Moore Slams Marriage Amendment

Jewish Forward ^ | March 1, 2004 | Ami Eden

[LandOfLincolnGOP]

Religious and social conservatives pushing for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage have an unlikely critic: Roy Moore.

In an exclusive interview with the Forward, Moore, who was removed from his post as chief justice of Alabama last year after defying a federal order directing him to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from the rotunda of the state courthouse, criticized efforts to pass a federal marriage amendment. Moore, viewed by many religious conservatives as a hero, complained that an amendment would represent a misguided intrusion into legal territory historically left to the states and warned against the unintended consequences of attempting to define morality through constitutional measures.

"I don’t think you can make a constitutional amendment for every moral problem created by courts that don’t follow the law of their states,” said Moore, who is currently waging a legal appeal to get his chief justice job back. "If you do, you pretend to do what God has already done and make it subject to the courts. I think it’s a problem to establish morality by constitutional amendments made by men when the morality of our country is plainly illustrated – in Supreme Court precedent and in state-law precedent and in the common law – as coming from an acknowledgement of God.”

Moore warned that an amendment could eventually be mistaken as the source of morality and then be reinterpreted down the road by judges or legislators. For example, he said, the amendment being pushed by conservatives simply defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, leaving the door open to future officials who could argue that the measure does not prohibit incestuous unions.

For more details on the interview with Moore, please read the upcoming, March 5 issue of the Forward.

[LandOfLincolnGOP]

I'll wait to see the whole interview, but this is interesting. I tend to agree with Moore's perspective.

[King Black Robe]

He is right but I firmly support the FMA anyway. No one thinks it should have come to this. But this is the reality: If we do not pass FMA the courts -- state and federal -- will impose their amoral will on all of us. No one should know that better than Roy. We need the FMA and THEN we can restore everything else.

[cripplecreek]

I tend to agree with Moore. Constitutional amendments are a slippery slope. After all Arnold shwartzenegger wants one to allow immigrants to run for the presidency. Bill Clinton wants to get rid of presidential term limits. Hillary Clinton among others wants to do away with the electoral college.

[King Black Robe]

There is the way things should be and then there is the way things are. Should be: not necessary to amend the constitution. Are: absolutely essential to amend the constitution if we want to stop this assault on marriage.

[anniegetyourgun]

In light of the fact that leaving it to the states means recognizing "gay marriage," and in light of the SCOTUS decision on Texas sodomy law, I'm not sure Moore has a leg to stand on. Unless of course, we want to live in a make-believe pretend world, where we just hope for the ideal to come about.

[WOSG]

Is this guy a rea lconservative or someone who is just bound and determined to help the liberals wins?

Everything he does smacks of

Anyway he and all the critics are wrong when they pretend that marriage is not 'fit' for legal construction. Marriage is a legal institution. If it wasnt, there would be no court issue relating to it!

[WOSG]

Neglected to finish the thought ...

Everything he does smacks of snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory.

[Dog Gone]

For example, he said, the amendment being pushed by conservatives simply defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, leaving the door open to future officials who could argue that the measure does not prohibit incestuous unions.

The more I learn about this guy, the less I like him. What kind of shoddy legal reasoning is this?

No, this amendment would not prohibit incestuous unions, nor would it outlaw murder, which the Constitution also doesn't prohibit.

[Maceman]

I don't think a constitutional ammendment should be involved with defining marriage. It should focus instead on exempting marriage from the full faith and credit clause where one state's definitionof marriage violates public policy of another state.

[Steve Eisenberg]

If we do not pass FMA the courts -- state and federal -- will impose their amoral will on all of us.

While I would rather see the FMA pass than go down to defeat, it is our biggest collective mistake since the impeachment. The butterfly ballot saved us from the consequences of that one, but with this one the way out sure seems murky. Constitutional amendments need broad bipartisan support to make it, and this one doesn't even have broad enough Republican support. Failure of the FMA, unless it passage comes very close, will signal the courts that they have an OK to go as radical as they like.

The wording of the FMA is a nightmare because it still allows liberal courts to enact civil unions legally identical to marriage and have them nationalized. And yet it is being successfully painted as extreme. Instead the Presdient should have pushed for an amendment leaving marriage as a matter to the states. That would have been harder for the judges to twist, and most of us live in conservative states anyway. Many Democrats say state choice is their position, so force them to a vote on it. Maybe it is not too late, except now we are in a weak position because our Plan A seems DOA.

I may have a problem with being a pessimist, thought.

[LandOfLincolnGOP]

I think what Moore is saying is that by making the document more complex, you actually increase the opportunities for creative interpretation of the text. I have a hard time disagreeing with that.

The Constitution's power comes from its simplicity and elegance. If we decide to amend it every time we want to change the law, pretty soon our Constitution will look like France's.

