Iowa court rules same-sex couples can marry - Page 2

Can you not figure this out? Are women not considered people to you?

And that's a best-case, hypothetical version of polygamy, as opposed to the historical version, which is pretty much just female slavery.

Go Iowa! It's nice to hear something positive and sane in the news every once in awhile, it keeps us on our toes.

Not the place I would have expected sanity to assert itself early, but good for them. I'm still ashamed of my own state, with its heavily gay population, for not taking the early lead on this issue.

I know the presidential candidates don't want it to be true, but this is going to be a big issue for the next president. They may not want to talk about it now, but whoever wins is going to have to eventually.

If they're all equally on his nuts then whats the problem

I distinguish between the rights of a citizenry to have a say in the laws that govern them and judicial activism. "Malcolm" in my example is the Mass Supreme Court that basically forced the legislature to create a constitutional clause mandating gay marriage. The people had no say in this decision and when they tried to get their say, in a vote where the demands of the MSC would have surely been overturned, they were torpedoed by the very people they elected to uphold their rights as citizens.

Needing 65K signatures and turning in over 170K seems like the people would like a say in the laws that govern them. And it sounds like they didn't like what the MSC had to say.

Now I do find fault with the Mass legislators from the right for failing to bring a vote to their people by not supporting civil unions. And I stand by the fact that the idea of gay marriage is not so much predicated on love than it is legal protections afforded by the institution of marriage.

If it was only about love then why would you need state recognition of your love? I know at least two heterosexual couples who are committed to each other, have been for many years and plan to stay together for many more. One of them even has children. And neither of them have a marriage certificate.

I do not believe that civil unions constitute a separate but equal situation either.

You see, why not the flip your argument? What I mean is why do people assume that just because the state recognizes your relationship for tax purposes--because that's all a marriage certificate really does--that it somehow means that churches must automatically do the same? Churches and the state are separate entities so if the state says it's fine with two homosexuals being "married" then what the fuck does the local church care? Walk down 16th Street, NW in Washington, DC and you'll find one church that will marry a gay couple and 2 blocks further down you'll find another church that will shut their doors at the idea of such a thing happening. The government should be allowed to legally marry any person with any person. The individual churches can make up their own minds on whether they're going to do the same.

Judicial activism is by and large a fiction, and always has been. It's basically saying "My politics don't agree with the Court!". One element of the role of a judge is to actively interpret the law. I guess I can see it in the most extreme examples, like the Lochner decision, but my understanding of the Massachusetts decision was that the court was basically engaging in a textual analysis of the state constitution, particularly the equality and liberty provisions. Despite what "the people" may want, if they draft a constitution that effectively grants equal protection under the law without circumscription, and a court chooses to take that literally, the people are out of luck.

I am not sure if you are with me or against me but I will tell you I agree. I think setting up two systems that deliver the legal rights would be ideal. Church marriages and civil unions. Individual churches can choose to marry whoever they want and it is recognized for legal purposes. Civil unions are for whoever wants them. Gays, atheists, etc. And they carry the same weight.

As I originally said though I think the idea and art of compromise was lost on both sides.

I'd agree if the state is limited to providing civil unions to straight couples as well. (thus ending state-sponsored "marriage")

also, I'm not clear on this:
So, a decision was made by the State Supreme Court, and the legislature chose to uphold it, and you're angry about this? What level of jurisprudential guarantee of the will of the masses are you looking for? (Of course, enforcing the will of the masses is not the point of a republic like ours, but that's beside the point)

This avoids the point that the 170,000 signatures were scrounged up by a group "dedicated to strengthening the family and affirming the Judeo-Christian values upon which it is based." So, it might not have been the most representative sample from which those signatures were obtained.

The MSC told the legislature to create a law affirming same sex marriages thereby circumventing the constitutional process and allowing the people to vote. At the subsequent constitutional conventions where the petition signatories were asking for their constitutional right to vote on the same sex marriages they were shut down by uncompromising legislators.


I think you are saying, in rather blunt terms, that the fact that bigots provided the signatures then it shouldn't matter if we ignore their voice. The people wanted to put it to a vote as is their right. If the state of Mass wants same sex marriages then your claim of a skewed sample would show through in failure of a gay marriage ban.

Also on your point of judicial activism being a fiction, it isn't the job of the court to create laws and tell the legislature to put them on the books.

You don't need state recognition of your love, you need state recognition of your rights. Those happy heteros that you mention probably aren't going to have too much trouble visiting one another in the hospital, inheriting each other's property, or opening a bank account together. Same-sex couples need some sort of legal leg-up in many situations, because people (and, based on your perspective on "judicial activism," I'd venture to say people like you) don't seem to understand that the process by which we grant rights to families is not a democracy and does not happen on a case-by-case basis.

