I appear to have been mistaken here - this particular quote was from the Minnesota Supreme Court decision in Baker v. Nelson, which also noted that “[t]he institution of marriage as a union man and woman, uniquely involving the procreation and rearing of children within a family, is as old as the book of Genesis.” I can’t find the U.S. Supreme Court decision declining federal question jurisdiction anywhere online; I suspect it didn’t go into a lot of depth, biblical or otherwise.
It is important to understand that Loving v. Virgina concerned a criminal statute too. It is one thing to say an action - in that case interracial marriage - cannot be criminalized because of the equal protection clause, and another to say that under equal protection the government must grant a marriage license to those that the statute says are not entitled to one.
No it doesn’t. Same-sex marriage deals with a classification based on sex. Straight men are barred from marrying men as well.
[quote=“foolsguinea, post:12, topic:471672”]
…SSM is not exactly the same as, um, OSM (Opposite-Sex Marriage)…/QUOTE]
How are the two different? It’s the same level of commitment between two consenting adults. I understand that someone might say “A man and a man is not the same as a man and a woman” but I don’t see how that is any more of a difference than, say, “A pair of tall people getting married is not the same as a tall person and a short person getting married”.
Why are the two not the same? I’ll tell you why it’s hard to understand, and I’ll do so with a hypothetical analogy. What if I told you my two friends Jack and Taylor had just gotten married? Jack sounds like a fairly common, masculine name, so it’s safe to assume he’s a man. But Taylor could be a man or a woman. There are people of both genders with that name. If you never meet these people, you would never know whether they were a straight couple or a gay couple. If they are in a non-violent, committed relationship, isn’t that all that matters?
And there is nothing illegal about being a homosexual, as long as you didn’t actually commit sodomy (pre-Lawrence) or marry a same sex partner (today).
I don’t see what you are arguing here, and how it is different from what the other poster is saying.
Well, I can’t speak for you, but I don’t consider getting married to someone you love to be quite the same as molesting children.
My point was there isn’t a group of pedophiles or alcoholics or whatever that are actively being discriminated against just because they exist. They’re being discriminated against because or when they break the law. Some pretty good fucking laws too, if you ask me. Nothing along the lines holy matrimony, of course.
I am lost as to why people in the thread have been trying to use pedophilia (or other crimes) as an example of why the EP clause should not apply to homosexuals.
In the case of pedophilia (or other crimes) the offender is harming someone else. It also flies in the face of simple common sense to think because the EP clause does not protect pedophiles it therefore is reasonable to not apply it to homosexuals. How can anyone here suggest that if gay people have an EPC defense then pedos should too without their head exploding at the absurdity?
That’s not quite right. Under that logic, how do you explain the Fifteenth Amendment? The Fourteenth Amendment didn’t apply to suffrage rights at all. Just read section II. The compromise was not to include voting rights, but to punish those states that didn’t provide them across the board.
Whether the Amendment applied to women is a whole long argument, but it is not settled by the text of the Amendment or by subsequent ones.
Pedophilia is a bad example (as is marriage to animals - in both cases one of the couple cannot legally enter into contracts), but I guess the point they are making is that some people consider homosexuality to merely be a behavior or preference and not an actual class of people.
Then there’s the argument that if you allow homosexual marriage you have to allow multiple marriage and incestual marriage.
The truth is, it’s a matter of interpretation. If you go by the specific intent of the law, I doubt anyone will really argue that the law was written with homosexuals or miscegenation in mind. But the law has often been reinterpreted with the spirit in mind combined with contemporary mores. There’s a limit to how much you can do this before the original law becomes kind of moot and you have to create a new law to specifically take into account new situations that weren’t considered originally. Where that line is drawn is up to the judges to determine.
So there’s good arguments both for interpreting existing law to include homosexuals, and for needing to create new laws instead. There’s no clearcut answer here, it’s going to come down to a judgement call. It will be nice for the gay movement in the short run if we interpret things broadly, but too much broad interpretation of the law in general can cause other problems.
Ultimately, that was my point as well. Its a bad comparison.
foolsguinea, while the verb weaseling is frequently used around this forum, it would be a really good idea to refrain from referring to a person accused of weaseling as a weasel.
[ /Modding ]
Maybe I am just getting too hung up on what I feel is a fundamental aspect of being an American which is we do not discriminate without compelling reason. Period.
Sure we do not grant the same rights to minors as adults but there is good reason for that and I have not seen anyone suggest it should be otherwise.
Sure the Equal Protection clause was not written with homosexuals in mind. Back then they’d probably be surprised at the thought (I am guessing). Nevertheless I think they were trying to say we do not discriminate. Seems wonderfully simple and obvious. I do not see it as interpreting too broadly. I see attempts at denying the right as interpreting too narrowly to the point of legal gymnastics.
It looks like plain, wonderfully simple and succinct language to me. If they wanted a more narrowly defined law then why did they not write it as such?
Unfortunately, “compelling” has a large range of meaning depending on who you ask.
Let me suggest otherwise then.
OK would you also characterize it as interpreting too narrowly to discriminate against folk whose religion allows for multiple marriage?
Then have at some compelling reasons for the State to allow heterosexuals benefits but deny them to homosexuals in the same situation.
You think 8 year olds should be able to marry? To vote? To enter into contracts? To join the military? To drive?
Curious to hear the rationale for that.
Honestly I do not see why multiple wives/husbands should not be allowed as long as all parties are aware of the situation and ok with it. But then I have never really studied the up and downsides that attend polygamy so do not know.
And, again, neither are homosexuals.
Now, in your opinion, their activities are legitimate, but that is why we have state legislatures to represent our collective interests and decide these things.
You are advocating an untouchable federal constitutional right to homosexual marriage, which as Bricker has pointed out, borders on the absurd…
Actually, there is no reference to homosexuality in Prop 8. It denies same-sex marriage.
It equally denies 2 straight men (or 2 straight women) the right to marry each other, as it does deny the right of 2 gay men (or 2 lesbian women) the right to marry.
Frankly, I’m not sure how this is reconciled with the freedom of association that the SCOTUS has repeatedly ruled in favor of, specifically
Prop 8 specifically denies people, gay or straight, the right to form familial associations. I’m having a hard time seeing how that can be defended legally.
Freedom of association, again.
I have always wondered how it can be against the law for private citizens to enter plural marriages, as long as they do so of their own free will.
If I want to have 2 wives, and they each want to be married to me, what business is it of anyone else’s, let alone the government?
It prevents the state from recognizing that relationship as “marriage”, but it does not prevent the parties from forming familial relations. And considering that CA has a domestic partnership law, the state is actually recognizing the relationship, even if it doesn’t call it “marriage”.
I know that this was answered earlier either in this thread or in another on Prop 8, so please forgive me asking: is there any difference in rights between domestic partnership and marriage?