Heck, if SCOTUS is going to vote arbitrarily anyway, with the justices deciding what level of scrutiny (if any) to apply based on personal politics, even to the point when we can make serious predictions which way each of them will vote, why not be arbitrary in the direction of the spirit of the 14th and go for equal treatment under the law? It’s kind of rare that such a blatant attempt at willfully unequal treatment (and unequal treatment that serves no purpose other than being unequal for its own sake, at that) is being attempted, wot?
If the American people and the legislative branch are still in favour of the inequality, get a national Amendment to that effect. Dust off the FMA and give it another shot.
Yeah, I shouldn’t have said quads pretty much stay at home. They are capable of getting up to the courthouse.
“Mutable” means changeable. No way, no how can you change your ancestors. I doubt any judges are gonna be sympathetic when you argue you don’t have the same ancestors you had last week.
The courts did not decide, by the process we are going through, or attempting to go through, that religion was suspect classification. Congress did that. Congress can pretty much protect certain classes all they want. Seems they thought religion was important enough to protect it.
Let’s have a cite on your “illegitimates are a suspect classification” claim. I presume you mean an illegitimate child in that their parents were not married?
The paper I cited concerning the economic status of gays is not meant to show that no gay ever has had a bad time of it, or that there are no “effects.” it’s about whether gays as a class are economically discriminated against. If you wanna cherry pick just one citation within that paper, and make it look like that’s all there is to it, I suppose I could just quote everything and post it here? Or are you gonna take the whole paper into account? Like where the activist gay researchers themselves point out that gays really aren’t economically challenged?
You were claiming that because there was no medical test for “gayness” that it was mutable.
There are a segment of the population who are attracted to both genders but your idea that people can change from “being gay” at will has no basis in fact.
And yes, the marital status of your parents at the time of your birth is a protected class.
It is completely fair to cherry pick from a document who’s entire existence is due to cherry picking.
Please due me the favor of showing me where the legislative branch sets standards of judicial review.
They may have defined fundamental rights but I am curious how they decide the level of scrutiny that the courts must use.
Hardly any of those have any real relation to what I actually said. Whether pruposeful strawman or you are impaired, I can’t say, but I really dislike going round and round in such manner.
Nevertheless:
Strawman. I said that gay is not immutable in the same sense that race is, not that it is mutable.
Except for the people who say they have changed. Perhaps they are lying, but I’m not going to accuse them of it.
I’m really having trouble following you here. Please cite to the court case you refer to.
Some proof of that, please, that the data were cherry picked.
Why should I? courts set the standards of their review. I said that Congress decided that religions are protected classes, not the courts, which means that the courts did not go through suspect classification analysis in order to treat religions as suspect classifications.
Please pay careful attention to what I am saying, next time.
You may want to google “Kinsey scale” Sexual orientation is not as black and white as you are trying to paint it.
Unless you have any proof that they were “cured” or that this even applies to the majority of peoples this is a complete farce, you are claiming that a few people who you “accuse them of lying” that this is a truism with other people.
Trimble vs. Gordon is one, there are many. Where is the legislative creation of the Fundamental right to be a “Bastard child”.
Outside of one very important time in our past the legislative branch tends to lag courts as far as doing what is correct and improving rights.
Choose some important points from that paper and argue them, I am not going to fall for the trick of trying to debate a non-presented argument.
Please show me where Congress decided that cases involving religion should not be subject to rational basis review.
Was the Warren Court was following the will of the congress when ruled against segregation or limited the role of religion in public school?
Where was the national mandate to allow unmarried women to obtain birth control or to allow interracial marriage?
Legislatures did pass women’s suffrage but legislatures are horrid tools for protection minorities from the tyranny of the majority.
I don’t have a problem with sexual continuums per se. If you ask me, they only
cast more doubt on the idea of immutability as a useful tool in sexual classifications. I am very familiar with the Kinsey scale. While I have more to say about it, I would ask you first exactly where do you propose the cut-off line for your proposed “suspect” classification?
You must misread. I did not accuse any ex-gay or ex-heterosexual of being a liar.
