FNC: California law banning gay marriage is unconstitutional

Fox News | March 14, 2005

[Dont Mention the War]

Breaking...

[GVnana]

They don't have it as a "right" at all, and so you are misinforming your readers or can't tell the difference yourself.

You're wrong. You could buy an insurance policy on me, tomorrow, if you wanted, and you're of an age to legally enter into a contract.

[Rambler7]

PLEASE PLEASE SOMEBODY EXPLAIN TO ME: How can someone who wants a constitutional amendment making only opposite-sex marriage legal take issue with judges who find that it is presently unconstitutional to ban same-sex people from marrying?

(P.S. I been having problems with this but no one answers me logically, they just saw how they feel about it. What I want to know is how the two things above can be logically consistent.)

Thanks. There gotta be some lawyers around to take this one.

[Rambler7]

I'm not wrong and neither are you. We're talking about two different contexts. You are talking about life insurance, which does not come up in discussion of gay rights. Gays are pleading for employee benefit rights to health insurance for their partners.

Easy mistake to make, and there is a lot of totally eroneous information where people think gays can do stuff or have rights that just isn't true. I know.

[goldstategop]

State Surperior Court in liberal San Faggotsco. No surprise here. I'll be surprised if it holds up on appeal but you never know. As California goes, so goes the nation. Sodomachusetts is a Blue State pgymy no one pays attention to but a state that's the most populous in the country... well they do sit up and take notice. Thank heaven its a state issue. I know if it were in federal court here our Nine Circus and Blue State SCOTUS would be rushing ahead to get same sex marriage in place ASAP. The will of the voters be damned.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[WOSG]

"The benefits conferred by the state in no way influenced me to seek out, fall in love with, and marry a woman. "

I dont make money merely to be a taxpayer, but my natural instincts of ambition aligns with society's needs well enough. I do however, calculate the short-term cap gains versus long-term cap gains when figuring out when to sell... Same here. Society benefits when people behave in certain ways, and so it has an interest in channeling natural instinct along certain paths.

"If so, we could justify outlawing all new marriages where one of the partners were unable to contribute to the propagation of the species."

Marriage is as much an obligation as a right, so why bother outlawing something that is practically impossible to verify? What's the point? It is like passing a law to tell denture wearers not to brush their teeth.

Nevertheless, let it be noted that in some states you cant marry if you carry Siphylus.

Nor can you marry your cousin.
Do you think you should be able to marry an impotent cousin???


"Heterosexual men and women will continue to be together regardless of whether or not marriage exists. "

Yes, after we destroy the legal institution of marriage - surprise, surprise, sex&love etc. will still exist. The question is the health of the society overall in the configuration of relationships that result ... In "Dan Quayle was Right" ten years ago, the author who reviewed social studies on the impact of divorce and broken families on children concluded that Dan Quayle's statements about the superior nature of the commited two-parent family were correct. That two-parent family is NOT the short-term selfish interest of males, who'd rather 'play around' and be polygamous if not socialized to be one a one woman man...
The upshot is that the breakdown of marriage is NOT HARD to engineer once you have a breakdown in social mores. And once marriage breaks down, families, ie, children suffer.
"Boyfriends" are far far more likely to be abusers of children than biological fathers, for example, and the studies showed remarkable increases in juvenile crime, school underperformance, and mental problems for children in broken homes.

" I think that it is more than just about sex. And civil unions would discourage the casual sex in any case."

If it is 'none of Govts bizness' what gays do, why should we care one way or another?

OTOH, if gays - one group with above-average discretionary income - have more money because govt benefits of marriage now flow to these double-income-no-kids partnerships ... but we have an increase in child abuse thanks to breakdown in family, where we can no longer even say "husband" and "wife" or "father" and "mother" on parental consent forms for schoolkids... How is society better off?

[goldstategop]

Its actually a state law. It should been submitted as a state constitutional amendment but that's why it was drafted as it was. No one wanted it to head to the SCOTUS which would have taken the case and invalidated same sex marriage bans across the country. My feeling is that will eventually happen. The elites are not going to let a small matter like voter desires to stand in their way when it comes to equality.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[SilentServiceCPO]

I'll take a stab at it...
The latter is one of the reasons for the former. If there weren't activist judges distorting the will of the people, then there wouldn't be the need for the amendment. The presumed point is that it is illegal for two person's of the same sex to marry. Then Judges start challenging that presumption, therein lies the need for the amendment.

[goldstategop]

No. It was an amendment to California's Family Code. A state law at variance with the State Constitution CAN be declared unconstitutional. Though I'm at a loss to see how confining marriage between a man and a woman violates any one's rights.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[goldstategop]

To the Left, age old social customs are headed for the garbage heap simply because they're out-dated. Conservatives have no right to see their values enshrined in the law because every one knows we're a bunch of redneck hayseed bigots. Judges know better, you see.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[WOSG]

What's "right and wrong" changes every day. It used to be "right" to make blacks sit in the back of the bus...

---

Sorry, I 'get off the bus' on moral relativism. If something is wrong know, well, it was wrong then, too.

