Actually, I have explained this to you several times.
Anyway, here is the text of the Tenth Amendment
So the Tenth Amendment states that if the Constitution does not explicitly assign a power to the federal government, or specifically forbid a state some power, then the power belongs to the states, or the people. So unless one can point to a clause in the Constitution that clearly states that the federal government can do this or that, then the federal government may not do this or that. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the Supreme Court may establish rights. Therefore, that power belongs to the states, or the people.
Article 3, Section 2 -
The Supreme Court deals with rights delegated “under this Constitution”, the laws of the United States, and treaties, etc. Same sex marriage is not delegated as a right under the Constitution, is not encoded into any federal law, and is not part of any treaty. Therefore, it does not come under judicial review.
Again, the Constitution does not say that the Supreme Court may establish new rights. Only enumerated rights, those rights arising “under this Constitution”, are subject to judicial review. Judicial review of enumerated rights does not include the right to establish unenumerated rights. The power to do that, therefore, belongs to the states, or the people.
Nothing, as long as one is clear that the California State Supreme Court has no right to establish SSM as a basic civil right any more than the US Supreme Court does.
He did, here. And admits that the harm is not concrete, nor material, nor is it identifiable. He cannot articulate it. He just fears that it will come to pass if gays are allowed to marry. And isn’t fear like that the quintessence of homophobia?
It is not that I don’t understand it, it is disagreement. You say that I shouldn’t oppose SSM becasue it does not do enough harm. “Enough harm” is your own standard, and even if it were universal the meaning of “Enough harm” tends to be difficult to assess the closer you get to the middle part of the kiss-your-baby-good-night/burn-your-kid-alive continuum.
I surely understand that John and Peter’s being married does me no direct evident harm (it may be difficult to observe if it does). I also understand understand that countries that have legalized SSM have not become post-apocalyptic wastelands; however is this because SSM is harmless? Is it because even if harmful there aren’t that many SSMs? Is it because the damage will be felt later? (SSM as a legal reality exists in the western world for less than 50 years).
If you don’t like smoking don’t go to places were well-informed adults smoke.
To disagree slightly with the wording you are responding to, I will say SSM does no harm. You (nor anyone else here) has demonstrated that it causes any harm. It has been demonstrated that it absolutely will cause some good.
The cites were no more informative than that and the writers of the articles didn’t seem to have real familiarity with those cultures either, they were reviewing other guys articles.
However, since the pattern in most of the cases is older-guy + young-kid = apprenticeship + buttfucking, I can deduce that the same pattern of “not being marriages” applies.
It’s not like you majored in African-cultures-SSM either.
This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. When you can actually demonstrate some kind of harm that same sex marriage HAS CAUSED (as it operates in several countries) to give your argument some kind of substance then I’ll downgrade you from “monkey mashing the keys of a computer” to simply “misguided”.
Do you mean same-sex marriage? They haven’t done that. Do you mean marriage as defined between one man and one woman? They didn’t declare it, they recognized that it was a right already.
If there were no laws establishing marriage as between one man and one woman going back to English common law, and in the common law of the US, and the Supreme Court made it up and sprang it on the country, then they would be illegitimate in doing so.
I don’t believe that completely jives with your prior statements regarding the constitution and don’t personally agree with your assessment, but I don’t disagree with your logic.
Please read the post I made replying to you in the other Prop 8 thread. If you’d like some more information on homoeroticism and homosociality in the ancient world, I’d be happy to help you learn about it.
I tried to extrapolate to the future of Canada and what negative impact we might possibly expect from legalizing same-sex marriage here. I came up with:
more divorce lawyers required.
The list of positive effects from same-sex marriage are numerous:
more economical stability, since a married couple is a very stable economical unit.
reduced prejudice against a group of people.
more stable couples to adopt unwanted children.
more business for marriage industry.
Sorry, positive benefits outweigh negative ones. You lose.
It has never been my argument (at least in this thread) that SSM harms, I was just reposnding to the post where “harming others” was the standard of acceptability.
My main argument is simply same-sex couples cannot get married because marriage is a man-woman thing. That’s it, and the last 1000 years of western civilisation agree with me. I oppose it in the same sense that I would oppose a law saying that heptagons can be 8-sided on the second thursday of an odd-numbered month in a prime-numbered year. The harm, if any, would be negligible and I would stillopoose it simply because heptagons can never be 8-sided.
So you basically have nothing except linguistics. Thank goodness no other word has ever expanded or changed in meaning during that last 1000 years of western civilization.
Just to clarify then, would you support an amendment to every state constitution in the US and the federal government agreeing that every right, benefit etc of marriage granted to opposite sex couples in the relationship known as marriage was to be extended to same sex couples and the legal term for that relationship will be civil unions. Essentially, is the word your one and only opposition? (I must admit I’ve lost track of names in this thread so I don’t know if you’ve directly answered this) If you have other oppositions, what are they?
Shouldn’t you be annoyed that the the years before 300 CE don’t agree with you? The nerve of those Late Antique people, changing the definition of marriage!
Aji, you might be interested in looking up The Persons Case in Canadian history. We had to re-define “person” so women would be included in the definition, too.
When the word is used to deifne a pre-existing thing it is more than linguistics. Words DO change meanings but the important aspect is the reality they explain.
(Remembering than I’m not a US citizen nor resident) If I could be convinced that the GLBT community would accept it and never again try to change it, yes. Civil union is like “marriagge light” and wouldn’t make me happy (not that you should care). I would prefer the ability to draw contracts giving same-sex couples many of the “administrative” privileges/rights of married couples.
I have avoided going into religion, but Jews and then Christians have had a stable meaning of marriage ofr much more than that.
I’m familiar with the case (IANAL, though). That proves my point that the reality of “person” exists even if the law says otherwise.
Ignorance fought on the quotes, nifty thing, thanks.
Can you clarify what you mean by this? Are you saying that the model of monogamous, one-man-one-woman Judeo-Christian marriage went back long before 300 CE?
And, since civil marriage have nothing to do with the gender (or race) of the parties, the right to a civil marriage is NOT defined as between a man and a woman or a black person and a white person. The right to a civil marriage is a right that extends to all citizens, regardless of the gender or race of their partner.
Of course there is blowback. Bigots, or more politely, those who would refuse to extend rights to others, do not go quietly into that good night. The end of slavery led to segregation. Should we not have ended slavery because of the blowback? Of course not.
It’s not an “item to address”, because it is a complete fallacy. It’s a made up bogeyman that the right has thrashed to death to scare people into voting for legal measures that restrict the right to marry.