[LandOfLincolnGOP]

No, the FMA defintely looks DOA at this point. Maybe there's a bigger strategy here, but I haven't been able to figure it out yet...

[Dog Gone]

The entire Constitution is far shorter than any bill passed out of Congress in decades, I'd guess. Constitutional law is a very specialized but small amount of the actual law of this country.

I think we're smart enough to handle several dozen more amendments if it comes to that.

[LandOfLincolnGOP]

Several dozen? The founders made it difficult to amend the Constitution for a reason, and I thank G-d every day. Imagine if "dozens" of amendments had been passed in 1970.

[Dog Gone]

I'm smart enough to handle the ramifications. Really.

[jwalsh07]

The redefining of marriage is a national issue, it can not be a state issue because the 14th Amendment guarantees equal protection. SCOTUS will never allow homosexuals who "marry" in one state to access the federal treasury while denying homosexuals in another state access to the federal treasury. Not gonna happen with this court or any other court.

[LandOfLincolnGOP]

Well, fortunately someone else was smart enough in 1789.

[billbears]

Everything he does smacks of snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory.

Why? Because he refuses to run to the national government every chance he gets like a good Republican? Moore is right. This issue can be handled by the states. The states have already been given that right by the Constitution. Start passing Amendments for every social ill this nation of states faces, once a Democrat gets to the point they control this power you're going to see Amendments of which you would have never dreamed.

The other issue is that if you pass an Amendment banning something, say someone comes along 20 years from now and pushes for an Amendment to overturn this one. Where will you be then?

[King Black Robe]

The FMA does not allow state courts to mandate civil unions. It specifically bans them from doing so. It only allows state legislatures to decide the matter. That is everything you say is best -- leaving marriage to the states -- EXCEPT the name. The name must be decided federally because it affects federal taxes and benefits. Marriage has been a federal issue for a long time.

[stands2reason]

Constitutional amendments are a slippery slope.

LOL, you're kidding, right?

[Dog Gone]

So, you're categorically opposed to any more Constitutional amendments ever because we're too stupid to handle the ramifications, right?

[LandOfLincolnGOP]

No. I'm categorically opposed to a) taking the matter of amending the Constitution lightly, b) amending the Constitution without giving adequate thought to possible unintended consequences, and c) allowing the Constitution, possibly the second most important document in human history, to be treated like any other vessel of law, to be changed and perverted by popular whim.

[Dog Gone]

The whole process, required by the Constitution, prevents that. The hardest thing to possibly do under the Constitution is to amend it.

If popular whim was the criteria, the ERA would be an amendment today. WAY more amendments have died than have passed.

[LandOfLincolnGOP]

Oh, I know. That's why this is more an interesting hypothetical conversation than anything else. The FMA will never get out of Congress.

[Dog Gone]

I don't know why you say that. The public isn't ready for gay marriage, and they largely oppose it.

The vast majority of states have passed a defense of marriage bill, which is probably unconstitutional given the full faith and credit provision.

Given your spirited debate on this issue, I'm guessing that you support gay marriage. I don't like it because I think it's requiring government blessing of something that isn't good for families. It also will cost me more money.

But it's not the biggest deal in the world to me, because several other things have done the same thing, perhaps even worse, and they're still the law.

[LandOfLincolnGOP]

I don't actually care very much about gay marriage. I don't support it, but I'm not wringing my hands over the issue. But anyway...

I say FMA won't make it out of Congress because nearly 50 Senators have indicated they oppose it, and because far fewer people support the amendment as oppose gay marriage. Also, the amendment process normally takes several years. Even if it did make it out of Congress, given that support for an amendment is so strongly skewed towards older Americans, this issue has a realistic lifespan of just a few years.

I should also point out that there are a lot of people who oppose amending the Constitution who don't support gay marriage. (Take Roy Moore, for example.) Opposing one does not mean supporting the other, and I'm not sure one should leap to that conclusion so quickly.

[Dog Gone]

You didn't answer my oblique question, but I'll let it pass.

I think FMA will pass because the percentage of gyas in this country, and the percentage of them who want to marry is very small.

As an election year political issue, this cuts entirely in the Republicans' favor. Bush couldn't have asked for a better domestic issue than this. It might even overshadow the economy or anything else domestically.

I think Congress will be afraid NOT to pass it, and the states will probably ratify it, depending on the actual language. We'll see. If I'm wrong, ping me and I'll apologize for being naive.

[Steve Eisenberg]

The FMA does not allow state courts to mandate civil unions. It specifically bans them from doing so.

Not in those words. Of course, I am assuming that we continue to have a RINO-dominated Supreme Court as present, and that they will violate any provision they see as anti-gay unless the clarity of the Constitutional provision is more than totally complete.

