Preferable sure but always so? Should things like miscegenation and separate but equal been better to leave for the voters to get around to? Even if the chances are excellent there’d still be some places which would practice those things?
I’m aware of the world in which I am currently living, thanks. If there was a nationwide recognition of the right for everyone to marry a partner of his or her choosing, I wouldn’t be having this conversation, would I?
And feigned ignorance does not become you.
“Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival.” There you go. A right to marry. I supplied the period.
Just remember, though, that SbE was endorsed by the SCOTUS and it took 50 or 60 years to overturn that.
There is equal protection. Gays DO have the right to marry…just as long as they marry someone of the opposite sex.
Well, I think that is what Bricker is advocating (correct me if I am wrong). That it is better to have the legislature do these things and not the courts. Clearly in many cases legislatures will not do this so some 50 years later the court did it for them.
Is that a bad result? Should the courts stay out of it?
I have a sneaking suspicion you meant that seriously. Did you?
And in the 60s blacks had the right to marry whoever they wanted. As long as they were black.
Your argument is worthless.
I think that the majority of heterosexuals (and almost all christians) believe that opposite sex marriage should be considered something sacred and exclusive. I certainly believe this. Opening the door for gay marriage (or polygamy, polyandry, etc) cheapens the institution. There are many heteros (myself included) who oppose gay marriage but have no problem with a civil union arrangement of some type that provides all the benefits of marriage without calling it marriage. This is not enough for many gays and it makes me wonder if there is another agenda at work.
Yes.
Oh, dear … OK, time for the “What if it were you?” approach, then. Assume you’re a straight male. What would you think of a law that would let you marry another guy, but not the woman you loved and wanted to share your life with? Would you consider that you had equal protection of the law?
Better explain that. Are gays “cheaper” persons than you?
Bullshit. :rolleyes:
There is, and you don’t need to wonder. It’s called equal rights.
“Thus, the State contends that, because its miscegenation statutes punish equally both the white and the Negro participants in an interracial marriage, these statutes, despite their reliance on racial classifications, do not constitute an invidious discrimination based upon race.”
This is an old argument that’s been trotted out for decades upon decades – the application of the laws is formally symmetrical, therefore nothing could possibly be wrong with it. Blacks can’t marry whites, but they can marry blacks. Whites can’t marry blacks, but they can marry whites. Equality!
We already know how this story turns out in the end.
This is nonsense. Race here is a subcategory that was used to put restrictions on opposite sex marriage. The two are not the same.
Where is the hangup for you then? Just the word “marriage”? It is a word, no more, no less that means two people have joined as partners. How does letting SSM cheapen that?
There is a distinction here. There is the legal aspects to marriage and all that entails and there is the religious aspect. A church (or whatever) is not obligated to marry anyone. They can pick and choose as they like. The State however should recognize equal rights for all consenting adults who wish to hitch their wagons together regardless of sex or religion or color or anything else.
Wouldn’t bother me. I would want the ability to form a civil union with all the benefits but I don’t give a damn if it is called marriage.
Nope. But if you consider marriage between a man and a woman to be the natural order of things then it makes sense that many heteros are opposed to opening the door to groups who do not agree with them.
I agree with you completely. I don’t think the state should be in the business of “marrying” anyone. I would be fine with states giving anyone a civil union and leave the term “marriage” to the churches.
Sure they are. In the 60s bigoted assholes enforced the notion that two consenting adults who wanted to get married couldn’t. Because it (miscegenation) challenged their notions of decency.
Today bigoted assholes enforce the notion that two consenting adults that want to get married can’t. Because it (buttsecks) challenges their notions of decency. It’s a clear analogy of the issue.
You have the right to marry someone you are sexually attracted to. A gay person does not.
Right, there’s all this pious talk about marriage being sacred and exclusive, and in danger of being cheapened by extending it. Yet he’s quite happy to give up all the substance there is in this sacred institution. The “cheapening” he speaks of, the thing he is not willing to do, comes with the word, not the substance.
“It makes me wonder if there’s another agenda at work”, to coin a phrase. Where the objection comes only from using a word that entails recognition of equal status and equal worth to another human being based on a fact of birth, well, there’s a word for that.
What was all that crap about a sacred institution, then? You’d rather throw this “sacred” thing out entirely than let the fudgepackers share it with you?
There are churches that will marry same sex couples. Are you okay with that? Or do only the churches that agree with you get to have their religious rights?
This, my friend, is bullshit. You’re hiding behind this as a dishonest cover for discrimination against gays. If this were really the main issue for you, you would focus on getting the state of of the marriage business for everyone, but meanwhile agreeing that the status quo should apply to everyone. To suggest that you would vote against gays having equal rights to marry because you don’t think ANYone should “marry” is bigotry disguised as libertarianism.
Your vote still amounts to an act of discrimination, and no political justification can change that.
Meanwhile, I’d like to ask, have the civil rights of any other group ever been handed over to the popular vote for resolution? Isn’t that one of the central philosophies behind the Bill of Rights–the protection of the minority from the “tyranny of the majority”?
If racial civil rights had been put to a popular vote in the 60s, wouldn’t the outcome have likely been different?
What gives?
Rights are rights, not privileges condescendingly bestowed by the good will of the majority.