Since the California Supreme Court struck down the state’s ban on same sex marriage yesterday, I have seen a number of people make an argument that has been accumulating disciples during the last few years. A growing number argue that marriage should be left to religion, and that the government should “get out of the marriage business.”

While this view may sound reasonable and is a seductive sounding solution, I believe it is overly simplified, contrary to history and good government, and ultimately a pernicious proposal.

As many of you know, a political battle is raging in Utah this fall over the issue of School Vouchers. Oak Norton, who has been a prominent thorn in the side of the local school system for some time now, has evidence suggesting that individuals may have been illegally using their positions within School Districts, and District resources available to them, to push their Anti-Voucher agenda.

In an anti-voucher PowerPoint presentation he acquired, Oak uncovered given to Oak by a nameless source, the the following incriminating meta-data was noticed:

Created: Tuesday, July 31, 2007 9:08 PM
Modified: Friday, October 12, 2007 10:13 AM
Last saved by: Cache County School District
Revision number: 30
Total editing time: 689 Minutes

Here is the screenshot:

I’ve been re-reading Richard Bushman’s biography of Joseph Smith, Rough Stone Rolling , and I just finished the chapter on the translation and publication of the Book of Mormon. When reading about the witnesses of the Book of Mormon, I recognized an interesting parallel to the early Norse and Anglo-Saxon origins of English Common Law that I had not noticed previously and thought I’d write a little about it.

The Classicist bent of our modern American education system often focuses on the real, but overemphasized contribution of the Greek and Roman civilizations to our modern legal system and government while unduly minimizing or ignoring the contribution from the medieval legal traditions of the Norse and Germanic cultures from which English Common law, and subsequently American law, developed.

On May 26th, the prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and his two counselors sent a letter to be read in all of the LDS congregations in the United States urging members to contact their Senators to support proposed amendments to the Constitution that would define marriage as only between a man and a woman to prevent the establishment of legal, homosexual marriage in the United States.

Since the release of this letter of counsel to the members, I have heard of several critics of the church, internal and external, who try to discredit the Church’s position against homosexual marriage as hypocritical in light of the Church’s own struggle against the United States government’s prohibition of the former LDS practice of Polygamy in the late 19th century.

These critics try to draw a parallel between the church’s fight to keep the government from prohibiting its religious practice of plural marriage and the modern fight by homosexuals to prevent the government from prohibiting same-sex marriage. “How can the church support government prohibition of same-sex marriage,” they ask, “when the church itself fought to prevent the government from interfering with their right to marriage in the 19th century?”

This criticism reveals a very superficial understanding of history and the church’s 19th century position in regard to congressional proscription of polygamy. Like the common comparison of the homosexual movement to the civil-rights movement, it is an effective rhetorical device with emotional appeal, but has little basis in reality. It is effective because it is superficially compelling and easily expressed in only a few words while an effective refutation of it requires a lengthy explanation.

In debates I have participated in over same-sex marriage, its proponents have often asserted that the practice would have negligible societal effect. They maintain that after the standardization of gay marriage everything will continue as it has. Such an assertion, it seems to me, requires an unbelievable degree of willful self-delusion or dishonesty.

The Weekly Standard has a sobering article that gives us a thorough preview of the upcoming train-wreck:

I’d like to post a few more thoughts on illegal immigration. I want to preface my thoughts with an excerpt from the science fiction novel Speaker for the Dead, by LDS author Orson Scott Card:

A great rabbi stands teaching in the marketplace. It happens that a husband finds proof that morning of his wife’s adultery, and a mob carries her to the marketplace to stone her to death.

Considering all of the recent talk about the Patriot Act, I thought I resurrect a slightly modified version of an article I wrote some time ago, which I think helps explain my own position on the Patriot Act.

Take out a $20 bill and take a good look at the picture of President Andrew Jackson on the obverse side. Let’s review a little of the history of this controversial president, and then I’ll tell you what it can teach us about how to remedy our bloated and burdensome government.