Posted on 03/06/2015 3:19:28 PM PST by xzins
Supreme Court Gay Marriage FILE - In this June 25, 2013 file photo, Vin Testa of Washington waves a rainbow flag in support of gay rights outside the Supreme Court in Washington. The Supreme Court will hear arguments over same-sex marriage on April 28 and make audio of the proceedings available later that day. The gay marriage cases mark the only time this term that the court has agreed to the quick release of audio recordings. But the court is continuing its ban on providing video of its sessions or even live-streamed audio. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File) By an almost 2-1 margin, Americans in a recent poll declared they agree that “States and citizens should remain free to uphold marriage as the union of a man and a woman and the Supreme Court shouldn’t force all 50 states to redefine marriage.”
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — and her eight other colleagues on the high court — would do well to take notice.
Justice Ginsburg seems oblivious to this strong current in public opinion, however. In an interview with Bloomberg News on Feb. 12, she was asked if she thought “that there are parts of the country that would not be able to accept” a Supreme Court decision declaring “a constitutional right for same-sex couples to marry.”
Justice Ginsburg replied, “I think it’s doubtful that it wouldn’t be accepted. The change in people’s attitudes on that issue has been enormous.”
Change there has been, but not as “enormous” as social liberals claim. The poll conducted by Wilson Perkins Allen (WPA) Opinion Research for the Family Research Council released on Feb. 24 makes that clear. While a significant majority of federal judges have jumped on the marriage redefinition bandwagon since the Supreme Court struck down part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act in 2013, the public prefers this decision be left to the people and their elected representatives by a 61-32 percent margin.
We are repeatedly told that a majority of Americans now support allowing same-sex couples to legally marry. However, most such polls frame the issue as one of “rights” (presupposing the very question in debate, which is whether such a “right” exists) or of “legality” (raising the prospect in the minds of freedom-loving Americans that the alternative is making something illegal). The correct question, however, is not whether “gays and lesbians” have the “right” to “marry.” The more fundamental question is, “What is marriage?” When (correctly) framed as an issue of the definition of marriage, the WPA poll showed that a majority of Americans — by a 53-43 percent margin — still says: “I believe marriage should be defined only as a union of one man and one woman.”
Justice Ginsburg’s reply to Bloomberg News, in fact, made it appear that she is unaware not only of poll findings like these, but more alarmingly, of the actual issue that is before the court. Asked about the possibility of a ruling that finds “a constitutional right of same-sex couples to marry,” she replied with an eloquent statement about the growing acceptance of homosexuals as people — not about same-sex unions as “marriage.” Justice Ginsburg declared:
“In recent years, people have said, ‘This is the way I am.’ And others looked around and we discovered, it’s our next-door neighbor — we’re very fond of them. Or it’s our child’s best friend — or even our child. And the rest of us recognized that they are one of us.”
It is undoubtedly true that many Americans — a growing number — have friends or relatives who are homosexual, and are “very fond of them.” This, however, has nothing whatsoever to do with the definition of marriage. Marriage does not exist as a civil institution to express “fondness” for individuals, or to affirm sexual relationships. Instead, it recognizes the unique value of the only type of relationship capable of reproducing the human race.
Even among those who support abolishing the one-man, one-woman definition of marriage, more than a quarter in the WPA poll recognize that such social change, if it is to happen, should only occur through the democratic process. It should not be imposed by the Supreme Court fabricating a “right” found nowhere in the Constitution or in the Court’s precedents — not even in the 2013 decision striking down part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.
The court, and the country, should also consider the unintended consequences of such a change. Even without a 50-state marriage-redefinition dictate, we have already seen growing attacks upon the very freedom to believe in natural, one-man, one-woman marriage. Among the more recent examples are Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran, who was fired because he expressed support for Christian sexual morality in a Bible study book he wrote, and Barronelle Stutzman, a florist in Washington state, who has been found guilty of violating the law for declining to participate in a same-sex wedding by making floral arrangements.
Such actions fly in the face of even stronger public opinion in the WPA poll in which Americans agreed — by an astonishing 81-12 percent margin — that government should leave people free to follow their beliefs about marriage as they live their daily lives and in the way they run their businesses.
Like Justice Ginsburg, state and local officials across the country should take note of these findings.
Peter S. Sprigg is Senior Fellow for Policy Studies at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. Mr. Sprigg joined FRC in 2001, and his research and writing have addressed issues of marriage and family, human sexuality, the arts and entertainment, and religion in public life.
Amendment X: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
That was certainly optimistically penned. States have gotten lackadaisical rather than being jealous, which was more the original vision. The curse of chattel slavery and the drama of divine retribution got states gun-shy about pressing these rights vigorously. (We should have picked our own blankety blank cotton.)
DOMA was A-OK and went through a number of justices, from 1996 until 2013, when it somehow became not ok. Overturned at the whim of judges despite it being passed by Congress. (Where was Roberts' great deference for the legislature in these same justices who supported that drivel in ObamaCare?)
We are ruled by the whim of presidents, and of justices, and of legislators, probably all corrupted, and, in my opinion, all seemingly striving for a socialist society.
“Change there has been, but not as “enormous” as social liberals claim.”
