No, I would not raise the slightes objection. I am perfectly fine with the disembowling of most politicos. :dubious: But really, the two concepts are nowhere near comparable.
Personally, I can’t condone the disembowlment of innocent family members of politicos. Going a bit far, in my estimation. YMMV.
Yeh, taking away their God-given right to tenpins is unforgivable, although one might make an exception for candlepins. 
No jury in the world would convict me.
If you had a legitimately-held belief in constitutional principle, you’d recognize that it was conscientiously applied in the MA ruling. But you persist in asserting lame, ad hoc arguments, not derived from anything other than protest, that it was somehow improperly made anyhow. Your assertion that such matters are properly left to legislatures ignores the history of the expansion of civil rights.
If you had an argument for treating gays as a different class that could withstand even the minimal scrutiny of a bunch of anonymous laymen on a message board, you’d surely have presented it by now. But instead you persist in offering the mere format that an opposing argument could take if it legitimately existed as an argument itself.
So yes, your motives are open to question, your protestations notwithstanding.
Bricker, now you’re arguing just for the fun of it. I do not plan to indulge your fantasy that you either have any substance remaining. I especially am not going to conform to your own contorted fantasies of what the opposing arguments actually are, even in your silly ad extremis strawmen about what equal rights really are. Here’s a hint: No fundamental right is absolute if it conflicts with another fundamental right, particularly if it’s someone else’s right. Ponder and discuss. And, if you *sincerely * wish to discuss the fairness of taxation, look up the flat-tax thread in GD - that topic too isn’t as simple as your cartoon fantasies would suggest.
John Mace, in the US married couples filing jointly do pay different taxes than if they file separately. That is a real issue for many married gays in MA, who have to figure their federal taxes both ways - first jointly, to set up the numbers for their MA returns, then singly to be legal with the feds. If a joint return would save them money with the IRS, then yes, they’re being discriminated against - and on no “rational basis”.
That would be true if the rates were not applied marginally, but they are. If you make $50k and I make $30k, you pay the exact same tax on your $30k that I pay on mine.
That’s a tough question. Which state legislators did you have in mind?
True, but on my 50K, I pay a different percentage than you pay on your 30K. How are we being treated EQUALLY in that case?
Had I made $20k more, I would have paid the same tax as you.
But I sense we are going to go around in circles on this one. Can’t you think of a better example of why Evlis’ interpretation is incorrect?
Sure. There are a zillion.
You and I are both in front of a judge for sentencing for a bar fight. This is my tenth felony conviction for assault; I’ve been beating people up and putting them in the hospital for years. This is your first contact with the law.
I assume you’ll agree that our sentences should be identical, because we should treated equally, inasmuch as we are both persons.
I also assume you’ll agree that I should be permitted to buy a firearm upon my release, since other people (non-felons) are permitted to buy a firearm, and I must be treated equally under the law.
I assume you’ll agree I should be permitted to vote from my prison cell, since the law permits others to vote, and I must be treated equally.
I also have a fifteen year old girlfriend, and she wants me to point ou that she’s sure you’ll agree that she’s a person, and entitled to equal protection. She points out there’s not one word about age restrictions in that guarantee, so she’s sure you won’t object to her being able to consent to sex, or to her fond desire to star in a porno film. She points out that other, older actresses are permitted to earn money that way, and she must be treated equally under the law.
Her 12 year old brother also wants to know if you have any objection to his getting a driver’s license.
I would hope you can acknowledge that there are competing rights of other people, and “rational bases” derived from them, for each of your alleged arguments. It’s already been pointed out to you, as if you didn’t know, that no right is absolute to the extent it conflicts with another right, especially another person’s right.
Now perhaps at some point you can tell us what the rational basis is, derived from the need to balance with other people’s rights, for denying gays the right to marriage (and let’s hope you could do better than Dewey’s contrived blather about procreation). Perhaps you can tell us how other people’s marriages (such as my own, if you like) are lessened or even altered by it, at all, much less to the extent that it would be a reason to deny it to others. Perhaps someday you could even see that the MA SJC faced the obvious and ruled accordingly and with proper restraint as well as a deep sense of responsibility.
OK - are we now stepping away from the position that “equal protection” means that every single person must be treated exactly equally?
Good.
Of course you’re right: “equal protection” means that we examine the classifications the law creates. And it means that we develop a list of “suspect” classifications, where the criteria used for creating the classification is highly dubious, and we strictly scrutinize the resulting law, because to survive it must be narrowly tailored to serve a compelling governmental interest. Other classifications, ones that are not based on a suspect criteria, merely have to be rationally related to a government goal.
THAT is the method for analzying law under the Equal Protection clause. We do not blindly assert that “equal protection” means that everyone must in all cases be treated equally. Instead, if we find a law that treats people unequally, we first determine if it impacts a suspect class, and if it does, we apply strict scrutiny; if it does not, we apply the rational basis test.
Your post above seems to indicate you agree with this.
Who has the burden of proof when we apply the rational basis test? Answer: the challenger. A reviewing court must start out by assuming a statute’s validity, and make all reasonable inferences in favor of validity. The legislature is not required to explicitly justify its classifications; there is no rule requiring that the legislature lay out its findings or assumptions. Agreed?
In fact, the Supreme Court has said challengers to the rational basis of a law "…will not prevail if the question is at least debatable in view of the evidence which may have been available to the legislature. "
I’m trying to get across it’s not a balance scale. It’s not a 50/50 proposition. This is why, earlier, I asked you for examples of laws which you disagree with, but which you concede have a rational basis. I think it’s telling that you dodged this question. If you cannot accept that any law you don’t agree with is nonetheless rationally-based, I’m never going to get anywhere arguing that THIS particular law has a rational basis.
