving the problem. It is the federal take-over of marriage and family law – left by the Constitution to the states and to the people – that caused the problem. It is the billions upon billions in corrupt federal pork that maintains the problem.
Related: PICSLT: 18+ Years of Perspective on the Child Support Issue
Related: McCain is Right on Fathers’ Rights But Does He Know It?
September 25th, 2008 at 4:50 am
The Virginia Government has just launched a new website to take IDEAS about how to change or improve Virginia government: http://www.ideas.virginia.gov/
September 25th, 2008 at 6:54 am
Women initiate most divorces.
They do this because they get:
A) the kids
B) the money
To restore marriage, these incentives for women to divorce must be reversed.
So:
A) Joint residential custody should be the default
B) Each partner should retain, upon divorce, all the money that they personally made and everything that was bought with the money that they personally made, including homes and cars
September 25th, 2008 at 7:22 am
The lauguage of this platform position statement rings as empty and hollow as that of the constitution of the former Soviet Union…Even if one can actually read it without imagining it being delivered with that earnest Russian accent and manner.
September 25th, 2008 at 9:25 am
FathersHaveNaturalRights;
Nice. Joint residential custody for all would be hard to implement – I mean with real people in real life, not just those who can and have a strong enough desire. But I get your drift. Thing is, it’s constitutionally a matter for the states and the people. The problem – the one that needs a solution – and the one related to the national platform – is just federal intrusion. It’s only federal intrusion, and the major political roadblock to positive reform would go away without federal intrusion.
I’ve also left a comment in Glenn Sacks blog about this since he’s reporting on advocates questioning McCain – don’t know why there is still anybody around who doesn’t get it yet – since I’ve written about it for years. If domestic relations is returned to civil law, where it is subject to the constraints imposed against arbitrary government intrusion by civil rights, and especially if you remove the many billions in pork now given to states to keep the corruption going, it’ll be a good days work.
It doesn’t make any sense at all to be asking the federal government for a joint custody presumption. It’s not a federal issue.
September 25th, 2008 at 9:28 am
emarel;
Current family law in the US is based on old Soviet law. The debates we’ve had over the past 20 years mirror those of the early Soviet days. The Russian Effort to Abolish Marriage, 1926
September 25th, 2008 at 10:02 am
Roger, the link you gave in #8 is wonderful. You have great energy at present. One can’t complain with a crash course in 20 years knowledge. lol
Just want to add a slight comparison to today in the UK.
http://tinyurl.com/4yxws8
You are correct when you say the left and right balance each other out.
September 25th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Roger:
Fine by me to have custody and financial provisions of divorce law decided at that state level entirely.
More than fine, actually, since there is a better probability of good legislation from some states than there is from the federal government.
Yet, that means that current federal laws affecting custody will need to be erased, most specifically the war on fatherhood custody elements of VAWA.
As to joint residential custody being tough to implement, I would simply note that it is still a necessary improvement over the current “render fathers visitors by default” standard that is in practice currently.
September 25th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
“Republicans have been at the forefront of protecting traditional marriage laws,…”
————————————–
Uh-huh. Just like that “republican” president who openly hugged and kissed a homosexual porn film-star on the forehead approx. 2 years ago, right in front of reporters and other witnesses.
The institution of marriage is dead in Amerika. With the legal and personal risks of marrying women in this country, good riddance.
September 25th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
You use the term “Amerika”, you show your ignorance. You won’t be responded to again, unless the boss wants to ban you.
September 25th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
FathersHaveNaturalRights;
Obama / Biden / DNC Platform are pushing to jack up the funding for federal involvement in domestic relations. That funding has been dropping for a while because too many people know that it’s Bogus stuff. The Democrats’ national position is – as usual – designed to satisfy the radical leftist feminists.
It isn’t far-fetched at all to ask a Republican candidate about removing the fed from the recent arbitrary intrusion into domestic relations. Both the RNC Platform and McCain’s campaign statement about family policy state the principle that family issues belong to the states. Just as obviously, neither promises to get the fed out, supporting the status quo instead.
A question asked in the right way based on the principle Republicans say they stand for would be a good one. The federal intrusion does not provide a necessary or beneficial addition to policy; just pork and damage. It’s very practical to suggest getting the fed. out of the domestic relations business. What I mean by asking “in the right way” is to state a question without giving a speech that makes it very clear that it is reasonable, and connected to the stated principle of the Republican Party and the candidate. I suppose it would also have to make the distinction between welfare policy – managing the federally funded welfare system – and “domestic relations” law. Well, I suppose I could go on and on but you see then why I’d have to think about the question – I’m not being brief.
Back to states then – state laws traditionally – prior to the federal intrusion and pork – were based on fact and logic time-tested over the ages. Within the framework of civil law, w.r.t. civil rights, courts had fashioned laws in a more scientific manner. I don’t mean that they were free of bias, and maybe I’m going too deep for this comment. Anyway – the main point is – less arbitrary manipulation of the laws – far less. Not perfect, but way way far less because under civil law the Constitution tended to keep a lot of the bs generally in check.
And with the billions upon billions in pork gone, which provides the incentive for extreme bias against fathers, I even think there’s a chance for getting joint custody presumptions passed at the state level. Haven’t they been back and forth with that in California? (It’s the law throughout Scandinavia.)
September 25th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
SM777;
Yes, the Republicans make a false claim. Ronald Reagan was at the forefront of “no-fault divorce” and federal child support reform. I’ve asked Republicans nicely to fix that mistake. Now we need to ask them to stick to their stated principles to do what we all know is right rather than accepting the status quo and saying they’ll try not to let it get any worse if it happens to be convinient.
