Why marriage can't be left to states

Jeff Jacoby always provides good perspectives on current issues. It is too bad that there are so few Mass residents that seem to read his columns!

It is too bad that there are so few Mass residents that seem to read his columns!

I read Jacoby's columns when they are online. I refuse to subscribe to the Kennedy Family Newspaper.

BTTT

You and me too, I am really surprised that he hasn't been ousted from this paper. He is the only one in that rag that doesn't outwardly promote and endorse the left.

I too read his column online, but I refuse to buy that homosexual rag, and the NYT too.

I also read him online - actually I have subscribed and receive his articles in the email!!!

He is really great - I hope we don't loose him!

I enjoyed reading the other day that since Massachusetts legalized marriage between two people of the same sex, many companies in this state are starting to now tell their employees, that since marriage is so-called 'legal' now in Mass, that if their same sex dependents that are receiving company benefits wants to continue to receive these benefits, as the company does to 'real' married couples, that the same sex couple now has to marry, or they will no longer be able to continue to receive these benefits.
The companies do not provide benefits to a man and woman who live together outside marriage, nor will they provide benefits to a same sex couple who live together outside marriage. They only provided this benefit to same sex couples, because the right to marry was not available, but now it is available.
Many same sex couples are up in arms about this, saying they do not want to marry, because that brings into play many other issues, like what happens if divorce occurs, then you got to deal with division of property, alimony, etc.

In spite of the indifference of many traditional family conservatives and the faux conservative press toward H.R. 3313, it passed by the Yeas and Nays: 233 - 194 7/22/2004 3:50pm: (Roll no. 410). Most everyone heard about the FMA while H.R. 3313 was and continues to be virtually ignored.

I disagree with the FMA for the reason stated by Matthew J. Franck, Chairman And Associate Professor Of Political Science, Radford University before the House of Representatives, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, DC. January 29, 1998, Congress, the Court, and the Constitution:

My opposition to amending the Constitution to deal with our difficulties is not rooted in mere reverence for the framers' handiwork if evidence shows its insufficiency in some respect. No institutions crafted by human beings can be truly permanent, never requiring any alterations. Yet the Constitution, as Joseph Story said, was ''reared for immortality, if the work of man may justly aspire to such a title.'' Before we take risks with a structure whose ''foundations are solid'' and whose ''compartments are beautiful, as well as useful'' (again Story's words),(see footnote 155) we should explore the building thoroughly and be certain we have not overlooked any of the useful features it already contains.

Judges are the problem, not the Constitution! Problem identification is half the solution and you need to focus on and solve the problem. Stop throwing amendments at the Constitution the way legislature likes to throw money at pork barrels. The Constitution is a very conservative document for the most part. FMA will only make it more so and serve no purpose in correcting the liberal federal courts, which are to the left of MoveOn.org: Demagoguery in Action. Additionally, the amendment process is exceedingly slow and no match for the rapidity at which the U.S. Supreme Court can generate unconstitutional opinions.

The visionary Founders included at least two additional Constitutional means to deal with the disastrous federal courts. The Federalist #48: "It will not be denied, that power is of an encroaching nature, and that it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it."

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas stated the following at the Francis Boyer Lecture for the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research at Washington, D.C. on February13, 2001:

The Constitution means what the delegates of the Philadelphia Convention and of the state ratifying conventions understood it to mean; not what we judges think it should mean.

Third, this approach recognizes the basic principle of a written Constitution. We "the people" adopted a written Constitution precisely because it has a fixed meaning, a meaning that does not change. Otherwise we would have adopted the British approach of an unwritten, evolving constitution. Aside from amendment according to Article V, the Constitution's meaning cannot be updated, or changed, or altered by the Supreme Court, the Congress, or the President.

How in the name of almighty jurisprudence did the Impeachment Clauses and Article 3, Section 2, Clause 2 leave without taking Article 5. with them? Is this what is meant by a "living" Constitution, where the text you don't like packs up and moves off like some Disney animation?

