On Thursday’s episode of “WallBuilders Live,” David Barton attempted to explain why marriage equality is a violation of the Constitution because it is a violation of the Declaration of Independence which is a violation of natural law which is a violation of God’s law.
As Barton sees it, the 7th Amendment’s language regarding “in suits at common law” means that the Constitution incorporates all of natural law into our legal system, and since common law is based on God’s law, our entire system of government is really based on God’s law. And thus gay marriage can never be constitutional because it is a violation of God’s law.
If that wasn’t confusing enough, Barton went on to claim that the government must take a position on the issue of marriage because by not taking a position on it, it is creating an environment in which it must spend tax dollars on dealing with the negative things that happen as a result of not taking a position … just like how supposedly “25% of all property theft occurs from people who are on drugs who steal money for their habit” somehow demonstrates the dangers of not outlawing drug use:
From a constitutional standpoint, you cannot exclude morals. A number of conservative libertarians in recent months have been saying “hey, marriage is not a constitutional issue” … yet it is because Article 7 of the Constitutional through the attestation clause incorporates the Declaration [of Independence] into the Constitution.
The Declaration erects the moral standard by talking about the laws of nature and of nature’s god. Marriage has always been defined not only as a law of nature – now, it’s not necessarily in nature, but they called it a natural law that you should be married to one man, one woman because that is what divine law says; the laws of the god who created nature, the law of nature’s god even in the very beginning said one man, one woman, this is good. Jesus reiterated that in Matthew 19 and other places.
So the moral standard, the moral law dictates that marriage is between and man and a woman. That was then incorporated into the Constitution in the Seventh Amendment in what was called the common law. The common law is part of the legal process. And if you look at the common law all the way through time, marriage has been part of the common that. That is why you do not allow bigamy or polygamy or other forms of “igamy” that attack marriage. Marriage is a man and a woman as part of the common law that’s part of the Constitution.
Now what’s happened in recent years, people have tried to say “hey, morals have nothing to do with government” … yes they do … and to believe that you can have government without morals, that’s not part of the Constitution, that’s not part of the Seventh Amendment, that’s not part of the Declaration of Independence, it is a twisted view of constitutionality that says morals are to have no place in this.
The problem is once you don’t legislate it, it becomes a government issue because if you say we’re not going to legislate drugs, guess who’s going to have to take care of all the drug problems that arise? It will be government. We know that right now, 25% of all property theft occurs from people who are on drugs who steal money for their habit. If you legalize that, then there goes property.
If you look at the justice system, the increase in needs to jails and jail beds and et cetera, government is going to take care of this. So if government says this is not an issue, it will be an issue. It will effect our money, it’ll effect our spending so anytime a government takes a position that it won’t take a position, it has taken a position that it is going to take a position because it is going to spend money on it, if all that convoluted nonsense makes sense.