September 25th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
Social, economic, political and cultural degeneracy cannot be solved by constitutional reform alone nor the ammendment of marriage alone. And not least because the premises is erroneously suggested to be on account of federal intrusion into what ought to be state concerns.
1.
The degeneracy for which solutions are sought by the mens movement are not restricted to federally structured constitutional arrangements. They afflict most western Confederations, Kingdoms, Unitary States and other constitutional structures.
2.
Only when our common western problem is appropriately specified, does a people based counter-revolutionary solution emmerge as the correct panacea. A panacea to problems originating in the profitable and venal degradation of male character by leading males for power and position.
September 25th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
julie;
I may sometimes be guilty of seeing greener grass on the other side of the fence, but I’ve seen plenty that I admire when looking at European social issues debate in the mass media. At one time, American’s made fun of European courts (maybe not Britain’s since it shares the history of the common law) by saying they’re more efficient – getting convictions on half the evidence. But this critisism would be accurately aimed at the US mass media on most political issues. It’s all very top-down and without solid support from one of the two parties putting it high on their public agenda, there’s often a lock-out on expressing opinion. No wonder there are so many opinion sites on the internet started by Americans.
September 25th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
poiuyt;
Sorry if this is confusing. It might take a couple of rounds to get the basic differences in national systems straightened out, particularly when things in the US are so distorted now.
The Republican Party suggests a constitutional amendment. I agree with you that their suggestion does not address the problem. The Republican Party is not addressing the problem of federal intrusion through constitutional reform. They would only define marriage as a legal relationship between a man and a woman – in other words ban same-sex marriage.
Returning family law to the states would not involve constitutional reform in the United States. According to the US Constitution today, and as it always has been, marriage and family issues belong to the states and to the people. Our current problems were created by federal intrusion and are driven by billions and billions of federal dollars that accomplish nothing other than corruption of the system.
The acceptance of this new anti-Constitutional arrangement by federal courts was accomplished by uprooting family law from civil law and transplanting it into “social policy.” This makes a huge difference in the US in the level and type of Constitutional protection people have from arbitrary government intrusion at any level. It shifts from requirements of rationality and fair treatment to complete unchecked arbitrary government control with the only requirement being that treatment is equal (and there is very little of that).
Other countries that have never had the same basic constitutional protections afforded to individuals, are about in the same situation that the US is in now – i.e. Americans no longer have that protection either; even though the constitution says that we should have.
So it is both the reclassification to “social policy” provoked by federal intrusion and the federal funding that keeps the corruption going. BTW: The reason the courts improperly reclassified family law was because of the money. It was a wholly corrupt act by the courts.
September 26th, 2008 at 12:18 am
Very well. As long as leaders and spokespersons of our movement such as yourself and David Usher recognise the follwing:
It is not only the family institution that has been corrupted, but just about every existing structure in our societies subjected to the genderisation measures you speak of. A nasty thing the effects of which are felt by people beyond Constitution bound America.
September 26th, 2008 at 1:24 am
poiuyt;
Any characterization of me as a leader or spokesman for a movement is purely honorary. I came from a background as a scientist and analyst. I have had offers to become a group leader and an award from a group for my work on child support and journalism, but have never sought or accepted the role of community organizer or representative.
As far as recognizing facts, I have no problem with that. I do find it difficult to discuss everything all at once though. One thing I learned early in my analytical work is that pretty much everything is connected to everything else. So there’s always an opportunity to branch in many directions from one focused discussion. That’s not always bad. It’s necessary to explore the relationships. But there are also times one needs to stay focused to allow enough depth in a single place to figure something out and make a point.
Note also that this discussion is taking place under an article on the “GOP Platform 2008 on Preservation of Marriage.” It’s not off topic for us to focus on the American political situation here.
September 26th, 2008 at 2:32 am
Oh and I don’t know if “GOP” is commonly recognized outside the US. “Grand Old Party,” GOP, is a nickname for the Republican Party. Maybe you knew that.
September 26th, 2008 at 2:42 am
As buchenwald concentration camp inmate, Christopher Burney relates in his book “The Dungeon Democracy”, “sickness cannot be cured by its removal from the head alone. The whole body must be purged of it…”
September 26th, 2008 at 2:46 am
Sickness is often cured by killing off the infection. (Roger F. Gay, 2008, MensNewsDaily.com)
September 26th, 2008 at 7:30 am
12 of the 22 responses to this article are from the author himself.
Just an observation.
I don’t see anyone else doing that.
September 26th, 2008 at 8:06 am
“emarel;
Current family law in the US is based on old Soviet law. The debates we’ve had over the past 20 years mirror those of the early Soviet days. The Russian Effort to Abolish Marriage, 1926″
Roger, I wasn’t aware of that. My focus was on the contradiction that existed between the high and liberty-filled wording of the Soviet constitution and the reality of living there as a citizen.
September 26th, 2008 at 8:51 am
merck;
I’m a maverick.
September 26th, 2008 at 8:54 am
emarel;
You should compare that with the high and liberty-filled wording of the proposed EU Constitution – twice rejected by the European population – that’s being put into effect by the political class anyway. Note that after you’ve tired out from reading page after page of flowering language, if you’re perseverant, you’ll eventually get to the definitions that tell you the flowering language means all power to the Brussels super-state and they can even change the Constitution without permission if they feel like it.