Bush Urges Congress to Pass Amendment Banning Same-Sex Marriage

[MrFun]

Actually, given the terrible hurricane New Orleans suffered, I think fundies are rejecting the idea of impending punishment from God in form of fire; after all, they believe that God sent that hurricane all thanks to us queers.

[SlowwHand]

[Blaupanzer]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
The state has a great public interest in preserving marriage between one man and one women for both the sake of the partners, and for their children. Ergo, it makes sense that they would provide benefits for this arrangement in order to encourage more marriages.

Ben,
How are the man, the woman, or the children negatively affected by the marraige of other people? Why does the "institution" need to be defended by exclusion instead of inclusion? Be serious for a moment in your response to this, because I really don't get the threat part in this.
Thanks

[Ben Kenobi]

Makes little sense. Collective rights are easily derived through individual rights (individuals are allowed freedom to gather and freedom of speech and freedom to do anything not illegal, that pretty much covers any collective except ones that like to hurt other people).

We have rights as individuals. We have an individual right to freedom of conscience, and through protecting the individual rights, we allow people to form groups that enable their collectives to exist. Therefore it is only by the provisions of individual rights can we form these collectives.

Say for example you have a group of Catholics. Now, say you made a collective right, saying that all 'Catholics' had the right to worship.

Now, one man from the parish leaves, does he now lose his right to worship freely? After all it's only the Catholics that have this right, and he no longer wants to go to the Catholic church. This is why we base rights upon ourselves as individuals and not collectives, and this includes marriage.

People have individual liberty, in that they may choose to be with whomever they want, but they do not have the right to demand that the state provide them benefits for making one choice over another.

Marriage depends on the consent of both partners. Everyone has the right to get married if they wish (you even recognise that gays have this right (as long as it is to a female)). There is no obligation through having the right to marry.

They do not have that right. No one has the right to be married. They have the right to be free and to individual liberty.

[Ben Kenobi]

It tries to tell people who they can marry and who they can't just like the laws which said blacks can't marry whites. I can think of nothing more intrusive then attempting to tell someone who they can marry and who they can't.

There are plenty of laws like that. I can't marry my mom. I can't marry someone who is under 16. Are those not also intrusive laws telling me whom I can and cannot marry?

Let's be clear here. The state is not preventing gay people from choosing to share their lives together. The state is saying that they have a special interest in marriage because it is a union unique from any other and ought to be treated as such. Gay people have the freedom to do as they wish, without being constrained by the state.

[Ben Kenobi]

It's absurd to claim that access to veterans benefits is absolutely identical in conceptualization as marriage is.

To form a relationship with another person is part of our right to our own conscience. Conscience is the fundamental experience of being human, and one way that we form our identity through our conscience, is to develop a romantic, intimate relationship with another consenting person who expresses the same attraction towards us.

Very good. Where is the state preventing gay men from being able to develop a romantic, intimate relationship with each other?

To deny that gays are entitled to the same legal protection in their life-long/long-term romantic, committed relationships is to deny that gays are fully human since you also, in turn, refuse to acknowledge that gays are entitled to the very fundamental right to their own conscience.

I do not deny that gay people have their individual rights to conscience and to association. They can choose to share their lives with whomever they want.

However, the state is under no obligation to provide the same entitlements to gay men and gay women just as they are under no obligation to provide veterans' benefits to those who have not served in the war. Not all entitlements ought to be distributed equally. For example, would one deny that some who are handicapped, if the government chooses to provide them assistance, ought to receive said assistance out of proportion to the able-bodied? Or does disability need to be provided to everyone equally?

[Ben Kenobi]

And the state has no right specifiying the gender of people who can enter into a contract. It cant't tell you that you can only sell your home to white people; it can't tell you that you can only hire Christians; and it can't tell you that you can only marry women.

The state also has no obligation to provide benefits associated with marriage. If the state chooses to provide benefits, then the state gets to decide how these benefits ought to be distributed.

If you would prefer the state not to recognise any relationship, and allow people to live as they wish, that is one thing. However, you are arguing that if the state provides benefits to one group, that they are obligated to provide them to everyone.

I think the state does have a proper role in the regulation of marriage, if for anything, to assist with things like inheritance. It is necessary that marriage be both public so that it can be known the status of the relationship, and that said relationship can be publicly declared.

However, I do not see how gay people have their rights infringed upon when they are permitted to enter into contracts with one another, just as anyone else. They can choose it so that they can do all of these things without the interference of the state.

[Arrian]

DEFEND MARRIAGE FROM THOSE DIRTY FAGS! YEAH!



