The theatre of man is, and has proven to be cyclical. Ages pass and each man born has the blessing and burden of learning of his forbearers and their lives, so they may, if they are wise, avoid the pitfalls filled with the carcasses of the foolish. In this age people have been given the unprecedented opportunity to have the pages of history completely open to them, for their instruction and benefit, if they will but be wise and look and listen.
Today's news abounds with stories of meaningless minutia and red herrings, published either out of ignorance or ill-intent. No matter the reason for their publishing, too many people have latched onto these pointless issues (celebrities' lives especially come to mind) to the point they are neglecting those issues and matters which are more important to their happiness and well-being.
And which are those? The subjects most beneficial for man to study and spend their time pursuing are, in my opinion, those concerning liberty, society, and economics. I will never be able to write something here no-one else had never before thought or written elsewhere, but I mean to merely draw attention to modern social and political phenomena and explain the underlying principles involved in each so people may know, sure as they think and exist, where to stand on the issues, according to their particular value system. Everything I write here is based on the following values: first, God is first and foremost in my life, and I earnestly seek opportunities to better serve Him. Thus, there is such a thing as right and wrong; good and evil. Second, being a God-fearing man, I hold to the principle of non-agression, which states it is morally wrong to agress against others or use force or coercion to compel people to do that which they would not otherwise do. Third, the rights for people to hold and use their property (including their bodies and labour) as they like should be held inviolate. Everything I write here will, at the heart, be based off of those values.
Human rights have always been important to just about every just man and woman, in every time. People may have differed at various times about this or that people not deserving this or that right, but generally, today, most have been more than willing to extend basic, human rights to every living person on the planet. We are talking here also about normal everyday people, and not say, military dictators, who most certainly do NOT respect those human rights inherent in every man.
Next comes the question, "What exactly are human rights?" I could easily recline on the much-deliberated and when passed, much celebrated Universal Declaration of Human Rights released by the UN, where the included thirty articles meant to be a comprehensive list of those rights belonging to all human beings. I won't critique the UDHR here (maybe later), but there are several "rights" listed like the right of access to social security and free and compulsory primary education that are not rights at all but expressions and results of the market! The renowned and brilliant philosopher, scholar and economist Murray Rothbard explained in his book, The Ethics of Liberty that
"...the concept of "rights" only makes sense as property rights. For not
only are there no human rights which are not also property rights, but
the former rights lose their absoluteness and clarity and become fuzzy
and vulnerable when property rights are not used as the standard."
For example, take social security as it is called. I will hereafter refer to it by its real name, Forced Wealth Redistribution. I will also use my own grandmother in this illustration. My grandmother receives a Social Security check every month. The money had to come from somewhere. Ostensibly it was amassed over the years as her paychecks were forcibly docked the amount needed, per some magical schedule Congress dreamt up, and invested at interest so that when she retired, she could live comfortably off of the proceeds for the remainder of her days.
Making a return to financial reality, the Social Security program in the US has been used as a congressional slush fund since its inception and has been shown since its inception to be mathematically unsustainable by any realistic measure of population and economic growth. The program has always been insolvent, and has only survived thus far because monies have been borrowed year after year to make up for the deficits between the amounts paid out and collected from paychecks and businesses.
Week after week my paycheck is robbed by the Social Security ponzi scheme to contribute to all of those checks being cut to all of those people. I say robbed because given the choice, I would not voluntarily contribute. Almost no-one would, given the choice. Wherein lay the right to social security in the US system? Does my grandmother have the right to put a gun to my or my employer's head and demand we pay her monthly bills, because she had been likewise extorted for years? Does being extorted somehow magically bestow a corresponding right to extort?
No to all of the above! If my money is my property, I have the ultimate right to determine where it goes and how. But I digress. So social security is not a right. Nor is education, for similar reasons involving others' time, capital and resources in the business of educating people. How many other industries or even social issues have been mistakenly characterised as involving rights? What about marriage?
