Defense of Marriage, One Man One Woman, Polygamy, Contract Families

I think the only long term solution to the split is society is not for one side to win but to separate the kind of marriage that the government recognizes and gives incentives for (i.e. Marriage - one man, one woman) from the kinds of households that people have a right to form by legal agreement, contract families, for lack of a better name.

Contract families could be semi-traditional - a heterosexual couple that is not married, a Grandmother and grand kids or two widows living together. But it could also be two women, two men , or three consenting adults anything we don’t have a constitutional reason to ban.

Contract families would not be anything we have to encourage - not anything the church needs to bless and not anything the government has to call marriage. They are the consensual relationships the people wish to formalize that the government has no right to interfere with. This could work just like any other contract - we don’t limit contracts by gender or how many people can sign a contract.

So that would exclude polygamous cults that force young girls to marry, and would exclude any arrangement with a child below the age of consent, incest, nonconsent, coercion, and anything else there is a constitutionally valid law against.

I don’t think we are ready but I see this as the logical, most workable solution to an otherwise intractable dispute.

Judge strikes down part of Patriot Act

>> NEW YORK - A federal judge struck down parts of the revised USA Patriot Act on Thursday, saying investigators must have a court's approval before they can order Internet providers to turn over records without telling customers.<<

I’ve said from the begining that parts of the Patriot act violate the Fourth ammendment.

>> The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.<<

While we try to be constitutional originalists but we have to deal with things that did not exist in 1789.

Clearly the right to bear arms includes guns. When side arms are ray guns it will include ray guns. But it did not include the right to buy a house next to the Capital and keep personal cannon pointed at congress. Likewise the right to bear arms now should not include nuclear weapons.

Likewise, personal information that would have been stored as papers should now be protected like our our papers. That means electronic records. The court is right. The President is wrong on this particular issue.