I’d also like to say that gobear’s post was beautiful. It’s people like him on this board who helped change my mind about a lot of these issues.
It has always been my position that illiciting feelings of repulsion in your enemy is conterproductive when your enemy has the potential power to hurt you.
Sure, you can feel anger and disgust towards the enemies of gay rights; I’m of the oppinion they deserve it. Sure, it’s less hypocritical to express your real feelings. I sometimes think, however, that keeping ones honor in the face of a dishonorable foe shouldn’t be such a concern. It’s not like you’re stooping to their level if you outwit them with subterfuge. It is possible to subvert a political movement to attain a desired goal, and that’s sometimes the most expedient method. Histrionics makes for poor stealth.
We have hashed over this ground before.
As I understand it, the current text of the proposed amendment is in line with something I suggested a while back as the “Bricker Amendment.” It does not forbid state legislatures from enacting same-sex marriage, but it forbids the state and federal constitutions from being interpreted by the courts as REQUIRING same-sex marriage.
IF my understanding above is correct, then I support this amendment, not because it limits the possibilites of same-sex marriage, but because it is consistent with the general notion of self-governance – that is, laws to be made by legislatures, not courts.
If my understanding is incorrect, and the amendment seeks to forbid state legislatures from enacting same-sex marriage, then I utterly oppose it.
- Rick
The Hate Amendment would specifically bar any legislature from enacting same-sex marriage. The closest any legislature could come are second-class, not-truly-equal, non-portable “civil unions.”
It would also strip gay citizens of protection against legislated inequality by preventing the courts from enforcing a gay citizen’s right to equal protection and access to society’s rights and benefits under the law. Homosexuals who are denied access to ANY governmental union institution would have no recourse to the courts to address this grievous violation of equal protection. You may think that’s okay. I think that’s pretty much second-class citizenship – “you will be unequal and you will like it… and if you don’t like it, well, don’t try to sue about it, because you fucking CAN’T! Everyone else can, but not you fucking worthless faggots!”
Here’s the text:
“SECTION 1. Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State,** nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.** (bolding mine)” This amendment in fact deprives the states from passing their own laws on gay marriage and is exactly the sort of intolerable federal encroachment on states rights that the conservatives claim to abhor.
Actually, Brivker said he would oppose it. Would you PLEASE dial down the hysteria? You can make the case for civil equality for gay people without the excessive drama. All you’re succeeding in doing is alienating potential allies, which only hurts, not helps, our cause.
Thanks for finding the text.
I absolutely oppose this amendment.
I would favor it only if the words “or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law,” were stricken from it. At first I thought I was OK with the inclusion of “or the constitution of any State,” until I realized that not only did such wording forbid the finding of such a right out of generic equal protection language, which process I disfavor, but actually forbids a state from enshrining same-sex marriage explicitly in its constitution if it wishes.
So it’s back to support the Bricker amendment, which, apparently, exists only inside my head.
- Rick
Actually, gobear, the Republicans edited the amendment after everyone saw right through their evil scheme to upend all civil unions as well. Now it’s more subtle:
“Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.”
So state law can give people civil unions, but not marriages, never marriages. And it basically eliminates the right to homosexuals for equal protection under the law with respect to this issue by abjuring the ability of gays to seek redress for institutional discrimination regarding access to a marital-like institution through the courts.
So, even though my best friend has access to a marital institution and I do not, and that is a clear violation of my equal protection rights, I could not bring the state before a court to answer for this inequity.
The amendment will fail. It already has, really. Only bigotted filth support it, either in the Senate or in the vast populace. It’s a shit amendment supported by shit people, and it won’t even get past cloture.
gobear, before you jump all over me, please re-read this from Bricker: he doesn’t even want us to be able to use the courts to seek redress for violations against our right to equality and equal protection. The same methods used by blacks to fight educational discrmination he wishes to bar us from using to fight marital discrimination. That’s bigotry.
To Bricker, your civil rights and mine are not inherent, not inalienable, and cannot be defended by a court. To Bricker, we have no right to marry, no right to unions; we can only have that privilige if our straight masters choose to legislatively grant it.
I think you misunderstand Bricker. He doesn’t oppose gay rughts, but he (mistakenly, IMO) believes that laws may be reviewed or amended solely through legislative means.
Where did Bricker say that? Cite? This is what I’m talking about–you constantly attribute people’s motives as being malicious when they plainly aren’t. And your repetive use of crude vulgarity (“shit people”?) makes you sound childish and mentally unbalanced.