"On every question of construction [of the Constitution] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or intended against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), letter to Judge William Johnson, (from Monticello, June 12, 1823)

"The Constitution was written to be understood by the voters; its words and phrases were used in their normal and ordinary, as distinguished from technical meaning; where the intention is clear, there is no room for construction, and no excuse for interpolation or addition." - Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, 1 Wheat 304; Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat 419; Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat 419; Craig v. Missouri, 4 Pet 10; Tennessee v. Whitworth, 117 U.S. 139; Lake County v. Rollins, 130 U.S. 662; Hodges v. United States, 203 U.S. 1; Edwards v. Cuba R. Co., 268 U.S. 628; The Pocket Veto Case, 279 U.S. 655; (Justice) Story on the Constitution, 5th ed., Sec 451; Cooley's Constitutional Limitations, 2nd ed., p. 61, 70.

Religious Freedom Restoration Act (6) A fundamental maxim of law is, whenever the intent of a statute or a constitution is in question, to refer to the words of its framers to determine their intent and use this intent as the true intent of the law.

Why do you insist on Amendment, to the exclusion of a much easier and faster Constitutional means?

Protecting Marriage From Judicial Tyranny by Ron Paul Since the Marriage Protection Act requires only a majority vote in both houses of Congress (and the president's signature) to become law, it is a more practical way to deal with this issue than the time-consuming process of passing a constitutional amendment. In fact, since the Defense of Marriage Act overwhelmingly passed both houses, and the president supports protecting state marriage laws from judicial tyranny, there is no reason why the Marriage Protection Act cannot become law this year.

Article III, Section 2 - The Washington Times: Editorials/OP-ED In the 107th Congress (2001-2002), Congress used the authority of Article III, Section 2, clause 2 on 12 occasions to limit the jurisdiction of the federal courts.

The Avalon Project : Federalist No 78

The Executive not only dispenses the honors, but holds the sword of the community. The legislature not only commands the purse, but prescribes the rules by which the duties and rights of every citizen are to be regulated. The judiciary, on the contrary, has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments.

The commentary for Article 3, Section 2, Clause 2 is found in Federalist No. 81:

" The authority of the proposed Supreme Court of the United States, which is to be a separate and independent body, will be superior to that of the legislature. The power of construing the laws according to the SPIRIT of the Constitution, will enable that court to mould them into whatever shape it may think proper; especially as its decisions will not be in any manner subject to the revision or correction of the legislative body. This is as unprecedented as it is dangerous....But the errors and usurpations of the Supreme Court of the United States will be uncontrollable and remediless.'' This, upon examination, will be found to be made up altogether of false reasoning upon misconceived fact.

The Supreme Court is to be invested with original jurisdiction, only ``in cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls, and those in which A STATE shall be a party.''

We have seen that the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court would be confined to two classes of causes, and those of a nature rarely to occur. In all other cases of federal cognizance, the original jurisdiction would appertain to the inferior tribunals; and the Supreme Court would have nothing more than an appellate jurisdiction, ``with such EXCEPTIONS and under such REGULATIONS as the Congress shall make.''

To avoid all inconveniences, it will be safest to declare generally, that the Supreme Court shall possess appellate jurisdiction both as to law and FACT, and that this jurisdiction shall be subject to such EXCEPTIONS and regulations as the national legislature may prescribe. This will enable the government to modify it in such a manner as will best answer the ends of public justice and security.

The amount of the observations hitherto made on the authority of the judicial department is this: that it has been carefully restricted to those causes which are manifestly proper for the cognizance of the national judicature; that in the partition of this authority a very small portion of original jurisdiction has been preserved to the Supreme Court, and the rest consigned to the subordinate tribunals; that the Supreme Court will possess an appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, in all the cases referred to them, both subject to any EXCEPTIONS and REGULATIONS which may be thought advisable; PUBLIUS.

The federal branches of government are coordinate, NOT coequal and they are all subordinate to the U.S. Constitution which is the supreme law, NOT the U.S. Supreme Court:

The Avalon Project : Federalist No 78 It proves incontestably, that the judiciary is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power 1 The celebrated Montesquieu, speaking of them, says: "Of the three powers above mentioned, the judiciary is next to nothing.'' "Montesquieu: The Spirit of Laws.'' vol. i., page 186.

