A Bit About "Love"

I find the events that have unfolded today to be incredibly troubling. I find the things we choose to care about to be incredibly troubling. I find that fact that so many people are claiming "Love won" today to be the most troubling of all. Do we even know what love is anymore? It has nothing to do with sexual preference or even to do with what is legal and illegal. Do we truly and sincerely even know what love is? Love can't be bound by laws...it's not dependent on a system of beliefs.

I had no level of interest or care or concern for this Supreme Court ruling until I started hearing this phrase on the radio and seeing it running across social media. Now I am deeply saddened. Love didn't win today. Love was subverted today. Love is a force that binds humans together. This is a principle that no sane person can argue with, regardless of faith or belief system. It is universal. Had love been allowed to have it's chance, we would have come to an equilibrium as a people, on our own, without the dictation of 5 people in black robes. Had love won today we would have needed no Supreme Court Decision whatsoever.

"We the People, in order to form a more perfect Union..." These are the first words written in the constitution. Have we forgotten what these words ACTUALLY mean? At their core, they have nothing to do with country or society, but with a way that people must stand together and interact.

More and more I'm convinced that we as a people spend more time talking about left government and right government and religion and non-religion and tolerance and ideology than we do remembering that we are a people. More importantly, we are a free people with a great and heavy responsibility to maintain that freedom. How did all of that go again?

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

This is the entire premise of the constitution. It's why we have a constitution in the first place. It's why we have Government in the first place. It's why we are a society. Why we call ourselves Americans. It sets us apart from the other nations of the world. Let me break this down.

A more perfect union is a place where we, as a people, are unified. Where we help each other. Where we live together in peace (peace...doesn't it talk about that too?) and harmony. Does it mean complete agreement? No. Does it mean one system of beliefs? No. It means one people, working together. A more perfect union.

Justice. What's that? Justice is the Rule of Law. Justice binds a society into one unity. A system of laws is necessary for freedom and for laws to exist, laws must be enforced. But it goes deeper than that. Justice also require morality, and a willingness to defend that morality. Now I'm not talking about the semantics of morality here based on what someone can do in their bedroom or what is acceptable at the dinner table. I'm talking about laws that govern the human race and define its prosperity. Integrity, service, tolerance, freedom of conscience, procreation, are all things that humans must live by if they wish to prosper. This cannot be argued with any merit. History shows us time and again societies lacking in these ideals and how they crumble to pieces.

Insurance of Domestic Tranquility is not a 18th century endorsement of Obamacare. It's the idea that we should be at peace, one with another. Ferguson, MO? That's not Domestic Tranquility. Baltimore? Nope. Charleston, SC? Nope. And it's not about guns either. There were plenty of guns when this preamble was written. Here's the thing. There are terrible people out there. There is evil in the world. There always has been and there always will be. It is our job to watch out for one another and protect one another. When we can discuss our views without anger or malice, then we have established domestic tranquility. When many belief systems can live together without threatening each other, we have domestic tranquility. When 5 people dictate the laws of an entire nation, while the nation engages in a war of words fought over a million battlefields in the digital world, our domestic tranquility is a pathetic joke. Certainly there is no place for love in that world.

 Along the same lines, when our domestic tranquility is threatened, it is our duty to provide for our common defense. Our common defense. Not my defense against people who hate me. Not your defense against people who hate you. Not defense of the left against the right or defense of the straight against the gay. It is a common defense. That which threatens one of us threatens all of us. Remember, we are a people. Love isn't just a passive thing that we all have for one another. It is shown in our actions, and in this specific regard, it is most necessary. There are few more potent acts of love than the defense of those who do not necessarily agree with you. In this time there are many threats to our nation, within and without. How are we to stand against these threats if we are not willing to defend one another? I reiterate, in this world full of warring words and ideals, there is little place for love, and certainly no common defense to be found.

Promotion of general welfare is simply a fancy call for us to help one another. This is not limited by a system of beliefs. It is universal, regardless of our beliefs. If you'll recall, the inalienable rights we have, as declared by our nation's founding fathers, were enumerated as "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." What could be more appropriately defined as general welfare than our individual ability to help one another pursue happiness? No good person desires to be unhappy. I truly believe that no good person desires for another person to be unhappy. Does this mean that in a perfect society we all sit quietly and say nothing so we don't offend each other? Absolutely not. In a free society we should be able to freely exchange ideas in a manner that enlightens us all and leads us all to our own measure of individual happiness. If your idea of happiness is marriage to someone of the same gender, it is your right to pursue that. That pursuit happens to be in conflict with my religious beliefs. Does that mean we cannot abide together in the same society? Absolutely not! It does, however, mean that we should exchange our ideas on the matter and do our best to promote the general welfare for both of us, so that I can continue my religious beliefs and you can continue your pursuit of happiness as a married homosexual. You don't get a free pass from promoting my welfare simply because you disagree with my religious beliefs, and I don't get the right to disregard your welfare because my religion doesn't condone your lifestyle choices.

And lastly but not leastly, we must ensure the security of the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our prosperity. Liberty, at its heart, is a protection of our freedom to choose. Not freedom to do whatever we want, but freedom to define our lives as we wish. Do you wish to become President? Play Basketball in the NBA? Build a massive corporate empire? Save a species of animal? Open a cafe in a big city? Write a book? Star in a movie? What we make of ourselves is what defines us, and our opportunity to make of ourselves what we choose to strive for is what makes us Americans. They say that the American Dream is a financial one, but is that not simply an understanding that with financial success comes ones ability to do whatever they desire? America is the Land of Opportunity. Ever has it been thus, and ever shall it be so long as we continue to maintain our own liberty, the price of which is this Union we belong to and the responsibility as its people to ensure its prosperity.




A government is nothing more than a construct made up of people. Our government is set up to be run "by the people, for the people." And in this regard, we have lost our way. We cannot separate ourselves from this government. We cannot allow a decision of 5 non-elected justices to define our roles in this society as a people. If we as a people had been behaving properly in the first place and operating as a functioning society, this decision would have never come to our attention! Homosexuality is not a new thing. The desires of homosexuality are not new to society. Their survival as a group is not dependent on this Supreme Court Ruling. This decision matters very little to them in reality, and even less to the rest of us as a society. What does matter is that we as a people let the government get involved in the first place. The sad truth is that this Supreme Court decision is simply evidence of a society that must pay for its own mistakes. 

The instructions given to us as a people by our founding fathers provide a simple road map to prosperity. They took great care in compiling these ideals, and many gave their lives to set up this Union in such a way that we would have the opportunity to even live these ideals. And at the heart of all of these instructions is the concept of love, that binding force that ties us together as human beings. When love wins out, I believe that government is minimally necessary (regardless of how big or small you think it should be) and when we are operating as we should as a society these kinds of events have no place among us.

So when you think of the events that transpired today, perhaps you ought to think a little less about the idea that homosexual men and women are legally allowed to marry one another and proclaim "love won out!" Instead, perhaps you ought to think about the blow this decision was to our society, and the subtle reminder it is that we have lost our way. Indeed we have forgotten what it even means to love as a people must, in order to remain prosperous.