Bush Backs Amendment Banning Gay Marriage [Live Thread 10:45 Statement]

Elaborate if you care to. I am not sure that I catch your point.

Ya, I knew what it meant. I still don't catch your point in context.

Newspeak is defined as the inversion of customary meanings. The customary meaning of marriage is the union of one man and one woman. In newspeak, the meaning becomes the union of one man and one man, one woman and woman etc.

Thoughtcrime is also Newspeak.

I think we are close to entropy here. Assuming a clear majority favored gay "marriage," what should we call it? I understand the emotion over the game "capture the term" for what the law calls it. Maybe the best strategy is to call marriage of the same sex, "legal partnerhship" with all the same legal ramifications of marriage. But I doubt that would satisfy the capture the term folks.

Pardon me, but your comments deserve to be repeated.

Despite the grumblings from those who don't understand public opinion and politics, I believe the President has just laid the smack-down on the Rats.

As quite a few have opined, coming out for the amendment last year would have been perceived as a stunt. By waiting until we had nice visual evidence for about two weeks with that fiasco in San Francisco, everyone knows what's going on.

I will eat my hat if the Republican leadership doesn't get an amendment pushed through for a vote as quickly as possible. Everyone is going to have to VOTE, and the people will be watching. Any delays in bringing it up for a vote, a la Tom Daschle, is going to cost the democrats dearly in the fall.

And by forcing the Rats to back this, the gay lobby will lose their clout, since they will have cost the jobs of many in Congress.

I personally think this is a most excellent political maneuver in order to get something that most of us want.

In addition, we have a very big argument in why President Bush needs to be able to appoint HIS judges and this will certainly make people pay attention!

Bush and the Republicans in Congress (and frankly, everywhere) are letting the gay agenda folks define their opposition candidates, knowing full well that their political clout has always been relatively insignificant, and is only destined to fall to a shocked populace.

Democrats are gonna have to decide whether it's time to fish or cut bait. Meanwhile, Republicans are hauling in loaded nets.

I don't know but it goes deeper than the word. It's where the secular meets the sacrament and the animus that the courts have wrought will tear apart friends and families.

It didn't have to be that way but that's the way it is.

I sense you are becoming a bit agitated. :-} My position is unchangeable and I reckon yours is as well. No problem.

The term "homophobia" is a classic example of Newspeak!

Scalia's dissent in Lawrence v. Texas (parts excerpted below) is worth another reading. He took the unusual step of reading his dissent in the courtroom, presumably moved by conviction held in his position.

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[Justice Scalia, with whom The Chief Justice and Justice Thomas join, dissenting.

"Liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt." Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833, 844 (1992). That was the Court's sententious response, barely more than a decade ago, to those seeking to overrule Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973). The Court's response today, to those who have engaged in a 17-year crusade to overrule Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U. S. 186 (1986), is very different. The need for stability and certainty presents no barrier.

. . .

IV

I turn now to the ground on which the Court squarely rests its holding: the contention that there is no rational basis for the law here under attack. This proposition is so out of accord with our jurisprudence--indeed, with the jurisprudence of any society we know--that it requires little discussion.

The Texas statute undeniably seeks to further the belief of its citizens that certain forms of sexual behavior are "immoral and unacceptable," Bowers, supra, at 196--the same interest furthered by criminal laws against fornication, bigamy, adultery, adult incest, bestiality, and obscenity. Bowers held that this was a legitimate state interest. The Court today reaches the opposite conclusion. The Texas statute, it says, "furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual," ante, at 18 (emphasis addded). The Court embraces instead Justice Stevens' declaration in his Bowers dissent, that "the fact that the governing majority in a State has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice," ante, at 17. This effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation. If, as the Court asserts, the promotion of majoritarian sexual morality is not even a legitimate state interest, none of the above-mentioned laws can survive rational-basis review.

V

Finally, I turn to petitioners' equal-protection challenge, which no Member of the Court save Justice O'Connor, ante, at 1 (opinion concurring in judgment), embraces: On its face §21.06(a) applies equally to all persons. Men and women, heterosexuals and homosexuals, are all subject to its prohibition of deviate sexual intercourse with someone of the same sex. To be sure, §21.06 does distinguish between the sexes insofar as concerns the partner with whom the sexual acts are performed: men can violate the law only with other men, and women only with other women. But this cannot itself be a denial of equal protection, since it is precisely the same distinction regarding partner that is drawn in state laws prohibiting marriage with someone of the same sex while permitting marriage with someone of the opposite sex.

