Steve Farrell
Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2004

Who could have believed it? Eleven state referendums decide whether or not marriage as we have always known it will survive or be replaced with the agenda of the socialist left and its militant homosexuality lobby – while the presidential election represents, in part, a national referendum on the same issue.

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  Your vote counts this time. So get up and go to the polls – now.

But just in case you’re still not sure about the marriage issue – maybe you are religious, but not fully persuaded that the state has any business prying into the issue of marriage and family – let’s chat about this for a brief moment.

For starters, the first question we need to ask ourselves is “Where did government come from in the first place?”

I think you know the answer. Contrary to the far-from-reality dreams of theorists, man didn’t start out as a lone individual, a hermit. No. As that founding-era legal giant William Blackstone taught, man was from the beginning part of a family unit: a) as a child of God; b) as husband and wife, and c) as earthly parents to children.

If this weren’t so, none of us would be here, now, would we?

And that’s where government began, as well.

Adam was made Lord of the whole earth (meaning, mankind was appointed to be stewards over all other living things). Adam was also appointed to preside over Eve in righteousness (or, as was later clarified, to love her as Christ loved the Church – remembering that Christ served and even died for the Church), while Eve was appointed as Adam's counselor or helpmeet, and commanded to bear his children. Together, they were to preside over those children (again in righteousness).

And let’s not pass that over. To preside in righteousness was not only a call to love and service, but also a reminder that Higher Laws existed, that every governments on Earth, whether a simple family or a complex state, was subject to those Higher Laws if it hoped to maintain legitimacy.

That’s how government started, patriarch and matriarch, under God, presiding over the interests of their family.

From there it naturally branched out into small family groups, then great tribes, then complicated states. This was so because the nature of man IS social; his destiny is social; his calling is to be social. “It is not good for man to be alone” had several meanings, including marriage.

Therefore, the State is as natural to man as the family, with a line of authority that flows first from God to man, then from man to his family, and finally from families to their collective representatives – all of these ultimately subject to Higher Law (hence, unalienable rights, checks on public extremes, the laws of justice).

Which leads us to the purpose of the state.

Frederic Bastiat called it “the collective right to self defense.” That is, a public manifestation, in the interest of efficiency, of the individual right to life, liberty and property, “which are but one great right.”

We need to understand that this again centers on a man’s home and family and faith. For truly, what is a man’s wealth but his life, his land, his talents, his labor, his spouse, his children, his conscience and his faith?

The state's duty is to defend these sacred things and to hand out justice to those who abridge them. Plain and simple.

Now, maybe this is too much about common sense for some. But when the state takes upon itself a power which it never had in the first place, that is, when it turns over its duty to protect that which is most sacred to socialists – who believe nothing to be sacred, who vow to abolish private property and God and marriage and family, and who do so by laboring night and day to impose an atmosphere of moral anarchy on us all – the state does what it never was and never can be legitimately commissioned to do. It has become the Creature that exceeds its Creator. It has become the bane of the very purpose of its existence.

All that is dear to us calls out for a course correction. Here’s how:

Begin with a vote for referendums and candidates who believe that the state has a right and a duty to defend marriage and families, because truly, government began in the home, gained and maintained its authority in the home, and will only be as virtuous as its homes.

Now is the time to act.

NewsMax Pundit Steve Farrell is associate professor of political economy at George Wythe College, press agent for Defend Marriage, and the author of the highly praised inspirational novel “Dark Rose” (available at Amazon.com).