erislover: It doesn’t counteract what you said except for your claim that the rights in question are “vague”. I don’t think so; they’re explicitly stated. I do agree that the court ruling was necessary to make it clear that these rights do apply to everyone - “the system” doesn’t get fixed by itself because people just wake up someday and decide it needs fixing, the mechanisms of the legislative branch and the courts, sometimes the executive have to do that, and that’s exactly what’s happening here.
David: You’ve lost me, too. The ruling is based on applying the constitutional principle of due process to the institution of marriage. There’s a concurring opinion agreeing with that but applying equal protection as well. Which of those concepts is vague or “ivory tower” to you? How do you find either of them irrelevant to the real world in which we need real principles to have a really-functioning society? This ruling is an example of how the law has very real, explicit effects on very real, identifiable people.
For you news junkies, all the latest stories have Romney and Finneran working on a civil unions bill that confirms the rights in question but avoids the use of the touchy M-word, perhaps with asking the SJC for an advisory opinion on its acceptability before the deadline. Give them credit for recognizing reality, which is not only the unappealable court ruling but the latest poll showing a plurality of Mass. citizens in favor of the ruling 50-38 despite a different poll opposing gay marriage 59-32 on a national level. Link. But then, this state has always been in the forefront on social issues - the rest of the country historically sees the light and comes along eventually after initial denunciations of them dam’ Boston lib’ruls, so why not save yourselves some time and come along now?
We seem to be talking about different things. My argument isn’t concerned with the Mass decision but with those posters who claim that we don’t have any rights that the government, via a Constitution, doesn’t specifically give us. And with those, you included, who call upon “constitutional principles” without ever saying what those principles are.
Dammit, how much clearer could a statement of rights be? You do know English, obviously. The Mass. Constitution, the basis for this ruling, has already been linked to in this thread. If you could point out what you think is vague about the definition of “due process” or “equal protection” in that document, then let’s have it, or else drop the inappropriate criticism of those of us who do think they really do mean something, and something pretty important. If you like, you can substitute the US Constitution, which the decision is also tailored to fit (just in case, ya know).
What the hell do you mean those of us who call upon “constitutional principles” haven’t said what they are? The full text of the decision, and all relevant filings, is also linked to already, and you’ve had ample time to read those specific legal documents as well. But to continue insisting that you haven’t been told these things yet is simple obstinacy.
If, as you claim, you’re not talking about the OP subject but about some other Cloud Cuckoo Land topic, then shit, man, all the other principles of the state and US Constitution that might apply are explicitly stated therein, too. But, again, I suspect your argument is with the cognitively-dissonant Bricker and TVAA and their own attempts to argue away what’s been rubbed in their faces with this case.
You’re kidding, right? Surely you’re not seriously arguing that “due process” and “equal protection” are phrases loaded with clarity, right?
Incidentally, here is the relevant text from the Massachusetts constitution –
Massachusetts equal protection:
Massachusetts due process:
There’s more there than in the shorter phrases of the federal constitution, but it isn’t terribly more illuminating.
We can argue about whether the court correctly interpreted the state constitution or not, but I don’t think you can say with a straight face that the result is plainly and without question dictated by the phrases in question.
Look, the fact of the matter is that in Massachusetts, at the present time, the constitution requires that the state offer the benefits of marriage to same-sex partners.
Other state constitutions have also been found to contain such a requirement; in both of those cases, the residents and legislatures of those states acted quickly to pass constitutional amendments to remove that interpretation of their constitutions.
As things now stand, the federal constitution does not impose on the states a Due Process requirement to permit same-sex marriages.
The people of Massachusetts have every right to act as their counterparts in Alaska and Hawaii did. They also have every right to fail to act.
Not much. But then, here’s an interesting new digression: apparently, a majority of people in Mass support gay marriage. And even larger majority support giving gay couples all the benefits of marriage, but without the official title.
