Posted on 08/19/2010 6:18:04 AM PDT by throwback
Together with my good friend and occasional courtroom adversary David Boies, I am attempting to persuade a federal court to invalidate California's Proposition 8—the voter-approved measure that overturned California's constitutional right to marry a person of the same sex.
My involvement in this case has generated a certain degree of consternation among conservatives. How could a politically active, lifelong Republican, a veteran of the Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush administrations, challenge the "traditional" definition of marriage and press for an "activist" interpretation of the Constitution to create another "new" constitutional right?
My answer to this seeming conundrum rests on a lifetime of exposure to persons of different backgrounds, histories, viewpoints, and intrinsic characteristics, and on my rejection of what I see as superficially appealing but ultimately false perceptions about our Constitution and its protection of equality and fundamental rights.
Many of my fellow conservatives have an almost knee-jerk hostility toward gay marriage. This does not make sense, because same-sex unions promote the values conservatives prize. Marriage is one of the basic building blocks of our neighborhoods and our nation. At its best, it is a stable bond between two individuals who work to create a loving household and a social and economic partnership. We encourage couples to marry because the commitments they make to one another provide benefits not only to themselves but also to their families and communities. Marriage requires thinking beyond one's own needs. It transforms two individuals into a union based on shared aspirations, and in doing so establishes a formal investment in the well-being of society. The fact that individuals who happen to be gay want to share in this vital social institution is evidence that conservative ideals enjoy widespread acceptance. Conservatives should celebrate this, rather than lament it.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
“Why does that even matter? Existing anti-discrimination laws cover both inborn traits (race) and choices (religion).”
True but things like patient access, exempt inheritence, death tax, hospital access etc. are not. Beyond the label “marriage” those are the areas of concrete inadequacy that need additional law.
I don't. I have a gay brother. I have met his friends. I know why they CHOSE to be gay. I heard the stories.
I still wonder why someone would CHOOSE to be denied jobs, denied respect, forced to live a secret life, choose to never be married, never have children, denied housing, publicly mocked, ridiculed, arrested, beaten and in many cases killed...it just does not sit with me that someone would ever CHOOSE that life (other than Christ who offered himself up for us all).
They are NOT denied all of that. Leave out the melodrama, ok? They claim it because being a victim suits the special rights they are trying to get. You don't get special rights unless you are a victim minority. This was all mapped out in the 1970's. And it's working. They liken their behavior to being black and the civil rights of blacks. Something that you fell for. They mapped out being victims. The victim card works like the race card.......right up until someone sees the Folsom Street Fair.
Their status depends on behavior. They are not "born this way".
Homosexuality is not biologically determined - latest research.
As to the exact causes of homosexuality, the medical jury is still out. But the baseless claim, promoted by Justice Michael Kirby and others, that gays are just born that way, is given no support by the American Psychiatric Association. Their Fact Sheet on Sexual Orientation (2000) sums it up: "There are no replicated scientific studies supporting any specific biological etiology for homosexuality".
BORN OR BRED? Science Does Not Support the Claim That Homosexuality Is Genetic PDF
In 1993, Columbia University psychiatry professors Drs. William Byne and Bruce Parsons examined the most prominent “gay gene” studies on brain structure and on identical twins, and published the results in the Archives of General Psychiatry. They found numerous methodological flaws in all of the studies, and concluded that:
There is no evidence at present to substantiate a biologic theory. … [T]he appeal of current biologic explanations for sexual orientation may derive more from dissatisfaction with the present status of psychosocial explanations than from a substantiating body of experimental data.1
Simon LeVay, whose brain study in 1991 “jumped from the pages of the periodical Science to The New York Times and Time, then to CNN and Nightline, and from there to the dinner tables and offices of the country,” according to writer Chandler Burr, was quite open in his assessment of the possible impact of his work. “[P]eople who think gays and lesbians are born that way are also more likely to support gay rights.”
So, which is it, you leftist loon?
“It can be safely said that the attitude of the Founders on the subject of homosexuality was precisely that given by William Blackstone in his Commentaries on the Laws—the basis of legal jurisprudence in America and heartily endorsed by numbers of significant Founders. In addressing sodomy (homosexuality), he found the subject so reprehensible that he was ashamed even to discuss it. Nonetheless, he noted:
“’What has been here observed . . . [the fact that the punishment fit the crime] ought to be the more clear in proportion as the crime is the more detestable, may be applied to another offence of a still deeper malignity; the infamous crime against nature committed either with man or beast. A crime which ought to be strictly and impartially proved and then as strictly and impartially punished. . . . I will not act so disagreeable part to my readers as well as myself as to dwell any longer upon a subject the very mention of which is a disgrace to human nature [sodomy]. It will be more eligible to imitate in this respect the delicacy of our English law which treats it in its very indictments as a crime not fit to be named “
It appears to me, Johnny, that the founding fathers had NO use for homosexuality, rather a profound hatred for it.
The government isn’t in the “marriage business.” Where do you get this idea? From the left?
There you go again with the behavior pap. People can CHANGE their behavior. Their skin color cannot be changed. You are buying, lock, stock and barrel the path laid out by radical gays in the 70's and 80's . Play the victim card, use Civil rights as it worked for Blacks. It worked for Blacks because they were discriminated against because of something that CANNOT be changed. Behavior can.