The objection is made, however, that the antimiscegenation laws invalidated in Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1, 8 (1967), similarly were applicable to whites and blacks alike, and only distinguished between the races insofar as the partner was concerned. In Loving, however, we correctly applied heightened scrutiny, rather than the usual rational-basis review, because the Virginia statute was "designed to maintain White Supremacy." Id., at 6, 11. A racially discriminatory purpose is always sufficient to subject a law to strict scrutiny, even a facially neutral law that makes no mention of race. See Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S. 229, 241-242 (1976). No purpose to discriminate against men or women as a class can be gleaned from the Texas law, so rational-basis review applies. That review is readily satisfied here by the same rational basis that satisfied it in Bowers--society's belief that certain forms of sexual behavior are "immoral and unacceptable," 478 U. S., at 196. This is the same justification that supports many other laws regulating sexual behavior that make a distinction based upon the identity of the partner-- for example, laws against adultery, fornication, and adult incest, and laws refusing to recognize homosexual marriage.

Justice O'Connor argues that the discrimination in this law which must be justified is not its discrimination with regard to the sex of the partner but its discrimination with regard to the sexual proclivity of the principal actor.

"While it is true that the law applies only to conduct, the conduct targeted by this law is conduct that is closely correlated with being homosexual. Under such circumstances, Texas' sodomy law is targeted at more than conduct. It is instead directed toward gay persons as a class." Ante, at 5.

Of course the same could be said of any law. A law against public nudity targets "the conduct that is closely correlated with being a nudist," and hence "is targeted at more than conduct"; it is "directed toward nudists as a class." But be that as it may. Even if the Texas law does deny equal protection to "homosexuals as a class," that denial still does not need to be justified by anything more than a rational basis, which our cases show is satisfied by the enforcement of traditional notions of sexual morality.

Justice O'Connor simply decrees application of "a more searching form of rational basis review" to the Texas statute. Ante, at 2. The cases she cites do not recognize such a standard, and reach their conclusions only after finding, as required by conventional rational-basis analysis, that no conceivable legitimate state interest supports the classification at issue. See Romer v. Evans, 517 U. S., at 635; Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc., 473 U. S. 432, 448-450 (1985); Department of Agriculture v. Moreno, 413 U. S. 528, 534-538 (1973). Nor does Justice O'Connor explain precisely what her "more searching form" of rational-basis review consists of. It must at least mean, however, that laws exhibiting " 'a ... desire to harm a politically unpopular group,' " ante, at 2, are invalid even though there may be a conceivable rational basis to support them.

This reasoning leaves on pretty shaky grounds state laws limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples. Justice O'Connor seeks to preserve them by the conclusory statement that "preserving the traditional institution of marriage" is a legitimate state interest. Ante, at 7. But "preserving the traditional institution of marriage" is just a kinder way of describing the State's moral disapproval of same-sex couples. Texas's interest in §21.06 could be recast in similarly euphemistic terms: "preserving the traditional sexual mores of our society." In the jurisprudence Justice O'Connor has seemingly created, judges can validate laws by characterizing them as "preserving the traditions of society" (good); or invalidate them by characterizing them as "expressing moral disapproval" (bad).

* * *

Today's opinion is the product of a Court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct. I noted in an earlier opinion the fact that the American Association of Law Schools (to which any reputable law school must seek to belong) excludes from membership any school that refuses to ban from its job-interview facilities a law firm (no matter how small) that does not wish to hire as a prospective partner a person who openly engages in homosexual conduct. See Romer, supra, at 653.

One of the most revealing statements in today's opinion is the Court's grim warning that the criminalization of homosexual conduct is "an invitation to subject homosexual persons to discrimination both in the public and in the private spheres." Ante, at 14. It is clear from this that the Court has taken sides in the culture war, departing from its role of assuring, as neutral observer, that the democratic rules of engagement are observed. Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children's schools, or as boarders in their home. They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive. The Court views it as "discrimination" which it is the function of our judgments to deter. So imbued is the Court with the law profession's anti-anti-homosexual culture, that it is seemingly unaware that the attitudes of that culture are not obviously "mainstream"; that in most States what the Court calls "discrimination" against those who engage in homosexual acts is perfectly legal; that proposals to ban such "discrimination" under Title VII have repeatedly been rejected by Congress, see Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 1994, S. 2238, 103d Cong., 2d Sess. (1994); Civil Rights Amendments, H. R. 5452, 94th Cong., 1st Sess. (1975); that in some cases such "discrimination" is mandated by federal statute, see 10 U. S. C. §654(b)(1) (mandating discharge from the armed forces of any service member who engages in or intends to engage in homosexual acts); and that in some cases such "discrimination" is a constitutional right, see Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, 530 U. S. 640 (2000).

Let me be clear that I have nothing against homosexuals, or any other group, promoting their agenda through normal democratic means. Social perceptions of sexual and other morality change over time, and every group has the right to persuade its fellow citizens that its view of such matters is the best. That homosexuals have achieved some success in that enterprise is attested to by the fact that Texas is one of the few remaining States that criminalize private, consensual homosexual acts. But persuading one's fellow citizens is one thing, and imposing one's views in absence of democratic majority will is something else. I would no more require a State to criminalize homosexual acts--or, for that matter, display any moral disapprobation of them--than I would forbid it to do so. What Texas has chosen to do is well within the range of traditional democratic action, and its hand should not be stayed through the invention of a brand-new "constitutional right" by a Court that is impatient of democratic change. It is indeed true that "later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress," ante, at 18; and when that happens, later generations can repeal those laws. But it is the premise of our system that those judgments are to be made by the people, and not imposed by a governing caste that knows best.