The cite is his post where he says that we shouldn’t be able to seek redress of against bigotted laws through judicial means! By denying us that, he’s denying that we have an inalienable right to equal status because such judicial actions are the very means by which an oppressed citizen recieves equal rights in the face of a legislature that is too bigotted to grant them.
By Bricker’s standards, none of those people in Vermont have a right to a civil union, because they had to go to Court to force the legislature to stop acting illegally. Same goes for the married couples in Massachusetts.
If a legislture can trample over a right, and a person has no recourse to the courts to overrule the legislature, as Bricker says we do not, then the “right” in question is not an inalienable right at all.
Bricker may support treating gays equally, but he doesn’t believe we have a right to that treatment, because he would deny us recourse to the governmental body whose job it is to protect the rights of citizens against legislative action. To Bricker, you and I only deserve those privileges that the straights deign to give us, and if we want true equality, that’s too bad because we shouldn’t be allowed to sue for it.
That is the plain meaning of what he has said repeatedly about gays fighting for equality through the courts.
Actually, I don’t like the “or state constitution” part for another reason. It’s not so much a feeling that legislatures alone should make the law (although I do think this is the preferred method) but a strong feeling that marriage is not a federal issue, period. Our system of dual sovereigns should reserve to the states all issues not explictly federal, and marriage is certainly one such issue. While I’m not wild about how same-sex marriage came to Massachusetts, for example, ultimately I believe it’s for the people of Massachusetts to decide how they will be governed. And since the people of Massachusetts approved their method of selecting Supreme Court judges as well as their methof of amending their constitution, it’s to them to change or accept what those structures have wrought.
So contrary to spectrum’s hysteria, I absolutely believe in his right to seek judicial redress at the state leevl, it being a state issue.
The effort to override state constitutions is wrong, and is a fatal flaw in this version of the amendment.
- Rick
So I may have a right to equal protection at a state level, but I have no right to equal protection from the Federal government? That’s absurd.
“Equal protection” at the federal level does not mean the right to same-sex marriage.
“Equal protection” in your state may or may not mean the right to same-sex marriage. That’s for your state to decide.
It may seem absurd to you, but in fact may states offer differing levels of protection in differing areas. Many states offer more protection through their state constitutions than the equivalent protections from the federal constitutions, even if the words are substantially similar. The federal constitution may permit a search that offends the state constitution, even though both constitutions talk about forbidding “unreasonable” search and seizure – because what’s reasonable in Montana may not be reasonable in Rhode Island.
That is the way our system works.
If your view is to be believed, what’s the point of having state laws anyway? Shouldn’t we just move to a single sovereign, national system of laws?
- Rick
Sure it does. There is a federal component to marriage, and I have a right to access to it. Also, the states are required to respect all the rights in teh Federal Constitution, so they would therefore be required to provide me with an institutional means to receive those Federal benefits.
Or doesn’t work, if you’re a minority being crushed by the bigotry that many of you seems to have no problem allowing to run rampant.
There are many minor issues that the states can administer better or more efficiently. But when it comes to central questions of fundamental equality and equal access and protection under the law, there should be one standard, applied nationwide. If Federalism supports and protects discrimination, then federalism should go.
I see another problem with the amendment, in that, when it says, “Marriage in the United States shall consist only of a man and a woman”, the amendment is saying that not only is there no constitutional right to same sex marriage (which is debatable), but that same sex marriage is forbidden by the Constitution. If Congress were later to pass a law allowing federal recognition of same sex marriage, that law would be unconstitutional.
While this doesn’t raise problems of federalism or anything like that, it’s still troubling to me.
Just posting to register my unequivocal support for the OP. This issue is the most clear in differentiating what separates Kerry from Bush. All the rest is just political posturing to me. How someone can claim to be a leader for a pluralistic society and attempt to block the legitimate and harmless aspirations of a segment of a population using a mechanism normally associated with protection from undue government meddling is beyond the pale. Bigotry pure and simple.
Appologies from a foreigner for attempting to influence an American election.
I’m not sure I agree with your interpretation, but I agree that forbidding federal recognition of legal same-sex marriages solemnized by a state is not the right thing to do, so I’d have no problem removing or changing that wording to make it clear that this is not a goal of the amendment.
Except that it IS a goal of the amendment.
Right. So, as I have clearly stated, I do not favor the amendment in its current form.