Yeah, you knuckle-dragging shit-for-brains. A few people wrote a big paper about this idea a few hundred years ago. It’s called the Constitution of the United States. Don’t people have to fucking read this thing before they get elected to public office? Even in Indiana?
This twat isn’t even just being a sleazy election-year politician trying to win votes by making himself out to be a Champion Against the Gay Agenda. He’s actually trying to subvert the entire system of checks and balances.
I’m so pissed off right now, I’m liking the sound of an “al Gayda” terrorist group idea more and more.
So what?
When it comes to civil rights, it should not be about what the majority wants-but what is right. The majority of people in the South didn’t want segregation to end. Too bad for them.
By that reasoning, would it not be the same for one state to simply not recognize the marriages performed in other states? Or for one state to do away with marriage altogether (which wouldn’t be a bad idea) and go strictly with civil unions?
I mean, if a state can decide the merits of a same-sex marriage on it’s own, can’t it do the same for opposite sex marriage?
This is exactly what I have called for many times before on these very boards: doing away with government recognitoin of “marriage,” which is at its core a religious concept, and replacing it with recognition of civil unions for any two adults.
This way, the churches cannot reasonably claim offense at the “dilution” of marriage, since they remain free to define it and administer it however they wish, albeit to no secular legal effect.
I don’t thin anyone would disagree with the general statement that our government should seek to do what is right.
The problem arises when different people begin to disagree on “what is right.”
You seem to be in favor of a court-imposed solution in this case – presumably because you think you will agree that the court would impose a “right” solution.
I am objecting to your METHOD of resolving the problem, because I’m not as sanguine as you that the court will always do what is “right.”
If Mr. Bush wins re-election, and Justices Breyer and Stevens retire, and Justice O’Connor suffers a fatal heart attack, Mr. Bush may well appoint three members of the Court. Unlikely but not impossible. The Court may then find that unborn children are entitled to the full civil rights of born children, and that, as a matter of Constitutional law, abortion is impermissible.
I assume you won’t be in favor of that outcome.
But on what basis will you complain? You have already endorsed the METHOD of letting the courts determine what is right. If you come back under those circumstances and complain, your argument has essentially become, “Do what I say is right.”
In other words, we must agree on a system to make laws in a country where we will not always agree on what is right. You seem ready to place “the consent of the governed” in the hands of appointed federal judges with lifetime tenure.
I believe we are better served, as a METHOD, by having laws made by elected officials that may be readily replaced if we don’t like what they’re doing. It’s true that under this system, social progress may be slower that rule-by-judicial-fiat. But if we are truly a self-governing nation, we can’t have it any other way.
But there is a lot of social and psycological meaning in the word ‘marriage’. If my partner (male) and I live in this hypothetical ‘civil union not marriage’ state, and get civil-unionized, would we be able to tell people we were married or would we tell folks we had a civil union ceremony and have folks not know what that meant? I’m pretty sure everyone knows what ‘married’ means, but it would be like having to explain to non-Pagans what a Handfasting was all the time. Marriage means definately, for sure, off the market, joined, supposedly life time commitment to each other. Civil union seems to mean… “Well, we decided to combine households and incomes and file jointly on our income tax forms, but it’s a contract that we can break with ease whenever we want.” I don’t know, maybe I’m a little too old-fashioned for a liberal Pagan woman, but for some reason it just doesn’t seem as serious as saying we are married. Is that just a perception on my part?
And, why exactly do the Christians seem to think they have ownership of the word ‘marriage’? That is a question I have never gotten a good answer to.
Bloody hell. Not surprisingly, my congressman voted for it. Not that it matters; for all the outrage I could pour in a letter, he (or, rather, one of his aides) would send me a form letter understanding my views on the exact opposite viewpoint. Such is the problem with living in a Republican state.
Here’s something that bothers me, though: A number of prominent Democrats voted in ways that scare me. John Edwards, Stephanie Herseth (a supposedly progressive Democrat from SD), and Rick Boucher (D-VA, progressive on tech issues) all voted yes. Kucinich didn’t vote at all.
