Same Sex Marriage ban

[MtnRacer]

Touche.

This is why nobody fucks wit de Jesus.

You might fool those fucks in the league office, but you don't fool de Jesus!

Steve

 

[planegray]

You make good points. Think of all of the reasons that have been brought up for keeping marriage as "one man -- one woman:"

"It's for procreation" -- If that is the case, then why isn't there a fertility test for couples wanting to get married? Why are couples who have no plans to have children allowed to get married? Why are older people (beyond childbearing years) allowed to get married? Why are people who are unable to have children allowed to stay married?

"It's for raising children" -- If that is the case, again, why do childless couples (for whatever reason) get to stay married? Why can't homosexual couples who adopt get married?

"It's a religious issue, not a state issue" -- Who's religion? If it's Christian, does that mean Jews and Muslims can't get married? What about Atheists? And why can't Christian churches who are willing to perform gay marriages do so?

"It's traditional" -- A lot of things were traditional. Our original Constitution didn't give women the right to vote, and allowed for slavery, and treated blacks as lesser than whites. All of those were "traditional" at one point. Traditions change.

The answer isn't that the government gets out of marriage. It's never going to happen, and probably shouldn't. Having a set of rules that everyone who gets married has to follow is probably a better idea that having each couple try to put together their own marital contract (although maybe that should be an option in some cases). Maybe we shouldn't call it "marriage," but that ship has sailed long ago...

wow, nicely done !

 

[Karbon]

You make good points. Think of all of the reasons that have been brought up for keeping marriage as "one man -- one woman:"

"It's for procreation" -- If that is the case, then why isn't there a fertility test for couples wanting to get married? Why are couples who have no plans to have children allowed to get married? Why are older people (beyond childbearing years) allowed to get married? Why are people who are unable to have children allowed to stay married?

"It's for raising children" -- If that is the case, again, why do childless couples (for whatever reason) get to stay married? Why can't homosexual couples who adopt get married?

"It's a religious issue, not a state issue" -- Who's religion? If it's Christian, does that mean Jews and Muslims can't get married? What about Atheists? And why can't Christian churches who are willing to perform gay marriages do so?

"It's traditional" -- A lot of things were traditional. Our original Constitution didn't give women the right to vote, and allowed for slavery, and treated blacks as lesser than whites. All of those were "traditional" at one point. Traditions change.

The answer isn't that the government gets out of marriage. It's never going to happen, and probably shouldn't. Having a set of rules that everyone who gets married has to follow is probably a better idea that having each couple try to put together their own marital contract (although maybe that should be an option in some cases). Maybe we shouldn't call it "marriage," but that ship has sailed long ago...

Fully facebooking this.

 

[Traq]

Can anybody explain to mw WHY does the government need to regulate marriage? Why does a couple need to get a "marriage license" from the state?

The government has a public interest in marriages for a variety of reasons. There are costs involved with filing and maintaining public records, so the licenses go towards covering those costs.

 

[Bronto]

Thanks for answering some questions.

9th Amendment

"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

Read more: http://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com/9th-amendment.html#ixzz1m0wWe792

It is exactly what 9th district federal court sighted for the ruling.

Then the reference to the Declaration of Independence.

The Declaration of Independence :

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed

http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/

Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness - certainly would cover things like marriage.

Heh I know its stereo typical - from what I hear Marriage has more in common with torture, slavery and death of individual. Not exactly fitting the 'life, liberty and pursuit of happiness' part.

In this thread, So far only mention of marriage directly was addressing discrimination by race with marriage. The Court accepted the one man and one woman definition as a bases for their decision.

My position has evolved to getting the government out of Marriage all together. Only issuing civil unions to satisfy the legal aspects. Civil Unions can include all the popular relationships.

Marriages can be held in the private sector with no extra civil legal benefits. So Churches can preform opposite sex marriages and same Sex couples can be married elsewhere.

One of dangers to civil rights is having Government granting them.

 

[UDRider]

Thanks for answering some questions.

It is exactly what 9th district federal court sighted for the ruling.

Then the reference to the Declaration of Independence.



Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness - certainly would cover things like marriage.

Heh I know its stereo typical - from what I hear Marriage has more in common with torture, slavery and death of individual. Not exactly fitting the 'life, liberty and pursuit of happiness' part.

In this thread, So far only mention of marriage directly was addressing discrimination by race with marriage. The Court accepted the one man and one woman definition as a bases for their decision.

My position has evolved to getting the government out of Marriage all together. Only issuing civil unions to satisfy the legal aspects. Civil Unions can include all the popular relationships.

Marriages can be held in the private sector with no extra civil legal benefits. So Churches can preform opposite sex marriages and same Sex couples can be married elsewhere.

