Posted on 06/08/2006 2:25:34 AM PDT by wai-ming
WASHINGTON - The Senate rejected a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage Wednesday, delivering a stinging defeat to President Bush and other Republicans who hope the issue will rally GOP voters for the November elections.
The senators' vote was 49-48 to limit debate and bring the amendment to a yes-or-no decision. That was 11 short of the 60 needed, killing the measure in the Senate for this year.
Bush suggested the ban was proper and its time would still come. He said, "Our nation's founders set a high bar for amending our Constitution and history has shown us that it can take several tries before an amendment builds the two-thirds support it needs in both houses of Congress."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Intervening on gay marriage? It's the activist judges who intervened, disregarding super-majorities in referendums and the will of the people.
Intervening on end of life? Does she mean that there's something wrong with stopping babies' brains from being sucked out of their heads and killing them? Or, it's wrong to stop a guy from pulling the plug on his wife so that he can get insurance money and live happily ever after with his mistress and illegitimate kids? Am I missing something here?
Your brain is a little discombobulated.
Marriage, just like a drivers license, isn't a right. It's not something that when you are born that you have a right to have.
It's legally defined as the union of a man and a woman. If you want to have your own country, say Bumf*ckville (sorry, I couldn't resist the pun - some of my best friends are gay), then you can say that gay people can marry.
In the U.S., this is not the case. State referendums have been put to the people, and every single one of them overwhelmingly has said "No" to gay marriage.
Activist judges, who want to impart their morality on the rest of us, are denying the results of the referendums, and so this Constitutional Amendment is needed to try to settle the issue once and for all.
What part of this don't you understand?
"Why is it when Republicans are all for reducing the federal government's impact on people's lives until it comes to these stinging litmus test issues, whether gay marriage..."
Gay marriage will cost us in higher taxes and more expensive employee benefits. So voting for gay marriage is a vote for greater government "impact on people's lives."
The Senators voting "nay" on this issue have again soiled their pants. Marriage can be only between one man and one woman for the purpose of bearing and raising children. Anything else is a MOCK marriage. According to vermin and activist judges this is not so; they open the door for "marriage" between a woman and her son, a man and his dog, a woman and her men, and so on, carrying their clearly illogical rationale to the next step.
Marriage is a ticket to favored status before the law and society. Marriage is also an obligation to create and maintain the most basic social contract, the sexual union of a man and a woman.
A sexual laison between same sex couples is not a union and is not a social contract. The homosexual relationship is an antisocial contract. It denies to the parties the most basic social contract of male/female union.
A near majority of our Senators can not comprehend this simple truth. Their moral and cultural ignorance should be a clarion call to the nation that our leadership is profoundly compromised.
The Senate has proven over and over that it is incapable of making the simplest choice between what is good and wholesome for our nation and what promotes the nexus of moral anarchy and Marxist domination.
It is time for a clean sweep. The tyranny of extremist left wing ideologues must be ended. They are the ultimate danger to the republic.
We can cope with natural disaster, financial tribulation and even warfare on our soil. We can not overcome a leadership bent on the destruction of our cultural traditions and heritage. That leadership must be brought to an abrupt end.
"Marriage can be only between one man and one woman for the purpose of bearing and raising children. Anything else is a MOCK marriage."
Wow. I had no idea the rules were so strict. I thought I'd been married to my husband for the last twenty years; turns out it's just "mock", since we didn't have kids. I bet I just get a "mock" diamond now. Poop.
Marriage between one man and one woman is a necessary but not sufficient condition to produce children. Man/man or woman/woman does not meet the necessary criterion. You have met the necessary condition, and that is all I was saying. Whether or not you actually have children is your personal decision. Sorry about the unintentional slight!
Oh, good. It really seemed to be stated like a requirement, and I'd be pretty ticked off if I got a zirconia ("just like" a diamond)..... ;)
Why should marriage and with it the societal accommodation and privilege be limited to only heterosexual couples that wish to marry?