The "right" for those practicing a homosexual lifestyle to marry is a very popular issue in society today, and for two reasons. For some, it is seen as an issue of equality; for others it is a moral one. Concerning equality, when people speak of equality and marriage between those of the same sex, they are always meaning equality in State benefits, normally reserved for those couples legally married. Nevermind that the State should not be involved in marriages in the first place (to license is to give permission, as if the State can supplant God in deciding who and who cannot be married...), but to then ad insult to injury by making it so that oftentimes married couples possess rights to their property superior to those people who are unmarried.
If property rights were truly held inviolate for each person, two people would be able to craft whatever agreements and contracts they desire and the courts would honor them. Is the normalisation and codification of homosexuality as a healthy alternative to heterosexual couples and families the answer to this property rights dilemma? Again, it is not. To illustrate why not, we have to visit the second issue people have with "gay marriage", that of morals.
If a person worships Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour, he cannot, for the sake of religious and moral consistency condone the practise of homosexuality. That is, the act itself. Desires and attractions are another issue (again, a subject not covered extensively here), as it is not always in our power to consciously choose those things with which we are tempted. That being said, the homosexual lifestyle is incongruous to a good, moral character. A person actively engaged in a homosexual lifestyle may perform single or many good acts, but his continued actions place him in direct opposition to God's laws concerning sexual purity, and so will not be continually protected in his current spiritual state. That is he will, if continues in those actions, inevitably succomb to spiritual degeneration. How far and how severe the degeneration varies from person to person, but I have personally witnessed the devastating effects on not a few precious spirits of our Heavenly Father an active homosexual lifestyle has, up to and including militant atheism, where once they were tempted but faithful worshippers of God. History is replete with examples of how once a people of a nation reject God, He withdraws His protection from them and leaves them to stand alone in their sin, weaknesses and errors.
The Lord instituted marriage to be a sacred covenant between the couple composed of a man and a woman and God. That a vocal minority (less than 5% of the US by most estimates are actively living a homosexual lifestyle) strives to alter government and laws to proclaim otherwise does not change that fact, as naming a giraffe a whale will not suddenly cause it to live in the oceans. Since marriage then was instituted by God it is His to define, and defined it He has, including who may perticipate in its covenant and blessings. No man, be he part of a group or alone has the right to alter the definition or terms of the Lord's institutions and covenants. But that is how covenants operate: a man accepts the terms set forth by God and abides by them and is blessed or does not and is not. Man cannot set the terms of an agreement between himself and Deity.
Viewing marriage as a covenant from God, who then may legally administer it? Only those representatives of the Lord who are authorised to administer in the same and in His name, of course! Imagine an attorney going to court on your behalf in a case, not having prior authorisation from you and settling with the other side and judge. Would you be bound by that judgement? Of course not! No-one may act in any way on someone's behalf unless they possess authority from the same. Where does that leave the State then, in granting marriage licenses, licensing clergy and passing laws as to who and who is not legally married? Are they not usurping God's authority and falsifying their own in these things?
Marriage by definition then, cannot be between two people of the same sex. They may engage in couplings or even in polygamous associations, but marriage will forever be a sacred covenant between the man and a woman as a couple and God. A man claiming to worship God therefore cannot in any degree advocate for the altering of the legal definition of marriage to include the relationship of two people actively engaged in a homosexual lifestyle. This and every society in the world truly needs God and His protection and guidance, but cannot claim those if they do not at least attempt to conform to His laws and commandments. An attempt by the minority to alter laws allowing for the marrying of homosexuals and the acceptance of those changes by the majority of people in whichever country it occurs will result in the very real rejection of the Lord and the rule by His laws by those very people.
I wish all the happiness in the world to those who are tempted by feelings for those of the same sex, but if they act on them they will not be happy for very long. Only the gospel of Jesus Christ and an active application of His atonement will bring true, lasting, eternal happiness in this world and beyond.
- Aaron Abell