One of dangers to civil rights is having Government granting them.

So basically you want the word "marriage" to be replaced with "civil union" in all the laws, and legal documents. Seems kind of pointless. Does that word mean that much to you?

 

[matt fe2o3]

Then the reference to the Declaration of Independence.

Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness - certainly would cover things like marriage.

Yet it did not, nor did it cover slaves rights or a women's rights to vote.

So once again dragging up old phrases that had very specific meaning, for a very specific part of the nation, and then deciding they meant something else is silly.

Try this one:

"The doom of a nation can be averted only by a storm of flowing passion, but only those who are passionate themselves can arouse passion in others."

I'll be you like that - words you can live by, eh.... yea I bet.

Enjoy.

 

[Var]

So basically you want the word "marriage" to be replaced with "civil union" in all the laws, and legal documents. Seems kind of pointless. Does that word mean that much to you?

It's the religious people that are making a fuss about it, as if they invented the word. if we gave them the word back then they would have no ground on which to make an argument (of course they would find another bigoted reason)

It would be the most effective way to give everyone what they want.

 

[CHUM]

Yet it did not, nor did it cover slaves rights or a women's rights to vote.

So once again dragging up old phrases that had very specific meaning, for a very specific part of the nation, and then deciding they meant something else is silly.

Try this one:

"The doom of a nation can be averted only by a storm of flowing passion, but only those who are passionate themselves can arouse passion in others."

I'll be you like that - words you can live by, eh.... yea I bet.

Enjoy.

you still haven't answered my question about the purported costs incurred allowing gay marriage...

am i on your ignore?

 

[teg916]

You can have your own definition of marriage. Nobody is forcing you to "accept" homosexual marriage. You can have whatever ideas about things that you want.

But "marriage," in the legal sense, is effectively a contract. A license that provides certain privileges and imposes certain obligations, just like any license. Legal "marriage" is purely a function of the state.

So you need to provide a real reason why we should withhold this license to people just because they come from a disfavored group. Not just, "it's always been that way" or "religion says so."



That seems pretty obvious.

It's not a battle for "acceptance" amongst people -- again, nobody cares what you or I or any other individual personally believes about the matter -- but it is a battle for acceptance to the state. Why should a certain group of people have to accept official second-class status just because the dominant group wants it that way? That's not how our system works. This isn't a mobocracy.

And if your argument is that civil unions isn't a second-class status, if it's just a word, then why not change all heterosexual unions to civil unions, and let homosexuals get married, since it is just a word?

It's not my own definition, its the definition that has not only been there, but was also agreed upon by the majority of the voters in California. You are arguing against your own points in your previous post that civil unions provide the same benefits as marriage, so there is no second class status. Rights wise the two are equal.

 

[teg916]

No it hasn't, you're nuts. Many pre-christian and non-Jehovanic cultures have celebrated bonding rituals between same sex couples from the Ancient Greeks to parts of ancient China to the Native Americans.

It hasn't unitl the Christians took over the Roman Empire around 300 AD that this shit started becoming illegal, because faggotry is against the Jesus.

Did they call it marriage, or something else?

 

[cynner]

I like turtles.

 

[CHUM]

I like turtles.

 

[macadamizer]

It's not my own definition, its the definition that has not only been there, but was also agreed upon by the majority of the voters in California. You are arguing against your own points in your previous post that civil unions provide the same benefits as marriage, so there is no second class status. Rights wise the two are equal.

Have you read the actual opinion? If you had, I think you would see why the term "civil union" itself can denote second class status, or at least the rationale behind the concept, even if you don't accept it as the right conclusion.

So no, I am not arguing against my own points. We are arguing different things. My position is based on the opinion of the 9th circuit.

To be clear, look back to my earlier post in response to a post you made:

Red herring. Nobody is saying that homosexuals want the be called heterosexuals. The point is, why do we give different names to the SAME license based on who is applying for the license?

A more accurate race-based analogy would be if everyone takes the same driver's test (like they do today), and a driver's license grants everyone the same rights and obligations, but black people were limited to obtaining a "black driver's license" while everyone else just got a "driver's license." That's the analogy we are talking about here.

That is the crux of the argument -- that giving different names to the same license, and restricting use of the "better" name to the preferred group, is itself discriminatory, and creates a second-class citizen.

As I posted somewhere else (can't remember where now), "civil union" is like "marriage" with an asterisk. It's essentially saying, "yeah, it's the same thing, but it's really not" (wink, wink, nudge nudge).

 

[Joebar4000]

Joe, hate to give the troll anything to work with, but you might want to look at 1 USC 7 and 28 USC 1237C, the codification of the Defense of Marriage Act. The Federal Government has taken a stand on this, unfortunately.