The question, then, is how come they didn’t just pass a law creating gay marriage? Seems a simple enough thing if a majority support it…
Yeah, JRD, it has nothing to do with having to decide literally dozens of issues in a single vote, only to have the politician do what he wants for the next x years of his term.
A vote would have made it happen. If only those lazy bums got up and voted! They all had the chance to vote on gay marriage already!
You must know better than that, so I have to wonder about your good will in so misrepresenting what I’ve said. I was refuting David’s suggestion that they’re hopelessly vague and ethereal feelgoodism that lacks all definition. OF COURSE they’re inevitably subject to some interpretation. But some interpretations are so much more obvious than others that you do have to accept them.
I had previously asked for a sound constitutionally-derived argument against gay marriage rights, and so far not one of you has come up with one. Even the dissenters on the Mass. SJC avoided that and simply claimed that the Legislature should handle it. Can’t that be taken as an example of how some arguments have to be accepted even if you feel vaguely yucky about it? Get over it, then.
JRD, it’s worse than that. The Legislature is run autocratically here, and it can overrule referenda too (look up the Clean Elections Law sometime - RIP). The laws are whatever Finneran wants them to be, in effect. And, come voting time, there aren’t really any alternatives - the Democratic nominees are uncontested and the Republicans don’t even have one, as often as not.
Bricker, you’re going to keep the earlier-requested explanations of your positions a mystery, eh? Your right.
I don’t read David’s argument as saying that. I read it as saying that you rely on “constitutional principles” unconnected to a straightforward reading of the text itself, yet you never state what those principles are.
In short: someone not steeped in constitutional jurisprudence would never, upon reading the constitutional text for the first time, conclude that “due process” means anything more than ordinary procedural safeguards.
Unfamiliar as I am with the history of the Massachusetts constitution, I make no argument one way or the other as to the correctness or incorrectness of the Massachusetts court’s decision.
However, if we sub in the federal constitution (as you said we could), then the constitutionally-derived argument is simply this: the constitution is silent on the issue of gay marriage. None of the terms in the federal constitution apply to that issue. It is thus wholly a matter for the legislature (indeed, as per the tenth amendment, wholly a matter for state legislatures).
Sometimes what the constitution doesn’t say is just as important as what it says. Here, the constitution does not say there is any kind of proscription on the state’s ability to offer marital benefits exclusively to heterosexuals. Ergo, the state is free to do so.
The Massachusetts dissenters were making a constitutionally-derived argument. You just didn’t understand it.
Dewey, how does that argument apply to Loving v. Virginia, or does it? Where did the Supremes find a prohibition on state legislatures making mixed-race marriages illegal that can’t be applied to same-sex marriages?
I don’t think you quite understand the position I’ve taken in this thread, or what side of the debate I support.
I strongly disagree with the idea that since the courts are required to interpret the law, they have the right to reinterpret it as they please. The basic values and rights enshrined in law should be sufficiently well-described that there is no uncertaintly about what rights people actually have, and the reasoning by which the courts have interpreted the law should be sufficiently clear that the solutions to most legal conflicts are obvious.
In the absence of a coherent and logical demonstration that something is harmful, it shouldn’t be made illegal or prevented. No such demonstration has been made in the case of same-sex marriages; ergo, there is no reason it shouldn’t be acknowledged.
Dewey: "Here, the constitution does not say there is any kind of proscription on the state’s ability to offer marital benefits exclusively to heterosexuals. " Etc.
Bull. There are many things the constitution does not explicitly say but that follow essentially inexorably from what it does say. The due process clause and the equal-protection clause create the proscription you demand.
Indeed. The whole argument against the Bill of Rights (as has been brought up before in this thread) was that weak-minded and cowardly people could claim that something that wasn’t explicitly protected in the Constitution wasn’t a right.
If the Constitution doesn’t say the states do not have the right to deny the benefit of a legal contract arbitrarily, it doesn’t follow that they have that right. The Constituion does not need to state that the people have a right in order for them to exercise it.