What the hell is going on in the Democratic Party?
Not to say that you shouldn’t still be bothered, but John Edwards isn’t in the HoR, he’s in the Senate. Chet Edwards (D, 11th Congressional District of Texas) is the Edwards who voted yes.
I would’ve had an aneurism already had John Edwards voted yes…
The courts do not decide on what is “right”. They decide on what the law is, and what is constitutional.
I believe you are correct in saying that the DOMA makes this moot. And forget about gay marriage for a second - if this thing went through, it would set a precedent stating that congress could pass a clearl unconstitutional law, and then pass another law forbidding judicial review. Is that what you want?
I’m not worried about this one. The Supreme Court would squash this so quickly your head would spin. (Look what they did in the detention case, which was less blatant.) My only question would be how Clarence Thomas would vote.
The Constitution is only so much toilet paper to these people.
Well, the opposite-sex partners will have the same problem under my proposal. They’ll be able to say they’re ‘married’ only to describe a church ceremony for whatever flavor of religion they happen to follow. Same thing for same-sex marriages. It will be a word that has no legal meaning at all, for ANY union. Unions between man and woman will legally be “civil unions” just as unions between man and man or woman and woman.
And when those decisions are based on the plain meaning of the words of the law, or of the Constitution, no one questions the judicial role.
When rights are found in the “penumbra” of the Constitution, or through “substantive due process,” it begins to get a bit hairier.
The problem is that the sword can be wielded by either side: only law students today remember Lochner v. New York, an early 1900s case decided by the Supreme Court. The state of New York had passed a law making it illegal for bakery owners to force their employees to work more than 60 hours in a week. That was a good law, doing “right”, yes?
A bakery owner was fined for ignoring the law, and appealed his case to the Supreme Court. Despite the fact that the federal constitution was silent on the issue, the Supremes found in favor of the bakery! Yes, they said:
It didn’t start there. The famous “Dred Scott” decision, which was good law until squashed by the Thirteenth Amendment, was a judicial finding of the Constitutional right to own slaves, essentially using “substantive due process” of the Fifth Amendment rather than the Fourteenth.
I would rather live by laws enacted by legislatures than by unelected judges, because I can’t always depend on the unelected judges to do what is right. I can’t depend on the politicians either, I grant, but I can always work to unseat the politicians and replace them with someone more to my liking. The federal judges sit for life.
You know, Bricker, it really is rather annoyingly arrogant to see this repeated claim that marriage is a religious institution first and foremost. Check the history of marriage, why don’t you, and get back to us on whether its roots are as a civil institution or a religious one. Why the fuck should anyone have to be religious to get married? Because some closed-minded religious people think they own the word? And for the nth time, civil marriage and religious marriage are already completely seperate, except for the fact that they’re frequently enacted simultaneously. Your system is already in place, aside from the fact that some asshat legislators continue to resist allowing consenting adults to engage in civil marriages if they’re of the “wrong” gender.
Ah, yes. The only problem is “some asshat legislators”.
That would be the asshat legislators of all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and the Congress of the United States. Thus far, the only body authoritatively voting in favor of same-sex marriage is a judicial one: the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. That’s seven (7) men and women.
I think the problem goes a bit beyond “some asshat legislators” and extends to “the majority of voters.”
Contrawise, while support for civil unions is not overwhelming, it is at least much greater than for same-sex marriage.
My proposal uses that weakness as a strength: rather than settling for a second-class “union” that would be at law less than a full marriage, it puts every union on the same playing field.
What are YOU proposing, and what is the likely public acceptance of it?
What I propose is fullfledged gay civil marriages, and the public acceptance of that is such that a bill instituting precisely that is likely to pass Parliament by a margin of approximately 208-100 sometime in late fall.
Bob Barr, who is a conservative former congressman (IIRC, he authored the DOMA), spoke publicly AGAINST the Marriage Protection Act, pointing out to conservatives that the sword can cut both ways - while the conservatives may be able to pass such legislation regarding gay marriage today, the “loyal opposition” may be just as able to pass similar legislation regarding abortion or gun control should the tables turn in the Congress.