If in the year 2000 I told you that in 2012 North Carolina would be where California is now on the issue of ‘gay marriage,’ would you have believed me? And that’s not relying on whatever one stranger decides to tell another over the phone about their opinion of ‘gay marriage.’ It’s actual voting measures.
Freegards
Knowing western North Carolina the way I did, I might have believed you. But the migration to that state would have compelled me to agree with you. Billy Graham’s own city of Charlotte is in apostasy.
53-43 is way too close. What happened?
Still, though, 53-43 is still in favor of traditional marriage when asked the question straight up. Where does liberal Ginsberg get the notion that America wants to be force-fed a liberal doctrine every bit as toxic as was abortion?
the public prefers this decision be left to the people and their elected representatives by a 61-32 percent margin.
Where in the above number is America screaming for a tyrannical group of jurists to impose a culture-endangering new behavior onto the America we love?
They don't care.
Isaiah 5:20 applies.
Is 5:20 “20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. “
While I appreciate that citizens support the idea of letting the individual states decide their own policies about gay marriage, please consider the following hypothetical situation.
The states have never amended the Constitution to expressly protect gay marriage. So even if all citizens supported gay marriage, it remains that the states are free to make laws which prohibit constitutionally unprotected gay marriage.
What an elegant and thoughtful argument in defense of marriage - and of civilization itself. Too bad it will be completely ignored in favor of pseudo-trendy feelings-based tripe.
I agree. We need to keep fighting. It’s worthwhile and in many ways we’re winning. This week has been a foreseeable disappointment, but a disappointment nonetheless.
I suspect that Boehner and McConnell want us to be demoralized. That’s reason enough to cheer up and fight harder.
Take care.
All of this over a mere 3% of the American population?
They do not provide a continuance of the human race;
They are an aberration of society;
They rate no ‘soon to be extinct’ status, although there are a large percentage of Americans that might just harbor the desire to aid that extinction event.
I wouldn’t have believed me in the year 2000. But in 2015, we can look back at the popular voting referendums. How much they passed by, when, and comparing them by area of the country.
Doing that, I don’t think there is going to be a state in the union that simply wouldn’t repeal any previous marriage amendment by another popular vote in 20 years. At least if the seeming trend continues. That includes Mississippi, which passed its amendment by 86%—5% more than any other state. The states that only passed them in the 50-60% ranges in the middle of the last decade probably couldn’t pass them again now. The ones that only passed them in the low 50% ranges definitely couldn’t.
Not that the judiciary is ever going to let it get to that point.
Freegards
Then let the states change their own laws when they find it necessary.
Why have the justices impose their worldview on the rest of us just because they are in a position of power?
Let’s say it again. Justices should be elected and should have no more than two 4 year terms. Let’s quit pretending they aren’t political creatures.
I suspect that the Kinsey Institute setting the curriculum for sex education in public schools has been the actual driving force.
Of course that is ideally the way it should happen, if it has to happen at all I guess. But most people who say ‘leave it to the states’ don’t really understand that it probably is just a delaying action. There was such success with passing the majority of those amendments that many seem to be locked into the idea that those popular votes remained static and would not be changing.
Freegards
“We are repeatedly told that a majority of Americans now support allowing same-sex couples to legally marry. However, most such polls frame the issue as one of “rights” (presupposing the very question in debate, which is whether such a “right” exists) or of “legality” (raising the prospect in the minds of freedom-loving Americans that the alternative is making something illegal). The correct question, however, is not whether “gays and lesbians” have the “right” to “marry.” The more fundamental question is, “What is marriage?” When (correctly) framed as an issue of the definition of marriage, the WPA poll showed that a majority of Americans — by a 53-43 percent margin — still says: “I believe marriage should be defined only as a union of one man and one woman.””
This is very true. I too believe that Gay people should be able to marry. but that doesnt mean we should call their unions with other members of their sex marrage.
Marriage is a union with a fairly specific religious and reproductive propose, and to the State it is a very specific kind of contract. A contract with a wide variety of restrictions on it ranging from age to family relations, most all of which have to do with the nature and reproductive propose of that contract & union.
Insolently there is nothing in any state prohibiting ‘gay’ people from engaging in that particular kind of union & contract with other compatible and legally eligible people.
Just as there is currently nothing prohibiting anyone from simply creating anther kind of contract that doesn’t have the same kind of rules and restrictions. But that contract & union is not called marriage, anymore than a hot dog is called a Pizza.
Furthermore State Government are not necessarily inclined to give you tax breaks for being a party to this new contract anymore than they are inclined to give you tax breaks from preferring Pizza over hot-dogs.
If the Supreme Court wants to change the law and overrule this last part they can, but in the name of consistency they should also establish a flat tax by abolishing the other behavioral discrimination in all tax deduction requirements of the IRS.
After all in absence of any text prohibiting this specific kind of behavioral favoritism how can any and all other behavioral favoritism be lawful?
That’s a lot to unpack. I don’t think homosexuals should be permitted to marry members of the same sex. If they wish to draw up contracts giving visitation and inheritance privileges to friends, then that’s something anyone can do.
Government involvement in marriage, as you say, is ultimately about procreation.
And I also agree that if they hate distinctions in such a basic area as how babies are made, then why should a business get to deduct their mileage at 50 cents a mile as an expense and I can’t?
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