-Arrian

[Ben Kenobi]

How are the man, the woman, or the children negatively affected by the marraige of other people? Why does the "institution" need to be defended by exclusion instead of inclusion? Be serious for a moment in your response to this, because I really don't get the threat part in this.

As you quoted from me earlier, I argued that marriage has benefits that it provides to the state in a way in which other relationships cannot provide.

That is hardly an argument saying that gay marriage is bad because it is detrimental to marriage, rather that marriage is best between one man and one woman. The reason why they ought to be treated differently is because of the benefits in which marriage provides to society, when it is confined to one man and one woman.

Does that make sense? I'm talking about things like stability and children.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
And where does traditional marriage violate the constitution?

Traditional marriage*, or non-traditional marriage, is irrelevant to the Constitution.

* = no matter whose concept of "traditional" marriage.

Then you would also object to activist judges expanding the right to privacy to enforce the provision of marriage to gay people, and their own right to public services?

"Activist" judges is nothing more than a label for judges who rule in a way somebody disliked. Most courts have "clock and drop" filings, in which clerks, judges, etc. don't need to be bothered with immediately processing miscellaneous document filings, so you just time stamp it and put it in a box, and voilá, it gets filed. People who complain about "activist" judges are simply looking for "clock and drop" justice, in which the courts do nothing and lie down for any legislative or executive abuse.

Privacy would only come into play in such cases if privacy was violated in an effort to deny equal protection. If a right to a specific service, regardless of whether that right is constitutionally or legislatively based, there is no valid general government interest in basing access to that service on a criteria of who is ****ing who, and in what orifice(s).

I agree the state ought to stay out of marriage, but the trouble is that the justices themselves have inserted themselves into the debate in wishing to impose constraints on communities that do not wish to support gay marriage. The amendment to the constitution is an act to check judicial activism, if the judiciary were not abusing their role, there would be no such need for the amendment.

No court has ever ruled that any church or religious denomination has to accept as "valid" any particular marriage. No court has ever ruled than any private citizen has to accept as "valid" any particular marriage. There is no judicial activism in deciding that the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment applies to state laws regarding marriage. Equal protection is pretty clear, isn't it? I can't find the words "No person, who is not a sodomite" in the Constitution. Can you?

It is only after the judiciaries began to find provisions for gay marriage and overruled the legislatures that the proposal came about for an amendment to the constitution.

If you want the states to have control over their own affairs, then you ought to be very concerned about the judges overstepping their bounds. When a justice in California interprets a law, and then encourages other jurisdictions to recognise gay marriage, then that is a tremendous violation of the right for each state to decide for themselves.

State control (i.e. sovereignty) isn't at issue. The US is a dual sovereignty (at least until the goddamned Yankees and current political parties gutted the concept) system.

You'll have to be a little more specific. If you're talking about the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, their ruling are binding on states within the 9th Circuit, but not on other states in other judicial circuits. If you're talking a California Supreme Court, or District Court of Appeals ruling, it is binding on no other state. If a judge wants to encourage other states to do something, that's nice, but has no force of law.

If a court rules on a particular matter, then other states are bound by the Full Faith and Credit Clause to recognize that ruling, but the implications of that aren't significant. The Full Faith and Credit Clause would require a state to recognize, for example, the existence of a legal Massachusetts marriage between a gay couple. It does not require that state to allow gay marriages because Massachusetts does, nor does it require that state to grant benefits to the married couple under different conditions than it does to citizens of the state. This happens all the time when couples move between community property and non-community property states. Moving to a non-community property state doesn't extinguish the property interests each spouse accrued when they lived in a community property state. It just means that while living in the non-community property state, they now separately accrue interests in property they acquire or assets they develop while living in that state.

That's not a problem for the world at large, just for the couples in question and any accountants that might be retained by divorce or probate lawyers.

It sure as hell ain't a violation of state sovereignty.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


As you quoted from me earlier, I argued that marriage has benefits that it provides to the state in a way in which other relationships cannot provide.

That is hardly an argument saying that gay marriage is bad because it is detrimental to marriage, rather that marriage is best between one man and one woman. The reason why they ought to be treated differently is because of the benefits in which marriage provides to society, when it is confined to one man and one woman.

Does that make sense? I'm talking about things like stability and children.

Don't Gay relationships need stability also?

JM

[Arrian]

Of course not. Everybody knows that gays are just out to bugger each other. It's sinful, you know.

:nods sagely:

-Arrian

edit: and, of course, when invoking "think of the children!" one must ignore adoption.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
There are plenty of laws like that. I can't marry my mom. I can't marry someone who is under 16. Are those not also intrusive laws telling me whom I can and cannot marry?

