One other thing…
If SCOTUS did establish SSM as a civil right, I do believe that an anti-SSM federal amendment would pass. Legislators on both sides of the aisle would be tripping over each other to vote for it. Yes, a few Democrats would fight it, but not enough to make a difference.
Yes we do. It’s called the Bill of Rights.
Sex between consenting adults? Yes. Cohabitation with consenting adults? Yes. Marriage? No.
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I think you’re misunderstanding the issue. I’m not arguing that marriage per se is a civil right. hat I’m arguing is that the 14th Amendment makes it unlawful to selectively grant people rights. If the state wants to offer marriage benefits, it has to offer them to everybody, not just those who adhere to a particular religious view of marriage.
Most legislators would have once agreed that black people shouldn’t have the right to vote. So what?
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you can’t honestly believe that a “SSM as civil right” amendment would. It would be crushed.[.quote]
There’s no need for one. We just need to enforce the 14th Amendment as its already written. We either need to have marriage for everybody or marriage for nobody. We can’t pick and choose.
Why do you expect a different result?
That your statement limited to only SCOTUS is factually wrong.
Og Almight, man, have you never read the Constitution?
If you haven’t read the first 10 amendments, certainly you haven’t read the 14th either.
Log off the SDMB and go do your fucking homework. You’re making an ass of yourself.
Well, the Bill of Rights allowed slavery, so where does that get us? Look, the BoR was determined by referundum. That’s exactly my point. It was NOT handed down from on high.
Nope. Never happen. If 15 women want to marry 25 guys, the 14th amendment simply doesn’t guarantee it. In our agreed upon form of government, the 14th amendment means what the SCOTUS says it means. Until and unless they say it means SSM, then it doesn’t mean that.
On this I think we’ll have to agree to disagree. We have a different definition of what a right is. I believe that righst are social constructs, not some abstract objectively determined concept. Rights are what we agree as a society they are. And we simply have not agreed that SSM is a right, yet. We probably will at some point, but not now.
I understand that you think there are these objectively determinable rights. I’m not saying that you’re wrong, only that I disagree with that definition.
No it’s not. Congress gets to determine rights when they ratify amendments. They havent done that wrt to SSM, excpet to vote against it.
But if, for the sake of argument we agree that you are correct, what does that tell us? Congress has voted against SSM. So, I repeat, what point are you trying to make? Explain how Congress having a say about SSM makes SSM a right.
***** Void where prohibited by law
Truer and sadder words were never spoken on this board, Zoe.
I humbly submit to folks like Bricker who have some allegiance to the present President and to the historical truths on which this country was founded, that what’s happening is that, in the nitpickery about the “unitary Executive” and the various arguments about who’s entitled to what guaranteed rights and under what circumstances, what is actually being done is that they’re eroding away all respect for the essential concept of rule by law.
The United States once had a previous George who was head of state and who felt that the rule of law did not apply to what he deemed essential for good governance. Georg von Hannover III is not remembered in a positive light.
You haven’t even read any posts directed to you, much less the Constitution itself, then.
To repeat, go do your fucking homework before you embarrass yourself any further.
Bottom line:
Rights exist. In some abstract, metaphysical sense, they are inalienable.
This country is founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and endowed with those inalienable rights.
Certain of those rights are guaranteed, in quite broad language, in the Constitution. Others are guaranteed in individual state constitutions and in statute law.
Congress has the power to guarantee additional rights, by statute, to propose amendments guaranteeing or eliminating specific rights, to define by law what specific guarantees may mean in actuality, etc.
In the absence of Congressional action, it falls to the courts geneerally, and to the Supreme Court, to decide what individual rights mean and what inferences can be drawn from them. For example, does freedom of speech include the freedom to be heard by a willing listener? By an unwilling, coopted listener? What if it’s in print? Or on an electronic medium? How about phone calls? How about annoying, nuisance phone calls? Automatically dialed recorded messages? What about junk faxes?