Moral relativism is the core PROBLEM with our society today, and a grave consequence of the gay, multicultural and related agendas has been furthering pushing us further down the path of moral relativism... they need that club to bludgeon their culturekampf opponents who dare to stand up for tradition.

The fundamentals of what is right and wrong do not change.

[goldstategop]

Good luck recalling an activist judge in liberal San Francisco. You might as well demand the restoration of the laws of gravity in outer space for all the good it will do.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[goldstategop]

Actually, it was our Blue State SCOTUS that told the people of CO to go take a hike. Just like they told the people of TX to go take a hike on sodomy laws. And this year they told the people in 13 states to go take a hike on executing juveniles.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[jstolzen]

Yeah, why let the people decide (via votes) what we want, when there's plenty of activist judges for sale who can redefine what the Constitution "was supposed to mean" whenever the whim hits them?

Everything else aside, it's completely frightening that we allow a judicial activist - on EITHER SIDE - to undo what a large majority of the people vote into law. (In this case, that marriage is between a man and a woman). If the people voted the other way, I'd be just as perturbed at a judge overtuning THAT.

It's time to let the will of the people - legally expressed through voting - be what we do. NOT the whims of a few politically activist judges.

[goldstategop]

Exactly. We're stupid and The Elites Know Best. Somehow Judge Kramer.... well let's just say it won't remind folks of Kramer V Kramer anytime soon.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[D-Generation X]

What I do believe is that the furor over gay rights, the marches in the streets, the screaming and yelling that tends to make this issue stand out in society, will die down. I believe that promiscuous, homosexual sex will lessen. I believe that a stable, gay couple living next door to me is preferable to a dysfunctional abusive couple. And I believe that this society should not give preferential treatment to heterosexuals just because they are heterosexual. Someone earlier in the thread said gays will want "special status" and "preferential treatment" if gay unions are recognized. I think that this is 180 degrees out. I believe that we will stop the uproar, and then we can all get down to just living our lives.

Yea right sure!

The gay civil rights movement just like any movement is a business that wont stop. You think all those Gay Civil Rights activists will shut up! They will demand more and more!

Gay Affirmative Action quotas, more hate crime legislations, transvestites will come out too and demand rights and next will come the pedophiles!

In Europe pedophilia is legal in many countries so since leftist Judges are using foriegn law they can create ficitious rights for all degenerates!

Dont you see they want to destroy Judeo-Christian Culture!

[WOSG]

"PLEASE PLEASE SOMEBODY EXPLAIN TO ME: How can someone who wants a constitutional amendment making only opposite-sex marriage legal take issue with judges who find that it is presently unconstitutional to ban same-sex people from marrying?"


----

It's like this: These Activist Extremist Judges are the Thieves of Democracy.
They are stealing the Right of the People to make reasonable law, by pretending that such reasonable laws are unreasonable, ie 'no rational basis'. Yet we have in this thread debated the rational basis of such laws, pro and con... THIS SHOULD BE WORKED OUT IN A DEMOCRATIC MANNER, AND LET THE CHIPS FALL WHERE THEY MAY. But some groups like HRC and ACLU cant stand to let people decide, they were shut out last november 0 for 11, and so they turn to judges.

In order to stop a thief, you need a good dead-bolt.
The Federal Constitutional amendment is that dead-bolt,
it makes perfectly clear that the Judges who mis-state
the Constitution are wrong.

Some say the thief wont come and so we dont need the dead-bolt.
Others think it is too ugly to ruin the architecture of our constitution.

And still others are rooting for the thief, er, Judge, because they really are on the other side of the issue.

But frankly, I'd rather have the dead-bolt to make sure the thief doesnt steal our democracy than find later on it was too late.

There is no constradiction in knowing the Judges are wrong to engage in this activism AND supporting actions that would defeat such activism, whether real or merely potential.

[SilentServiceCPO]

I couldn't agree more. The fundamentals of what is right and wrong do not change. (Unless you think that blacks should still be in the back of the bus)
Do unto others....
I just happen to think that this (banning gay unions) is wrong.

[D-Generation X]

Now who who you like living next to you, a quiet, loving couple, going to work each day, cooking out in the back yard, mowing the lawn, you know, normal people stuff OR a nominally married gay couple, hitting the bars at night looking for love/sex, different men/women over every night, and loud raucous parties? I would prefer the former.

That bubolic image of two gays living like a man and woman is Hollywood BS!

Sorry but gays will always live sick lifestyles because they are sick themselves.

[Torie]

You guys seems to be talking past each other a bit, with one talking judicial abuse and the other policy. Of course the decision was assinine and will be overturned by California SCOTUS. I also don't have a problem with folks opposing gay marriage based on a priori moral beliefs or for financial reasons. I don't happen to share such beliefs and think the costs should be paid, including having to endure more fraudulent pecuniary marriages. But I can certainly understand someone coming out of the matter differently.

[longtermmemmory]

With the exception of SS benefits, hogwash. Any competent estate lawyer can do WHATEVER is required. As an attorney, I say the entire concept of there are only certain things available under marriage is a red herring put forth by homo-advocates.

There is no benefit to society for rewarding mere sexual orgasms.

It is an alternate LIFESTYLE, not an institution that provides for the continuation of society.