One of the benefits of leaving regulation of this matter to the people rather than to the courts is that the people, unlike judges, need not carry things to their logical conclusion. The people may feel that their disapprobation of homosexual conduct is strong enough to disallow homosexual marriage, but not strong enough to criminalize private homosexual acts--and may legislate accordingly. The Court today pretends that it possesses a similar freedom of action, so that that we need not fear judicial imposition of homosexual marriage, as has recently occurred in Canada (in a decision that the Canadian Government has chosen not to appeal). See Halpern v. Toronto, 2003 WL 34950 (Ontario Ct. App.); Cohen, Dozens in Canada Follow Gay Couple's Lead, Washington Post, June 12, 2003, p. A25. At the end of its opinion--after having laid waste the foundations of our rational-basis jurisprudence--the Court says that the present case "does not involve whether the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter." Ante, at 17. Do not believe it. More illuminating than this bald, unreasoned disclaimer is the progression of thought displayed by an earlier passage in the Court's opinion, which notes the constitutional protections afforded to "personal decisions relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, child rearing, and education," and then declares that "[p]ersons in a homosexual relationship may seek autonomy for these purposes, just as heterosexual persons do." Ante, at 13 (emphasis added). Today's opinion dismantles the structure of constitutional law that has permitted a distinction to be made between heterosexual and homosexual unions, insofar as formal recognition in marriage is concerned. If moral disapprobation of homosexual conduct is "no legitimate state interest" for purposes of proscribing that conduct, ante, at 18; and if, as the Court coos (casting aside all pretense of neutrality), "[w]hen sexuality finds overt expression in intimate conduct with another person, the conduct can be but one element in a personal bond that is more enduring," ante, at 6; what justification could there possibly be for denying the benefits of marriage to homosexual couples exercising "[t]he liberty protected by the Constitution," ibid.? Surely not the encouragement of procreation, since the sterile and the elderly are allowed to marry. This case "does not involve" the issue of homosexual marriage only if one entertains the belief that principle and logic have nothing to do with the decisions of this Court. Many will hope that, as the Court comfortingly assures us, this is so.

The matters appropriate for this Court's resolution are only three: Texas's prohibition of sodomy neither infringes a "fundamental right" (which the Court does not dispute), nor is unsupported by a rational relation to what the Constitution considers a legitimate state interest, nor denies the equal protection of the laws. I dissent.]

Poll: Will the institution of marriage suffer if it fails to be inclusive of gays?

Yes. But the real issue is whether the American populace is motivated by recent acts of judicial tyranny and executive defiance. Yep. Or try this: Is legislative action establishing public policy through a constitutional amendment defining one man one woman marriage appropriate? Yep.

It is exactly times like these which call for the codification of public policy through legislative channels.

Agreed!

Good Job Mr President!

I agree. The courts have been compromised. Take it to the people.

The people will be heard, and Congress, as is most appropriate, will act.

Nice post but it does not address my main question, which was.

Why should anyone, straight, gay, whatever, have to ask the government for permission to marry?

Well Put.

His public statement yesterday said he did ("While I believe marriage is between a man and a woman...). That's what I'm referring to. I don't believe him, but that's his opinion for the purpose of the campaign.

And the ones who replied to me about the "pandering" remark didn't seem to think I was coming out against CMA. Only you did that; but, of course, you're trolling again.

I certainly thought you were coming out against CMA (no pun intended). You should probably draw a clearer distinction going forward.

"Employers would just charge more for each "partner" to be covered, like they do today with children."

But, the employer would still be subsidizing the insurance. Even when employers charge the employees for spouses or additional dependents, they generally don't charge the full price of the insurance. And, even if they do, the insurance companies are now covering more people at the discounted group rate, which means they will have to raise the rates on all. At what point do you cut the "additional spouses" off? And, aren't there sure to be court cases based on discrimination if you stop at the 3rd spouse, or 4th or 5th? Not to mention all the kids. I'm just trying to look long-term here, economically. I keep hearing that the polygamy argument is far-fetched, but, twenty years ago, so was gay marriage.

Inapplicability of the Bill of Rights does not mean that the Constitution does not apply to the states. It obviously does and references within itself many aspects which are exclusively directed to the states.

Additional evidence that the BoR did not apply is in Hamilton's federalist essays on the judiciary. He has a long discussion wrt how trial by jury was not imposed on the states and why. Of course much of Marshall's reasoning comes from Hamilton as he admitted on many occasion.

How did you come to the conclusion that the Constitution was ruled not to apply to the states per Barron?

What you "thought" is of no concern to me; if you're having trouble understanding what I'm posting, perhaps you should just skip over my posts.