Could you please explain this? That doesn't really make sense. Either you're saying that these two things aren't separate, which they clearly are, or that they aren't equal, which, if so, why do you think that it's an acceptable solution?

I'll ignore the idea that a radical black activist working outside the system is somehow comparable to appointed supreme court judges, but does this mean you consider "the gay lobby," as you called them, to be MLK in this analogy? Okay, let's assume this is so. MLK never gave up or camouflaged his essential ideals for the sake of strategy. That's what you were suggesting gay marriage advocates do. That's not just cowardly, but strategically unsound in the long run.

Also, I'm pretty sure your facts are a little off. There was no proposed constitutional clause "mandating" gay marriage (FYI, "to mandate" would mean that gay marriage would not only be allowed, but required). Plus, the court found that the prevention of same-sex marriages was inherently contradictory to the spirit of the state constitution, which affirms the equality of all people. It seems reasonable that they would want a constitutional inconsistency resolved. In terms of constitutionality, I'm guessing they knew what they were talking about more than the public in this case.

Lots of Southern voters weren't so hot on Brown v. Board of Education, either. Boo-fucking-hoo.

And, again, there were probably a lot of people who disagreed with the Brown decision, as well, not just in the South, but throughout the U.S. Majority doesn't always rule.

That's very pragmatic and, I'd guess, very wrong. If it were strictly about legal protection, gay marriage advocates probably would be okay with the term "civil union," assuming it could ever carry the same weight as "marriage." But they're not.

Symbology, tradition, cultural acceptance, whatever. It doesn't matter - if the possibility exists for some people, it shouldn't be withheld from others based on sexual orientation.

Who cares about your friends? No one's requiring gay or straight people to marry to prove their commitment. Also, no one required black or white people to ride a bus - but if black people rode it, extra restrictions were thrown their way, and this was ultimately deemed unconstitutional. The idea is that if the legal right exists for some, then it should exist for all.

How do they not? Or have your reasoning skills not caught up with your beliefs yet? I can wait while you attempt to justify this untenable position.

Do you have a cite for this? I don't know much about Massachusetts polity, but that doesn't sound like it could possibly be right. No law is the equal of a Constitution in every jurisdiction I know of in the U.S. Moreover, since when is a referendum the traditional means of passing a statute?

I'm not saying they're not entitled to a vote, their legislature did that for them. I'm saying that it's erroneous to infer the will of "the people" from a skewed sample. Also, it looks like they only needed about a 25% positive vote in order to put the amendment to a referendum, and they failed at that. (Link) The republic spoke. That's the system.

I still need to see the caselaw to understand what you mean by this. I read the case two years ago, but I don't remember any of it.

Ok, based on some quick-and-dirty research, this isn't right. From what I gather, Massachusetts marriage statutes prevented gay marriage. Rather than strike down the ability of the state to marry anyone (the traditional remedy, but obviously untenable in this case), they allowed the legislature to re-write the law to meet constitutional standards.

I am afraid we have to disagree. The process by which we grant rights to families is firmly rooted in government as it is a government recognized institution for certain purposes inherent in the functioning of society.

I'm sorry, what was meant was that "separate but equal" WRT to schools was shown to be unconstitutional and wrong. I don't see civil unions as being something wrong or unconstitutional WRT to providing a framework for granting legal rights.

I hope it doesn't look like I'm harassing you, that's not my intention. I just keep seeing things you say that raise questions in my mind.

Is there a legal framework for determining what is an acceptable "separate but equal" system, as opposed to an unacceptable system? I'm not much of a con law scholar, but I don't recall this.

I'm pretty sure that this sentence doesn't actually mean anything. Specificity, please.

So you support the idea of the government not being allowed to grant marriages to anyone? That's an interesting idea, but, as the LD pointed out, it's not particularly realistic. In lieu of that, you pretty much have to open state-sanctioned marriage up for same sex couples or you are absolutely creating a "separate, but equal" environment (at best - actually, I'd say it's more "separate and not equal").

I can see the first part of the sentence from the perspective of tax and property law. It's commonly believed that the promotion of the family as a stable economic unit is beneficial to a society. As such, we tilt our laws in fields like intestate succession and tenancy, along with certain economic benefits of taxation, to promote marriage and family.