I asked whether these groups might not be being labeled liars.
Nor anywhere did I say that the existence of one ex-gay means all gays can become straight, and this is true even if anyone believed it was all entirely environment.
What I am pointing out is the thorny nature of the problem is exactly who gets to be in the class and how a judge could know, for trial purposes, that a person truly belongs in the classification.
***Suppose Jack is a person who by all means appears straight. His behavior and statements back it up completely; he even exhibits little to no homophobia.
He doesn’t even set off the gaydar of admitted homosexuals. He works for a privately held small company worth a billion dollars, solely owned by his supervisor. The six employees of this company are a quite close-knit bunch.
One day, during a company movie party, a character in the movie cracks a gay joke that everyone finds hilarious, and Jack even laughs the hardest. Local laws protect women from workplace sexual harassment/gender discrimination but not homosexuals as a class.
next day, jack files suit. turns out he is gay and he is claiming to be a member of such a suspect class. He says that he feels the laughter was directed at him, that everyone knows, although its unspoken, that he’s gay, and that he cannot possibly work anymore for this company because of the anti-gay environment created. He asks for ten million dollars, what would have been his earnings for the next thirty years.
The district court dismisses on the grounds of failure to state a claim and that Jack is not a member of a suspect class, Jack appeals and argues EP just as he did in district court.
For the sake of the premise, we will presume all other quibbles of law or fact in the details of such a lawsuit are settled in Jack’s favor and one question remains: Is Jack a member of the suspect class?
We are essentially left out in the cold to answer the question, except for one thing and one thing alone: jack says so.***
I can see the “expert” witnesses now: Yep, George Clooney *IS *gay.
1st question: How can we create a suspect class when we can’t tell who belongs in it?
2nd question: How many differing classifications should we create out of a continuum of many many possible positions on the continuum? Lump it all together as non-straight? Lump them all the other way? Create a hundred classes? A thousand? Or dispense with this nonsensical exercise straightaway?
3rd question reserved for the answers above.
Yeah I must have been daydreaming and not much remember lectures on this…it didn’t come up in practice, and I concede illegitimacy is a quasi-suspect class entitled to protection. i just wasn’t sure I was understanding the connection or what you meant to say, as well. I still don’t see what it has to do with the question at hand.*
Undeniably at times this is true, but from your perspective, I’d think you’d praise the legislatures of the states that have passed gay marriage laws without any threat from the judiciary.
*except for this, which starts getting into how you misunderstand what I say:
I refer you to the text of the fourteenth amendment and hope I do not need to quote it for you or show you where to find it. Do you not see that Congress did this? Do you not know the idea of suspect classification didn’t even come up until 1938 in Carolene Products? Do you not understand that the court created less pressing classifications than race and religious identity?
cite cases and I’m willing to discuss. I’m not going to guess which particular case you speak of or give a general accounting of all possible cases you might be speaking of.
If the Right Honorable Bricker is pleased, I object on grounds of irrelevancy to a question of whether Congress created religion as a class.
I never made a claim that ALL classifications are created by Congress, just that religious identity was, and therefore the courts have presumed suspect classification from that time in practice and at all times after creating suspect classification.
If the minority is politically powerless, this can often be the case.
Here, the court held that religion was a fundamental right, and it was under both 14th amendment analysis and 1st amendment. They never had much mention of suspect classification, preferring emphasis on the first amendment. Nevertheless, it’s a fundamental right, thus triggering strict scrutiny.
Here is a fair overview of EP classifications.
Once again, strict scrutiny for religion.
“The Supreme Court has seemed unwilling to extend full ‘suspect class’ status (i.e., status that makes a law that categorizes on that basis suspect, and therefore deserving of greater judicial scrutiny) to groups other than racial minorities and religious groups.”
But perhaps you are confused with certain religious behaviors, which are a less fundamental matter. In that case, I’m not prepared to say that there hasn’t been a lesser standard of review.
Cite your case though, if you want an affirmative concession.
I’ll stand on the paper’s conclusions. If you believe it is bad research, then the onus is on you to show why, more than it coincidentally agrees with FRC’s point of view.
