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Locked on 02/14/2004 11:16:48 AM PST by Lead Moderator, reason:
Since discussion of the issues and article ended long ago, the rest of the discussion ends now. Those who were continuing the flame war consider this your warning- I don’t care who drew first blood. That was pulled and it should have ended it. Both sides were continuing it, and neither side has a single thing to whine about when I end up suspending of banning you. So don’t push it. |
Posted on 02/13/2004 11:22:02 AM PST by eccentric
A caller to Rush Limbaugh today (Friday) compared gay marriage to inter-racial marriage. While it is easy to take offense to the comparison (as Rush did), there is some truthfulness in it. For people of 50 years ago, who who not bigots, what was their major objection to inter-racial and even inter-cultural marriage? What was the first concern they expressed to their children when faced with this possiblity? "What about the children?" And years ago, and in someways, even today, this is a very real concern. Children in inter-racial and inter-cultural homes had a much more difficult social situation to deal with.
And that is what the push for legal homosexual marriage is all about: the children. When Heather has 2 mommies, both mommies want equal standing in custody, school, medical care.... When Heather wants an abortion ---no, strike that. She wouldn't go to mom for permission for that. When Heather wants her ears peirced, both moms want equal rights to give consent. When the moms get divorced, they want equal standing in the court for custody and child support.
So what? This shouldn't concern my family.... yes, it does. When given equal standing with man-woman marriage, homosexual couple demand the right to adopt and foster other people's children. This has already happened for one mother who placed her baby for adoption and then found he was given to a homosexual couple. The courts told her she had relinquinshed her right to object to who raised her birth-son.
So you wouldn't place your child for adoption, but what about foster care? Suppose you were traveling out of state. You are injured in a car accident and hospitalized. Thankfully, your child is uninjured but needs someplace to stay until relatives can come get him/her. Would you want your child placed in a homosexual home? Even overnight?
This whole issue IS about children and having equal rights to raise someone else's children. But unlike inter-racial marriage, homosexuality is defined by a behavior, not an appearance.
That's their Achilles Heel.
"Despite the basic rule that a marriage valid where contracted is valid everywhere, the courts and validation statutes have universally recognized a number of exceptions, which may be condensed and simply stated as follows: A marriage valid where contracted will nevertheless not be recognized as valid in the forum state if such recognition would be contrary to a strong public policy of the forum state."
BINGO!
Thirty-seven States with DMA's in place, eight States working on Amending their State's constitution to define marriage as one woman, one man.
If the people of California, Massachusetts, Vermont, or Hawaii wish to allow same sex marriages, that's their constitutional right, but they can't shove it down the collective throats of the remaining States.
I agree. Comparing homosexual marriage to inter-racial marriage requires perverse logic.
One does not have a "right" to be married. Rights are inherent to an individual only. Some may claim that the 10th Amendment alludes to additional inherent rights; however, marriage is not one of them.
The State's willingness to formally recognize any union as a legal and binding unit is predicated on the will of the State (we, the People).
If you are prevented from exercising your rights, then a legitimate course of action by the government is to punish anyone who attempts to stifle or deny you your rights. The government can also legitimately pursue avenues to allow you to freely exercise your rights.
If you want to marry someone who does not desire you as a spouse, you cannot claim a "right" to be married and use the power of the government to compel that person into a relationship with you. If you don't have a spouse but suddenly desire one, the government does not have to provide one for you. Furthermore, nowhere in the Constitution does it say that society, or the State, must accept or formally recognize ANY union that it deems unacceptable.
While I personally believed that marriage is a blessing from God, an institution ordained by Him for the creation of families and children, marriage exists in many cultures that do not practice Judiasm or Christianity. This is a universal concept, with many variations, as allowed by their respective states.
What America needs to decide is which kind of unions it will formally recognize, and which kinds it won't. In many ways, it already has. But make it permanent and unequivocable.
There was a post on another thread detailing the case law cited in states refusing to give another state's marriage any validity, and it was a very thorough study of the matter, quite impressive.
However, if the SCOTUS decides that a particular form of marriage discrimination is unconstitutional, it can impose that on the rest of the states, much like the case of Loving vs. Virginia did with interracial marriage. In the litany of cases cited, SCOTUS did not take up the matter. Surely gay marriage will find its way to that court within the next ten, possibly the next five years. I can see why many people feel that an FMA is the only answer.
I just question the tactics used to achieve it, and I doubt that it will happen, given the reasoning I've seen so far, and most people's attitudes about that reasoning.
It will also take at least that long to get this Amendment rolling, and by then, there will undoubtedly be hundreds of thousands of legally married same sex couples in the USA.
So, what we will be staring at, is an attempt at passing an Amendment that will be widely seen as taking something away from people, basically the validity and legality of their already established marriages.
It's a losing proposition, SCOTUS has a tendency to follow and validate societal trends, and to grant or even invent rights where none existed before.
However, I believe that if the argument is framed as a right of States to exempt themselves from the full faith and clause in the case of same sex marriages, existing case law would support it.
Thank you, if it was this one, then I posted it.
It was that one, thanks for reposting the link. It's great when people bring solid research into these threads, rather than just cherry-picking some out-of-left-field "expert" whose sole redeeming value is that he/she justifies their preconceived notions.
Interesting question.
Lev. 11:10 tells us the eating shellfish is an "abomination." An abomination is an abomination. Why do we not see these same Bible loving people asking for civil laws against eating shellfish?
An astute observation. In Griswold vs. Connecticut, the SCOTUS manufactured a right of privacy over the state's attempt to ban contraception methods. It was the religious policy of the Roman Catholic Church, codified into law that was being challenged, and if the debate over gay marriage is framed as Judaeo-Christian religious precepts being similarly written into marriage law, the final result is easily predictable.
What worries me is how much we throw at a battle that is essentially lost. Will President Bush have to accept a Democrat version of an illegal immigration bill in order to get a few votes for an FMA? Will we have to sacrifice a tax cut, or have to have Presidential and Republican Party support for a Rat overspending program? Will we have to surrender some of our national defense, or homeland security, in order to woo a few Rat votes in Congress? And this would only be to get the amendment out of Congress, there'd be a lot more horse trading to do to get 38 states to go for it.
How much liberty will it cost us all to have a shot at denying some gays a piece of paper, that most religious people believe will mean nothing to their Supreme Being, anyway?
"In response to the Hawaii court's actions, legislation called the "Defense of Marriage Act" was introduced in the United States Congress. The Act was introduced amidst a great deal of political furor, and this furor has tended to obscure sound legal analysis of what the Act would actually accomplish. "
Sound familiar?
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