Likewise, does the right to be secure in person, residence, papers, etc., from unreasonable searches and seizures translate into a broad right to privacy? If not, is there such a right? What constitutes a “reasonable” search or seizure? Is a wiretap? Is the searching of an automobile? What if the cop thinks you’re a member of Al Qaeda? What if the cop thinks you’re a member of Al Qaeda because you happen to be of Arabic descent? What if you’re a liberal and therefore suspect in the minds of a paranoid ultraconservative accuser? Are there lines here? Where are they drawn?
What’s a “cruel and unusual punishment”? Who decides? On what grounds?
What are “the privileges and immunities” of citizens of the United States? Who decides? Why are those particular ones and not others guaranteed? How are they guaranteed? What if a state’s self-preservation requires regulation of them? Where’s the line between that being overly intrusive and necessary? Who decides?
Can a right fall into desuetude through not having been protected? Does it actually exist? Can it then be recognized? By whom? How? What if that offends someone else’s sensibilities?
What the heck does the Ninth Amendment mean? What did Madison and the First Congress and the ratifying states intend it to mean? Who has the right to make it mean something else? Why can they?
Not easy questions to answer. But ones whose answers are sometimes essential to living in a free society.
Since you seem stuck on this point, let me correct you. If you don’t admit you were wrong, this debate we’re having is over.
The “statement” you refered to is this (emphasis added):
To which you relpied:
Further clarifying:
Congress is a legislature, and so I did not limit things to SCOTUS. Now can we agree that this is a factual statment:
I can’t agree with that. It’s probably not fruitful to debate that subject here, but let me just ask you this:
Did these rights exist 5 million years ago (before Homo sapiens evolved)? If not, how did they come into being between then and now? The answer, to me, seems quite obvious: We created them. Or, if you like, we learned that we prefer living in a society that secures those rights because such a society fits our nature, as human beings.
Don’t you worry, John Mace aka “False Equivalence Guy” will defeat you! It is, apparently, all he does. Which is a shame, because he used to be a person whose views were worth reading.
Now they’re not.
-Joe
Proof that some Republicans get it.
Sen. Specter gets it. What we have here is a threat to the balance of power in this country.
What point, indeed? Bush has never vetoed a bill because he feels empowered to ignore any or all of any bill that comes by.
Amen, Senator.
What is a right? Is it something someone else will guarantee and protect? Or is it something that each individual can guarantee and protect?
I opt for the second choice. Rights existed for man even while man was just proto-human. The same basic rights are afforded by the raccoon and the pigeon – the right to be free in action and the right to be left unmolested in body.
This does not mean that no raccoon will be caged or killed. It means that to avoid being caged or hurt, the raccoon may – and should – fight with intent to kill.
Man is no different.
I have no idea what a “False Equivalency Guy” is.
But Zoe’s quote comes from the DoI, which has no status as a legal document. The constitution (which is a legal document) does not address the source of rights, other than to imply that the constitution itself, and the poeple are that source:
I tend to agree with that, Bob. But you know what? Congress created the powerful executive, and it’s going to be up to Congress to uncreate it. Frankly, I think they lack the will, but we’ll see.
How did Congress create the powerful executive?
The Authorization for use of Military Force. According to this administration, it allows the President to violate the law and wiretap US citizens, it allows the President to allow torture, it allows the President to arrest and detain US Citizens forever, even if captured on US soil, and it allows the President to detain any non-US citizens forever, without trial.
I thought it was common knowledge that the presidency has steadily gained more and more power since the days of Lincoln, and especially since the days of FDR by virtue of the institutions created by Congress that fall under the executive branch.
This PBS News Hour transcript should give you some background if you’re not already familiar with it. I didnt, btw, mean the current Congress when I said “Congress”. I meant Congress as an institution as it has acted over time. Not that the presidents, over time, have resisted, so I probably should have said that Congress allowed the presidency to become more powerful-- I didn’t mean that the Congress, by design, created the modern presidency. Rather, they allowed it to happen as a process of granting more and more power to the executive (largely at the request of that executive).
Thank you, John. I thought you meant this Congress specifically meant to empower this president to defy it. What you really meant makes a lot more sense.