You are too lost in the gay propaganda. I learned from my brother and his friends all the tricks and everyone of them worked on you.
Exactly. I am copying that for future reference. Marriage has always been recognized in some legal fashion throughout history.
I will use it with your name!
If you see homo-trolls let me know. I’m keeping track. About six banned so far.
Actually they do have the same rights as everyone else. What they want are special rights. They have the right to marry the opposite sex, just as I do. They want to force others to condone their deviant behavior with hate crime laws. You can stand in the street and cuss out granny but don't call a deviant a "Poofter" or a "queer", you'll be arrested for a hate crime. That is SPECIAL rights and raises up one American above another. THAT is what you are supporting.
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Pinging both lists because "gay" marriage is a moral absolutes issues in the broadest sense, Ted Olson used to be considered conservative and apparently still calls himself that, plus he came out (no pun intended!) in favor of the mosque in NYC, PLUS this thread is larded with trolls pushing homosexual agenda lies. The fight against the homosexual agenda is getting white hot - since there is a closet homosexual in the White House, who said before the election that he and his thugette wife would be the "best friends gays and lesbians ever had" and is proving that to be true (people have posted a list of all the homosexuals he's appointed or hired to influential fedgov positions - it's unbelievable!) - the homosexual agenda pushers are energized.
If we don't fight for the truth, we lose. Sitting back insures defeat.
The three of us were right in our prediction that the California decision would bring out the agenda trolls. It happens every time.
Homosexual acts are unhealthy, immoral, unnatural and anyone who practices them has a mental illness.
Homosexual acts should not be enshrined as marriage - not now, not ever.
Your support for socially destructive deviance is abhorrant. Homosexual acts wrong in every way using the lens of truth and objective reality. Comparing abhorrance for sodomy to ignorance of the shape of the earth is pathetically weak.
Are you a homosexual yourself, btw?
I am not, just for the record.
Yes. But they are being told to leave as FR does not support the homosexual agenda.
More than half of all marriages ending in divorce is a figure inflated by people who marry, divorce, marry again, divorce again, etc.
ANd just because marriage is in trouble because of social breakdown is not a reason to throw gasoline on the fire!
Pathetically weak, standard issue homosexual agenda talkging points. Can’t you come up with something original?
Of course the Government needs to define marriage and for more reasons than the benefits that come from marriage.
Without a legally recognized definition of marriage the government could not make prohibitions on marriage or make determinations as to the conditions people can marry.
Without the involvement of the law and government people could
Marry their own children, grandchildren, brothers, sisters or 1st cousins.
Children could be married off to adults - a common practice in some parts of the world.
Two children could be married, even those as young as 6 years old - another common practice in India, Nepal and a few other countries.
People would be free to commit fraud against another by committing repeated acts of bigamy.
Polagamist marriages would be legal and while a good argument can be made that they should be based on our 1st Amendment, community standards of the country dictate that these unions are not acceptable. Which brings us to your next questions, what gives the Government the right to define marriage.
First is the obvious answer, in order for the Government to become involved in any matter they must have a codified legal definition of said matter. The obvious need for this is to bring uniformity for the law and within government. This prevents, as in the cases we have now, one state from claiming marriage can be homosexual while the majority says only heterosexual.
We give the Government the right to define marriage.
Marriage must be defined so that any prohibitions on marriage can be made, since the government is charged with both making those prohibitions and enforcement of them, they must define marriage.
As long as the Government recognizes the marriage union as a right in which certain other rights stem from (inheritance for instance) they must define marriage to determine who qualifies.
To those who believe that the Government should simply get out of the marriage business - have you considered the real implications of just that happening?
If you learned a man in your community announced that he had married his 12 year old biological daughter, that now she is no longer his child but his wife and she is now pregnant with his child, would you be comfortable with allowing that under the law?
Without defining marriage, you’d have to.
Their own “marriages” already are meaningless. Figures show that they last less than 3 years and are practically never monogamous anyway.
It truely amazes ME that we still have people, in this day and age, who think that everyone else must follow THIER religious dogma! This country was founded on a principle that EVERYONE was free to believe in, and live according to THIER OWN religious beliefs - not YOURS.
IIRC - acceptance of the Christian God requires a voluntary choice to follow Him, not some worldly government that forces people to live according to His laws - but not believing in them!
Can you provide ANY legitimate LEGAL argument for your position?
And to think that suposedly good christian men and women were making the same lame arguments for keeping fellow human beings in chains, just 150 years ago in your neighborhood.
Most black people find it highly offensive to have their race, which is neutral and immutable, compared to a group of people who practice same sex sodomy, which is neither.
I have a good friend who is black who is disgusted and outraged when people compare her to someone who practices same sex sodomy.
Another lame, pathetic, weak standard issue homosexual talking point.
There are countless numbers of FORMER HOMOSEXUALS. There is not one former black person in the history of the world. Being a “homosexual” is based entirely on voluntary acts which can be engaged in or not, and the attraction to do those acts can be cured in many cases.
It is a mental illness, not an “identity”.
Homosexual activists have asked for this:
1972 Gay Rights Platform Demands: “Repeal of all legislative provisions that restrict the sex or number of persons entering into a marriage unit.”
[Also among the demands was the elimination of all age of consent laws.]
Of late they have hushed up the elimination altogether of the age of consent (the public isn’t “ready” for that yet), but have consisently pushed for lowering it.
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