Not necessarily. There is a debatable* public interest in preventing exploitation of certain persons by other persons - you also can't marry someone who is mentally incompetent.

I think it's debatable as to whether the state should have the authority to regulate marriage between adoptive siblings who have no blood relationship. I think it's also questionable as to what extent the state has a "right" to regulate incestuous marriage between adults who have the free capacity to consent.

Those laws are very limited in scope, and generally have an intent to prevent either a substantial medical risk (birth defects and Republican leaning tendencies among inbred offspring), or exploitation and coercion of one party through a pre-existing familial relationship. I still find it marginal as a legitimate state interest if there are two informed, consenting adults who appear to have the capacity to freely consent to the marriage.

Laws regulating marriage of under 16s, mentally incompetents, etc., are totally irrelevant, as the issue is whether the one party has the capacity to fully, informedly and freely consent to the marriage.

That is an entirely different case from two freely consenting adults who happen to be of the same gender, and a law that creates a blanket prohibition on marriage among any two people of the same gender.

Let's be clear here.

Yes, lets.

The state is saying that they have a special interest in marriage because it is a union unique from any other and ought to be treated as such.

There is nothing "unique." You want to tell me what's special about a couple of drunks, married and divorced four times each, going to a Las Vegas drive through to be hitched by an Elvis impersonator?

[Ben Kenobi]

Traditional marriage*, or non-traditional marriage, is irrelevant to the Constitution.

* = no matter whose concept of "traditional" marriage.

Thank you. So the state has no more right to change the definition to allow sodomites to marry. If the state has this right, then they also have the right to limit marriage to one man and one woman.

"Activist" judges is nothing more than a label for judges who rule in a way somebody disliked. Most courts have "clock and drop" filings, in which clerks, judges, etc. don't need to be bothered with immediately processing miscellaneous document filings, so you just time stamp it and put it in a box, and voilá, it gets filed. People who complain about "activist" judges are simply looking for "clock and drop" justice, in which the courts do nothing and lie down for any legislative or executive abuse.

Rubber stamps? No, I don't agree with that. I think justices have an important role in interpreting the law, as I'm sure you are familiar with Scalia's arguments, there are plenty of areas in which the interpretation of the law can be clarified without being a rubber stamp for the administration.

For one so concerned about preserving the constitution, I would think that you would take very seriously any charge of judicial activism, since that is generally defined as believing that the constution is not the final word and that justices have the right to change things as they see fit. Or that the constitution is a living tree that must adapt to the times and circumstances.

Privacy would only come into play in such cases if privacy was violated in an effort to deny equal protection. If a right to a specific service, regardless of whether that right is constitutionally or legislatively based, there is no valid general government interest in basing access to that service on a criteria of who is ****ing who, and in what orifice(s).

Then what is the point of marriage, since by definition that is what marriage is all about. Your argument would say that we ought not to provide any marriage benefits whatsoever. Are we not discriminating against the unmarried?

No court has ever ruled that any church or religious denomination has to accept as "valid" any particular marriage.

I don't know if you are familiar with the Massachusetts ruling, where a Catholic charity had to stop providing adoptions because they refused to allow gay couples to adopt. Who is to say that all the Catholic charities will not be shut down by the state simply because they choose not to ordain openly gay men or recognise gay marriage?

The state may say that they protect religious freedoms, but it seems that 'anti-discrimination' always trumps religious freedoms.

No court has ever ruled than any private citizen has to accept as "valid" any particular marriage. There is no judicial activism in deciding that the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment applies to state laws regarding marriage. Equal protection is pretty clear, isn't it? I can't find the words "No person, who is not a sodomite" in the Constitution. Can you?

That law also says that no man can be deprived of his rights without due process. Which brings us back to the original point as to whether the constitution establishes a right to be married. As you pointed out so clearly, the constitution says no such thing.

You'll have to be a little more specific. If you're talking about the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, their ruling are binding on states within the 9th Circuit, but not on other states in other judicial circuits. If you're talking a California Supreme Court, or District Court of Appeals ruling, it is binding on no other state. If a judge wants to encourage other states to do something, that's nice, but has no force of law.

I'm talking about both, but more concerned about the California supreme court. What happens is that one couple in California travels to Massachusetts or elsewhere and applies for marriage benefits, gets denied and then goes to court to try to overturn the marriage laws in whatever state they are in. It's all very systematic and deliberate.

It sure as hell ain't a violation of state sovereignty.

An erosion more then anything else.

[Ben Kenobi]

Don't Gay relationships need stability also?

Need, yes. Provide, no.