Posted on 06/27/2013 3:49:16 AM PDT by BarnacleCenturion
The Supreme Court’s ruling today on the Defense of Marriage Act is a loss for big government, not for marriage. Let’s revisit.
The year was 1996 and I was a young college frosh, Democrat, and progressive activist. Democrats campaigned on DOMA. Clinton, the new Kennedy-of-sorts, was a fervent supporter, writing prior to the bill’s signing: 'I have long opposed governmental recognition of same-gender marriages and this legislation is consistent with that position.'
Other notable supporters include current Vice-President Joe Biden, Senators Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin, Harry Reid, and Patrick Leahy. (Here is the roll call.)
...
I’ve never understood how anyone who spent the past four-plus years lamenting the size of government could then argue for its increase by inviting it into the discussion of marriage. We complain about government in health care, we complain about government in education, we complain about government regulating soft drink size, but suddenly some of us have no problem with more government in people’s relationships with one another. Marriage is a covenant between a man, woman, and God before God on His terms. It is a religious civil liberty, not a right granted by government. It should never have been regulated by government in the first place, and government shouldn’t have an expanded reach in further regulating it now. There is no allowance constitutionally that invites our government to define the religious covenant of marriage.
(Excerpt) Read more at redstate.com ...
Your assumption that the majority’s opinion sets some kind of precedent to limit the reach of big government, depends entirely on the assumption that liberals will follow precedent and other interpretive rules even when such rules stand between the Left and what they want. That’s just naive. Liberals don’t care about rules. Even in this case, the majority eschewed the USSCt’s historical pronouncements that it would defer to legislative decisions when possible. It didn’t even go through a basic legislative history analysis as courts are supposed to do. Rules mean nothing to the Left when emotions are in play. In their irrational worldview, “consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” You will never “reason” them into submission or logical behavior when it doesn’t suit their goals. Know your enemy.
He is FOS. DOMA didnt interfere with anyone’ss marriage.
It just didnt award people benefits for state blessed sodomy.
This is no victory and the SCOTYUS wont use it as a precedent wrt laws that dont involve gay rights.
A question. I believe your opinion re. the purpose of DOMA to be correct. My question then is how any conservative could support an article of the Constitution being thwarted by an act of legislation. IMO the attempt to restrict the full faith and credit clause made DOMA unconstitutional from the get go. I think the NRA should use this approach re. citizens from one state carrying their firearms into another.
The reset, when it comes, (and it might not be 50 states “after” the reset), will sweep away the original “poisoned tree” which is Marbury vs Madison, all the way back to 1803.
The Constitution does NOT say that the SCOTUS is the final arbiter of all laws in the USA. In fact, it puts Congress over the SCOTUS.
For perspective: Article One, dealing with congress, is 2,269 words long. Article Two, the executive, is 1,025 words. Article Three, the judiciary is only 377 words. Only 295 words if you take out Article Three Section 3, which deals with definitions of treason, not the judiciary.
And here is the applicable part of Article Three:
“In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.”
Right there, it says that congress can regulate the SCOTUS, and decide which cases should or should not be under their purview.
The fact that the congress has abrogated this power since Marbury vs Madison doesn’t mean that this power no longer exists in the Constitution. After our coming crash and reset etc, I have some small hope that the “Tyranny of Five” will be thrown out. Nowhere in the Constiution or the Federalist Papers etc does it say that the SCOTUS shall have the power to redefine marriage to include homosexual unions and so on.
It was never the intention of our Founding Fathers that our Republic should become a tyranny of five judges.
I've been arguing for this for many years. The inevitable result of the SC rulings is that, through the 14th Amendment, every state will have to recognize gay marriages. Otherwise, there would be ongoing conflict between federal and state laws and you and I know which level of government will win that battle.
“It was ruled that an individual cannot sue on behalf of a State.”
I’m not a lawyer, but the ruling also seemed to imply that no citizen has standing to sue the state to enforce properly enacted laws.
If it were about property rights, your solution (which I agree with, BTW) would be perfect. Problem is that it is not about property. It is about attacking the moral foundations of this country. Destroying the family, and making the state the arbitrator of what constitutes a family, not the church or the individuals, is the goal.
That's exactly right. One big reason why the word "marriage" is nowhere to be found in the U.S. Constitution is that the God-given rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights apply to individuals, not groups (or even couples). The right to keep and bear arms, for example, doesn't apply differently to two people living 100 miles apart than it applies to the same two people after they get married.
I think the ruling affirms something that the U.S. Supreme Court has said for a long time: that no citizen has standing to sue a state in Federal court to enforce properly enacted state laws.
This, by the way, was exactly why the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case involving the pre-election nonsense in New Jersey back in the 2002 U.S. Senate election when Robert Torricelli was replaced on the ballot after the ballot deadline.
I’m more concerned that this ruling will be used to shut down businesses and non-profits that are conservative, from bakeries that don’t want to do cakes to churches that won’t perform weddings.
So I take it you’re outraged about the Voting Rights Act decision? Which overturned the will of Congress?
“There is no allowance constitutionally that invites our government to define the religious covenant of marriage.”
While that is true, unfortunately, that’s not the way the case was decided.
Good article. There were many after the health care decision who tried to say it wasn’t what it was. That somehow it was brilliant...that somehow it was a win. These are losses, pure and simple.
Consequences will reach far.
Now, if the Feds recognize a category as special, and a state defines something excluded as included, the Feds must respect that inclusion. Non sequiturs as well.
SCOTUS defined handguns as a protected class of arms. Now if a state defines machineguns into the same category (think Glock 18), what does that do for the 922(o) prohibition?
What baffles me is the argument. 87 congress members and a president are racist because sodomizers have rights ?
The Chief Justice can set the rule of the the arguments of merit to the case before the court. It’s done every day it’s known as “the judge won’t allow”. Because the administration now favors “gay marriage” I wouldn’t expect what could be called a healthy defence from them. Sodomy wasn’t the issue . The issue was protecting the integrity and intention of a basic unit of society through a mechanisim known as marriage to encourage familys.
What should we expect from a political party which itself has gone through a marriage with one world socialist radicals known to many as communists who can’t even use the word God. They’ve hyphenated into Demo-Coms.
What baffles me is the argument. 87 congress members and a president are racist because sodomizers have rights ?
The Chief Justice can set the rule of the the arguments of merit to the case before the court. It’s done every day it’s known as “the judge won’t allow”. Because the administration now favors “gay marriage” I wouldn’t expect what could be called a healthy defence from them. Sodomy wasn’t the issue . The issue was protecting the integrity and intention of a basic unit of society through a mechanisim known as marriage to encourage familys.
What should we expect from a political party which itself has gone through a marriage with one world socialist radicals known to many as communists who can’t even use the word God. They’ve hyphenated into Demo-Coms.
All states will come to recognize families from other states, and families of GI’s and federal employees living in their state.
Ohhhhh yes they can, through the "full faith and credit" provision of the Constitution, which has been the LGBT strategy all along---get it legalized in a couple of liberal states, and then use the federal courts to impose it on the rest of the country.
Moments After DOMA Ruling – Gay Plaintiffs Promise Nationwide Push for Gay Marriage (Video)
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