Posted on 06/03/2006 4:12:15 PM PDT by Coleus
rawdog is gone.
Do you really agree with him? Many people I know would be in jail. Why not just brand their foreheads? /sarc
Homosexual Agenda Ping.
If anyone has the offending second sentence handy, could you post it? I didn't see it in the article. Of course, civil unions are just a precourser for same sex marriage. If anyone says "I'm against same sex marriage but for civil unions" it's like saying "I'm against bestiality but sex with animals is okay".
If anyone wants on/off this pinglist, freepmail wagglebee and/or me.
BTW, rawdog is gone.
I'm in favor of the amendment as writen. If states want to circumvent the spirit of the amendment and set up "domestic partnerships" that's on the voters of that particular state. I reckon the SCOTUS would have something to say about that as well. Hopefully, Ruth Vader Ginsburg will be retired by then and replaced with a conservative.
Was Thomas Jefferson a radical? He signed a law making castration the punishment for sodomy...
He also believed in slavery. I would submit that any today who believe in slavery would definitely be labeled a radical.
I assume you have heard of the Defense of Marriage Act, (DOMA) which is the legislation that limits the FFC. There has been no successful challenge to DOMA yet.
The citizens of Massachusetts had conducted a signature drive to put the marriage issue on the ballot for a commonwealth-wide referendum there. Extra parliamentary and illegal maneuvers by the Massachusetts House Speaker Thomas Birmingham kept the legislature from conducting a vote to put the measure on the ballot. Experts believe the legislature would have approved the measure had it ever been put to a vote, and the resulting public referendum would have resoundingly supported traditional marriage.
Again, the legislative problems that exist in Massachusetts can be rectified if the voters so choose. In fact, I believe it is on the ballot next year. In any case, it involves only Massachusetts and no other state.
The refusal of one House leader to allow the vote in the legislature deprived the public of its voice in the debate in Massachusetts. Furthermore, the Supreme Judicial Court in Massachusetts took advantage of the delay to issue a decision which thwarted the will of the people and substituted, in its place, the will of a handful of liberal judges. "
So whenever a state judiciary makes a decision that other states don't approve of, we need a US constitutional amendment? Sounds pretty anti-federalist to me.
The USSC has been asked in the past to address this, (hopefully will be again now that the legislature has refused to put this on the ballot again) but they had refused. This state does not want homosexual marriage, and the court and homosexuals activists, as well as a lot of the legislature know that, which is why they refuse to allow it on the ballot.
On what basis should the USSC become involved in a state case that does not involve either a rights issue or a state's violation of the US Constitution? To the best of my knowledge, neither of those is the case here.
That is not states rights, that is usurping states rights.
There's no such thing in our Constitution as states' rights.
Likewise all states that have allowed civil unions, without allowing the states (citizens) to answer it on a ballot question. Anywhere it has been put to the voters, it has failed.
Exactly my point. Even Massachusetts will ultimately ban such marriages, as will any state that puts it on the ballot.
Don't know about that, but same sex marriage is not a winner in any state but Massachusetts, and that will change next year.
As for Jefferson, I would say he was on the right track regarding sodomy.
Well, that would certainly cut down on the population growth, since about 95% of married and unmarried heterosexual couples engage in it.
Given the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, the Foley scandal, the Gary Studds non-scandal-because-I'm-a-Democrat, the Barney Frank non-scandal-because-I'm-a-Democrat, and the incessant demands of the homo-left for access to other people's children, I would support summary castration for anyone convicted of pederasty.
Why just pederastry? How about all cases of sexual child abuse? Or do you consider sex with female children ok? In fact, that is a far greater problem in our society than male to male pedophelia.
"Don't know about that, but same sex marriage is not a winner in any state but Massachusetts, and that will change next year."
