And the Forces of Good have even forced Romney to abandon his plan to insist of proof of Mass. residency for gay couples. (I say ‘for gay couples,’ because even though the law existed, it had been completely ignored for decades. This is because only het couples were applying, course. Once that looked to change, all of a sudden protecting the ‘rights’ of other people’s states suddenly mattered. Uh huh.)
As for why in the Pit, it’s my observation that posts about gay marriage seem to end up here eventually, so why put a mod to the hassle of moving it later.
Maybe tonight I should open a bottle of really really gay champagne.
Wanna know something strange? I have a friend who is a devout Catholic, a true believer in the Pope and the true message of the Lord. She is dead set against gay marriage, and homosexuality in general. While an extreme liberal, she supported Romney through this whole ordeal. This will be bad news for her. I’m betting that tonight she will seek solace in the loving arms of her life partner Ellen.
(Really, she’s not gay. She’s just never had sex with a man. And sex with Ellen, well, that’s just like a hobby.)
It’s a done deal, unless the proposed amendment to the Massachusetts Constitution banning gay marriage gets enacted, but that would require two yes votes in successive legislative sessions, plus ratification by popular vote, all of which would take at least two and a half years. I’m betting it never gets as far as the second legislative session.
Best not to pop those champagne corks just yet, though. You’re a week ahead of yourself, StarvingButStrong. While preparations for the great day are feverishly unfolding, it isn’t until May 17th that it’s official.
But athleas, what about “let’s go down to the courthouse and tie the knot right now”? In this coutry, people have been hitched based solely on their own consent and the word of a judge since… oh WAIT.
You’re bitching about so-called “Activist Judges” aren’t you? Well, “Judicial Fiat” is sour grapes and other assorted bullshit; I’ve never heard anyone use that phrase when they were pleased with the ruling but squeamish about the methods. Judges make rulings solely on the merit (or lack thereof) of existing law. The judicial branch exists to put a check on the majority’s ability to pass laws that are unjust to the minority. That’s why, for example, we’ve never had a law or Amendment that makes flag-burning illegal. Whenever I hear someone utter the words “Judicial Fiat” or “Activist Judges” I know right away I’m in for an hour of somebody angrily quoting Rush Limbaugh at me.
I’ll give you a chance to prove I’m wrong, athleas: if the Supreme Court of the US ruled that flag-burning was legal, would that be “judicial fiat”? How about if they ruled that it was illegal?
FWIW, May 17 will also be the 50th anniversary of the *Brown v. Board * decision. Somehow I doubt that’s coincidence.
**athelas, ** I’m unaware of the courts forcing anyone to get married. Care to explain?
For those wondering what Starving is referring to, the limited-marriage contingent found a 1913 law prohibiting a Mass. official from granting a marriage license to any couple whose marriage would be illegal in their own state. Being part of the anti-miscegenation effort, throwing a sop to the South, it hadn’t been paid any attention for decades. Romney had attempted to implement an order requiring proof of residency in a state where marriage is legal for out-of-staters, meaning only MA gays could marry for now. That got quashed by the Atty Gen’ls ruling that town clerks aren’t the marriage police, they couldn’t ask some couples and not others, and they couldn’t just start enforcing a long-ignored law out of the blue.
Oh no! Soon all those gay people will be dragging me off to get married! Why can’t everyone be more like Britney Spears and get drunkenly married as a joke, thus confirming how serious heterosexual couples are about marriage!?
Yes on both. It is of course their right to “interpret” laws as judges, since that is the very definition of what they are supposed to do, but “judicial fiat” is when they take a law that was never intended to have a certain meaning and had never been interpreted in a manner that would allow for something in particular to occur, and change the meaning of it beyond any prior interpretation. In that case, it bugs the living hell out of me.
Marriage laws have always been understood to be applied to one man and one woman. The changing interpetation of that by judges is not good, because it allows later judges to change the law by interpretation yet again. Who wants that to happen? Who wants to be able to marry their lifelong companion and then 20 years down the road have it declared illegal yet again? As far as I am concerned, there needs to be a law passed one way or the other on gay marriges, preferably in favor of them. This “subject to interpretation” stuff is a really bad way of doing business.
For example, I suppose, taking the belief that “all men are created equal” as the foundation for the end of slavery, women’s suffrage, and, by extension, gay marriage. As the Founding Fathers surely never intended any of those to happen.
Oh, wait. Are you referring to the 13th and the 19th Amendments to the Constitution of the United States? The ones where they passed laws ensuring that those rights could not be taken away on the capricious whim of a group of self-interested judges?
Oh, I see that This Year’s Model beat me to it.
Should we have a Constitutional Amendment for gay marriage? If that’s what it takes, yes. Should we leave that right in the hands of judges? No. Should we leave that in the hands of state legislaures? Given their exemplary records on slavery ( :rolleyes: ), no, unless you like living in a country with patchwork upholding of stuff as important as marriage rights and benefits. It needs to be a Federal law, written down and set in stone.
I don’t see the huge problem here. The highest authority on the matter has determined that the supreme law of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts mandates state recognition of same-sex marriages as well as the more traditional variety. Until such time as the people of Massachusetts may choose to amend their constitution, this is what the law in Massachusetts is. It’s very simple.
…which was in turn an overturning of Plessy v. Ferguson and the finding in that case of the legitimacy of “separate but equal”. Again, it’s a situation where without an actual law being the determining factor it is entirely dependent upon the opinions of judges and the climate they live in.
Who’s to say that another 50 years Brown v. Board of Education won’t be overturned? Nobody. And that’s my point.