Posted on 06/25/2013 9:54:04 PM PDT by BuckeyeTexan
At 10:00 AM Wednesday, the Supreme Court will deliver its final decisions of this term. We can expect decisions on both same-sex marriage cases.
California Proposition 8: Hollingsworth v. Perry
In November 2008, 52.3 percent of California voters approved Proposition 8, which added language to the California Constitution that defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman. In May 2009, a California District Court ruled that Proposition 8 violated the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment and temporarily prohibited its enforcement, and the Ninth Circuit agreed, affirming the District Court’s ruling. The United States Supreme Court will now consider whether a state can define marriage solely as the union of a man and a woman, in addition to considering whether the proponents of Proposition 8 have standing to bring suit in federal court. The Court’s ruling will implicate the rights of gay men and lesbians, the role of the government in structuring family and society, and the relationship between the institution of marriage and religion and morality.
Defense of Marriage Act: United States v. Windsor
Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer married in Toronto in 2007 where same-sex marriages were legal. At the time of Spyer’s death, the state of New York recognized the couple’s marriage. However, the IRS denied Windsor use of a spousal estate tax exception on the ground that, under the Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”), the federal government did not recognize same-sex marriages for the purpose of federal benefits. The Supreme Court is now being asked to decide DOMA’s Constitutionality. The Obama Administration is not defending DOMA, so a Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (“BLAG”) from the House of Representatives is doing so, arguing that DOMA is rationally related to the legitimate government objective of providing a uniform definition of marriage for federal benefits purposes. The Obama administration counters that the use of sexual orientation to decide who gets benefits is a suspect classification that deserves higher scrutiny. Under that level of higher scrutiny, the Obama administration argues that DOMA is impermissible. This case can affect what role the federal government can play in defining marriage and who in the federal government can defend the government’s laws. Not only could this case provide large tax savings to Ms. Windsor herself, but it can also make federal benefits available to other same-sex couples who are legally married under the laws of their state.
...”essentially what it says is that Gay marriage is a state issue, not a federal issue”....
Now they will use this to litigate in states which deny same sex marriage...saying look what the supreme court says....
They are energized now to take the rest of the states down this road..
We were mostly right in our predictions. What we didn’t see was that Judge Walker’s decision would stand because at that time, CA was still defending Prop 8.
“IX: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
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.”
So you read that as Marriage is between a man and a woman? Great.. Talk about legislating from the Bench..
Some facts, the argument to remove any legal definition of marriage would be the end of marriage anyway, since it wouldn’t exist and the word would not have any definition at all.
Besides, government or a controlling religion/authority has always had to rule on marriage, society cannot function without it, that is why the Romans, the Greeks, the Apache, New Guinea headhunters, people that we have never heard of, all had to have marriage laws, property, children, inheritance, warrior deaths in service, marriage law is not something that politicians cooked up a 100 years ago.
Besides, why waste time on such childish LIBERTARIAN silliness anyway. DON’T WASTE TIME IGNORING ACTUAL POLITICS AND REAL LIFE AND CURRENT LEGISLATION AND ELECTIONS BY TRYING TO PRETEND THAT MARRIAGE WILL BE REMOVED FROM LAW AND GOVERNMENT IN THE NEXT YEAR OR TWO OR 20 ANYWAY, THAT ARGUMENT DOESN’T EXIST, AND QUIT PRETENDING THAT IT DOES.
Next up, I hear Triad’s are wanting their civil rights to marry.
The free people of the State of California have the right to decide that issue.
That’s all I’m going to say to you, because it’s painfully obvious you’re here to troll.
Ok, so without government telling us how we define our own personal relationships, we are doomed. That’s just wonderful. When did the Republican party decide that it needed government so much? I thought it was the party for smaller government? No, it isn’t anymore. It is full of a bunch of self righteous hypocrites who wish to use the same jack boots as the left to push their agenda. It isn’t about liberty anymore, just the power to ram your beliefs on others.
This is why we lose and this is why we will continue to lose. No amount of prayer is going to fix that because even Jesus would be sickened by such beliefs.
You may not like sodomy and I may not like sodomy. But a constitutionally free republic allows people to do things others don't agree with if it doesn't interfere with another's freedoms. It's not a perfect world, but our free constitutional republic is the best political thing the world has ever seen.
