i apologize for triple posting, but I just wanted to comment on this:
I know you were being facetious, but this bring up an interesting issue. The fact is, the judiciary is the weakest branch of the government and its most powerful tool (judicial review) isn’t even addressed in the Constitution. Now, I’m completely behind judicial review. It makes structural sense. However, given its role as not being popularly elected and lifetime appointments, the judiciary is far more vulnerable to attack. The Supreme Court is the embodiment of that. I wonder, after a certain point, if the People will just get tired of the politicization and create an amendment to popularly elect Justices and create term limits. The 17th Amendment did the former to the Senate and the 22nd Amendment did the latter to the President. Such an amendment would have far-reaching applications thought that would require serious consideration.
It doesn’t. The Constitution guarantees that no citizen is denied the equal protection of the common law. The common law establishes marriage as the union of one man and one woman. No one was denied the protection of that law - anyone could enter into the union of one man and one woman.
No, I am talking about the common law. And yes, it changes, and that change is legitimate when it is changed by the states or the people.
Then you have no Equal Protection argument, since no one was being denied the equal protection of that law.
If the states or the people wanted to enact something other than marriage, they can certainly do that. But that is not up to the Supreme Court to do, because the Constitution does not say they can make new law. And for the federal government, whatever is not mandatory is forbidden. Hence the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
“The people”? Nope. Ted Cruz has called for judicial retention elections for the Supreme Court. That’s the same Cruz who claims to love the Constitution. And who clerked for Rehnquist. And who was on the legal team that convinced the Supremes to make Bush Jr president.
A couple of decision he disliked made him change his mind. What Supreme Court decisions have really angered a majority of the people?
Indeed. I wish we went that route more often. There are lots of things that could stand to be updated. I’m not in favor of that particular amendment, but I could definitely get behind one where we change the lifetime tenure of SCOTUS justices and ask them to step down at, say, age 75 or 80.
SCOTUS did not issue an opinion in Baker. The Minnesota Supreme Court did, but did not adopt a definition per se other than noting that whatever the definition was, it did not include two same-sex couples.
This sort of idiocy has debunked a million times here and elsewhere. Arguing that everyone has the same right to marry someone of the same sex makes no sense at all.
Unless you think that a law aimed at Catholics is perfectly valid because everyone has the same right to freely exercise Protestant beliefs.
And the written law (which, as you seem not to know, supersedes common law) denied equal protection of the laws to same-sex couples, for no rational basis.
Irrelevant, as stated above, even if factual, which it is not, and certainly missing the damn point of marriage. You never did answer, btw, the comment about no same-race couple being denied marriage before Loving. Can it be that you really do get the analogy?
How is it that SCOTUS got such basic concepts of the law so totally wrong, then? :rolleyes:
But they didn’t. They simply restricted its availability and benefits to certain types of couples that society approved of. Until that changed, mainly as a result of the lawsuits getting people to think about it. Yes, some people still don’t get the point.
That is exactly what they do, with every single decision. It’s their function, and it’s an inevitable consequence. The fact that you personally do not like a result they reach does not invalidate its authority to reach it.
Reread the unenumerated rights clause sometime while you’re at it.
You have already been corrected on this point several times. No one was being denied the right to enter into the union of one man and one woman, which is the definition of marriage.
No, exactly on point, and factually true. The damn point of marriage is to enter into the union of one man and one woman.
Because it has become politicized.
No, making new law does not happen with every decision, it is not their function to make new law, and it is not inevitable. Apart from that, I imagine one or two of the words of your post are true.
I have done so, many times. The Ninth Amendment is not a source of any substantive right, and unenumerated rights are not established by the Supreme Court (when they act legitimately). That power is reserved to the states or the people.
No one is arguing that. What makes no sense is to say that since everyone has the right to enter into one kind of union, people are being denied the right to enter into another kind of union which doesn’t exist under law.
You have made that assertion repeatedly, but that does not constitute correction. Your refusal to address any explanation of how you are wrong makes your assertions better suited to the Pit or IMHO than a debate.
Ibid.
Ibid.
It is a reminder that there *are *rights not addressed in the document itself, and by implication guarantees them as well, so you’re 180 degrees wrong.
Via their representatives and the court system they create. This really isn’t all that hard.
It has already been shown to you, multiple times, that marriage was never defined under the law to be opposite-sex only. Only custom and practice did that. Custom and practice were in violation of the Constitution, though, and had to give way. Yes, there is some reflexive opposition to it still, but you do need to recognize that you are not only in a minority but a shrinking one. Then you might come to realize why that is.
There’s always a balancing act, and he’s proposing a difference balance. But… it’s difficult to change the constitution without, well, changing the constitution. So any amendment moves things one way or another and doesn’t mean someone has a lack of love for the constitution. Ultimately, the constitution needs to reflect the desires of the people, so if that’s what the people want, then so be it.
He thinks it has already been destroyed, and is trying to put it back together again. The Courts are much less deferential to the legislature (that is, to the people’s representatives) than they used to be.
The legislature (the people’s representatives) have gotten crazier than they used to be, so more intervention has become necessary. The judicial branch’s role in the checks and balances system is *not *to be deferential, but to enforce the Constitution and its protections of rights.
I was thinking further back in time than that. When the constitution was still shiny and new.
And I’m not arguing for Cruz’s amendment. I already said I wouldn’t favor it. I’m only arguing that favoring doesn’t indicate a lack of love for the constitution-- a ludicrous assertion that could be applied to pretty much any attempt to change it.
No, that is absolutely not why we have a Constitution, or why it’s so hard to change. One of its functions is to define and codify the principles we know to be highest, and restrain us from acting on temporary passions. The framers knew how We The People think en masse, how easily they/we can be whipped into doing shortsighted and damaging things against what we would understand to be right if we used more thought and less emotion, and they put in place a system that helps enforce restraint of the people as a basic function.
Cruz is arguing for what amounts to mob rule instead, and so are you.