The Marriage Debate

Isn't it interesting that the controversy surrounding the polygamous community in Bountiful, BC., has elevated (if only slightly) the debate surrounding the judicially imposed change to the meaning of marriage. (Was the place called Bountiful before the polygamists took it over and they chose it for its name, or did they come up with the name? If the former, I wonder what kind of sect would take over places like Eyebrow or Elbow or Climax - real places in Saskatchewan - my imagination runs wild!)

Those who are at ease with opening up marriage to members of the same sex seem reluctant to accept that once that tear in the fabric of our civilization has been rent, there remains no logical argument to object to folks in "committed" polygamous or polyamorous relationships also being married.

As I read more and more history and philosophy it seems clear to me that what one age thinks to be progress, proves with the passage of time to be anything but. We seem now to be in an age where it is in vogue to say yes to every innovation. As David Hart puts it, "we live in an age whose chief moral value has been determined by overwhelming consensus, to be the absolute liberty of personal volition, the power of each of us to choose what he or she believes, wants, needs or must possess; our culturally most persuasive models of human freedom are unambiguously voluntarist".

All of which makes me look more favourably on conservatism as an affirmation of normality in the concerns of society. To determine what is normal, we must look beyond the self.

Your concern over what is happening in Bountiful emanates from something other than concern for your own well being.