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To: CharlesWayneCT
You are trying to spin history for Romney (again, again).

But for Mitt Romney, the Constitution would have played out.

But Romney is the pre-Obama.

"Experts: Credit Romney for homosexual marriage"
"What he (Governor/Dictator Mitt Romney) did was exercise illegal legislative authority'

"While former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney claims he did everything possible to throttle homosexual marriage in his state – his campaign now saying he took "every conceivable step within the law to defend traditional marriage" – several constitutional experts say that just isn't so.
"What Romney did [was] he exercised illegal legislative authority," Herb Titus said of the governor's actions after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court released its opinion in the Goodridge case in 2003. "He was bound by what? There was no order. There wasn't even any order to the Department of Public Health to do anything."
Titus, a Harvard law graduate, was founding dean of Pat Robertson's Regent University Law School. He also worked with former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, ...
Romney's aides have told WND that after four of the seven court members reinterpreted the definition of marriage, he believed he had no choice but to direct clerks and others to change state marriage forms and begin registering same-sex couples.

Some opponents contend that with those actions, Romney did no more or less than create the first homosexual marriages recognized in the nation. And Titus agrees."
"....But the court's decision conflicts with the constitutional philosophy of three co-equal branches of government: executive, legislative and judicial, Titus said. It also violates with the Massachusetts Constitution, which states: "The power of suspending the laws, or (suspending) the execution of the laws, ought never to be exercised but by the legislature..."
And it cannot even be derived from the opinion itself, asserts the pro-family activist group Mass Resistance, which says the decision did four things:
* First, it acknowledged that the current law does not permit same-sex marriage.
"The only reasonable explanation is that the Legislature did not intend that same-sex couples be licensed to marry. We conclude, as did the judge, that G.L. c. 207 may not be construed to permit same-sex couples to marry."
* Second, it said it is NOT striking down the marriage laws (among other things, the Massachusetts Constitution forbids a court to change laws)
"Here, no one argues that striking down the marriage laws is an appropriate form of relief."
* Third, it declared that not allowing same-sex marriages is a violation of the Massachusetts Constitution.
"We declare that barring an individual from the protections, benefits, and obligations of civil marriage solely because that person would marry a person of the same sex violates the Massachusetts Constitution."
* And fourth, given that the court is not changing any laws, the SJC gave the Legislature 180 days to "take such action as it may deem appropriate."
"We vacate the summary judgment for the department. We remand this case to the Superior Court for entry of judgment consistent with this opinion. Entry of judgment shall be stayed for 180 days to permit the Legislature to take such action as it may deem appropriate in light of this opinion."
After the Legislature did nothing during the 180 days, Romney then took action "on his own," the group said.
"Gov. Romney's legal counsel issued a directive to the Justices of the Peace that they must perform same-sex marriages when requested or 'face personal liability' or be fired," the group said."

So, in fact, you are incorrect.

111 posted on 09/03/2009 6:55:41 AM PDT by Diogenesis ("Those who go below the surface do so at their peril" - Oscar Wilde)
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To: Diogenesis

You can post lots of links, but if they are all to people who have no idea what they are talking about, it doesn’t help your argument.

I love the links with titles like “experts”, when the people who are talking are obviously not experts.

We’ve been through this, so you know the argument, and since I’ve seen you occasionally act in an intelligent fashion I have to assume that in this case your agenda is worth more to you than your reputation for logical thought.

Because anybody who looks at the actual history here in the real world will know that the arguments made in your links is stupid and indefensible.

We have a large contingent of highly trained lawyers who are opposed to gay marraige and are fighting it around the country.

Not a single one of those lawyers took any action to implement the absurd argument made about Romney in this matter. None of them signed on to the argument. None of the contemporary writings on the court case gave a hint at the absurd claims made later.

We were all alive and reading the news the day the Supreme Court of Massachussetts legalized gay marriage.

And every one of us understood that this is what happened. Heck, there are even archives on FR about the ruling, and what it really meant.

The argument made months later by an anti-Romney group that somehow the entire world was wrong, that the court in fact has no power, and that we were all hysterical about nothing is an argument that gives arguments a bad name.

In summary — the argument being made by the anti-Romney folks is that the left spent millions of dollars to win a court case that did absolutely nothing, that the court’s rulings have absolutely no effect, and that the entire nation was wrong when it said that the court legalized gay marriage.


112 posted on 09/03/2009 7:20:04 AM PDT by CharlesWayneCT
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To: Diogenesis

TO provide a succinct counter to the absurd argument:

The court did not strike down the marriage laws. Instead, the court read the marriage laws, and provided an interpretation of the words in the marriage laws as written, saying that the marriage law AS WRITTEN required gay marriage.

They were wrong, of course, to interpret “man and woman” as gender-neutral terms, but that is what they did, they had the power to do so, and EVERYBODY knew they had that power, which is why when they did it we ALL, meaning the entire NATION, knew they had legalized gay marriage.

Since they were re-interpreting the words of a statute, they gave the legislature 180 days to change the words if the legislature thought the court interpreted them incorrectly. The legislature did not fix the statute, so after 180 days the court interpretation became the law of the land.

It is very clear. the court ruling was not hard to read, the issue was simple and it is amazing that anybody would have trouble understanding it.

BTW, if the legislature had had to do something to institute gay marraige, they would have done so. 75% of them voted to prevent the people of the state from voting against gay marriage, which is more than enough to override a veto of a gay marriage bill.


114 posted on 09/03/2009 7:25:34 AM PDT by CharlesWayneCT
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