Well you confused the hell out of me before and that is because you moved the goalposts. We started out discussing quadriplegics, and now you’re treating my question as though I was answering gay quadriplegics. With gay quads, we do not need to invade their privacy to know they are not fundamental building blocks of society, but instead mere mutual admiration societies.
No, I didn’t. I created a hypothetical in direct response to your “we need to propagate the species” argument, as though this was the duh-obvious reason to oppose gay marriage. You can repeat nonsense indefinitely; it’ll never approach the standard of a good explanation.
Why is there a difference? A straight quadriplegic and a gay quadriplegic will both not engage in sexual relations. There’s no sexual behaviour to be expressed in whatever marriages either might enter. If straight marriage will be affected in any way by gay marriage, how is it affected by a marriage of two quadriplegics who will not be engaging in sex of any kind, even if the spouses happen to have similar genitalia?
I… have only the vaguest idea what this means, but I dare you to say it to a quadriplegic Iraq war vet, injured by an IED, in the presence of his Army buddies.
No, it means that any statement they present is suspect,
In fact I see no reason to believeanystatementtheymake.
They OUTRIGHT lie, their word is worth less than the enquirer, the fact that you use them as a primary source shows how uninformed your position is.
But really how does a data-point on how they spend more on cell service justify denying gay and lesbian couples survivors benefits, hospital visits or child custody?
Why are your iron age religious views allowed to restrict the rights of others to enter into legal associations with others?
And why can you not provide primary sources for your claims.
David, that’s a ridiculous statement. Leaving aside the fact that race is biologically meaningless and a cultural rather than scientific term, Obama is obviously considered black in the US, but had he grown up in Brazil, South Africa, Cuba or a number of other countries he’d be consider mixed.
Similarly, David Ortiz isn’t considered black and would object to anyone calling him black, but had he at birth been switched with a child from a Harlem hospital he’d have grown up thinking of himself as “black” and being thought of as black and of course most African-Americans had they grown up in South Africa would have been considered “colored” not black.
This comment shows a massive amount of ignorance.
For starters what you’re proposing would certainly apply to Homer Plessy of Plessy v. Ferguson fame(the Supreme Court case from 1896 in which the Supreme court affirmed that segregation didn’t violate the Constitution). He was arrested for sitting in a “whites-only” car and forced to move to “blacks-only” car. He insisted that he wasn’t black and in fact in Brazil would have been considered a “Blanco”(white) and in pre-reconstruction Louisiana would have been considered as such.
Similarly, had you ever met Walter White, one of the former heads of the NAACP, you’d have sworn he was “white” but he obviously was never considered white.
Leaving aside the fact that it’s moronic to spout about “the three major races” this definitely assumes facts not yet in evidence.
What does the 14th have to do with a Federal law, DOMA?
I would say it really wan’t applied until Brown v. Board of Education anyway.
Strawman, I never claimed anything about religion being held at strict vs. a lower standard, I said the legislature did not set the level of review which is the issue here, the current court seems to use rational 'with bite" in cases like romer and lawrence with which is enough to destroy DOMA.
They spend more on the interwebs does not mean they do not deserve the 100’s of other benefits that come from marriage. “They have money so they aren’t discriminated against” is an absurd assertions in the first place. This is about where you kid goes when your partner dies, and if you can be by their side when they die. Or about forcing someone into a more complex tax structure because it is against your personal beliefs if they enter into a contract.
We have a concept called privacy, which we have a right to. Remember Lawrence v. Texas, where it worked rightfully so to the advantage of gays? The one where the government can’t invade the privacy of gays to throw them in prison?
Well, now take the concept of privacy and realize that it is a concept that is broader than the context of gay rights and that it has applications which might not always help gays, but, gasp, other people too, maybe even other people in a way that works against gay arguments! See, that’s not so hard, is it? Privacy is not just for gays.