As far as I know, that has YET to be addressed by the legislature in MA, they have thus far NOT voted to allow it on the ballot. MA residents are waiting to see if they will reconvene and vote on it, but we aren't even sure they will allow the vote. A vote is required for it to be on the ballot, yet they allowed the session to end before a vote came, with a few saying they would reconvene to vote, we shall see. Many organizations are working hard and pouring money into the state to prevent that.
Incorrect. The people of Massachusetts have the ability to vote out any legislator with whom they disagree. Those legislators have not violated anything in the Massachusetts' Constitution. I'm not aware of any procedural action they have not been empowered to take. The solution is to either vote those legislators out or to vote for the upcoming constitutional amendment. The federal system of government in Massachusetts is alive and well.
The constitutional convention is, as I understand it, made up of legislators who are voted by the people. I do believe that eventually, likely next year, the amendment will clear the convention. But in any case, that is what is called for in the Massachusetts constitution. It is lawful, and although most in Massachusetts want it amended, they apparently don't want it bad enough to change the makeup of the legislature. This is how a republican form of government works.
As I understand it, the sticking issue appears to be a provision in the Massachusetts constitution that prohibits certain kinds of amendments. I would presume that would have been approved by the people of the state. There are several options available including removal of the sticky provision. In any case, it is certainly not fodder for a US constitutional amendment.
What about Utah?
?
Congress forced Utah to abandon polygamy as a condition for statehood. Similarly, Arizona and New Mexico were specifically under federal requirement to define marriage as between a man and a woman. New Mexico's and Utah's constitutions cannot be changed to allow polygamy without congressional approval.
This means that the definition of marriage in the United States has historically been under federal jurisdiction. For anyone to say that Massachusetts now has the right to define marriage is contrary to, not consistent with, the traditional understanding of states' rights on this subject.
We need to distinguish between a state and a territory. Congress could set any condition for statehood (which did not conflict with the Constitution) it wished, including the demand that polygamy be banned. Once a state, however, Utah could do what it wished, which it did when it banned polygamy, and it took the USSC to uphold the ban. Pre-statehood issues were no greater than those involving slavery, an issue that ultimately led to the Civil War. So powers the states had (guaranteed by the Constitution) could not be compared to powers the territories had guaranteed only by Congress.
Similarly, Arizona and New Mexico were specifically under federal requirement to define marriage as between a man and a woman.
I was not aware of that, and would appreciate a link. Nonetheless, once those territories became states, they no longer had any such requirement.
This means that the definition of marriage in the United States has historically been under federal jurisdiction.
Case by case only, and only involving territories. States have every right to determine anything that does not conflict with the Constitution.
For anyone to say that Massachusetts now has the right to define marriage is contrary to, not consistent with, the traditional understanding of states' rights on this subject.
First, states have no rights. Only persons have rights. Second, the Tenth Amendment ensures states have those powers not specifically retained by the federal government. Since every state has the authority over all family law issues within their state, I know of nothing that sets marriage apart from other family law issues. Hence states can define marriage.
I was referring to the Enabling Act, which made Utah's statehood conditional upon a rejection of polygamy. That is a condition that remains to this day. The state of Utah is expressly prohibited by federal law from allowing the practice polygamy.
The law specifies that should Utah choose a return to polygamy, its statehood will be revoked.
This imposition of federal jurisdiction over the definition of marriage is implicit to all states, by the wording of the Enabling Act. Utah is not singled out with a disadvantage here over a power that other states were allowed to possess. According to the Enabling Act, by agreeing to the conditions of statehood, Utah was brought to "equal footing with the original States." Therefore, Utah is not unique in its lack of power to define marriage. No state has that right.
You won't find a better article than this one:
By Jordan Lorence
June 7, 2006
The proposed Marriage Protection Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not violate principles of federalism. The definition of marriage has never been left to the states.
Some conservatives urge defeat of the amendment because, they say, the Constitution has traditionally left regulation of marriage to the states. But the proposed amendment does not address state power to regulate marriage; rather, it requires states to adopt a uniform definition of marriage of one man and one woman -- something Congress has imposed upon states seeking admission to the Union for 160 years.
