Comment by clairity
3 years ago
there's a whole body of political science literature that would heartily debate that stance. at most, political discourse and religious discourse grew up together and influenced each other, but to say one is based on the other is a rhetorical diversion at best.
gay marriage shouldn't be predicated on privacy either. two people want equal protection under the law as any other two people who have enjoined their lives together. that's basically it. certainly the gender/sex of those two people isn't the state's concern, because reproduction is not a state concern, but rather a private matter.
> reproduction is not a state concern
But population growth rate (or decline) is absolutely a concern of the state, and reproduction is a significant contributor to that. In fact, one could argue that if a state has an interest in providing health care (including things like contraception) then it must have an interest in reproduction too.
no, it absolutely is not, for a democratic republic like the US. the US is designed to have a minimal federal government that doesn't interfere in the individual life and liberty of its residents. this is very unlike governments that came before it and even peer governments now, like the social democracies of europe. our federal government was not meant to be a central planner, but rather simply an interstate and international arbiter. therefore, it cannot have any interest in population control in any way. that's up to the will of the people, and only the will of the people. it's not even a state concern because it would encroach our civil liberties, which are inalienable by the constitution.
Providing free (at the point of use) health care, and making sure children don't go hungry, and even providing tax benefits to couples who raise children, are all perfectly constitutional policies that don't encroach on civil liberties.
All of those policies can be motivated by a state/federal desire to grow the population. In fact, some people believe that the federal government has a legitimate interest in providing a free (or discounted) service for healthy women to abort healthy children at any stage of their pregnancy, so if the government has an interest in preventing children then surely it can have an interest in producing them.
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> reproduction is not a state concern
Supreme Court just made it state one, instead of keeping the decision on doctors and pregnants.