The Avalon Project : Federalist No 51 But it is not possible to give to each department an equal power of self-defense. In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates

The Court can run much faster and further to the left, till there is nothing left. Amendment corrects the Constitution, while impeachment, jurisdiction stripping, executive non compliance (see Lincoln on Judicial Supremacy & Judicial Monopoly Over the Constitution: Jefferson's View) and interposition (Standing Between the Butcher and the Baby) deal with the unconstitutional courts.

Law Review Article

There is another answer to the objection that "it cannot be done." There is evidence that the mere threat of impeachment will have a salutary effect on the federal judiciary. As noted in the Introduction, the law school deans found this aspect of the impeachment movement especially troubling. Yet, the historical data clearly reflect that the Framers intended the threat of impeachment to have exactly this effect. Impeachment is a multi-step process. Resolutions can be introduced, authorizing impeachment directly or authorizing an investigation into possible impeachment proceedings. Assuming that an investigation occurs first, the steps leading to conviction would include investigation, debate on whether or not to draft articles of impeachment, a vote on passage of the articles, a trial in the Senate, and conviction. The farther the process goes, the greater the salutary impact will likely be. Those who are persuaded that impeaching judicial tyrants is correct should not give up before they start simply because they don't think they can obtain the final goal of conviction.

The Supreme Court and the Politics of Impeachment by Matthew J. ...

It is an ancient maxim in law and politics that the potential for the abuse of a power is no argument against its use. Certainly this is true of judicial review itself, the most frequently abused power in American politics today. And if the Constitution's framers and authoritative early commentators regarded the impeachment power as perhaps the most decisive available response to judicial imperialism, it is past time to consider following their wise counsel.

It's Time to Hold Federal Judges Accountable -- March 1997 Phyllis ...

When President Gerald Ford was a Congressman, he proposed the impeachment of one of the most liberal of all Supreme Court Justices, William O. Douglas. Ford, who was a moderate in every sense of the word, explained Congress's tremendous and far-reaching power of impeachment: "An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history; conviction results from whatever offense or offenses two-thirds of the other body [the Senate] considers to be sufficiently serious to require removal of the accused from office."

WallBuilders | Resources | Impeachment of Federal Judges

Even though the Constitution gave the lawmaking powers to the Congress, courts have become the predominant policy making body in the nation. In fact, on public tours of the Supreme Court, one often hears the ridiculous claim that "this is the building from which all the laws in the land emanate." The Supreme Court, fully believing its own propaganda, regularly strikes down or rewrites the laws of Congress to conform to its own predilections and edicts.

Allowing the Court to enlarge its own sphere of power beyond what the Constitution authorizes, permitting the Court to usurp the powers of Congress, and tolerating the Courts' disregard of constitutional separation of powers moves America ever further from being a representative republic and ever closer toward the oligarchy against which Jefferson warned. The Court must be resisted in these attempts.

Although Congress is ultimately responsible for the discipline of judges, far too many of our Congressmen (like far too many of our citizens) have no understanding of the proper use of impeachment. However, a wise political axiom declares that "Congress sees the light when it feels the heat," and this is especially true on this issue.

Judicial Tyrants Should Be Impeached

The Justices are fully engaged in social and cultural engineering. George Washington said those who labor to subvert religion and morality may not be called patriots. Yet subverting religion and morality is exactly what the Court is doing. It is in the business of changing America from the Christian nation the Court said America was in 1892, to an anti-Christian secular state whose religion is secular humanism. Even though Christianity and the Bible condemn homosexuality as an evil, the Court in Lawrence said "(t)he state cannot demean" homosexuals. In Romer v. Evans, the Court invalidated a law prohibiting favored treatment of homosexuals. Such Christian condemnation was tantamount to bigotry.

The Court has even altered the meaning of the word "liberty" as used in the 14th Amendment’s due process clause. As originally understood, it meant only "the right to have one’s person free from physical restraint." Yet the Court in Lawrence, repeating its bogus and solipsistic "sweet mystery of life" statement (as Justice Scalia called it) it first made in an abortion case, said, "At the heart of (14th Amendment) liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." When the Framers spoke of liberty, they meant, not licentious self-indulgence, but the liberty to do that which is good, just and honest, or liberty under lawful moral constraints. They realized, as Edmund Burke said, that "men of intemperate minds can never be free; their passions forge their fetters."

