CBS News/NY Times did a poll in December that found 41% of people thought that “homosexual relations between consenting adults” should be illegal.
When you’re in a climate like that, I’m actually surprised at how well gay marriage polls.
When Newsome disregards a state or Federal court order to discontinue the issuing of licenses, I will condemn him. Until such a court rules, however, whether Newsome’s actions are a crime or a successful challenges to an unconstitutional law remains to be seen.
Did you know that Superior Court Judge Warren did, in fact, order the city to stop issuing licenses or appear at a show cause hearing?
Yes majority rules but minority rights.
The majority can not be allowed to interfer with the rights of a minority.
Is marriage a right?
What I’m wondering is if a religion will do gay marriages won’t this be religous descrimination?
‘by the powers invested in me by the holy church and by the state of such and such, I declare you husband and wife’.
So, the state will give say Baptist ministers the authority to marry but not say Lutheran ministers (if that church decided that gay marriage was OK) would not be granted that authority?
I do think we need one standard for the entire nation. I disagree with the ‘let the states decide’. That plan didn’t work out well when we let the states decide if they would be free or slave states and it won’t work now.
Then Newsome should stop issuing licenses. And if the state SC strikes them down as unconstitutional, thus upholding California’s We Hate Gays Law, Newsome should be removed from office.
I’m changing my mind and saying now it is dead. Look at this news item:
After Bush’s announcement Tuesday, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (search), R-Texas, said it would take time to gauge the level of support in Congress for a constitutional amendment. He suggested the difficulty of passing one may cause lawmakers to take a different approach to preserving marriage as a solely man-woman union.
“We don’t want to do this in haste,” DeLay said.
If DeLay isn’t out there trumpeting this as keeping the barbarians from the gates, he knows it has trouble (or he’s deliberately trying to backstab Bush). Either way, it’s going nowhere.
And Bush is going to have to do some explaining why he threw this out there with no Congressional support for it. He’s beginning to more and more resemble his daddy.
“Did you know that Superior Court Judge Warren did, in fact, order the city to stop issuing licenses or appear at a show cause hearing?”
Both sides are putting significant spin on the ruling:
"In the other case, Superior Court Judge James L. Warren refused to grant a different group’s petition for a stay that would have abruptly halted the weddings. He said the plaintiffs had not met the legal burden required for such an emergency order.
Warren did, however, agree to order the city to either ``cease and desist’’ issuing the disputed licenses or to come back to court on March 29 and explain why they haven’t, a ruling that attorneys for both sides claimed as a victory.
``The judge would not issue a cease and desist order unless the judge made a determination that the mayor is in violation’’ of the law, said Robert Tyler, a lawyer for the Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund, an anti-gay marriage group that takes its name from an approved ballot measure limiting legal marriage to heterosexual couples.
But City Attorney Dennis Herrera insisted the judge had made no such determination and that the city had scored a major triumph by getting six more weeks to issue marriage licenses to gay couples and the chance to argue its case ``on the merits.’’
``We believe we have very strong arguments,’’ Herrera said. :
From this site: http://www.nylawyer.com/news/04/02/021804j.html
Emphasis mine.
Roy “Theocratic Asshole” Moore, was and is an advocate for state imposition of religion, specifically Christianity, on the general public. This is a Bad Thing, as ably described by James Madison (one of the Constitution’s authors y’know) in his essay “Memorial and Remonstrance.”
Mayor Newsome, although he is most likely trashing his career, is doing something noble: civil disobedience for humane reasons. You know, the stuff done by the likes of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.?
Still think there’s an idealogical double standard? I don’t. I think there’s a difference between cruelty and human dignity, and Judge Moore is a cruel bastard, while Mayor Newsome is a humane man.
Once again, in your opinion. Too bad a near-supermajority of voters believe that your opinion is wrong.
And speaking of “reaping the whirlwind” . . . don’t you think a direct appeal to amending the Constitution has something to do with liberals’ preferred tactic of trumping democratically elected legislatures by judicial fiat?
In addition, Mayor Newsom says that he is obeying the State Constitution (and there have been no legal decisions as to whether he is or isn’t, wait for March 29th at the soonest), while Judge Moore was in knowing violation of the US Constitution and explicit legal decisions regarding his actions.
But that’s a whole 'nother can of worms.
