Posted on 11/30/2012 7:49:02 PM PST by SeekAndFind
The Supreme Court took no action on any of the 10 gay-marriage petitions before it Friday, despite expectations that the justices would finally announce their plans regarding challenges to three separate laws denying recognition to same-sex couples.
The court could add any of those cases to its docket as soon as Monday, but more likely the justices will continue discussing the matter at their next private conference, scheduled for Dec. 7.
Most attention has focused on challenges to the federal Defense of Marriage Act, a 1996 statute denying federal benefits to lawfully married same-sex spouses. Federal appeals courts in Boston and New York have found the measure unconstitutional, finding that the government had insufficient justification to penalize gays and lesbians.
Separately, the Supreme Court has been weighing whether to review California’s Proposition 8, a 2008 voter initiative limiting marriage to a man and a woman. A federal appeals court in San Francisco found the measure unconstitutionally withdrew marriage rights from gays after the California Supreme Court ruled in May 2008 that those rights were protected by the state constitution.
Additionally, the court has before it an Arizona measure known as Section O that withdrew state employee benefits from domestic partners. Heterosexual couples could maintain such benefits by getting married, an option unavailable to gay couples who may not wed in Arizona.
A federal appeals court in Phoenix found Section O violated the Constitution’s equal-protection guarantee.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
Very good analysis. Please go to the head of the class.
Oh, I did not derive racisim out of anything you wrote. I am merely pointing out that civil marriage and gun control resulted from the attempts by individual states to prevent certain outcomes - marriage between whites and other races, and people other than whites possessing guns.
Marriage is never mentioned in the U.S.Constitution. It is, I believe, not a civil matter but a religous one, covered by the First Amendment to the U.S.Constitution. Eliminate civil marriage, and return marriage to its rightful and holy place in one’s religion. That would make liberal heads explode and judicial activists weep. Trying to attack the First Amendment is dicey for liberals.
Gun control shouldn’t even exist, and neither should the BATFE. If our society is concerned about the dissemination of explosives then the responsibility to deal with that lies with the FBI. Alcolhol, tobacco, and firearms are all legal, last I looked. The only reason gun control popped up was to keep “those people” from having guns.
So, yes, racism was at the core of these civil laws quite some time ago but they should be off the books now. There no longer exists reasons for those laws to exist.
So I am advocating the First and Second Amendments as they ought to be practised in the U.S.A. No civil marriage and guns for everyone!
What do you think?
You’ve said something very important here: abortion and homosexual marraige have become issues, IMO, due to judicial activism.
Same-sex marriage is simply not a SCOTUS issue because it is not a Constitutional issue (same with abortion and many other things SCOTUS had had no business meddling with). It is a STATE’S issue.
Who decides what is God's law? The Southern Baptist Conference? The Pope? The Chief Rabbi of Israel? The United Methodist Church? The Grand Mufti? The Dali Lama?
Homosexual marriage is no more Constitutional than murder is AND heterosexual marriage can no more be banned than murder can be legalized.
Different states define "murder" in very different ways. To give you just one example, if you see someone stealing your car from your driveway and you shoot him dead, that is completely legal in some states, manslaughter in others, and first-degree murder in still others. Which of those states are following the Constitution and which are not?
>> “Who decides what is God’s law?” <<
.
The Word of God.
Where can I find the Word of God? In the King James Bible? The New International Bible? The Talmud? The Book of Mormon? The Koran? The Bhagavad Gita?
>> “Abstain as well they should - Gay-Marriage is not a federal government issue...” <<
.
Unfortunately that line of reasoning is no longer available to them, since the federal courts have injected themselves into the issue in California. Prop 8 is something they have to deal with because of the lower federal courts.
The Torah is the location of God’s position on the subject. Torah is also included in all of the other Bibles that I am aware of. The Mormons also uphold it, as does the Koran. Talmud also deals with it but is of no authority.
Yes, but the way they should properly deal with it is overturn federal court jurisdiction and remand back to the state.
>> “ I am merely pointing out that civil marriage and gun control resulted from the attempts by individual states to prevent certain outcomes - marriage between whites and other races, and people other than whites possessing guns.” <<
.
Correct!
We call them “Jim Crow” laws.
You are being obtuse. You deny the self evident forest for the arbitrary trees. There are self evident truths and inalienable rights -the Founders stated as much! Marriage is one of those truths.
You can pretend this is not so RATHER than seek to understand what you are obviously ignorant about. Whose God? You better find out -as YOUR inalienable rights are endowed by the Creator you are blind to AND unless you want to be a government endowed useful idiot piece of meat you better get busy
Our Founders considered marriage one of the prime supports of society and all laws were defined in order to protect all of the important supports - marriage, family, and religion.
In other words, the first amendment protects our fundamental rights relating to Life, Liberty, and our Pursuit of Virtue leading to happiness with God. The second amendment was designed to protect the first.
The Founders believed-- and so do I--that we are endowed by our Creator with life and liberty. The Founders also knew that, beyond that broad level of generality, religions disagree sharply with each other about exactly what is "God's will." They therefore set up a government under which the people, through their elected representatives, can enact laws without having to seek the permission of any clergy who purport to speak for God. Their wisdom in that regard is amply demonstrated by the experience of other societies-- ranging from Calvin's Geneva to Islamic Iran-- which have given mortal men who claim to know "God's will" the power to make laws.
Great additional comments and you’re spot on. The majority of teaching about Sex Ed could be completed in under two hours. The rest is all belief and that’s religion. Great, great idea and good line of attack.
We need to get out ahead of this stampede and turn things around before the cliff. Protecting women, children and animals all work to our favor and get us back on track. Can you imagine a world where animals have more protections than children?
And Congress would not repeal DOMA if they brought it up again. Too many republicans (especially Southern politicians) value their jobs too much. This horse shyt is still against the law in 90% of the states. That’s something the braindead liberals don’t like to talk about. The leader of the braindead liberals is the sodomite loving moron sitting in the White House. Without that SOB as president, the majority of this talk about destroying marriage would end. Elections have consequences and the republicans that sat home and allowed this idiot to be relected should be ashamed of themselves.
Even more on the offense is something I had some success with a number of years ago. Seeing outside people coming into my own kids’ classrooms and teaching them about “warm fuzzies”, instructing them to “say something nice to the person seated across from you”, I was horrified, as I saw it as practicing unauthorized psychological techniques on children in public classrooms without parental awareness, let alone permission. It was an assault on the boundaries of those too innocent to know. Many years later this has become “programmes” in the form of global warming awarness, teaching about bullying, suicide prevention and on and on.
My idea is to put forth our own programme which innoculates our childrens’ minds in the form of teaching them the actual techniques used to persuade, brainwash and otherwise manipulate thinking.Children would learn about buzz words, logical fallacies, marketing strategies...how we are “sold” on ideas, how news media orchestrate PR stunts to make us believe in a reality, how they play on our emotions, etc. While the Left might not accept this idea presented for the reasons I give here, they would surely accept it as a necessity to protect our kids from “advertisers” and “consumerism” and so on. Since these Leftists use the very same techniques that corporations use, though selling bad ideas instead of products, once our kids have learned to listen for the language tricks, be wary of the “nice” salesman who uses your name over and over, etc. they will also have a built-in mental mechanism more likely to reject or at least question programmes of any sort.
That’s a great idea, really brilliant. Do you have something more formal?
Also, throw in another thing for me - forced volunteerism.
Yes, duh.
Yes, duh. That is, so long as a “legitimate state interest” can be found in special gay couple status, which shouldn’t be hard because it’s a really low bar.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.