Posted on 03/21/2013 4:02:21 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
“[U]nder the Constitution, the regulation and control of marital and family relationships are reserved to the States.”
— U.S. Supreme Court,
Sherrer v. Sherrer (1948)
The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is an exception to the rule that a law’s title is as uninformative about the law’s purpose as the titles of Marx Brothers movies (“Duck Soup,” “Horse Feathers,” “Animal Crackers”) are about those movies’ contents. DOMA’s purpose is precisely what its title says. Which is why many conservatives and liberals should be uneasy Wednesday when the Supreme Court hears arguments about its constitutionality.
Conservatives who supported DOMA should, after 17years’ reflection, want the act overturned because its purpose is constitutionally improper. Liberals who want the act struck down should be discomfited by the reason the court should give when doing this.
DOMA, which in 1996 passed the House 342 to 67 and the Senate 85 to 14, defines marriage for the purpose of federal law as a legal union between one man and one woman. Because approximately 1,100 federal laws pertain to marriage, DOMA’s defenders argue that Congress merely exercised its power to define a term used in many statutes. But before 1996, federal statutes functioned without this definition......
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
You and the supporters have it backwards.
Congress shall make no law respecting and establishment of religion. . .
Marriage is an establishment of religion.
Government cannot protect or attack marriage. It is an institution of the church. Judges affirming a new definition of marriage or legislative votes all violate the civil rights found in the first amendment.
This is the intrusion. Will is probably right about DOMA but that is also why all of the government changes to marriage definitions are unconstitutional as well.
Separation of church and state NEVER protects the church. It apparently always protects the State and its ideological preferences.
(George Will tastes the rainbow)
George Will licks the log.
Good point.
It puts the lotion on its rear end!
Bigamy is not a Federal crime. It’s a State one.
“How could marriage not be a Federal issue if each state is forced to recognize marriages from other states?”
Its quite simple, what Massachusetts is licencing is not marriage no matter what label Massachusetts wants to slap on it.
Texas has no equivalent licence to extend. Of course if Texas did that licence too would not signify or enable marriage.
A marriage is and can only ever be a union between 1 man and 1 woman. Never let anyone pass marriage off as anything else in front of you. Let them call you a “bigot” or what ever other contrived term the left wants to come up with, You have thousands of years of western history and Biological proof to back you up.
If you want to call theses left-tards something call them sheep who blindly follow what other tell them with nether reason nor tredtition to justify their acts.
Congress shall make no law respecting and establishment of religion. . .
Marriage is an establishment of religion.
But I agree with you. Government should get out of the marriage business. Probably my crappy writing that led you astray.
Still think DOMA needs to be raised to an amendment, though, otherwise the Enemy will succeed, with pervs already on the Court and ready to drop the gavel on the 97% heterosexual majority.
I think we agree but I could not tell completely.
This would also mean that the government cannot rewrite the definition.
This is an establishment of religion, It means what religion says it means.
Non religious may face some sort of paradox here but they should construct their own group sense of partnering.
Balzac, George. The Constitution didn't mention thermonuclear weapons, either. Will you argue that constitutional silence, to remove those weapons to the States' armories?
How could marriage not be a Federal issue if each state is forced to recognize marriages from other states?
Which is precisely, Evan Wolfson of Lambda Legal said in 2001, the way the Movement pervs and their 600 gay lawyers intend to attack the institution of marriage before the Supreme Court.
The complaint will be, is, a claim of discrimination under the Full Faith and Credit Clause (Article IV) by States that do not recognize perverted antimarriage as a "sacrament" equal to matrimony.
My homo-shackup is equal to your 75-year marriage .... which by the way is a nullity.
Gays are just attacking the obvious evidences of their own perversity, again, and trying to eliminate the moral observances of others from the known universe.
Will is simply asking his homofriendly and homosexual bosses if he can keep his job. Period.
No, never let them get away with that. Turn it around, hose them with their own swill.
Libs don't really "argue" anymore .... they hiss, shriek, and shrill at people like the Pod People in Invasion of the Body-Snatchers.