What is worse, the People and their elected representatives continually, by their inaction, concede without a whimper that our imperial judiciary virtually has carte blanche to say the Constitution means anything it wants it to mean. This brings to mind an anecdote related by Robert Bork. A new State Supreme Court Justice upon meeting a U.S. Supreme Court Justice said, "I'm delighted to meet you in person because I have just taken an oath to support and defend whatever comes into your head." Congressional leaders seem to think that the only thing that can be done is to urge appointment of conservative constitutionalists to the Court, or urge passage of constitutional amendments to correct judicial excess. However, there is a better solution.

It is now generally believed that grounds for removal under impeachment must be only for treason, bribery or for violation of a criminal statute. However, David Barton, in his book "Impeachment: Restraining An Overactive Judiciary," has documented that the Framers of the Constitution had a much broader view. Barton states that "impeachments of federal judges in the century-and-a-half following the ratification of the Constitution usually revolved around non-statutory and non-criminal charges rather than today’s standard of a direct violation of statutory law."

Justice Joseph Story, the U.S. Supreme Court’s greatest scholar, believed such a restriction was preposterous and said, "No one has as yet been bold enough to assert that the power of impeachment is limited to offenses positively defined in the statute book of the Union as impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors." Justice Story said impeachment was for protecting the rights of the people "and to rescue their liberties from violation," and a remedy for "political offenses, growing out of personal misconduct, or gross neglect, or usurpation, or habitual disregard of public interests," as well as a check upon "arbitrary power." So were "unconstitutional opinions" and "attempts to subvert the fundamental laws and introduce arbitrary power."

Founding Father and later Supreme Court Justice James Wilson said "(i)mpeachments are confined to political characters, (and) to political crimes and misdemeanors.." George Mason, who is called "the Father of the Bill of Rights," saw impeachment as a remedy for "attempts to subvert the Constitution." Hamilton said the subjects of impeachment are those which may "be denominated political." Justice Samuel Chase was impeached for his judicial high-handedness and arbitrary uses of the judicial power. Barton also points out that one federal judge was impeached for supporting the secession movement. Federal judges were removed from office in 1904, 1912 and 1926 for judicial high-handedness.

States vary in the means to remove/correct members of government.

Article 8 Alliance

Article 8 of the Declaration of Rights -Massachusetts Constitution:
"In order to prevent those, who are vested with authority, from becoming oppressors, the people have a right, at such periods and in such manner as they shall establish by their frame of government, to cause their public officers to return to private life. . ."

Language of bill of address, sponsored by Rep. Emile J. Goguen (D-Fitchburg), NOW before the Massachusetts Legislature:

Resolved, That both houses of the legislature hereby request the Governor by way of address, under the provisions of Article I of Chapter III of Part the Second of the Constitution, to remove Margaret H. Marshall, Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, from her office, to remove John M. Greaney, Associate Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, from his office, to remove Roderick L. Ireland, Associate Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, from his office, and to remove Judith A. Cowin, Associate Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, from her office.

The bill is still in the House Rules Committee. It's been gaining support. But the leadership may not allow it to be voted on during this session. If necessary, we will have it immediately re-filed.

The Avalon Project : US Constitution : Article IV The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union, a republican form of government….

republic - yourDictionary.com - American Heritage Dictionary" A political order in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who are entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible to them."

WallBuilders | Resources | Republic v. Democracy

A pure democracy operates by direct majority vote of the people. When an issue is to be decided, the entire population votes on it; the majority wins and rules. A republic differs in that the general population elects representatives who then pass laws to govern the nation. A democracy is the rule by majority feeling (what the Founders described as a "mobocracy" ¹²); a republic is rule by law.

A republic is the highest form of government devised by man, but it also requires the greatest amount of human care and maintenance. If neglected, it can deteriorate into a variety of lesser forms, including a democracy (a government conducted by popular feeling); anarchy (a system in which each person determines his own rules and standards); oligarchy (a government run by a small council or a group of elite individuals): or dictatorship (a government run by a single individual).