Not so many on the right who do not believe in God, the vast majority of non-believers vote democrat, and not many on the right who believe in gay marriage, the vast majority of gay supporting anti-marriage people vote democrat.
You are one very confused guy.
“The free people of the State of California have the right to decide that issue.”
The free people of California cannot decide to enslave other people. Your argument is bogus. Stay out of what adults do with each other. It is none of your business.
Federal money determines morality.
You’ve called it what it is...it’s a sexual issue not a rights issue as they have “dressed” it.
Interesting the gays at the podium kept saying this was “for the children”.....over and over again......children they cannot produce.
They lean on anything and everything that will avoid saying what the truth is that this is about legalizing their despicable sexual acts..and that’s all it is.
So you support gay marriage, as long as the states do it, and your participation in the political argument is to choose to fight conservative efforts to protect marriage.
That's how I read it, with two caveats:
(1) the anti-gay marriage folks can go back to the district court and try to get it to vacate its decision on similar grounds; the judge who ruled against Prop. 8 has now retired, so that argument will go to another judge.
(2) If that fails, same-sex marriage will be legal in California but without setting any precedent for any other state.
No. I don't.
"True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrong-doing by its prohibitions. And it does not lay its commands or prohibitions upon good men in vain, although neither have any effect on the wicked. It is a sin to try to alter this law, nor is it allowable to attempt to repeal a part of it, and it is impossible to abolish it entirely. We cannot be freed from its obligations by Senate or People, and we need not look outside ourselves for an expounder or interpreter of it. And there will not be different laws at Rome and at Athens, or different laws now and in the future, but one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid for all nations and all times, and there will be one master and ruler, that is, God, over us all, for He is the author of this law, its promulgator, and its enforcing judge. Whoever is disobedient is fleeing from himself and denying his human nature, and by reason of this very fact he will suffer the worst penalties, even if he escapes what is commonly called punishment ..."
-- Marcus Tullius Cicero, 59 - 47 B.C.
"Human law is law only by virtue of its accordance with right reason; and thus it is manifest that it flows from the eternal law. And in so far as it deviates from right reason it is called an unjust law; in such case it is no law at all, but rather a species of violence."
-- Thomas Aquinas
"This natural law, being as old as mankind and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times: no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid derive all their force, and all their authority, from this original.”
-- William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Law of England (1765)
"In disquisitions of every kind there are certain primary truths, or first principles, upon which all subsequent reasoning must depend."
-- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 31, 1788
"An unjust law is no law at all."
-- Alexander Hamilton
"When human laws contradict or discountenance the means, which are necessary to preserve the essential rights of any society, they defeat the proper end of all laws, and so become null and void."
-- Alexander Hamilton
"The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained."
-- George Washington, 1789
My issue is KEEP THE LUNK-HEADED FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OUT OF WHERE IT DOESN'T BELONG.
Sure it would exist, and sure it would have meaning — again, not everything is a legal matter.
Moreover, why not let civil suits settle the matters such as inheritance?
Besides, government or a controlling religion/authority has always had to rule on marriage, society cannot function without it, that is why the Romans, the Greeks, the Apache, New Guinea headhunters, people that we have never heard of, all had to have marriage laws, property, children, inheritance, warrior deaths in service, marriage law is not something that politicians cooked up a 100 years ago.
Ah, but now you're conflating civil government with religion; I have never asserted that marriage was not to have a definition, or that there was no authority which could define it: merely that such authority was not the civil government's proper purview.
Besides, why waste time on such childish LIBERTARIAN silliness anyway. DON’T WASTE TIME IGNORING ACTUAL POLITICS AND REAL LIFE AND CURRENT LEGISLATION AND ELECTIONS BY TRYING TO PRETEND THAT MARRIAGE WILL BE REMOVED FROM LAW AND GOVERNMENT IN THE NEXT YEAR OR TWO OR 20 ANYWAY, THAT ARGUMENT DOESN’T EXIST, AND QUIT PRETENDING THAT IT DOES.
Who's ignoring politics? I've done some work challenging [or trying to] contraconstitutional statutes and I've put some thought into an solution to the immigration [amnesty] bull.
It really bothers me when Scalia and Thomas do not agree.
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