The absolute best that could happen would for the covanent marriage movement to take off and for more and more of the legal benefits of marriage to be limited by law to covanent marriages. One of the benefits of such a system (certainly by far not the most important) is that male homosexuals would not choose to be locked in by covanent marriage even if it eventually becomes open to them. (Don't laugh. Americas legal elites are VERY into the gay agenda.) This would be very hard for the supremes to get around. Of course, it would very hard for us to get passed, covanent marriage laws only being present in, I think, three states.

[Steve Eisenberg]

If I'm wrong, ping me and I'll apologize for being naive.

God knows there are worse sins than that around. I hope you are right and I thus wrong.

[Steve Eisenberg]

I think FMA will pass because the percentage of gyas in this country, and the percentage of them who want to marry is very small.

For thirty years, most big US cities have had churches marrying homosexuals. And you are right that few have gotten married. However, the issue is not whether they can marry, but whether it will remain possible to treat heterosexuality as the norm. Just like school textbooks today must show women firefighters, they want dictionaries for children to show a picture of two men under the definition of wedding. Whether the men actually get married, or whether they just have a sham marriage for tax purposes, has nothing to do with it. The issue is whether they can stick it to the conservatives who they think made fun of them back in 8th grade. (Actually, the kids who grew up to be liberals were just as bad, but that's another story.)

[Steve Eisenberg]

I think FMA will pass because the percentage of gyas in this country, and the percentage of them who want to marry is very small.

For thirty years, most big US cities have had churches marrying homosexuals. And you are right that few have gotten married. However, the issue is not whether they can marry, but whether it will remain possible to treat heterosexuality as the norm. Just like school textbooks today must show women firefighters, they want dictionaries for children to show a picture of two men under the definition of wedding. Whether the men actually get married, or whether they just have a sham marriage for tax purposes, has nothing to do with it. The issue is whether they can stick it to the conservatives who they think made fun of them back in 8th grade. (Actually, the kids who grew up to be liberals were just as bad, but that's another story.)

[Steve Eisenberg]

I think FMA will pass because the percentage of gyas in this country, and the percentage of them who want to marry is very small.

For thirty years, most big US cities have had churches marrying homosexuals. And you are right that few have gotten married. However, the issue is not whether they can marry, but whether it will remain possible to treat heterosexuality as the norm. Just like school textbooks today must show women firefighters, they want dictionaries for children to show a picture of two men under the definition of wedding. Whether the men actually get married, or whether they just have a sham marriage for tax purposes, has nothing to do with it. The issue is whether they can stick it to the conservatives who they think made fun of them back in 8th grade. (Actually, the kids who grew up to be liberals were just as bad, but that's another story.)

[PFC]

He is right but I firmly support the FMA anyway. No one thinks it should have come to this. But this is the reality: If we do not pass FMA the courts -- state and federal -- will impose their amoral will on all of us.

You mean, we will be forced to marry people of the same sex? Otherwise, their will is not imposed on all of us.

[LandOfLincolnGOP]

Maybe I missed your oblique question. What was it?

As for this being political gold, I'm not convinced. FMA is particularly unpopular among independents. So, do they stay home or vote for the Dem as a result? There's your $64,000 question.

[WOSG]

"Why?"

Because he is creating dissention and always figures out the way to MAKE THE LIBERALS WIN. He could have EASILY beaten the ACLU at their own game in Alabama BUT HE PLAYED RIGHT INTO THE HANDS OF THE ACLU AND NOW IS OUT OF OFFICE AND THE ACLU WAS PROVEN "RIGHT". It's very sad, but he's a principle d but IMHO not very sharp-thinking guy.

He's one of those romantics who would rather die in battle gloriously than win the battle. Such folks end up on gravestones in forgotten places and their causes become lost ones.

"This issue can be handled by the states. "

With activist Judges and that attitude, 4 Judges in Massachusetts will determine the lives of 300 million people. Do the math: 4 Massachusetts Liberal Judges + "Full faith and credit clause" = GAY MARRIAGE IN AMERICA EVERYWHERE.

The Marriage Constitutional Amendment is designed to PROTECT THE RIGHT OF STATES to do what you say should happen already. It is required because the activist judges have forced the issue and if we dont stop them, they will rewrite the Constitution to implement Gay Marriage and outlaw sexual morality as a basis for law.

Now, what are you going to do about stopping it? If not this, what? If not now, when?

"The other issue is that if you pass an Amendment banning something, say someone comes along 20 years from now and pushes for an Amendment to overturn this one. Where will you be then?"

er, oppose that amendment if it is bad policy.

What a strawman to complain about Democrat proposals to amend the constitution. Such proposals already exist. And they have been implemented. One example is the Nov 2003 constitutional amendment that made gay marriage a right in Massachusetts - no law was passed, no vote was taken, but the constitution was amended. THE LIBERALS JUST DONT NEED 2/3rds of CONGRESS ... ALL THEY NEED ARE A MAJORITY ON SOME COURT, AND THEY GET ALL THE 'CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS' THEY WANT!