No concept of federalism has ever granted states the authority to define marriage any way they desire. Federalism only grants states the power to regulate marriage already defined as one man and one woman.
For the first half-century of America's history governed by the U.S. Constitution, no one questioned this assumption that all states had to define marriage the same way. The question first arose in 1848, when Brigham Young and the Mormon polygamists of the Utah Territory sought statehood from Congress and insisted on their authority as a state to define legal marriage as including polygamy.
Congress, however, refused to grant Utah statehood unless it banned polygamy in its state constitution. The Mormon-dominated territorial legislature of Utah objected to this condition for statehood for almost 50 years, triggering a great struggle between Congress and the citizens of Utah over state authority to redefine marriage, including several cases that came before the U.S. Supreme Court.(Utah finally gave up its demand for legalized polygamy and became a state in 1896).
The Republican Party itself began as a party opposed to slavery and polygamy in the territories. In its first platform in 1856, the party saw no conflict with its positions on polygamy and state power to regulate marriage when it wrote that "it is both the right and the imperative duty of Congress to prohibit in the Territories those twin relics of barbarism -- Polygamy, and Slavery."
So, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and other like-minded conservatives are simply wrong when they oppose the proposed Marriage Protection Amendment because, as Mr. McCain said in 2004 on the floor of the Senate, it is "antithetical in every way to the core philosophy of Republicans," because "it usurps from the states a fundamental authority they have always possessed." In fact, the Republican Party began as a party supporting congressional authority to impose a uniform definition of marriage on the states, even on states that wanted to define marriage differently.
The threat of state legalization of polygamy compelled Congress to require at least some states to ban polygamy in their state constitutions as a condition of statehood. Interestingly, Congress required some states not only to ban polygamy but also to prohibit any efforts to eliminate those polygamy bans without permission of Congress. They did not view this as a violation of the principle of federalism.
For example, Congress required Arizona to ban polygamy in its constitution when the territory became a state in 1912, and the Arizona Constitution further states that "no future constitutional amendment shall be made which in any manner changes or abrogates this ordinance in whole or in part without the consent of Congress (Arizona Constitution, Article 20, section 13). Mr. McCain, take note: The actions of Congress toward your own state demonstrate that, historically, federalism did not bar Congress from imposing a uniform definition of marriage on the states.
Additionally, the Utah and New Mexico constitutions state that their respective bans on polygamy cannot be repealed without the consent of Congress. Clearly, Congress saw no violation of federalism in ordering some states not to change a marriage definition provision of their state constitutions without the consent of the federal government. In other words, federalism does not empower states to redefine marriage.
The Supreme Court has written approvingly of congressional authority to condition statehood on a territory's adoption of a definition of marriage as one man and one woman. In the 1885 decision of Murphy v. Ramsey, the U.S. Supreme Court stated, "certainly no legislation can be supposed more wholesome and necessary in the founding of a free, self-governing commonwealth, fit to take rank as one of the coordinate States of the Union, than that which seeks to establish it on the basis of the idea of the family, as consisting in and springing from the union for life of one man and one woman in the holy estate of matrimony; the sure foundation of all that is stable and noble in our civilization."
The court's language may be flowery, but its point is clear. Congress has the constitutional authority to require states to adopt a uniform definition of marriage. This is a separate issue from the question answered by the principle of federalism, which presupposes states regulate marriage but gives them no authority to redefine it.
Members of the House and Senate should vote in favor of the proposed Marriage Protection Amendment without concern they are violating a long-held understanding of federalism. Instead, they are fulfilling the historical understanding of Congress' role in the interplay of federalism and the definition of marriage.
Jordan Lorence is senior counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund in Scottsdale, Ariz. In 2004, he argued the case before the California Supreme Court in which it invalidated the marriage licenses issued by San Francisco to same-sex couples. http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20060606-090944-4652r.htm
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