I was thinking of the age situation was well. Even the felony issue can be justified in the sense that “it’s just part of the punishment”. But the clause or amendment in question says absolutely nothing about age. That must be inferred by the reader.
Bricker: One other question. According to this site, Rational Basis is the common approach for laws dealing with homosexuality (as you have been arguing) but Middle Tier Scrutiny is used for gender issues. Can the SSM issue be framed as a gender issue rather than a homosexual issue, thus justifying the need for a higher level of scrutiny?
What’s this “we” shit? I’ve never said that; you’ve imagined a strawman about what you’d have preferred me to say and have responded accordingly. That’s been pointed out several times before. Are you now stepping away from that nonsense? Good.
Now, instead of masturbating about the standards by which a reason for discrimination is judged as “rational”, how about first *providing * such a reason for denying gays the right to marriage? All this bloviation and you still can’t come up with one, especially not by looking at history or precedent. You can’t call a basis rational or not if you can’t even say what it is :rolleyes: . You’re still in the same bubble as Dewey, discussing format instead of content and telling yourself you’ve addressed the subject.
Well, the strict scrutiny and rational basis tests are themselves judicial creations, as is the more recent intermediate scrutiny (what your link calls “middle tier”). The courts have not applied it in a consistent fashion. For a while in the early 1990s, affirmative action programs were analyzed using intermediate scrutiny (Metro Broadcasting v. FCC). But then the Court overruled itself, a mere five years later, with Adarand Constructors v. Peña, holding that strict scrutiny was the correct standard. Other than gender classifications and birth legitimacy issues, there are no set standards for intermediate review.
So – in a sense – that’s good news for advocates of judicial approval of same-sex marriage. There’s no compelling reason that I can see that the Court could not come along and say, “Intermediate scrutiny is the correct standard to apply to sexual preference discrimination cases.” In my opinion, restrictions on same-sex marriage would not survive the intermediate review.
However, there is no clear constitutional basis for such a dictate. That didn’t stop the court from imposing one for gender, I admit, but I think that decision itself was flawed. One Justice wryly commented that the Court uses the intermediate scrutiny standard when they wish to load the dice (that is, ensure a particular result).
Announcing that same-sex marriage restrictions will be reviewed under intermediate scrutiny would - again in my view - be a much cleaner way of “loading the dice” then the announcement that they fail the rational basis test. They don’t, not by any honest implementation of it. But intermediate scrutiny would surely scuttle them, with the only question of legitimacy at those who question the entire classification system… which I do, but recognize that reasonable minds may differ on the point. I wouldn’t call it “activist” to reach a decision that way, in any event.
Give me a law you disagree with, but acknowledge is rational.
If you can’t do that, then I don’t believe you are open to any argument I might make about THIS law’s rationality. In other words, if, to you, “rational” means “I agree with it,” then we’re at hopeless odds with each other.
IOW, you ain’t got shit.
When you go to court, I do hope you first prepare a case.
Rather a premptive strike, isn’t it? If one accepts that a law has a rational basis, then how does one disagree? As well, why is he required to prove his bona fides to you before he can submit an argument? Doesn’t that offer you the opportunity to argue that his choice is flawed, and then claim he hasn’t met your standards? Not that you would, of course.
And to enter forthrightly into the semantic zone, might I suggest “reasonable” is more useful that “rational”. By this I mean to suggest that “reason” is rationality informed by the awareness that we are not, in fact, utterly rational beings (Praise Og!). My insistence on equality and justice, and Mr. Jefferson’s, has no “rational” basis, it is not proveable, it is a dogma and a fundamental premise that rests on nothing more than our assertion that it is, or should be, so.
The Objectivist philosophy, for example, is wholly rational (by its own lights). It is not reasonable. Forbidding gay people to marry because they are not likely to propagate has some rationality, it is not reasonable. Something becomes reasonable when it is centered around rationality, but recognizes the limitations of rationality and permits one to accept that unarguable premises exist.
That way, we can cut to the chase: all people have a right to pursue happiness within the bounds of reason and mutual respect. Some may believe that gay persons are excluded from this mutuality, I do not, and have nothing but contempt for that. But I will not pretend that I have a “rational” basis, I do not, it is a civic leap of faith. I am not embarassed to admit that. Nor am I embarassed to admit that no one does.
We Americans confess the faith that peope have rights. That those rights should be cherished and defended, and only abrogated for compelling reasons. Clearly, human beings have the right to marry, for whatever reasons move them to such a drastic course of action. Homosexuals even have the right to marry, they simply cannot marry a person of the same gender. Indeed, such marriages are not unheard of, wherein sexuality plays almost no role in the union. Such marriages also have little prospect of procreation, but nothing forbids them. Common law says that an unconsummated marriage can be annuled, but it is not “null” until such action is taken.
Since “pursuit of happiness” is a right, then flinging oneself into matrimony is a right as well. The gender of the participants should be of no consequence save to the involved parties, whom I am willing to trust know what they are doing, and why. That is reasonable, if not wholly rational.
So in your view, no law that you disagree with can possibly be found to have a rational basis.
This is the source of our disconnect here.
If you can’t conceive of ANY law that you personally disagree with being found to have a rational basis, no argument I can possibly muster will convince you of a rational basis in the case of same-sex marriage.
We’ll have to agree to disagree.