According to Webster’s Dictionary, “Freedom is the absence of coercion or constraint in choice or action.”
The word “freedom” is both physical and mental. The physical freedoms are: to be able to physically go somewhere you choose, do something you choose to do and to pursue your own happiness. The mental freedoms are: to choose for yourself where you want to go, to choose for yourself what you want to do and, to choose for yourself what you want to pursue for your own happiness.
Of course, freedom doesn’t entail being able to do _literally_ anything you want. For instance, exercising your freedoms cannot impede anyone else from exercising theirs. But make no mistake, you _are_ free to eat 100 hamburgers every day. You’re free to destroy yourself, in so far as your acts do not impede on the freedom of others. This is why getting drunk is legal while getting drunk and driving is not.
Fortunately for us, ” something can be wrong in the eyes of a group or individual without being illegal in the eyes of the state “. I say “the state” because the _vast_ majority of legislation _should_ lay in the hands of the state, not the federal government. I’m personally thankful for this fact because much to the disapproval of my Hindu friends, I DO enjoy a hamburger every now and again. But that’s another blog article entirely.
What really bakes my gourd is why the church desires so intensely to make gay marriage illegal. The rightness or wrongness of homosexuality (based on the Bible) isn’t part of the debate. What we’re talking about here is the legality of an act between two consenting adults. No one else’s freedoms are being impeded, therefore, I see no reason why gay marriage should not be legal.
Why is the church interested in federal legislation anyway? Was the early church of Acts interested in molding the local government to fit their newly found ideals? Hardly. But I suppose that’s neither here nor there.
Instead, I believe the US should adopt a similar stance to other countries wherein the federal government does not dictate marriage at all; it dictates civil unions… and any two people of consenting age can be in a civil union. Where does that leave marriage then? It leaves it where it belongs, within the church.
The church is then free to define marriage any way it pleases and the government is free to, well, do what the people please by way of a participatory democracy so long as that legislation does not impede on anyone’s rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I see no downsides to this plan. But then again, I’m not pretending that I can have my cake and eat it too.