Defense of Marriage Amendment debate on CSPAN2 LIVE THREAD

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[abnegation]

And so it begins.....

[usastandsunited]

Yes. Freedom.
Which freedom do you speak ? The freedom to marry as many wives as I want> The freedom to marry my sister's first cousin ? The freedom for me and my five gay lovers to adopt that beautiful child because we are a great family? Or Freedom, as in whatever promotes your agenda ?

[Zeroisanumber]

Let's just have the liberals turn this country into a giant version of Canada. Forget about American exceptionalism.

I'm not saying we turn over the reins to whomever, I'm just saying that I think that gay marriage is inevitable. Any discussion of an amendment to the Constitution is just election year grandstanding.

[eiffel]

Read it again. When you get to the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness part, stop and think whether or not there is a moral basis for including it.

I could read it a thousand times over and still not get to that, because it's in the Declaration of Independence. I assume you are referring to the Preamble, which reads:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

I don't post this to be condescending, rather because some on this thread seem to have forgotten the reasons our founding father's drafted this document.

When you are done there, pick up the US Code and find a law not based in morality. There are millions of laws, it should be easy to find one.

Indeed, there are millions of laws, but only one Constitution, and I do not take amending it lightly. That is why I oppose this legislation, my personal veiws aside.

Returning to the Declaration of Independence, notice that our nation was founded on the idea that we have the right to pursue life, liberty, and happiness, but does not define that happiness, nor the ways in which we would pursue it. This amendment does.

[Zeroisanumber]

Just don't say that around the Ministry of Love. ;)

[lugsoul]

Freedom. I'm sorry the word is so alien to you that you can only define it as things that you consider to be perversions.

I'd call it the freedom to have the damned government out of my life as long as I'm not causing harm to others or their property.

[jwalsh07]

I could read it a thousand times over and still not get to that,

Would you care to bet a thousand dollar donation to the surviving families of fallen vets that the words life , liberty and the pursuit of happiness are not enshrined in the Constitution?

[exodus]

To: lugsoul
"The federal government leaves it up to the state legislatures. That's a pretty federalist definition to me."
***********************

To be precise, goldstategop, the Federal government didn't leave anything to the State governments.

The People, in the person of their State Representatives to the Constitutional Convention, did not give to the Federal government the power to interfere in Private matters.

[hunter112]

Why are we wasting our time debating an amendment that will never be passed? Oh... yeah. Election year, duh.

My, this has been an interesting thread! Usually my friends scripter and little jeremiah get involved in logic battles with me over this subject to make a thread this active.

Suffice it to say, there are libertarian conservatives, and social conservatives, and they will have differing opinions on whether or not an FMA is a good thing or not. I'd like to take up the topic of how this is playing in the liberal news media.

Zeroisanumber, you're right that this is for election year show. It is fun to watch Kerry, Edwards, and Daschle get their panties in a bunch over having to vote against the FMA. That has to be the prime reason Frist is putting this together at this time. But has anybody thought why the Rats have not filibustered this to death? They certainly have enough votes, especially if you add Northern state Republicans (Ok, RINOs, if you will), to kill this vote, but they want to let it go on.

They are depending on their friends in the liberal media to spin defeat of the FMA as the first "legislative" victory for the gay marriage issue. If the press could let Clinton crow about his "victory" with a 50-50 split on the obstruction of justice issue in his impeachment trial, they will run "Federal Marriage Amendment Soundly Defeated" headlines if the vote runs 66-44 in favor of it.

Now, I know that some of you hope these headlines will firm up the base, and you've got a point. Anybody who really doesn't want to see gay marriage might just get in line behind Republican candidates this November, and would probably forgive the President on his immigration proposal, and that's a good thing. But has anyone considered what would happen on this issue if the FMA fails to get even fifty votes? Not only will you see the "Soundly Defeated" headlines (with added hyperbole), but it might just take some of the gas out of the pending marriage amendment efforts at the state level. I realize, most of them will pass in November, but the media will seize on any state that fails to, again, as a "victory". For them, its the 1960's all over again, and no matter how many times Martin Luther King was thrown in jail, the press of that time always celebrated the marches that he was NOT jailed.

For those of you out there who think that 67 votes will magically appear from heaven, or shame, or political expediency, I think you'll be quite disappointed come Wednesday. Liberals hoping to use their stand on that vote in the future are counting on seeing this as an early victory, when the day comes that we're not wrangling about gay rights.

[jwalsh07]

Actually that should read "property" rather than "pursuit of happiness" and you can find it in the 5th and 14th Amendments.

[exodus]

johnfrink - Homosexuality is an orientation, not a "behavior" or a "choice." They choose to be gay to the same degree that you choose to be black.
Hat-Trick - Oh. So it's God's fault? Should we not consider His opinion, or does He not exist, and the "orientation" is part of mankind's evolution?
***********************

Yes Hat-Trick, the existence of homosexuals is God's "fault," unless you're saying that there was someone else creating people, and not God alone.

[jwalsh07]

#469 was for you eiffel.

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. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

You think these words speak to somebodys morality?

[eiffel]

I would not care to gamble, but you should know that the phrase "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" does not appear in the Constitution.
You may be thinking of Amendment V "nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law," but I assure you, that phrase appears in the Declaration of Independence.

link to the Constitution online: http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.table.html#articlei

[pollywog]

What a festering pile of CRAP this amendment is!

I would say it is of UTMOST IMPORTANCE myself. The future foundation of this country DEPENDS on this very issue!! We will ROT from within if this doesn't pass!!!!!! no need for terrorists to strike!! We will have destroyed our OWN SELVES!!!!!!!!

[pollywog]

Yes, and sponsored by BOTH of my Senators (Craig and Crapo, ID). For once, I don't have to call them to complain either! LOL

Well I hope that you call all the senators that are sitting on the fence. There is a HIGH PRIORITY LIST at Family Research Council. www.frc.org

[hunter112]

Would you care to bet a thousand dollar donation to the surviving families of fallen vets that the words life , liberty and the pursuit of happiness are not enshrined in the Constitution?

Maybe you're thinking of the Declaration of Independence?

[usastandsunited]

Why are you judging me? What you consider a perversion may not be a perversion to me . By your own definition of freedom, which of the things I mentioned don't qualify?

[jwalsh07]

OK, now that we agree that the words life, liberty and property appear in the US Constitution, specifically in Amendments 5 and 14, we can now get back to the original point. You claimed that the Constitution does not speak to morality. I said thats hogwash. And I demonstrated the same by posting a relevant part of the 14 th Amendment.

Balls in your park.

Is there a "moral" basis for including this in the US COnstitution?

And by the way, the Bill of Rights and the subsequent amendments are an integral part of the US Constitution.

[exodus]

EternalVigilance - Just the way abortion was legalized by the US Supreme Court, of course.
carenot - Maybe I misread the Constitution, I think murder is up to the States.
***********************

Defining and prosecuting murder is up to the People and the many States, because that Power was not given to the Federal government; and the 10th Amendment prevents the Federal government prosecuting anyone for murder.

[jwalsh07]

No, I'm thinking of the 5th and 14th Amendments and inadvertently typed POH when I meant property which I promptly corrected.

Do you think their is a moral basis for parts of the Constitution? Does self defense have a moral component? Life? Liberty? Property?

[johnfrink]

Glenn Reynolds describes the amendment thusly:

"a pointless exercise driven by social conservatives to fire up their base."

Indeed.