Posted on 10/28/2008 6:33:09 PM PDT by nickcarraway
If Prop. 8 wins, Newsom will be scapegoated. But the recriminations should focus on Ronald George.
I voted against Proposition 8, just as I voted against Proposition 22 in 2000, on equality-under-the-law grounds. I hope the anti-gay-marriage constitutional amendment fails on Tuesday.
But I'm increasingly beginning to suspect it will pass. Backers have mounted a shrewdly framed TV ad campaign that doesn't have the harsh edge many expected from die-hard opponents of gay marriage. Its focus on the possibility that school kids might be taught about gay marriage has touched a chord among parents. (No, I don't think this claim is preposterous, given how our legal and education communities work. I just don't find the prospect particularly scary.)
Prop. 8's odds have also been greatly increased by vast donations pouring in from the country from cultural and religious conservatives who see the fight as pivotal to preventing gay marriage becoming the norm around the nation and even the world. Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, told The New York Times that Prop. 8 was "more important than the presidential election."
So the stakes are high -- and the recriminations will be intense if Prop. 8 succeeds. I think San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom will be haunted forever by his braying, arrogant soundbite after the May state Supreme Court ruling declaring gay marriage legal in California: "The door's wide-open now. It's gonna happen, whether you like it or not!" It was off-the-charts smart for the pro-8 forces to replay the clip over and over in their ads.
For my money, though, any recriminations should focus on California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald George. This state was gradually moving toward a gay-marriage consensus. But it just wasn't there yet when George, in his own way, declared it's gonna happen, whether you like it or not.
I found George's legal reasoning to be sound and persuasive. But given his past moderation and unadventurousness, his decisive vote to impose gay marriage on California was deeply uncharacteristic. It may well have been principled. Yet given George's history, it looks far more like posturing for the history books than anything else.
There's a lot of that going on around at the highest levels of state government. The guy at the top of the executive branch (Arnold Schwarzenegger) hunted for global acclaim by signing sweeping, unprecedented climate-change legislation and by pushing a sweeping, unprecedented (and plainly illegal) health insurance mandate. The guy who used to be the most powerful leader of the legislative branch (Fabian Nunez) hunted for the same acclaim by working with Arnold on both his crusades.
This spring, it was the guy at the top of the state judicial branch's chance to bask in global acclaim -- and Ron George jumped at the opportunity. But he may have hurt the cause of gay marriage far more than he helped it.
You're a smart fellow so you must understand the fallacy here.
When the state puts there imprimatur on redefining marrisge to include homosexuals then it is incumbent on school boards to follow the law. They can not discriminate between hetero and homosexual couples in any public square.
So changing school boards does absolutely nothing, the state will force any school board to treat each equally.
That is the entire point of the pro amendment 8 campaign and it goes right over your head. Why is that?
What? Now who is restricting rights? If children are not taught how equal homosexuals are from the time they start school, you are restricting their right to be equal. Equality cannot be achieved unless children are instructed in equality from the beginning. Teaching children about homosexual equality, as defined by homosexual groups, shouldn';t have any effect on you or your children. What, do you want to go back to the days of slavery?
So now the right to happiness is not a right. Thanx for your contribution.
So, can I “marry” my mother if I want to? Can my mother and I then “marry” my uncle (her brother)?
If not, why not?
I think you should pick your spouse and ask the state to force him or her to marry you. That should make the other person really happy. First hint: don’t use word games to try to win agruments.
Only because you repeatedly claimed the point of marriage was, “happiness.” (A claim I have never heard before) If marriage is all about happiness, how is it going to happen otherwise?
I'm naming jurisdctions. I am defining what I believe people's rights are.
Exactly. If it’s my right to be married?
That is totally correct. There is absolutely no right to happiness anywhere in Federal Law.
The right is to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Since the government and you are restricting the right to happiness by deciding that they can’t get marruied, you are indeed restricting their rights. It is your obligation to justify the restriction; not theirs to justify the right.
Why don’t you try answering some of the challenges that have been posed to you instead of simply asserting that anything that makes someone “happy” suddenly becomes a positive right to be enforced by goverment authority against any public opposition.
Since when was there a right to happiness? Even if you are referring to the Constitution it only mentions a right to the "pursuit of happiness" and that is only in the preamble.
The Supreme Court has ruled that the preamble is not binding. The Right To Life movement tried to use the preamble to argue for a Consitutional ban on abortion, but that went nowhere.
The person playing the word games is the one you see when you look in the mirror.
Who gets to decide the justification?
What federal law lists all of our rights. Since the constitution was intended to restrict the power of government, you have an unusual expectation that I will go to some governmenmt code and see my rights spelled out. I’m very disappointed at your first attempt.
So can a son "marry" his mother, and can the two of them then marry the mother's brother? If not, why not?
The Declaration of Independence is not a legal document, and guarantees no rights under the law.
The state licenses marriage, drivers licenses and sometimes plumbers (wink,wink). It doesn’t license individual speech, religion or life. Why do you suppose that is?
Last I read it makes the children ill or they become King of England. IF you can show no biological harm to the kids, I see no governmental interest in the prohibition.
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