Next we have to ask a question. Let’s assume for the purposes of argument that we’re past any quibbles over a recognized purpose of marriage, and assume that marriage is indeed fundamental to the existence and survival of the race, and that’s why there is a right to begin with. Therefore, the right belongs to those who at least facially can meet the satisfaction of procreation. As I have shown the right to marriage flows from procreation because that is the fundamental aspect of marriage which is necessary to the survival and existence of the human race. See Skinner, See Loving. The question thus being, do gays meet the facial requirements in order for the right to devolve on them? The answer is no. No gay marriage alone can result in fulfillment of this fundamental purpose.
Now you are proposing that because the right devolves on childless heterosexuals, it must devolve on homosexuals too, since they have childlessness in common. But here we run into a problem; we cannot facially recognize that a heterosexual couple is not going to have children. Not without asking a bunch of additional questions. This means that the right to marry and the right to privacy come into conflict. How do we keep marriage within it’s aim and simultaneously protect the privacy of those who facially meet the test?
With gays there are no such conflicts. There is no peering into the crystal ball, to quote myself, or examining their testes or ovaries to know they cannot fulfill this fundamental purpose, and therefore, we know with certainty that no children will result of this union. They have to have outside help, which certainly means that any approaching a fundamental status means including something else as well. So now marriage is a matter not just of two people, but perhaps three people at a minimum. They must also include a surrogate, or a medical professional, or courts to adopt, or any other of many sorts of people who might assist them.
If you wanna argue that these third persons be seen as part of the fundamental building blocks of gays in marriages, then we’re really changing the concept of marriage, and so far as I know, gays are not asking for this.
If they have seen all the same arguments I have made here, and they can’t handle also this, then they are a disgrace to the military, which has a purpose for protecting citizens so that they can hold their independent views, and exercise their free speech, which they would not be deserving of claiming membership in or receiving accolades for their service. And they’d likely go to prison. I’d like to think of soldiers in a way other than stereotyped emotional hotheads, but as intelligent people who would understand that quadriplegic isn’t necessarily gay, and that if their buddy is a quad, he probably isn’t going to have sex, and therefore a question of how many quads are going to reproduce isn’t important in the sense of fundamental building blocks of society. Largely, the world around you wasn’t built by quadraplegics, and even if they ahd no rights at all and died tomorrow, the world would not crumble as a result.
There’s a current thread about what it would take to make America collapse. Suggest no quadraplegics. get laughed out of the thread. Suggest no gays; perhaps you won’t be laughed at due to sensitivity to gays, but you will be denied. Then suggest no procreation. then suggest no responsible procreation (all children under-cared for.) You might just get some serious debate on that issue.
Shall we see how your paraplegic false equivalence will fare in such a thread considering very serious issues as to what is important to survival and what isn’t?
Are you speaking of the type where women are treated as chattel in order that the man has someone to pass his property on to. Male sons of course, women only gained the right to property in recent history.
Or are you speaking of the Paulinian marriage where it was viewed as a crutch that those who could not be chaste and should be done to prevent committing a grave sin?
Or maybe the typical practical matter of allowing both adults to share work and resources but without love?
Or are you talking about the faux “historical” nuclear family with a “love based” courtship.
Because that last one has been common for less than 100 years.
The concept of SSM is new because marriage for love is new, there was no reason for it in “traditional marriage”
I note that you did not entertain the hypotheticals I asked you questions about. And you are going to ask what the fourteenth has to do with DOMA?
If you can’t figureany connection between DOMA and the fourteenth out, what makes you think you can debate me?
Ok, you’re arguing Brown. I’m familiar with that case, what aspect is relevant in showing that gays are a suspect class? I’m not seeing it. It’s about school desegregation. Are you claiming they engaged in some analysis of EP contrary to what I assert?
You said:
in post #183 you responded to my claim
which I made in #182. See how it works? I say they didn’t decide, you say prove it, and now you say you didn’t claim it. I never said you claimed it. You asked for proof, I delivered, and when I did deliver, according to your thinking, you score no points by saying, “yes, you are correct, Congress DID make that a classification,” and instead have to make it look as if I had to falsify your statement.
I’ll count this as your admission that I am correct that Congress did indeed make the classification.
