DOMA: Government Goes Too FarBy Roberta Angela Dee ![]() The Supreme Court for all its distinguished members has yet to find a workable definition for pornography and for what constitutes lust. So my second question is: How can government effectively rule on matters of love -- a topic that has evaded the greatest poets and philosophers since the Dawn of Humankind? Is government lesgislation on matters of love any less barbaric than the Chinese government mandating the number of children each Chinese family can procreate? Is it any less savage than the imposition of penalties that cause many Chinese families to allow female infants to die? As Americans, and more importantly as citizens of a global population, we have the right, responsibility and duty to tell government when it has exceeded its boundary. So, when the President -- with all the skeletons in his cluttered closet -- decides to impose his definition of love on those who might not share his definition of love, I feel he is grossly out of bounds. We vote for the individual, a President, who we feel can best lead the country towards peace and propserity. Most of us prefer to go elsewhere for a priest, rabbi, minister or marriage counselor. I'm aware that the religious right wing -- supposedly Christian, but apparently more political -- has decided to impose their religious precepts on those who do not share their views under the guise that they are preserving marriage. Marriage has never been anything more than the union of two people in love. So, my third question is: Who or what gives government the right to legislate who should fall in love? And, my fourth question is: What gives government the right to single out one segment of the population when it is tasked with the responsibility of faily representing us all? So you see, in this instance -- and speaking only from my own perspective -- substitution, compromise or some alternative based on semantics is totally unacceptable. Because to do so would undermine the basic principles of human rights violated under what is called a democracy. For now and in the future, I shall choose my own mate. Government does not have and shall never have that right in any free nation.
|