Simply put, because society has decided so. As evidenced in tradition, conventional wisdom, common law, and enacted law. Society -the people through elected representatives, in legislative bodies have enacted legislation that is premised alone upon the rational basis of procreation -society has decided such... Unlike those arguing for a leftist utopian socialist village ideology would suggest, marriage has never been accommodated, merited privilege, and rewarded simply to foster and promote love or even monogamous sex...
Incidental exceptions, e.g. couples who choose to contracept, do not negate the basis, they test it and in doing so clearly contrast against and specifically identify the basis that some attempt to deny as one very much existing and relevant. Case in point, Griswold v. Connecticut where premised upon a right to privacy it was decided that individuals have the right NOT to procreate via use of contraceptives...
One can clearly see that with Griswold it is that contrasted with the exception that demonstrates clearly the rule, the rational basis of procreation exists!
Regardless a legislature has not chosen to handle exceptions to the basis, e.g. those that choose to contracept, exceptionally by incorporating more rules or by changing totally the basis or doing away with ANY marital accommodation -that is their prerogative, not something for the courts to decide.
Again, as evidenced in Griswold v. Connecticut, there is no supposed heterosexual (or homosexual) right to be accommodated and rewarded by society for entering into non-procreative marriage -such marriages are exceptions incidental to the basis of procreation with such incidence being premised in the right to privacy (just as abortion is). Unlike privacy, marital accommodation, subsidy, and reward is a societal privilege premised upon legitimate and rationally based societal discrimination -marital accommodation, subsidy, and reward is NOT a right...
It is only by illegitimately ignoring the rational basis of procreation - illegitimately conflating the right to privacy (which prohibits the State from enforcing procreation) with the privilege accorded marriage (rationally based in procreation as provided for legislatively by the State) that one can even attempt to argue the ability to choose to engage in homosexual sex with another as something that merits anything from society.
In essence, homosexuals do not get a "free pass" under the privacy right like non-procreative heterosexuals do BECAUSE homosexuals objectively can not possibly ever procreate homosexually...
The ability to procreate and the possibility of procreation -something two homosexuals can not do no matter how much they try...
Some may argue -but what of no-fault divorce laws? Did not the "procreative position" as to rational basis lose most of its force in the 1970's when almost every state passed no-fault divorce statutes?
The legal impact of no-fault divorce laws could be argued both ways and I would suggest that in resolving apparent contradictions between the two ways one would necessarily find the truth as to just what the continued rational basis premising accommodation and privilege of heterosexual marriage was and even more so is now as evidenced by direct correlation to continued societal accommodation and privilege.
e.g. no fault divorce simply is an admission that love can not be legislated and as such is by default not a rational basis premising ANY accommodation and privilege (therefore promoting love via homosexual marriage is a non-starter)...
e.g. no fault divorce simply is an admission that keeping a couple together in the interest of raising children can not be legislated and as such is by default not a rational basis premising ANY accommodation and privilege (therefore promoting raising of children via homosexual marriage is a non-starter)...
IF society has not and does not reward love and child rearing with the benefits reserved marital privilege then what is the rational basis? -- The answer is obvious --PROCREATION
The Senate rejected a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage Wednesday, delivering a stinging defeat to President Bush and other Republicans who hope the issue will rally GOP voters for the November elections.
LOL -what an imagination...
Excellent summation of the procreative position, basic to the perpetuation of society.
My point attempted to make an even more basic claim, prior to procreation, the sexual act between a man and a woman. That is, it seems to me, the most basic social contract.
Attempts to treat sexuality as the most basic contract miss the point that the essential character of the species is male and female. It is that irreducible identity that is at all times and in all places protected by societal norms.
The obfuscation of male/female sexuality into a bazaar filled with perversity and undifferentiated promiscuity is anti social, anti normative and anti species.
Homosexuality is not simply a threat to society. It is atavistic. It actively promotes the destruction of the species and denies creation.
Precisely!
The Senate doesn't think it needs the People anymore.
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