Plnnr & Otto, thanks for cites, I was just about to type similar responses.
If you’re familiar with the “Roe effect”, another instance of reaping the whirlwind of irony.
Well, Doghouse, a supermajority of Americans think McDonald’s is good. That does nothing whatsoever to refute my opinion that their food is vile.
That said, I suggest you do a little learning about what civil liberties have meant and continue evolving to be in our U.S. I suspect you won’t like what you find, but, really, it is a threat to nobody but those who want to impose their specious world views on others.
As to the “judicial fiat” remark: Well, when it gets to the courts, judges are obliged to interpret the law according to the Constitution, not according to the pet peeves of any particular group, majority or minority. Take some time and try to understand this. They interpret the law for the good of the nation, not for Christians, atheists, gays, blacks, Asians, Latinos, and any other particular group you can mention. Accusing those judges who fulfill this duty as “activists” or other assorted epithets is pretty sad. By and large, they do a pretty good job, in my opinion, for the nation as a whole, whether the plaintiffs they hear are howling loonies or the most rational beings in the universe. Tough shit for control freaks, I know, but we don’t live in a small tribe, this is a huge nation with countless ethnicities and outlooks. “Liberty and Justice for All,” y’know?
So I guess I should take your views on homosexual marriage as seriously as I take your views on McDonalds. Gotcha. Thanks for the analogy!
Ah. So you’re a “strict constructionist”, I take it–no “emanations” and “penumbras” for you? Between this and liberals’ sudden rediscovery of states’ rights (to recognize gay marriage), I’m amused to no end.
Exactly. Newsom may be in violation of some laws, but he has other laws on his side anti-discrimination). So, as I like to put it, it’s only kinda illegal. I do not believe Moore had any such law in his corner. Though if I’m wrong, I welcome correction.
Might I add that I support my mayor 100% in this battle, and I do not believe he his guilty of wrongdoing, morally or legally.
Doghouse, :rolleyes:
The McDonald’s reference was for hyperbole and humor. Too bad it whooshed you.
I’ve seen the term “strict constructionist” used to define many things. Which one do you think I am guilty of?
And be amused all you want, jackasses like you need to find happiness somehow.
Um, no, probably not, but you should consider that just because a bunch of people are in favor of something that doesn’t automatically make it right, or good or necessitate making it the only option for everyone else.
I’m certainly amused at the President forgetting his Republican roots and coming out (no pun intended) staunchly against states’ rights and that part of the Constitution that says all the states have to recognize and treat as valid the acts of the other states. It’s also pretty amusing to hear him want to smack down a few million US citizens and then in the same breath say that it should be done with “…kindness and goodness and decency…” Is it too late for me to add “scurrilous hypocrite” to my original pitting of the man?
There are several other things about him to amuse us all but those belong in other debates and/or rants.
BTW, Doghouse, I am fully in aggreement with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals blowing off of the “under God” bit from the Pledge of Allegience on First Amendment grounds.
Do you feel the same way about blowing off of “Liberty and Justice for All” under some ill-defined, unConstitutional, and unAmerican grounds? Keep in mind that James Madison, author of “Memorial and Remonstrance” is also widely known as the “Father of the Constitution.” Have you troubled to read that essay yet? Or do you plug your ears and sing, “La, la, la,” when anything challenges you? Like it or not, the “All” referred to in the Pledge (and I leave it to you, with little hope you’ll bother to find out about it besides reading your own little idealogical ilk’s screeds) is Constitutional, unless you think it’s a static document. Sorry there, I’m not a “strict constructionist.” I think the Constitution is a very well crafted document that outlines the growth and maintenance of U.S. freedom. It is a guide for an evolving nation that has withstood the test of time.
Ho hum. Nonsequiters, nonsequiters. I’m suprised you didn’t cite John Lennon and “Give Peace a Chance”.
I find amusing your belief that “States’ Rights” is a historically Republican position.
Come on Doghouse, over the last few decades anytime you heard a politician making a fuss about states’ rights and getting Big Government off our backs it has been the Republicans, not the Democrats. By and large this has involved a lot of hypocrisy (and no I don’t mean that Republicans are alone in this) since those same people seem quite content to have the Guvmint jumping up and down all over states’ (and individuals’) rights when it’s something that meets their narrow moral outlook of the world.