Posted on 01/14/2014 8:07:48 PM PST by optiguy
Oklahoma's gay marriage ban violates the U.S. Constitution, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday. U.S. District Judge Terrence Kern handed down the ruling in a lawsuit filed by two same-sex couples. Kern immediately stayed his ruling pending appeals, meaning gay marriages won't happen in Oklahoma right away. The gay couples had sued for the right to marry and to have a marriage from another jurisdiction recognized in Oklahoma. The Oklahoma ruling comes about a month after a federal judge in Utah overturned that state's ban on same-sex marriage. Hundreds of couples got married there before the U.S. Supreme Court intervened, putting a halt to the weddings until the courts sort out the matter. Kern, whom Fox 25 reports is a Clinton, Okla. native, cited that case in issuing the stay of his own ruling. The constitutional amendment approved by Oklahoma voters says marriage in the state consists only of the union of one man and one woman. Kerns said the measure violates the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause by precluding same-sex couples from receiving an Oklahoma marriage license.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
With all due respect to the late Mrs. Graham (if she really did make that statement), God will never have to apologize to anybody, and that statement is on its face a very unscriptural notion. I realize that those who have quoted or paraphrased the statement about apologizing to Sodom and Gomorrah are loosely basing it on a statement that Jesus said about there being more mercy for Sodom and Gomorrah than for certain people, but that certainly doesn't paint God into a corner where he has to bring about judgment and destruction or have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah. I cringe at the Scriptural illiteracy any time I hear somebody reference that "quote".
My answer to my sons and their college aged friends is we are either a Godly people, or we are just like every other animal on the planet. You can't have it both ways.
As I see it homosexual marriage is a dangerous threat because it is ungodly and helps to establish a "you can do anything you want" mentality.
Unfortunately, what I'm seeing is the demise of western civilization and a shrinking of Christian numbers among the industrialized economies.
Per the court’s (incorrect) equal-protection logic:
1. Can the state license ANY activity? (Hunting, fishing, practicing law, practicing medicine, practicing hair cutting, practicing family counseling, practicing psychiatric care, etc.)
2. Isn’t the state’s licensing of marriage inherently unconstitutional, as the license assumes applicants want to get married to each other, and establishes criteria which the applicants must meet, thereby “creating” a class of individuals who don’t want to get married to each other and do not meet the required criteria (and therefore, presumably, suffer from unconstitutional discrimination on equal-protection grounds)?
Example: The state licenses rabbit hunting with slingshots in March, for those who desire to hunt rabbits, and are willing and able to do so with slingshots in the month of March. Per the court’s reasoning, this state licensing is unconstitutional, as it (supposedly) excludes those persons who desire to hunt squirrels with shotguns in April. And per the court’s reasoning, the state license to hunt rabbits with slingshots in March SHOULD ALSO ALLOW squirrel hunting with shotguns in April (or any other animal with any other weapon in any other month).
Example: The state licenses 17 year-olds who pass a written test and a driving test to drive Volkswagons on the streets and highways. Per the court’s reasoning, this excludes those persons who’d prefer to drive Volkswagons on the city sidewalks, and those who’d prefer to drive Mopeds on the interstate, and those who’d prefer to do so at age 15, and those who’d prefer to take no test. Per the court’s reasoning, the driving license should be immediately extended to those who prefer to drive on sidewalks and those who prefer to drive tricycles on the interstate.
Example: The state licenses the practice of hair-cutting. Those who want to be beauticians happily apply for this license, pass some sort of test, and receive their hair-cutting license. This discriminates, of course, against those who desire the hair-cutting license to allow them to practice clinical psychiatry. The courts who claim that the marriage license allowing a single man to marry a single woman discriminates (somehow) against a lesbian woman who desires to marry another lesbian woman do inherently, by their decision and reasoning, extend the license of hair-cutting to those who want to practice psychiatry.
Bottom line: Bans on gay marriage are not equal-protection issues. Gay persons have EXACTLY the same rights to marriage, or to hunt, or to fish, or to become a practicing psychiatrists, as heterosexuals, or duck hunters, or lawyers, or fishermen, or fifteen year old teenagers. A gay man is free to marry a lesbian woman. A gay man is free to marry a heterosexual woman. A lesbian woman is free to marry a heterosexual man. A lesbian woman is free to marry a gay man. Heck, a lesbian man is free to marry a gay woman, or even a heterosexual psychiatrist. Their rights are equivalent.
If we want to extend the marriage license to marriages where a male marries a male, we can do so, but we can’t be compelled to do so for equal-protection reasons.
so does this mean equal protection covers ccw for nyc visitors? chicago? california?
We need to take back the Supreme Court, was never intended for them to have the power we have allowed them.
A good Christian Conservative could perhaps run for President with this platform
Other than that, Militia Time
Why, they ignore the one we have now.
How can a federal judge strike down a state law?
You thoughts are similar to mine. This is not an equal protection issue because these lesbians are free to marry men the same as the hetero women are free to marry men. But they want to marry women which as does not make them equal because the heteros don’t want to marry women. Perhaps government should stay the f$&@ out of the marriage business.
Here’s the failure in logic... These judges are ascribing the rights of INDIVIDUALS to COUPLES. Each individual in this farce already has equal rights, even if the couples do not. The fourteenth amendment does not guarantee equal rights to couples, or any other plurality.
"Really bizarre - the Supreme Court held that state laws could not be trumped by the federal law when it came to same-sex marriage - that if a state had approved ssm then federal benefits couldn’t be denied on the basis of the federal DOMA - yet that ruling is being used all over the country to justify overturning state bans on same-sex marriage because of the federal constitution..."
Because Kennedy telegraphed in Windsor that he and his 5-4 could change each state piecemeal.
So with that wink and a nod, his comrades are going after the most conservative states to raise a case back up to the Court before its complexion changes; either knowing Kennedy will follow up with the state-by-state overturns citing the same garbage in Windsor, OR hoping that if he finds OK and UT laws sufficiently flawed enough, that he'll have no choice but to pursue a sweeping 50-state ruling. They know Kennedy is the swing vote, there's no way he'll swing back against an overreaching decision.
Stupid, and/or dishonest ruling. This is declaring language to be unconstitutional- which it is not. The Oklahoma amendment is redundant - two men or two women cannot be husband and wife - by definition. A man cannot be a wife, and a woman cannot be a husband - and a wife cannot be a wife without also having a husband, and vice versa. That's language - that's reality. It is what it is.
No, it isn't - they must answer how two women can be joined as husband and wife.
And by and large the same people who promote this also believe people get to choose their gender - and can be born men trapped in a female body, or woman trapped in a man's body and need hormone / "gender reassignment" surgery to "fix" this "problem"... it is totally inconsistent, and is normalizing what is obviously a psychiatric issue.
It’s a good argument you have there - the hard part would be getting the court to accept it.
Not that I support violence but I am surprised more Judges aren’t attacked.
They’ve gone about as fur as they could go.
Exactly. Only the Free Cell Phone ladies of the world are also being fruitful and multiplying, and keeping their kids in public school. So it’ll be a race.
Terrence is indicative of how corrupt and stupid our entire system of courts and justice has become. His ‘logic’ adds to the feeling that the central socialist government octopus is much like Spain in 1936k.
Oppression and utter disregard of the rights of states to govern.
“Trust me, the queers will win as they seem to do everywhere.”
Liberals are winning. Gays are just along for the ride. Polygamists will follow shortly and then pedophiles.
When a judge says that States Rights trump Federal Rights, you would be surprised who nods their heads.
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