Reply #11: I hear you but

[sui generis]

"the State’s compelling interest in what is good for society" have not always aligned with human rights, and there is no compelling standard to apply that won't eventually intrude on the rights of individuals. A non-sentient noncorporal entity should never have compelling interests that outweigh the rights and compelling interests of a corporal entity (at least until we have something approaching a sentient non-corporal entity). The state exists because we allow it to, not the other way around.

It used to be that the idea of a black American marrying a white American was anathema because of some nebulous definition of what "good for society" entailed.

MY compelling interest is preservation of assets and preservation of my declared family unit. If the state's compelling interest in my biology ever exceeds my own for the purpose of simple animal husbandry, we don't need to wrap it up in the flag or the bible, and I'll be happy to make a donation to my local sperm bank. Heck, I'll be happy to raise the rug rat. But I choose who I am going to live with and if the state doesn't like that then I will work for the downfall of that ideal in our state, or else the downfall of the state itself.

The law does not exist for the sake of law itself, and all the careful definitions are not by their very existence, necessarily virtuous.

Why do we think it is justifiable to administer right and privilege based on an idea and yet agree that the scientific definition has less value than the legal definition in proving an abstract? The idea of skin color, the idea of catholicism, the idea of using your left hand instead of your right hand, the idea of what you elect to do with your pink parts, or whether you elect to do anything at all with your pink parts - those ideas should not be the province of loose definition, but rather a tighter definition of "idea", including the temporality of ideas.

I look at law as a buffet. If law removes my rights, then law is meaningless to me as an individual, except as I choose to use it against itself. That's not a good place to be, ethically, but morally I am absolutely certain of that sentiment.