Read the 9th amendment. Just because something isn't explicit in the constitution doesn't mean it's not a right.

Oh, I know all about DOMA. It's un-Constitutional to the core. Talk about activist judges, sheesh...

About the 9th - couldn't that then be used to bolster the case against Prop 8?

Found this:

"The ninth amendment was added to the Bill of Rights to ensure that the maxim expressio unius est exclusio alterius would not be used at a later time to deny fundamental rights merely because they were not specifically enumerated in the Constitution."

Great post on definition of marriage by the way

 

[Bronto]

So basically you want the word "marriage" to be replaced with "civil union" in all the laws, and legal documents. Seems kind of pointless. Does that word mean that much to you?

Yes - because looking down the road after the government has deemed marriage to include other relationship combinations. What will happen when the first Church declines preforming a same sex marriage. They are in turn brought up on discrimination charges.

Could say that couldn't happen. Now think of how the government gets its way by monies accepted by organizations. Even recent events of Obama Care mandates dictates to religious organizations to finance abominations in their beliefs.

It is only a word and can remain so if its keep out the government jurisdiction.

 

[matt fe2o3]

It is only a word and can remain so if its keep out the government jurisdiction.

Too late. Genie is out of the bottle. Have to accept the end result. I suspect Prop 8 foes will rue the day they challenged the election.

 

[MysterYvil]

Even recent events of Obama Care mandates dictates to religious organizations to finance abominations in their beliefs.

It is only a word and can remain so if its keep out the government jurisdiction.

I'll take Threadjack for $200!

So, if you wadded yourself and ended up in a Christian Scientist-run hospital and they prayed over your broken bones and busted innards, that would be just fine with you, out of a sense of religious-tolerance-meets-commonsense-healthcare and honoring-The-Constitution?

 

[Joebar4000]

Too late. Genie is out of the bottle. Have to accept the end result. I suspect Prop 8 foes will rue the day they challenged the election.

<Print Screen>

Seriously? What choice did they have?

A bunch of pious arseholes takes away something that is allowed for everyone else in society, and they take it to the SCOTUS and you think they'll 'rue the day'?

They'd already had a right taken from them. What more can they lose? As things stand, nothing has changed, they're still treated as second-class citizens because of a bunch of prudes are sticking their noses into business that doesn't affect them one iota.

Prop 8 gave them no choice but to fight it.

 

[macadamizer]

Oh, I know all about DOMA. It's un-Constitutional to the core. Talk about activist judges, sheesh...

It seems that most of the cases that have tried to get rid of DOMA haven't actually been good vehicles to do so.

But I agree, it seems to me that is is of limited constitutionality, to the extent that it attempts to limit the full faith and credit clause of the constitution via statute instead of via amendment. But there are a number of cases currently in the pipeline where a challenge to DOMA is part of the case, so we will see what happens.

About the 9th - couldn't that then be used to bolster the case against Prop 8?

Found this:

"The ninth amendment was added to the Bill of Rights to ensure that the maxim expressio unius est exclusio alterius would not be used at a later time to deny fundamental rights merely because they were not specifically enumerated in the Constitution."

Great post on definition of marriage by the way

The problem with using the 9th is that the conduct of marriage has always fallen under the 10th -- meaning it's a state issue, except where the way the state is handling marriages runs afoul of a constitutional protection. So states are pretty much free to handle marriage any way they like, so long as they respect marriages from other states (limited currently by DOMA, of course) and so long as they don't run afoul of federal rights.

The feds got involved in Loving because race is a federal protected class, meaning states had to have a very, very good reason for discrimination on the basis of race (basically impossible to prove with respect to race), and therefore race-based marriage limitations were in violation of the 14th amendment, which is where the federal hook came from.

However, sexual orientation is not currently a federal protected class, and federal challenges to a state's refusal to grant marriage licenses based on sexual orientation have all failed, because all the states have had to do was show that they had a "rational basis" for the discrimination, historically a very, very low hurdle to clear, and that's the end of it. Simply put, at this point, the federal government has not recognized at 14th amendment violation when states discriminate on sexual orientation.

The Prop 8 case is a different matter entirely. California does recognize sexual orientation as a protected class, which was why the STATE supreme court ruled that it was a violation of the California constitution's equal protection and due process clause (which is very similar to the 14th amendment) to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. So, basically, the argument you suggest at the Federal level is the one that worked at the state level -- but has always failed at the Federal level. The "hook" to get Prop 8 in front of the federal courts has been the timing of the activities combined with a SCOTUS ruling in the Romer case.

If you haven't read the opinion, it's a good read, and pretty clearly spells out the narrow basis on which the ruled.