Mass. Supreme Court Rules - Gay Couples have the Right to Marry

FoxNews | 11-18-03 | FoxNews

[puroresu]

#####Again, puroresu, your passion intrudes on your logic. I claim no great knowledge of the MA Constitution or law. I claim only what is obvious, that the MA court was interpreting the MA constitution as it applied to MA law. Whether or not they did this correctly, I cannot say. That all depends on what methods and approaches are historically acceptable in Massachusets jurisprudence.#####


If the state constitution in Massachusetts guarantees a right to gay marriage, then there should be some record of such a thing being ratified. There's never been a point, for example, in which gay marriage was A) legal in Massachusetts or B) so widely accepted that its codification would have led to no opposition or controversy. Therefore, how did such a provision end up in the state constitution without anyone noticing it until these four arrogant judges "discovered" it?


#####Your complaint, it seems, is that you dislike the method employed. Disagreement hardly makes it wrong. If MA citizens dislike the result, it's up to them to amend their constitution in such a way that won't be susceptible to the court's interpretive methods.#####


Bingo! I dislike the practice of judges finding things in constitutions that aren't there. There's no record in any state of a right to gay marriage being added to any state constitution. Such a thing has never even been voted on in any state. Yet we now have activist judges crawling out of the woodwork, telling us that state constitutions from Alaska to Hawaii to Massachusetts guarantee gay marriage rights.

You didn't address my point that these state rulings are part of a broader strategy to use the federal courts to force the other states to comply, should one of these mini-fiats be allowed to stand in, say, Massachusetts.

[jwalsh07]

Roosevelt's threat to pack the courts in the 30's was establishing de facto control.

"A study by Professor Eskridge found that in the period 1967-1990 Congress overturned 124 Supreme Court and 220 lower court decisions interpreting Federal law.19 The Civil Rights Act of 1991 alone overrode nine Supreme Court decisions that had narrowed previous interpretations of law."

All very Constitutional, no?

[oldironsides]

Massachusetts already is known for ruined cities turned into dumps. My poor father would show me the names in the court records. He would ask why all the names in the police log were all Hispanic. I looked at the names and damned if he didn't have a point. He was 85 years old and knew his city was in a mess. That may be politcally incorrect but it was there and he pointed it out. Drugs, drugs and more drugs.

[Chairman_December_19th_Society]

I'm glad to see you've learned something from my posts. Now that we agree that Congress can do NOTHING to control how the courts make their decisions, perhaps you can tell me how by altering either their jurisdiction or their funding,

All right, I get it.

If you are saying can Congress restrict what a given Court will do at a specific instance in time? No, of course not. No more than Congress can keep me from actually writing this - regardless of whatever legislation may be in force today. That is because they - and now I in the comparitive - have committed an instantaneous act (decision, or writing in my instance) that requires a response. If you are in act/respond mode, of course you cannot control an act, it is a physical impossibility.

Now as to controlling the issue moving forward, there is control. Things can be prevented from happening again, and things can be fixed when they break. This includes law, findings in law, and judicial decisions.

Now, pass a Federal Constitutional Amendment defining marriage as solely between one man and one woman, and granting Congress the power to make such laws as necessary to enforce the provision, and - moving forward again - presto. What is broken is now fixed. Any state laws that defined - despite the constraints of the English language - marriage as including homosexual unions is immediately null and void, along with any "marriages" that may have occured.

Boom, done, over.

This is the nuclear button of control over the judiciary.

Now there are two methods of initiating an Amendment to the Federal Constitution. One method is a Constitutional Convention.

Now let me see if I can remember where the other method of creating a Constitutional Amendment originates - the nuclear button of control over judiciary (at whatever level, Federal, state, local, you name it) if it succeeds of passage by 75% of the several states (which would be 38, currently).

Let me think.

Oh, yeah, now I remember...

...the CONGRESS!

[Chairman_December_19th_Society]

For any subject over which a federal court has jurisdiction, there is no way to make them rule one way or another. Courts will rule as courts will rule, and there's very little COngress can do except appoint judges they think will in a way they like. By limiting jurisdiction, you're merely shifting the final decision to a different forum.

Again, if you take the point in time issue, sure I can't disagree with you because your logic is too narrow (again, as an example, you couldn't keep me from writing this). The Constitution doesn't work in narrow views but across broad vistas - concepts, and big picture views, if you will.

Conceptually, there is indeed control over the judiciary by the Congress. There is a big picture take on the control also - establishment and disestablishment (or defunding, if you're a Constitutional purist) of courts it doesn't like.

Limiting jurisdiction does not necessarily shift the decision. It depends on the manner of limitation and how prescriptive such limitations might be.

[jwalsh07]

But did Roosevelt's actions or Congress' laws establish any control over how any judge made his decision?

But of course it did Everet, the court got the message and moved toward Roosevelt. Read about it, quite the bluff.

And by the way Everet, you got carried away above. There are better ways to make your point. A casual observer might look at your post and accrue it toward your score on this board.

[chuckwalla]

How is an ammendment going to stop anything? It is supposed to stop the gov from infringing on our right to keep and bear arms but doesn't, and what about the 4th and no knock searches and warrantless searches, etc, etc. There is no right for anyone born here to become an automatic citizen nor is there a constitutional right to an abortion.
Who needs the constitution?
All we need is the right judges.
That is why the dims are fight to the death for their judges.

[Chairman_December_19th_Society]

And Massachusetts used to be such a nice place till all those scumbags moved in.

I'm not sure - I don't live there - but I've got this hunch this decision is not going over well with the population of the Commonwealth.

Can't prove it - at least not yet (no news being reported that I could find), but it's a feeling I have.

[Chairman_December_19th_Society]

FreepMail!

[xzins]

You miss the point.

The point is to STRENGTHEN the couple that produces the kids in the first place.

I have absolutely no interest in giving tax incentives to anyone else. Certainly, no one deserves a tax break because they're attracted to rectal orgasm.

Another reason I wish we didn't have this damn income tax. A sales tax makes so much sense.

Tied tubes are an obstacle that can be overcome. Depositing sperm in a rectum will never result in a child.....only hemmorhoids and disease.

[xzins]

it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another


A tea party of civil disobedience is the proper response. The time has come.

[agitator]

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[BikerNYC]

There is no right for anyone born here to become an automatic citizen ...

Huh?

Amendment XIV

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.

[HamiltonJay]

hahaha waste your time? Haha do a little history on the whole marriage as a legal construct before you come here with your activist nonsense. Enjoy your ignorance, it fits ya.

[pogo101]

I'm not an activist. And once again, like a greased pig, you try to wiggle away from the subject. Nice try. The subject is:

1. Your initial position that only fertility justifies state sanction of marriages;
2. your subsequent French retreat from that position, without having the b***s to admit that it's a retreat -- and coupling your retreat with a blast of verbal abuse; and
3. your attempt to change the subject to the "whole marriage as a legal construct." Uh HUH.

Your argument got nailed. You didn't have squat to back it up. Enjoy your crow.

[chuckwalla]

And subject to the jurisdiction thereof. Does that mean illegals? That is my point that just being on the soil is not enough for citizenship.
If someone is here illegally are they subjects to the jurisdiction?