Which was a claim in response to a claim back there somewhere that since the court determined religous identity, and you can’t see that either, therefore gays are entitled to strict scrutiny. But the court didn’t decide religion is a suspect class through the analysis we must use for other groups. They made religion a suspect class because Congress said they had to. I expect that until Congress tells them they must include yet another group for strict scrutiny, they will be reluctant to do so.
By what legal construct do you find they “deserve” these benefits? Howso? What did they do to benefit society to become deserving? Besides Joey-has-a-lollipop-I-get-one-too analysis?
Cite it.
Other than generalizations about equality. You need to cite your case in detail to establish that, but you do not, despite repeated discussion of the issue.
Where did my personal beliefs come into it? I’m performing unbiased legal analysis without resort to my personal beliefs. I’m NOT the author of 14th Amendment analysis. Take it up with the supreme court about their personal beliefs.
You cited focus on the family papers please do not pretend you are working based on case law.
There is no indication that SCOTUS is tending towards simple rational in this case, Romer and Lawrence are the precedence as cited in the 9th and now this case in the 1st, one of the last districts that had any standing precedent on sexual orientation not being held to some form of elevated scrutiny.
Are you claiming that we cannot test a person’s chromosomes for race and ancestry?
And I am noting that you are ignoring the question, would you need any other evidence to settle the question? Which if you’d have answered we’d have gotten to whether there are any pale blue eyed blonde “blacks.” Yes there are, but we can sure determine by genetic testing who is related to any such persons, and by means of evidence, determine whether a person fits a suspect classification of race, or not.
Keep in mind this is in comparison to gays who we cannot test for, should a question arise as to whether a claimant is a member of a suspect class. If a test is devised that can prove gay, then this is one less element of many that is an impediment to what they seek.
So you admit that sometimes it is a problem to determine what race someone belongs to? Well, thank goodness, if such a question is important enough, we can test for it.
By what manner can a judge know a claimant is indeed gay? Because, if a gay’s argument rests on his being a memeber of the gay class, it is necessary for him to prove he belongs to the class. That’s where the trouble comes; we have no reliable way of knowing who is gay. Their word alone is all we have.
Is there another suspect class that the members thereof can only be determined by their word alone?
Cause a guy who looks and acts straight might be a gay in the closet. or he might be a swindler who is claiming to be gay because he found a homophobe with deep pockets. The courts need to be able to tell the difference, and that’s why a suspect classification created by the court can be proved by other means, even including a status of illegitimacy.
for one aspect of the question; but the paper contains data even from gay researchers too, who also demonstrate that gays are not economically disadvantaged as a group. The conclusion of the paper appears to be correct.
The principle you are arguing is that any given source that has shown bias is automatically wrong on all counts. This is a logical fallacy.
The burden is on you to show the paper is bad, and claiming that because it is available on a biased website doesn’t make the paper itself biased. If you’d ever read it, you’d know that tdata contrary to the position of FRC is admitted and discussed as well as data from gay researchers who agree gays are not disadvantaged economically.
That’s nothing more than gobbledegook. For instance, the 9th amendment does not cite Lawrence. Please clarify. and how this relates to my disagreement with Bricker that gays aren’t necessarily a suspect class based on new studies as to gay immutability. You fail to show in what way Romer and Lawrence are relevant to the question, just your generalization what they might do.
they might go for rational basis on steroids, but they are coming nowhere near strict scrutiny, so I completely stand by my assertions that gay cannot be said to be immutable and distinguishing in anywhere near the same way we say race is.
Oh, you mean 9th and 1st circuit. my mistake. i’m not denying anything about some elvated scrutiny. I’m claiming gays are not under strict scrutiny or intermediate scrutiny as suspect or quasi-suspect cases.
Moving the goalposts yet again. I challenged Bricker’s claim on immutability and asked whether he meant this to the same degree of 100% certainty as we would with race.
Please quote the case at hand for where it says it is applying elevated scrutiny to gays as a suspect class, or quasi-suspect, or suspect if we beef up rational basis, whatever. They specifically said they had to leave such questions alone and decided on the principle of federalism.
it is most abundandtly clear that your understanding of constitutional law is woefully lacking.