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Kmiec’s latest: opposition to Prop 8
March 3, 2009 | 14 Comments
Doug Kmiec continues to mystify. Now he has come out in opposition to Proposition 8 in California. As has been the case with abortion, Kmiec couches his position in supposedly religious reasoning, but all he does is show a continued “lawyerly” bent to twist words beyond all sense.
The argument for Prop. 8 must be resisted for two reasons: First, because it gives the proposition a far broader discriminatory effect than its language warrants, and second, the proposition is oblivious to the differing faith practices of our citizens. Marriage is of religious origin; it should remain there. Indeed, neither the original court decision nor Prop. 8 showed adequate recognition of the religious nature of marriage, so Thursday’s case can be a do-over.
Some faiths accept same-sex relationships and others profoundly object. As a matter of religious freedom, both must be accommodated, but how? Separate state and church. Prop. 8 keeps the state – not the church – from using the terminology of marriage to officially acknowledge a same-sex relationship. That’s all it does. Prop. 8 should not be thought of, as some argue, as revoking rights granted by an activist judiciary. After all, the official ballot summary recited: “Prop. 8 … doesn’t take away any rights or benefits ….”
I admit that I am a bit tired. Newborns have a tendency to deprive parents of sleep. But I have been over this over and over again to derive some meaning out of this, but I confess that it just seems like a lot of gibberish in order to justify a position that has absolutely no merit.
Anyway, Kmiec and his cohort urge the Court thusly:
– Affirm its prior judgment recognizing the equality previously given all citizens by the state Assembly.
– Honor the stated intent of Prop. 8 (viz., precluding the state from using marriage terminology to officially acknowledge any relationship other than that of a male-female couple) – an important goal to be faithful to the people as well, but one which cannot be accomplished by undermining the principal one of equality.
– Direct the state to employ non-marriage terminology for all couples – be it civil union or some equivalent. While new terminology for all may at first seem awkward – mostly in greeting card shops – the third step dovetails with the court’s important responsibility to reaffirm the unfettered freedom of all faiths to extend the nomenclature of marriage as their traditions allow.
Which generates this reaction from Carl Olson:
If I understand Kmiec and Saxer correctly, they are saying that the state should no longer use any language normally connected with marriage, including terms such as “marriage” and “married.” The gratuitous assumption is that because marriage is supposedly of religious origin, in a civil order that legally distinguishes between state and church, there is no state interest or purpose in defining marriage as union between one man and one woman. But how does that follow? A good case can be made, historically speaking, for the religious origin of laws against murder, theft, rape, and, yes, slavery. Shall we have a state-neutral stance regarding those activities?
Not even the Catholic Church, the only major defender and protector of marriage still left in the West, it seems, holds marriage to be of religious origin. Canon 1055 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law describes marriage as a natural institution, to which some important sacramental qualities have been added in certain cases, but not in such a way as to destroy the fundamental natural basis of the relationship. Marriage has been recognized as a natural institution down through thousands of years of history, all around the world, across numerous cultures and religions. How is it that a California Supreme Court opinion that had been in place for only a few months has already established a fundamental right that cannot be trumped by an institution whose nature has been known for thousands of years?
Once again Kmiec stakes an untenable position that seems to fly in the face of the Church, but does so in a way that implies that he is actually acting more faithfully to some kind of pro-religion sentiment. Amazingly, Kmiec feints right in order to veer far, far to the left.
For his next trick, Doug Kmiec will cite Humanae Vitae to defend broader access to contraception.
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14 Comments so far
Thanks for the link. The column is quite bewildering, to put it politely. The man has become a political pretzel coated with buttery Obama sauce and covered with tasteless legal sprinkles.
For his next trick, Doug Kmiec will cite Humanae Vitae to defend broader access to contraception.
LOL. I think you’re onto something there…
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. Does not compute.
Let me explain something to Kmeic:
Catholic >> American
We should shape the nation. Not the other way around. Duh.
And I bet he doesn’t even get Wales!
Kmiec is off his rocker. I think those who continue to be amazed at what he’s been spewing forth lately need to stop being amazed and quit giving him air-time. He’s irrelevant at this point.
Actually, Kmiec probably makes more sense if you’re sleep-deprived.
Kmiec is running amok and misleading many people with his creative misinterpretations of our Church. Obama’s crew is thanking their lucky stars to have him on board, lending credibility to their radical agendas.
I’d love to see the Vatican publicly address and correct the professor.
I’d like to lend Benedict XIV a baseball bat and watch him run amok through the offices of those “faithful Catholics” who are the slime mold in the halls of Congress.
“Batter up, your Holiness!”
Douglas Quisling strikes again.
[...] Kmiec has apparently come out in favor of the courts overturning Proposition 8 in California. StumbleUpon| Digg| Reddit| Twitter| [...]
Kmiec is a good, decent man and a long-time conservative who (I speculate) must be hoping for a judicial appointment from Obama, perhaps after Republicans regain some clout in the Senate and begin blocking Obama appointments. Dean Starr was asked about this article at the oral argument on Prop 8 (he hadn’t read it), specifically whether abolishing marriage would make things equal and whether the court could do so on its own. Starr’s answer was “yes and no”: yes, eliminating marriage and creating civil unions for all would (by definition) fix any inequality but, no, the court lacks any authority to do so. That was clearly the right answer. As for Kmiec’s brushing aside of the “intramural” debate over whether Prop 8 is an amendment or revision — that is the entire focus of the challenge to Prop 8 and the only possible basis for throwing it out. If it is a proper amendment, the court has no choice (unless it becomes totally lawless) but to enforce the traditional definition of marriage. Kmiec’s proposal, in other words, falls outside the scope of this case — no one is asking for such a result and, in any event, the court does not have the power to grant it. Lastly, the notion that the state must or should accommodate anything that any religion deems marriage is both silly and contrary to Catholic thought. Muslim polygamy? Of course not. As a long-time judicial conservative and Catholic, Kmiec surely knows all this. What’s going on Doug?
Kmiec is a good, decent man
I am calling absolute bullshit on this. You cannot obfuscate, lie and lead the faithful astray the way Kmiec has and be a “good, decent man.” It’s absolutely disingenuous to call him such.
Angling for a judicial appointment just makes him a moral/ethical sellout.
Calm down. I don’t agree with Kmiec’s latest pronouncements either, but that doesn’t make him a liar and a deceiver. And as I said, I can only speculate that he is seeking a judicial appointment; I could be totally wrong. In fact, I withdraw the speculation; it is without foundation. What I do know from personal interactions is that Kmiec is in fact good and decent. And without question he has done more for conservative ends than this cranky lit prof ever will, notwithstanding his recent statements.
Which part of convincing Catholics that it was perfectly morally justifiable to vote for the most pro-abortion senator in Congress was “dong more for Conservative ends,” again? Which part of, “as long as you feeeeeeeeel it’s not a burden on your conscience to vote for 0, you can do it with a clear conscience” is good and decent?
Perhaps you could explain that in more depth.
Whatever good he has done in the past is effectively cancelled out by his fawning, syncophantic behavior regarding 0.
I don’t hold myself out as a moral authority, mouthpiece for the Church or perfect example of Catholicism. Kmiec DOES — and used that position to lead people astray.
Saying Kmiec has done more for the conservative movement than CrankyLitProf, or pretty much anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis, is like saying Judas did more to spread Jesus’s message than most of the other disciples. Well, yeah, if you disregard the last parts of their respective careers.