Posted on 03/24/2009 10:20:25 PM PDT by Steelfish
Getting California out of marriage business proposed as answer to Prop. 8 war
By Susan Ferriss
Mar. 24, 2009
At California's historic hearing on Proposition 8 earlier this month, Supreme Court Justice Ming Chin briefly imagined a scenario that might solve the legal conflict over a gay marriage ban.
What if the government were to get out of the "marriage business," Ming asked, and issue civil-union licenses to both straight and gay couples?
The justices agreed such a change would have to be handled by the Legislature, and discussion closed.
But outside the court, the question still hung in the air.
On March 10, five days after the court hearing, two California college students got the OK from state election officials to try to put Ming's question before voters.
The students are circulating petitions for a ballot initiative that would strike the word "marriage" from state laws and substitute "domestic partnership."
The change would keep all the rights of marriage now on the books. But it would nullify Proposition 8 and make the new partnership category applicable to both gay and straight.
"We want to take marriage out of the battlefield," said Ali Shams, a University of California, San Diego, student who co-authored the language.
Many people say their religion tells them marriage is between a man and a woman, Shams said. But many also believe gay people have a right to equal treatment.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Sounds good to me. It’s not as though Prop 8 is going to stand up much longer if it keeps getting put up for a vote anyway.
They just don’t get it do they? They couldn’t get gay marriage so now they want to get rid of marriage as we know it. That is not as much an idea as seemingly a desire to be defeated even by greater numbers at the polls.
It is staggeringly unbelievable that a state Supreme Court justice will suggest how to circumvent a peoples’ proposition! Not a peep of outrage from the MSM!
It will stand don’t worry. The sexual activists have overstepped more than they realize. Have faith. They don’t have the support to repeal it and they know it and the more they are in the face of the voters the more they will sour the public even those who might otherwise support them. This is not just about gay marriage it is about forced public acceptance, it is about teaching homosexuality in schools, it is about putting parents in jail if they don’t want their kids indoctrinated. This is so much bigger than “gay marriage” though that alone is big enough.
I thought prop8 was a Constitutional amendment?? How does a court call a part of the Constitution unconstitutional??
Way overdue. Government has no business defining/regulating/licensing personal relationships between adults or religious practices of adults. Dump the “civil unions” too. It’s none of government’s business. People can have contracts covering their personal relationships if they want to, and the contracts can say what the FREE CITIZENS who enter into them, want them to say.
I welcome them wasting their money. The gay community has made a nuisance of itself and overplayed its hand. Most people I believe just want them to shut up and go away and do whatever they want but leave marriage, our schools, and the minds of our children alone. They are defective, they have the problem. They get over it and quit trying to force their beliefs and their behavior on the rest of us.
“I thought prop8 was a Constitutional amendment?? How does a court call a part of the Constitution unconstitutional??”
If more than 50% of the court is Democrat.
I wish your optimism is correct. That’s what we were told about B. Hussein O as well. The last opinion polls showed a neck and neck contest. The indoctrination is almost complete of our high school and college voters. Besides, contributors to the pro-traditional marriage will be running scared of negative blowback.
If cessation of government definition/regulation/licensing of marriage will “end marriage as you know it”, your concept of marriage is pretty pathetic. The sorts of marriages that make a positive contribution to society aren’t the ones that rely on government approval to endure and thrive.
This proves the lie that they aren’t trying to change other people’s marriages. Give liberals enough time and they continually prove they live in a world of lies and deceit.
marriage should be defined by religion, not the govt. I know at least the Jewish wedding contract, the ketubah, has real meat to it.
Homosexuality is obviously a biological perversion. It should be tolerated but never celebrated. Nor should they receive special rights because of a behavior that happens to cost our medical establishment and taxpayers billions of dollars. Government should discourage the behavior.
