Because the way I disagree with my chosen party isn’t represented by the other party.
You’re assuming everyone would be in the middle somewhere. Since the Democrats are fairly centrist and the Republicans to the right, there’s a good hunk of normal political option that is to the left of the Democrats as they currently exist.
And you’re assuming that individual positions matter. They only matter if they stand a chance of actually being implemented. That is why we evaluate the parties as a whole, and what they will do. A Dem in my state may be pro-life and anti-gay, but those have no representation in the Dems at large.
And, finally, voting is always strategic. I voted straight Democrat in the last election not because I cared about the individual opinions or even the party platform. It was because I knew we needed to try to take at least one House back from the Republicans to provide some sort of check on Trump.
I mean, I probably would have wound up siding with the Dems in all cases at an individual and party level, but it just wasn’t what mattered last election.
And since I voted all Democrat, I call myself a Democrat. That way I can try to influence the party.
So, by your own words, a strict constructionist view of the US Constitution does not preclude same sex marriage. That is all I was saying as well. The 3/5 compromise has no relation to marriage, only citizenship. Black/white relationships may have been frowned on by society, but the Constitution says nothing about the legality of inter-race marriage.
Where you are wrong is in the assumption that supporting an original intent view has anything to do with what one may or may not support at the state level. It is perfectly cromulent to say that “I do not think the Federal government should regulate X, but the individual states should”. That may well lead to situations where a couple may not be able to get married in State Y, but could go to State Z to get married and State Y would have to recognize it as valid. Is that ideal? Depends on your definition of “ideal”. It is however, how the Union was originally designed.
On my computer/browser (so old both were designed by someone named Atouk) “somewhat” was a default. Click nothing and you were “somewhat”; click on “somewhat” and basically nothing happened.
Which leads to an existentialist crisis for Americans who call themselves libertarians. If one supports same-sex marriage or abortion rights because it isn’t the “government’s” business, does one accept that state A may have a different viewpoint than state B, and some people in both states will feel their rights are infringed? If the federal government leaves environmental regulations to the states, and state A welcomes a business that dumps toxic waste into a river that flows into state B, what is state B supposed to do? If private property transactions are sacrosanct, and you don’t want to sell your home so someone decides to build an oil refinery around it, whaddya gonna do without zoning regulations?
Just to be realistic, that’s how is is today in many cases. States do currently set many of their environmental laws and there is a hodgepodge of what is and is not allowed. In your specific example, interstate disputes are already handled in federal court - perfectly Constitutional even in a strict constructionist view. For an example, see the ongoing Florida, Georgia Alabama dispute over use of waters in the Chattahoochee river. Zoning regulations are almost always local, rarely set as high as state level much less federal.
This is getting way far afield. I was only pointing out that having an “original intent” view of the US Constitution did not prevent one from being for same sex marriage, nothing more.
First off, I can readily imagine that you are far wiser WRT constitutional law than I.
The OP said he favors abortion choice, and doesn’t care whether anyone marries whomever they want. He did not say that he thinks there should be no federal curbs on abortion, but he favors state limits. Nor am I aware of any federal marriages - so he presumably was speaking about state law.
If the right to abortion/marital choice are not protected by the federal gov’t, then they are subject to restriction by individual states. I have not encountered a lot of folk who support abortion rights who say, “I live in a blue state, so it isn’t a concern of mine, and I don’t really care what happens to poor women in Texas.” Maybe that sort of thing is what the OP was suggesting. Or when expressing their opinion on such a topic are actually indicating a jurisdictional preference.
My personal view is that folk advocating “original intent” tend to be hypocritical - favoring it when it is to their advantage/preference, and ignoring it when it is not. Just MHO. Sorry for the hijack.
Honestly I think that with original intent, yes it may lead to a situation where state a and state b have different laws regarding marriage or abortion. If one state completely outlaws it well, that’s unfortunate but if it’s not my state then i have to accept that. What state A does is not really my business. If it is my state then I am free to elect state representatives who carry my interest.
That’s fine, if that is how you want to feel. You are more excited about states not restricting speech - or guns, than you are “privacy” - a word that does not appear in the Constitution?
And we are supposed to ascertain what the wealthy male writers of the Const would have “intended” WRT modern technology? That’s fine. Polish up your Ouija board.