For the history and thorough refutation of the Incorporation Doctrine, see the following: The Ten Commandments and the Ten Amendments: A Case Study in Religious Freedom in Alabama, 49 Ala. L. Rev.434-754 (1998)., Jaffree v. Bd of School Comm., 554 F. Supp. 1104 (1983) Government by Judiciary: The Transformation of the Fourteenth Amendment, Second Edition, Raoul Berger, Forrest McDonald , Liberty Fund, Inc.; 2nd edition (June 1997) The Fourteenth Amendment and the Bill of Rights; The Incorporation Theory, Charles Fairman, Stanley Morrison, Leonard Williams Levy, Da Capo Press , January 1970

The Committee for Justice Lino A. Graglia, A. Dalton Cross professor of the University of Texas School of Law:

"....Hope once lay in the making of new appointments, but the failure of ten consecutive appointments by four Republican Presidents to change the direction established by the Warren Court has shown this hope, too, to be unreliable. Rule by judges can certainly be solved by abolishing judicial review, but the real problem resides less in judicial review as such than in the Court's reading of the Fourteenth Amendment as a text without any definite meaning. That problem could be solved either by returning the Fourteenth Amendment to its original meaning or by giving it any definite meaning, thus making it a judicially enforceable rule."

The US Constitution v. rebellious federal judges and cowardly republicans ... As you can see, jurisdiction stripping is far more common and easier to accomplish than amendment or impeachment; and far more effective than hoping for a favorable decree from trained monkey, or his more liberal colleague - a federal judge.

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Herbert W. Titus Senior Legal Advisor to the The Liberty Committee:

Cached How many of you received your Constitution when you came in tonight? Well, you are going to need one! We are going to read it and that is a radical thing! When I was a student at Harvard I took Constitutional Law class and we never read the Constitution. We only read the opinions of the Supreme Court about the Constitution. Tonight as we sketch out a blueprint to for state action to recover constitutional liberty and law for America, we are actually going to look at the document and read what it says.

The following quote has been attributed to James Madison, often referred to as the "Father of the U.S. Constitution." "Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."

AEI - Publications Beneath the Supreme Court's many astounding decisions in its 2002-2003 term, and the shifting judicial coalitions that produced those results, runs a unifying basso continuo: Constitutional law, in the sense of judicial decisions that are guided--at least in aspiration--by the text, structure, and logic of the written Constitution, is dead. It has been replaced, often as a matter of explicit doctrine, with subjective judicial impressions of popular sentiment or political utility. Federalist Outlook, The Term the Constitution Died, Michael S. Greve,Friday, July 25, 2003

Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 US 833 - Justice Scalia, with whom the Chief Justice, Justice White, and Justice Thomas join, concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part.

Justice Curtis's warning is as timely today as it was 135 years ago:

"[W]hen a strict interpretation of the Constitution, according to the fixed rules which govern the interpretation of laws, is abandoned, and the theoretical opinions of individuals are allowed to control its meaning, we have no longer a Constitution; we are under the government of individual men, who for the time being have power to declare what the Constitution is, according to their own views of what it ought tomean." Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393, 621 (1857) (Curtis, J., dissenting).

The Imperial Judiciary lives. It is instructive to compare this Nietzschean vision of us unelected, life tenured judges--leading a Volk who will be "tested by following," and whose very "belief in themselves" is mystically bound up in their "understanding" of a Court that "speak[s] before all others for their constitutional ideals"--with the somewhat more modest role envisioned for these lawyers by the Founders.

"The judiciary . . . has . . . no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society, and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither Force nor Will but merely judgment . . . ." The Federalist No. 78, pp. 393-394 (G. Wills ed. 1982).

Or, again, to compare this ecstasy of a Supreme Court in which there is, especially on controversial matters, no shadow of change or hint of alteration ("There is a limit to the amount of error that can plausibly be imputed to prior courts," ante, at 24), with the more democratic views of a more humble man:

"[T]he candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, . . . the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal." A. Lincoln, First Inaugural Address (Mar. 4, 1861), reprinted in Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States, S. Doc. No. 101-10, p. 139 (1989).

The Decline of a Nation

The philosopher Hegel said, "What experience and history teach us is this: that people and government never have learned anything from history or acted on principles deduced from it." Or as Winston Churchill said, "The one thing we have learned from history is that we don't learn from history."

