[Spiff]

Richard Wilkins is a professor of law at Brigham Young University. An internationally recognized expert on legal issues related to marriage and the family, he is also the managing director of BYU’s World Family Policy Center. Professor Wilkins is also the founder of Defend Marriage, (www.defendmarriage.org) a group organized to defend marriage and the family in the political arena.

[Spiff]

Ping

[cajun-jack]

why can't the queers still be charged with "crime against nature" like they used to be??

If "booty bumpin" was "against nature" 20 years ago, the technique, as i understand it, still has not changed, so why isn't it still against the law??

[GrandEagle]

I would disagree that we would even want and amendment for the above listed reasons and:
1)It will never pass, meanwhile the judging elite continue to make law illegally. 2)Congress has the power by a 50.1% vote to pass a law defining marriage, then remove authority for any federal court, including the supreme court, to have any jurisdiction relating to the law, or even the topic of marriage in general. - that is doable

[Ancesthntr]

The judges are now so powerful that they feel free to invent the Constitution as they move along. (If the definition of marriage – an understanding as old as time – violates constitutional strictures, one wonders what centuries’ old legal notions the “mysteries of the universe” will invalidate next.)

I'm laying a big wager on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

The main difference, though, between eviscerating the concept of marriage and doing the same to people's RKBA is that in the latter there will have to be some kind of mechanism to enforce that decree and actually confiscate property from people. Oh, and BTW, it just so happens that this particular property is uniquely suited to, shall we say, "confounding" just such an effort.

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[Naspino]

I believe in rule by the majority -- and an amendment is the way to do it. I'd like another amendment to reign in the powers of the corrupt judiciary as well. Perhaps term limits or an IQ test or something.

[GovernmentShrinker]

I never cease to be amazed by the hypocrisy of the LDS Church and many of its members on this subject. The church which insisted on its members' right to practice polygamy, in defiance of the mainstream traditional moral beliefs of the country at that time, and which suffered a shameful invasion of its community by federal troops over the practice, now wants to codify into law government discrimination against anyone who doesn't conform to its idea of proper marriage.

Fortunately, there is strong evidence that the younger generation of Mormons sees the hypocrisy and isn't buying into it, as evidenced by a number of recent letters to editor of the BYU student newspaper (similar to the positions taken by the Baylor student newspaper editor, and letter writers, who also clearly see the need for distinction between one's own religious beliefs, and what one should advocate having codified into law). The best of the BYU letters dug up a quote from an early LDS Church publication, the Millennial Star, in which the then President/Prophet of the Church railed against the evils of monogamous marriage:

MORMONS HAD WEIRD MARRIAGE CUSTOMS TOO

http://www.newsnet.byu.edu/story.cfm/49110

I found it interesting to see a recent author resorted to accusing Jennie Hyde of being under the influence of Satan for her seemingly reasonable position regarding same-sex marriage in the recent letters to the editor on gay marriage. As Jennie correctly points out, as Mormons we are in no position to attack unconventional marriages when our early leaders themselves had no qualms about engaging in marriage practices that the culture of that time found distasteful.

The religious rhetoric used to justify banning same-sex marriages is eerily familiar to statements from 19th century church leaders, who likewise blamed the downfall of earlier civilizations on marriage practices. Then, however, it was not same-sex unions that were blamed but heterosexual monogamy!

President John Taylor stated that "the one-wife system not only degenerates the human family both physically and intellectually, but it is entirely incompatible with philosophical notions of immortality; it is a lure to temptation and has always proved a curse to a people" (Millennial Star, Vol. 15, p.227). Brigham Young and Orson Pratt expressed similar sentiments.

The author fails to provide a reasonable explanation of how the sanctity of heterosexual relationships is threatened by same-sex marriages. Her justification that it presents a bad example for our children is not adequate. By similar reasoning, one could argue that we as a church should push for legislation that outlaws coffee, NFL football games on the Sabbath, and Bay Watch!

As a community, I feel that it would behoove us to show a little more introspection, tolerance, and compassion.

Dean Leavitt

Alpine

[DMZFrank]

While I sympathize with this professor's position, to amend the constitution under these circumstances is to give legitimicy to wholly illegitimate adjudication.

Impeachment, nullification, interposition, and the use of Article III, Sec. 2 of the Constitution all need to be considered.

The marriage amendment should not be necessary. These actions by SF's mayor and the Massachutsetts judiciary are lawless and unconstitutional. We simply cannot amend the constitution every time the left decides to disregard it. We need to hold these officials accountable through impeachment, recall, nullification, interposition and arrest where necessary.

I am so seek of this endless deference to judicial tyranny.

When oh when will some elected executive officer in some state or federal capacity, in fulfilling his constitutional duty to honestly interpet the constitution (federal or state) just disregard the unconstitutional rulings of any court and dare the legislature to impeach him for it? When will some legislature impeach just ONE judge for an unconstitutional ruling?

To say that the courts have the final word on the constitutionality of a law NO MATTER WHAT THEY RULE is to say that the system of checks and balances envisioned by the founders does not exist any more.

Alan Keyes gave the best summation of this issue that I've heard yet. He said that every branch of government has a duty to honestly interpret the constitution. If the president honestly feels the courts make an unconstitutional and lawless ruling, then the president should disregard that ruling and refuse to enforce the provisions that he felt were blatantly unconstitutional. If the Congress felt the president was wrong in this decision, then it was their duty to impeach him for it. If the electorate felt that the Congress was wrong for impeaching the president or the failure to impeach him, they can remove them at the next election, as well as the president for any presidential actions that they considered wrongful.

Lest anyone consider this formula has a recipe for chaos, then I submit to you there is no chaos worse than an unchecked oligarchic Judiciary. We are not living under the rule of law when judges make law up to suit their whims has they engage in objective based adjudication.

[BikerNYC]

The Full Faith and Credit Clause has never been used to force a state to accept a marriage that it did not want to accept.

This amendment is not needed.

[45Auto]

"The judges have done violence to the very idea of a written Constitution, have eroded legislative power, and have significantly expanded their own power. It is now up to the people, by constitutional amendment or, by other means,if necessary, to remedy these errors."

We can do it the easy way, or the hard way - the courts have set in motion the possibility of the greatest period of civil unrest since the first Civil War; if not held in check, the next such disturbance will be catastrophic. The point of this article is well put: either the Constitution and NOT the courts means something solid and substantial, or we will make our own rules as we go along; and you can bet the farm that things are going to get very messy, indeed, in that process. People are only going to take so much BS and then, BOOM!.

[45Auto]

What good would it do to amend a document that the courts and legislatures alike ignore?