[billbears]

Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

But you be a good Republican and keep running to the national government for all your woes. Don't worry, most 'conservatives' believe as you do. The Republic is long dead. You'll probably get your Amendment passed. And thirty years from now will be whining for the government to 'fix' whatever comes out of this Amendment. And be assured, something will come from this Amendment that you didn't expect. And we'll be in an even worse spot than now

[DumpsterDiver]

I am suffering from ABS (Acronym Burnout Syndrome). Can you please tell me what FMA stands for?

[Aquinasfan]

"I don’t think you can make a constitutional amendment for every moral problem created by courts that don’t follow the law of their states,” said Moore, who is currently waging a legal appeal to get his chief justice job back. "If you do, you pretend to do what God has already done and make it subject to the courts. I think it’s a problem to establish morality by constitutional amendments made by men when the morality of our country is plainly illustrated – in Supreme Court precedent and in state-law precedent and in the common law – as coming from an acknowledgement of God.”

Moore is a prophet.

[billbears]

Federal Marriage Amendment.

[King Black Robe]

As long as you are not murdered, what is it to you if a murder is punished or not? Same goes for anything. A redefinition of marriage touches all of us, we will all pay the consequences, so we all have the right to be heard on the matter. This government is not a dictatorship (or it didn't used to be).

[WOSG]

You are debating a strawman. Why do you pretend it is a states rights issue when that contradicts the full faith and credit clause? Why are you quoting the Constitution if the Republic is dead? Liberal activist judges have killed it and are now mutilating the corpse, and you are a bystander critizing those who are calling 911 for help.

Geez.

[george wythe]

"I don’t think you can make a constitutional amendment for every moral problem created by courts that don’t follow the law of their states,” said Moore

Common sense

[WOSG]

Dont forget that this is also about the money:
- Homosexuals getting tax breaks for their relationships
- Homosexuals being able to import their lovers via immigration rules
- Homosexuals being able to raise children and abolish any preference in law for heterosexual men-and-women couples in adoption, foster care and custody battles. In other words, they want a women to divorce her husband take up with a woman, and get preferential treatment in family courts.

It will be a huge mess when a poort child has about 5 or 6 'parents' (biological, step-parents, etc.) in these comlicated 'families'.

Homosexual marriage is the end of marriage as we know it, becuase once straight SINGLE people see this travesty, they will demand the same breaks and privileges without the commitment of traditional vows.

We do need to make the case that children deserve a mother and a father and our laws can and should recognize that preference.

the media will try to bulldoze this issue through, obfuscating and ignoring any aspects that undermine the case for expansion of gay lifestyle acceptance.

[WOSG]

What is being imposed? the law.

The argument that redefining marriage doesnt impose something on all of us is akin to the specious argument that if you dont like abortion, slavery or child abuse, dont have an abortion, own a slave, or abuse your child.

Marriage is an institution whose definition affects all our lives.

The will of 4 Judges is being imposed on massachusetts. Through the full faith and credit act, it will be imposed on all of America unless the people act.

Court costs to handle homosexual marriages, divorces, custody and all the rest, will be imposed on all of us and we will pick up the tab. The rights of children to have a mother and a father will be impacted as other forms of family are encourage by law. So it affects us all.

by the courts activist ruling, the people and the legislature has been shut out of the BASIC DECISION as to how we should define marriage.

That is the imposition on all of us. Whether we are for or against changing the definition of marriage to include homosexuals, it is a decision that the people should make, not a decision that 4 activist judges should make.

Otherwise we are no longer a democratic Republic.

[NutCrackerBoy]

I don’t think you can make a constitutional amendment for every moral problem created by courts that don’t follow the law of their states. -Roy Moore

I support the FMA, for reasons others have stated in this thread. But I imagine ol' Roy has a bead on what this all means. We are only beginning to experience the crisis that comes from secularism getting the upper hand.

[gcruse]

He is right but I firmly support the FMA anyway.

"Every morning, before breakfast, I believe two contradictory things."

Is that like, the Hypocritic Oath, or something?

[King Black Robe]

I already explained my position on this subject. You've more than explained yours: You want your amorality imposed on everyone. The need for the FMA is the fault of people like you. If you support states' rights then why don't you support them in acquiring gay marriage. Why is it you only support them after gay marriage has been imposed on the people by judicial fiat?

[gcruse]

If you support states' rights then why don't you support them in acquiring gay marriage.

You mean support the state's apportioning benefits of citizenship by sexuality? 
Sorry, but a Reich isn't really the 'state' I had in mind.

[King Black Robe]

So you are against states' rights on this issue?

[gcruse]

May states deny benefits of citizenship based on sexuality? Race? Religious belief?