Gay marriage issue divides Democrats

Las Vegas Review Journal ^ | 4/21/02 | JANE ANN MORRISON

[strictconstruct]

Read my earlier posts.. I'm not arguing gays are being discriminated against. I'm arguing that men have one right and women have another.

Women have the right to marry men.
Men have the right to marry women.
Men and women do not have the same rights. This is unconstitutional.

[jwalsh07]

Hi walsh!

Howdy

Do you admit that men have one right and women have another right?Nope, both can marry within the definition of the word marriage. You can play linguistics all you want, but they aren't treated the same.

Linguistics? Please tell me how a strict constructionist, if thats not presuming too much, redefines words to support his argument. Are you Bill Clinton? :-}

Question: when a straight celebrity speaks of his/her marriage, do you ask them to keep it in the bedroom?

I am uninterested in the sex lives of you, celebrities or people in general.

[strictconstruct]

Would negating marriages by law after menopause fit your reproductive criterion? What about infertile couples? Or those not mature enough to rear children? Or those who don't want any? And where does it say in the Constitution that inability to reproduce negates EP guarantees in marriage policy?

[Torie]

You haven't really said anything yet that is at all relevant to the issue. What is relevant to the issue are the public policy implications of legalizing gay marriage. What are the costs? What are the benefits? What are the alternatives? Of course, for those that take a religious or a priori stand, no debate is possible. You just need to agree to disagree.

In any event, absolutely no one's mind is going to be changed here. But that doesn't mean it isn't fun to debate the topic to pass the time.

[strictconstruct]

I stated my argument pretty clearly above several times. You can phrase marriage restrictions to be of "opposite-sex couples," but the fact remains that men have one set of marriage rights and women have another.

[jwalsh07]

Women have the right to marry men. Men have the right to marry women. Men and women do not have the same rights. This is unconstitutional

Clearly it isn't unconstitutional and clearly they each have the same right, the right to marry a member of the opposite sex. You really should, in the interest of fairness, change your fr name to unstrictconstruct.

None of that, however, infringes on your right to argue incorrectly. Good luck.

[Torie]

Your constitutional point is even more of a red herring. SCOTUS doesn't agree with you. You know, if you take the equal protection thing to its logical extreme (everything a suspect class), we could just have SCOTUS write all the laws, since the legislature would have no role in drawing distinctions, and determing the scope of classes which should be equal, or not equal.

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

Human biology? Where in the Constitution does it say that?

It doesn't need to. It is beyond the authority of the Constitution.

This reaches back to the principles in the Declaration of Independence...

"We are endowed by our ????"

[LarryLied]

What is relevant to the issue are the public policy implications of legalizing gay marriage. What are the costs? What are the benefits? What are the alternatives?

Don't forget the most important question of all: How can we exploit this split in the Democrat party?

You are one of our resident grassroots, nuts and bolts political analysts. What do we do, if anything, to make liberals miserable over this?

[jwalsh07]

You are one of our resident grassroots, nuts and bolts political analysts. What do we do, if anything, to make liberals miserable over this?

LOL, I am waiting on the edge of my seat before I have to leave to mow the lawn fro your reply to this one.

[Torie]

Well, from a pure partisan standpoint, the safest course would be to suggest that the prudent thing to do would be to let other jurisdictions that so desire try out this risky scheme first. Why be first? Why should we be the lab rat? That leaves maximum flexibility in the future as the tide of opinion changes, which it will IMO, at least in many places.

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

I guess the founders did not invision that one day a society might allow itself to morally disintegrate so much as to allow their words and intent to be so twisted, and thus require such actions.

Consider the words of Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan:

Part IV. Of the Kingdom of Darkness

Chap. xlv. Of Demonology and other Relics of the Religion of the Gentiles

[16] And whereas a man can fancy shapes he never saw, making up a figure out of the parts of divers creatures, as the poets make their centaurs, chimeras and other monsters never seen, so can he also give matter to those shapes, and make them in wood, clay or metal. And these are also called images, not for the resemblance of any corporeal thing, but for the resemblance of some phantastical inhabitants of the brain of the maker. But in these idols, as they are originally in the brain, and as they are painted, carved moulded or molten in matter, there is a similitude of one to the other, for which the material body made by art may be said to be the image of the fantastical idol made by nature. (Hobbes, p 444)

[LarryLied]

the prudent thing to do would be to let other jurisdictions that so desire try out this risky scheme first.

LOL! Great! They want us to attack head on, don't they? Maybe make Jerry Falwell the poster boy for their opposition. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.

[sobieski]

It's not dependent on orientation. Men have the right to marry women; women have the right to marry men. Neither has the right to marry within their gender. No discrimination.

[sobieski]

What's more, the definition of "marriage" is the union on one man and one woman. That institution is open to every man and every woman. Hence, it is by definition not discriminatory, since each person can avail him/herself of it.

[weikel]

Yes by all means legalize gay marriage they should be just as miserable as the rest of us LOL.

[weikel]

Legalize gay marriage they should be just as miserable as the rest of us LOL.

[RobbyS]

"gays and heterosexuals". Aren't homosexuals simple people who compulesively perform homosexual acts, just as alcoholics are people who compulsively drink alcohol? Do we divided the world between alcoholics and nonalcoholics. "Hello, I am Steve, and I am a nonalcoholic!"

[anniegetyourgun]

Apparently we will not convince those in our society who have chose to cut themselves loose from all foundational moorings. They've lost sight of liberty in law. These are not conservatives - they are libertines. I'll leave them to their campaigns to eliminate stoplights and street signs.