Yes, marriage was meant to regulate unwanted procreation. Your citation of inter-racial marriage unfairly leaves out incestuous marriage. Government can properly regulate marriage to prevent and obviate sibling, parent-child, or cousin marriage, based on natural law.

Regulation of inter-racial marriage was an illegitimate use of that power, but the power itself is legitimate.

This is simply not true. Especially in our day and age, parental obligations can and are enforced without marriage even being in the picture. A man who has a child with a woman to whom he isn’t married can, and often is, required by law to provide for and contribute to the child’s well-being. Enforcing parental obligations (especially in our day and age in which parental status is easily determined) does not require government to license marriage. This is a completely fallacious argument.

The historical case you make is inaccurate. Civil marriage was invented as a means to prevent and obviate unwanted marriages from happening (interracial, for example). Prior to the advent of civil marriage, families could and were maintained in the absence of government licensing of marriage.

I feel like making marriage a civil issue is when those who oppose the family won the semantic game. By placing the definition of marriage, and the boundaries of marriage, within the power of government, they ensured that someday they could change the institution and enforce those changes on others. It’s only because of the existence of civil marriage that we’re even in danger. If marriage wasn’t licensed by government, we wouldn’t be legally threatened by shifting cultural tides. We would still be morally threatened, but just not legally threatened.

I simply compared the plans that both candidates have published on their websites. And both plans focus on the financial state of the nation and shrinking the size and cost of government, so money ended up being the emphasis.

Of course there is far more to life than money. But right now the size of government and the economy are two of the biggest problems the nation faces and so it is natural that people are concerned about money.

I agree with Chastity on Ian McKellen playing Ron Paul.

Mitt is not my ideal candidate, but he’s better than Gingrich. And if Ron Paul were to win the primary, I don’t think he could beat the Bamster.

Recently with Sandusky being interviewed, I thought maybe the press was doing too much to put a human face on an abuser. Of course every person has to have there day in court – but it seems likely that he is guilty. Hard to say where reporters should draw the line when speaking to someone who is accused of committing this type of crime.

So to expound on the previous comment, some of which was already stated or hinted at.

1. Just cuz the Lord tells you to vote for someone, doesn’t mean the Lord wants that person to win the election.

2. Just cuz the Lord tells you to vote for someone, doesn’t mean He also wants you to campaign for him.

3. The Lord may have no preference on who should win, so asking the Lord who to vote for may be a moot point.

4. Maybe the Lord does leave politics up to us. Maybe He says: “Hey, it’s _your_ city/state/country. _YOU_ guys are in charge of running it, and electing who _YOU_ collectively want. But just remember _YOU_ have to live with the consquences.

In my opinion, there are no perfect outcomes in elections. There are no perfect me, so there are no perfect politicians. It may really be the lesser of two evils.

And, given that the Lord’s knowledge is all-encompassing, maybe the “least evil” candidate really has no chance of winning, due to the sheer number of voters who are not seeking the Lord’s will.

Personally, I’m of the opinion (though I can’t prove the point) that the Lord’s viewpoint is: “Hey, that stuff is up to you. You gotta make your choice and live with it.”

The questions you ask bring up some interesting thoughts. If it were just the first part, I might ask myself why the Lord wants me to vote for this candidate and not worry about whether the candidate is the Lord’s choice or not. I might think the important lesson is for me and doesn’t necessarily have any bearing on more global desires of the Lord. Add the second part, and I might feel an increased need to campaign in some fashion for that candidate, despite its going against my better judgment, and that would be hard. As for looking indecisive, friends and mature people will realize that life is complex and there may be any number of good reasons for a change of this kind, and later a change back again.

Another question that might come from a situation like this is, what does it mean if this candidate doesn’t win the election?