The behavior is sexist....it separates the sexes. It is evil because homosexuals deny children the right to have a biological mother and father and try to promote the lie that any combo of family is fine. Facts prove otherwise. It is the most selfish lifestyle. Love is about sacrifice for people you love. Their relationship is all about narcissism and lust. Since the relationships are sexist, the government should not be able to promote it at all. They actually should list it as a hate crime against women or men....whichever the "couple" is discriminating against. The portrayal of them "playing house" in children's books (Heather has two mommies) should also be classified as a crime--because of the biological lie that is obvious in the title and that they are subverting the religion of the majority of people in this country. The books should be banned for their propaganda directed at children, so that they can be seduced into a destructive lifestyle. It would be the same as the tobacco company writing books for children on the glories of smoking cigarettes and promoting that behavior as good and decent and that only bigots would not engage in the behavior.
Sounds like an excellent plan. Honest people on both sides should want to de-escalate this conflict. Marriage should not depend upon government recognition to sanctify it. All government should do is enforce civil contracts involving voluntary living relationships (wills, trusts, financial arrangements, etc.).
Then gays who wish to get "married" can do so in a church of their choosing which accommodates such marriages. In their eyes they are married, and they can simply ignore anyone who disagrees. Conversely, people who object to gay marriage can deny that the gay couple is truly married and simply ignore such claims of marriage. Each side goes its own way, and ignores the other side. Live and let live.
Of course that won't satisfy the radicals on either end of the spectrum. Those who see the gay marriage issue as an organizational tool for legitimatizing homosexuality will not be happy with the reduction in polarization. Those who see homosexuality as the Devil's tool for promoting sin and damnation and the destruction of civilization will despise a "live and let live" approach.
But the rest of us will welcome an end to this battle.
Just privatize marriages & divorces, then, to make them more efficient just like FedEx. [/sarc]
If the homosexuals had proposed abolishing civil marriage 20 years ago, they’d have been tarred and feathered.
Now even a bunch of conservatives on FR think it would be the most reasonable thing to do.
This has ALWAYS been an attack on marriage and the traditional family. Always.
The government does indeed have such business and it has since the founding of this nation. Now whether it is correct or not is another matter. If the government can license businesses, license cars, it most certainly can license marriages. It also has an interest in licensing marriages such as age restrictions, and defining legal obligations between a man and women in relationship to themselves and any children. Most don’t have any problem with marriage as it is. It provides a bit of stability. Nothing prevents people who do not wish to get such a license from cohabiting, most of those laws have disappeared or are not enforced.
The problem with your idealistic approach which I would support in a perfect world (one without liberals) but I assure you that getting rid of a legally defined marriage would only empower those who wish to redefine the culture concerning marriage. I think it would also have a generally negative effect on the concept of an intact family especially among young people which are already suffering because of increasing lack of definition on what are healthy relationships and on how to form relationships geared towards forming healthy families.
What you are doing is surrendering. No one is taking anything away from Homosexuals by licensing marriages no more than a person who can not meet the requirements to receive a drivers license has anything taken away by the government licensing those who do meet the requirements. These requirements and licensing did not just come about on a whim passed in the dead of night without being read like legislation often does today. It was drafted by elected officials who have an authority within both the state and federal constitution to define such licensing and regulation.
I know in today’s modern emotion driven world people do not think rationally and tend to be child-like with these things thinking they are entitled to have their every whim indulged regardless of whether they meet the requirements. Do we cancel a college course because some can not make the grade to get in? This is typical liberalism, when you can’t win based on merit of argument then you like a child try to break or destroy that which is not yours to have.
There is absolutely no reason for marriage licensing to be removed just to please the childish whims of a group of people who choose not to participate in normal sexual and marital relationships. Nothing stops them, they choose to lead a life that incompatible with the natural and legal definition of marriage. That is their problem not ours and it is their job to make the political case to change it if that is their desire. They have not made that case convincingly as demonstrated by the fact they have failed in every case where it has been put before the voters and that is the only empirical objective test that should be accepted. That is the way free representative democracy works. Sometimes it is wrong but those who make such eventual reap results if given enough time.
Anarchy is not democracy, nor is childish “if I can’t have my whatever I desire endorsed by the government than we have to get rid of marriage licenses to be fair” theory of government. It is low minded drivel masquerading under the guise of liberty. Your idea of a Free Citizen would make all variety of crimes and misdeeds acceptable as long as a contract had been agreed upon beforehand. I prefer Democracy by the People for the People as our founders envisioned not a childish anarchist’s or liberals pipe dream.
I’m all for taking the government out of the equation, but for very different reasons.
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