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To: lentulusgracchus
"Sitting in convention, to amend the Constitution of the United States, in Article IV of which is where the problem lies."

There is no "problem" with Article IV.

Article IV Section 1. Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State; And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.

I've provided ample case law to prove that the Full Faith and Credit Clause is not absolute in the case of marriages, hell, it isn't absolute in the case of gun permits, the ability to practice law, medicine, etc.

You have yet to provide with any proof that Congress would in fact enact the actual Amendment that you believe should be enacted, or that Congress can in fact "fix" this problem any better than they've handled any of the other myriad issues they've attempted to "solve".

If the people of the State of Massachusetts decide that they don't have a problem with same sex marriages, that's THEIR decision, let them make that decision at the polls next election.

Your solution actually comes down to using the force of the Federal government to remove the ability of the States to make that choice.

The Constitution says that each individual State gets to decide, I stand with the Constitution, and I want Florida to decide what Florida should do, not for this issue to be decided by the Feds and special interest lobbyists.

288 posted on 05/21/2004 5:40:32 AM PDT by Luis Gonzalez (Sin Pátria, pero sin amo.)
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To: Luis Gonzalez
You posted it yourself at #216 above:

The Constitution does not delegate to the United States the power to create a categorical exception to the Full Faith and Credit Clause, thereby inviting states to disregard the official acts of other states. Rather, the Full Faith and Credit Clause empowers Congress to enact general laws and to prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof. Simply stated then, the Full Faith and Credit Clause does not allow Congress to decree that a state action which is disfavored by Congress on substantive grounds may be disregarded by states that share the congressional viewpoint. Taken to its logical extreme, were Congress to have the power it deems it has by proposing the Defense of Marriage Act, Congress could next declare that one state need not recognize a no-fault divorce of a sister state, or need not recognize a punitive damages award in excess of $100,000. Obviously, Congress could not enact such legislation. See Williams v. North Carolina, 325 U.S. 226 (1945); Cook v. Cook, 342 U.S. 126 (1951) (divorces in one state must be honored in another state). The "unifying" aspect of the Full Faith and Credit Clause would forever be undermined, and a state's authority to make a final, respected judgment would be forever extinguished. [Emphasis added.]

It is glaringly obvious from your linked source that you share the opinion of the writer that the United States Government has no power to alter Article IV by statute. I agree. The article also asserts that the States, under Article IV, have no power to reject the "marriages" being confected in Massachusetts. Under Article IV, those people, in the teeth of the will of all the Peoples of all the States of the Union, are married whether nobody wants their travesties to be recognized as marriage or not. Furthermore, and most to the point, the article you posted directly contradicts your statement,

I've provided ample case law to prove that the Full Faith and Credit Clause is not absolute in the case of marriages.....

Case law, shmase law. Article IV is, in the language of the full article you cited, "absolute on its face". There is no getting around it, no way to weasel-word the outcome of an Article IV attack on the constitutions of the other 49 States. The States will lose, and the catamites will win. The Supreme Court has already clearly signalled its (grossly political) intentions in the grotesquely reasoned Lawrence, in which they blithely overturned precedent set less than 30 years ago.

Article IV as written is the Ace of Trumps. The only way to cure the situation is to amend Article IV to provide that judges' cabals in Massachusetts shall not rewrite the law of the land in 50 States of the Union.

The other cure, the intrastate constitutional cure, the judges took care to vitiate by setting timetables that they fully and dishonestly intended should preclude the People of Massachusetts' expressing their will before the judges imposed their own. The Massachusetts justices should be impeached, tried, and shot for lese majeste' against the People of Massachusetts, for laying hands on the People's majesty and making new law ultra vires the Supreme Judicial Court, but that's a matter for Massachusetts.

291 posted on 05/21/2004 6:55:57 AM PDT by lentulusgracchus
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