Exactly, BUT it assumes that any marriage in another state is valid in that state. Are you claiming I could get married in another state and come to your state and get married there, and it wouldn’t be a crime. The fact that every state has a state law that includes bigamy charges for someone who was married in another state, proves marriage is a federal issue.
If marriage is not specifically enumerated in Article 2, Section 8 of the US Constitution it is NOT a Federal issue. Period
What state do you live in? Can I get married in my state and then come to your state and get married to another woman there? Why would that be?
Ah, but the religious will face one, too. They are quite happy to have the government legislate in favor of traditional marriage: tax law, insurance law, etc..
Many of the religious -- supporters of the Constitution to a one, no doubt -- may find they don't care much for a truly dispassionate federal government.
I have said for years that the reason I am married is because I made a commitment before God in a church.
If the state mailed me a document saying they had nullified my marriage, it would not matter one iota to me.
To say the religious face a dilemma is potentially true. DOMA had a logic which was to prevent unconstitutional state actions from becoming reciprocal.
Government modifications of marriage are clearly a violation of the establishment clause and yet I cannot think of one opinion leader who has suggested this.
Gay marriage as given my courts and legislatures is a civil rights violation. Where is even one advocate explaining this obvious fact?
It really matters rather little that the government decided after the fact to jump on board with civil marriages. What is the church to do?
sue the state? Send out the church army?
When people choose civil marriages I always wonder what they would do if the state mailed them a notice saying— its been nullified.
The state continually messes with religion and neither libertarians or liberals seem to mind much. They both share a pretty firm alliance in this respect that annoys me greatly.
Perhaps I should have clarified: if I had the ability to psychically control the behavior of Congress and the President, but could not compel them to act in any fashion contrary to the Constitution, I would have them write legislation as indicated. Perhaps a little less snarky, but the key aspect would be that Congress can specify the extent to which one state is required to recognize another state's actions. As such, if Congress were to say that one state's X's obligation to recognize a homosexual union performed in state Y would be satisfied by having state X issue a statement "State X recognizes that State Y has declared Bob and Joe to be a union, for what that's worth", that would pretty well insulate state X from demands that it do anything else in recognition of that union.
More generally, I would suggest that Bible citations represent a losing argument on issues like this. Not because the Bible does not contain truth and wisdom, but because anyone who does not believe in the Bible will not only regard such citations as meaningless, but will also regard them as affirmation that there are "real" arguments.
Unfortunately, probably 99% of conservatives totally miss the fundamental issue in the gay-marriage argument: whether institutions, companies, and even individuals, that engage in various forms of generalized reciprocity with married couples should be required to engage in such generalized reciprocity with unions that do not contain exactly one man and exactly one woman, or which fail in other ways to meet the traditional definition of "marriage".
Suppose a rental car company states that it costs $40/day for both members of a married couple to rent one car, and $45/day for two non-married individuals to rent and drive one car. Suppose further that two people arrive at the counter and show the clerk a contract that specifies that neither of them shall engage in any sexual activity, except with the other, without providing advance notice of such intention, and that violation of such terms shall entitle the aggrieved party to compensation of $10,000 payable at 10% interest as of the date of a discovered infraction. Should those two individuals be charged $40 or $45 for the rental? On what basis should the clerk make the determination?
A major point which conservatives miss (I'd argue that it's the most important point) is that many individuals, institutions, and companies voluntarily give certain benefits exclusively to married couples, on the expectation that they will indirectly benefit from doing so. Those pushing gay marriage don't like the fact that many of the institutions, companies, and even individuals would want to offer such benefits to people in "traditional" marriages, but not offer them to people in "non-traditional" marriages. If a question "Is X married to Y" can be quickly, easily, and unambiguously answered yes or no, then individuals, institutions, and companies that wish to voluntarily offer benefits exclusively to married couples will have a practical means of doing so. If the state is not involved with marriage, then the question "Is X married to Y" may become essentially unanswerable unless one is willing to regard as "married" any pair of individuals who claim to be married to each other.
The clerk should,be a clerk and not an attorney.
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