However, unless you want to take the view that this is done strictly to create a more numerous society, it basically cuts in favor of promoting gay marriage, as opposed to banning it. EDIT: As in, the courts are generally a drain on the efficiency of our society. Thus, simply allowing homosexual life partners the right to inherit property from their significant others will save significant expenditures of time, money, and judicial resources that could be better applied elsewhere. Basically, an opportunity cost kind of thing.

That was my problem with it. It's so vague that you can extrapolate a multitude of contradictory positions from it. It's non-committal.

It also doesn't really respond to the previous post, which, if I'm reading it correctly, was basically saying that the rights offered by marriage are not decided based on some sort of democratically-decided eligibility. I don't get a vote on whether Joe Wife-Abuser gets to marry Jane Crack-Habit, thus I also shouldn't get a vote on whether Jack Secure-Job gets to marry Hank Good-With-Kids.

Well, yeah, but you're one of those knee-jerk Wisconsin liberals to which the Communist News Network is always pandering.

Thats about enough of this bullshit.
Marry whoever and the law should and will protect you.
You folkes talk so much bullshit....cry baby, ...snot nose..
My life is cool cos I am heterosexual?????
Buck up you half-assed campers.

I didn't say it wasn't rooted in government. I said it wasn't a democracy. There's a difference. The United States is a representative democracy. We don't put everything to a vote here because, well, people are fucking dimwits and they'd do something like denying rights to same-sex couples or black people just because they're uncomfortable with those groups. We pick people who represent us and they go do it. We also pick the judges (either directly or via our representatives) who interpret our laws. We pick these people because we assume that they are smart enough and aware enough to interpret and make our laws. We don't get to override this system when they come up with something we don't like, unless we're willing to undertake impeachment proceedings.

Wait, wait - separate but equal for black people = wrong, but separate but equal for gay people = peachy? You're really going to have to elaborate here.

BTW, had anyone seen the update to the original post?

None of the people quoted near the end of the article were falling all over themselves to get their love recognized by the state I notice.

Not in the least. I hold an opinion that isn't the norm for this board. I accept the responsibility of making my own stand.

I rather appreciate the cordialness of the whole affair.

Jay-sus Fuckimg Christ.

HA! I can't even watch CNN. Leans too far right for me. NPR all the way, baby.

Anyway, we're Progressives here, not Liberals. Long live Fightin' Bob LaFollette!

Progressives?
Nailed you from the get go.
C-Span- the real deal.
Go figger.

I'm putting you on ignore now, witchesbrew. You obviously don't understand what's going on here and I'm tired of watching you bumble around, missing clever by several feet every time you post. Go find someone else to bother.

Whatever...


http://www.c-span.org/search/basic.a...&image1=Submit

Imbedded reporter.
Good Footage.

Doug Grindle
C-SPAN dont lie.

I love how you linked to C-Span about an imbedded reporter in Iraq... like it had to do with same sex couples or something.

The same reporter you talked about in your incoherant thread.

I also like how in the other thread, you did a search for "Doug Grindle"... but in this thread, you got lazy and just typed "Doug".

You not read the thread, Numnuts?

Mr. Boomstick, please don't quote it. You're toying with my bliss.

So very quiet...

Just fucking ignore her.

Word.

You mean people like Gov. Chet Culver and Republican House Minority Leader Christopher Rants? I'm not sure what you're saying here. The only gay person quoted at the end says she expects more legal battles, which is neither here nor there in terms of her rationale for wanting to be married.

Not that it really matters, in any case. Asking why gay people want the option to marry each other is like asking why black people wanted the option to ride wherever they wanted on the bus. "Oh, most blacks like riding in the back, anyway..." The rationale of the people being discriminated against really doesn't change the nature of the discrimination. The point is that there's an inequality based on gender preference. Now, if you're arguing that civil unions should be the ONLY governmentally-recognized type of union for gays and straights, I guess I can't argue with that in some abstract sense. But that's something that likely won't be accepted within our lifetime, and, in lieu of it, the only option that doesn't result in some contradiction with the general notion of equality in this country is to allow marriage for couples of both the same and opposite genders.

You not versed in proper grammar, Dicklick?



Apologies to MissZooey.

Mr. Boomstick, if I start crying, get tears in my zen garden, and they make the pure, white sands all muddy, it's going to be on your ass!

::deep breath::

Just put it on your ignore list. It's great. Really. I don't know why I didn't do it weeks ago.

[QUOTE=DaveB]Asking why gay people want the option to marry each other is like asking why black people wanted the option to ride wherever they wanted on the bus.

Awesome post.

Women are getting their as kicked, its OK?

I apologize for saying that.

You should apologize for saying anything ever.