The refrains that are often heard are: "It can't happen here," or "Our country is different." But the reality is that nations are born and die just like individuals. Their longevity may exceed the average person's lifespan. But the reality is that nations also die.

Each of the great civilizations in the world passed through a series of stages from their birth to their decline to their death. Historians have listed these in ten stages.

The first stage moves from bondage to spiritual faith. The second from spiritual faith to great courage. The third stage moves from great courage to liberty. The fourth stage moves from liberty to abundance. The fifth stage moves from abundance to selfishness. The sixth stage moves from selfishness to complacency. The seventh stage moves from complacency to apathy. The eighth stage moves from apathy to moral decay. The ninth stage moves from moral decay to dependence. And the tenth and last stage moves from dependence to bondage.

Nations most often fall from within, and this fall is usually due to a decline in the moral and spiritual values in the family. As families go, so goes a nation.

Dred Scott | Washington University in St. Louis In 1846, Dred Scott and his wife Harriet filed suit for their freedom in the St. Louis Circuit Court. This suit began an eleven-year legal fight that ended in the U.S. Supreme Court, which issued a landmark decision declaring that Scott remain a slave.

The Case for Impeaching Rogue JudgesThe American people are asking themselves, why bother voting when the judiciary can knock down laws like so many bowling pins?

Judicial Dictatorship Everyone talks about the Supreme Court, but no one ever does anything about it.

H.R. 3313 9/7/2004: Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.

You will either take control of the federal courts via Congress and to a lesser extent the President, or they will increasingly take control of you and yours!

Well - that is quite a treatise. Sorry but I am afraid that I need the Reader's Digest version. You might want to exchange emails with Jeff Jacoby on your thoughts. I have had several email discussions and I find him to be very forthcoming and willing to discuss issues. I think you will find a discussion with Jeff Jacoby rewarding!

Jeff Jacoby's e-mail address is jacoby@globe.com

The only problem I can see with that is that each state has a supreme court that is answerable only to their state. In the case of MA, their supreme court changed their laws. If they are not strong enough to do anything about their judges, why should the rest of the country be forced to accept the ruling of a rogue state court, as would be the case with the MA marriage ruling. Perhaps a law that would require any ruling that affects other states must be referred to the USSC only.

Well - that is quite a treatise!!! I need the readers digest version!
I would recommend that you email Jeff Jacoby and have a discussion. He is veryforthcoming and willing to exchange views. I bet you would enjoy the interchange....
Jeff Jacoby's e-mail address is jacoby@globe.com

Each state should decide without fed gov and other states interference. Over 2/3s of the states have some type of DOMA on the books.

HR 3313 completely removes the issue from the dictatorial fed courts.

Let folk decide for themsleves. If they want sodomy, let 'em have it. Maybe all the sodomites would move to CA and NY and leave the rest of the nation in peace.

I posted a lot of background info that many may have needed to understand this:

Protecting Marriage From Judicial Tyranny by Ron Paul

Mr. Speaker, as an original cosponsor of the Marriage Protection Act (HR 3313), I strongly urge my colleagues to support this bill. HR 3313 ensures federal courts will not undermine any state laws regulating marriage by forcing a state to recognize same-sex marriage licenses issued in another state. The Marriage Protection Act thus ensures that the authority to regulate marriage remains with individual states and communities, as the drafters of the Constitution intended.

Digest version in post #12

Thanks
As much as I would like to just ignore the whole situation and forget about the amendment, it is clear that state by state the ACLU lawyers will plead the gay marriage case and force acceptance. Living in Mass, I stood at the state house and watched it happen while over 50% of the state residents wanted to protect marriage. This may be what we need to keep the liberal lawyers busy and away from other issues!

Sweet! Make them follow up on their gay family values b.s. and watch them fold! That is AWESOME!

They only provided this benefit to same sex couples, because the right to marry was not available, but now it is available. Many same sex couples are up in arms about this, saying they do not want to marry, because that brings into play many other issues, like what happens if divorce occurs, then you got to deal with division of property, alimony, etc.

Gee, this makes it seem like same sex marriage is about money and freebies rather than love and commitment.

(/sarcasm)