Posted on 08/06/2010 6:42:03 AM PDT by TitansAFC
(Aug. 5) -- In Joseph Heller's famed novel, an Air Force bombardier named Yossarian and his mates are confronted with a downright Kafkaesque rule: if a pilot was crazy, he could avoid combat missions. But if he wanted to be grounded, it was clear he wasn't crazy. Thus entered into the vernacular a phrase signifying circular reasoning that traps its victims in an inescapable double-bind.
Opponents of same-sex marriage, meet Catch-22.
In November 2008, California citizens enacted Proposition 8, defining marriage as constituting a union between one man and one woman. In fact, the tally in states where the issue has been put before voters stands as follows: traditional marriage 30, same-sex marriage zip.
Yesterday, however, in the least-surprising development since summer followed spring, a San Francisco-based federal judge ruled that Prop 8 violated the U.S. Constitution, casting a considerable pall over all such state-level voter and legislative initiatives as the case winds its way to an inevitable showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Funny, that. Because up to now, one of the most widely repeated and compelling arguments against federal action favoring traditional matrimony has been that marriage is a state issue.
Flash back four years to the floor of the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate, where the World's Greatest Deliberative Body considered a federal Marriage Amendment that would have enshrined in the federal Constitution roughly the same language adopted by a solid majority of Golden Staters.
The amendment went down to crashing defeat, as its managers could not even attract a majority of their colleagues, much less the constitutionally required two-thirds vote. Why? Because seven GOP Senators joined all but two of the chamber's Democrats in turning thumbs down on the resolution -- with a number of naysayers pointing to the tradition that marriage is regulated at the state level.
New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg, for example, maintained that "federalism, not more federal laws, is a viable and preferable approach." And future Republican presidential candidate John McCain was even more to the point, insisting that the issue was "currently and properly being resolved in different ways, in 50 different states."
Fast- forward to last month, when another federal judge gave the heave-ho to the section of the Defense of Marriage Act -- enacted 14 years back by massive majorities of both houses of Congress and inked by Democratic President Bill Clinton -- which bars the U.S. government from granting marital benefits to same-sex couples.
Thundered Judge Joseph Tauro, "The federal government, by enacting and enforcing (the Defense of Marriage Act), plainly encroaches upon the firmly entrenched province of the state ... And this court is convinced that the federal government's long history of acquiescence in this arena indicates that, indeed, the federal government traditionally regarded marital status determinations as the exclusive province of state government." (Emphasis added.)
In a classic in-your-face gesture to conservatives, Tauro even cited their cherished 10th Amendment, which reserves all powers not expressly numerated by the Constitution to the states or the people.
Which brings us back to the Prop 8 case. Here we have a constitutional amendment, duly enacted by a solid majority of the people of a sovereign state.
A no-brainer, by the Senate's and Judge Tauro's standard, right? Hands off, feds.
Not so fast.
In his opinion, U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker disposes in short order of the right of a state or its citizens to regulate marriage. "Proposition 8 cannot withstand any level of scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause, as excluding same-sex couples from marriage is simply not rationally related to a legitimate state interest," the jurist claims. (Emphasis added.)
Referring to support for traditional marriage as involving "profound and deep convictions accepted as ethical and moral principles," Walker adds dismissively, "The question here is whether California voters can enforce those same principles through regulation of marriage licenses. They cannot."
With Judge Walker's decision, it comes down to this for proponents of traditional marriage: go to the feds for constitutional protection of marriage, and they say regulating marriage is a state matter. Regulate marriage on the state level, and the feds will invalidate your actions as violating the U.S. Constitution.
Heads, they win. Tails, you lose. Catch-22.
Marriage is a privilege like driving, not a “right”; the state licenses both. It sets qualifications for both.
Yep, classic leftist approach to an issue “heads I win, tails you lose”
The problem is that we’ve been drawn into a debate about HOW government defines marriage rather than WHETHER government defines marriage. If we concede that government can define marriage, we’ve already lost.
SnakeDoc
Unfortunately, the idea of "defining marriage" as NOT being a compelling interest of the state is a position fraught with unintended idiocies that would make themselves apparent after the good intention is manifested.
However, please feel free to try to make a cogent case for why marriage should not be in the interest of the commonwealth.
Unfortunately, the idea of "defining marriage" as NOT being a compelling interest of the state is a position fraught with unintended idiocies that would make themselves apparent after the good intention is manifested.
However, please feel free to try to make a cogent case for why marriage should not be in the interest of the commonwealth.
1.) That (as the judge said in the Prop 8 ruling) Prop 8 “singles out” gay and lesbian couples for discrimination. This is flat-out false, as the Proposition does not single-out anyone or any group - it is entirely exclusive of any definition whatsoever outside of one man and one woman (of legal age, and of proper bloodline separation). That is not an exclusion specific to homosexual partners.
2.) That everyone should be free to marry whomever they choose/love, not just heterosexuals. Never has there been such a freedom; nobody has ever had the right to marry whomever they want. There have always been limitations (citizenship, proper bloodline separation - even if sterile, age limits, financial limits - must be able to afford a license, etc.).
Both of these arguments fall short, and are fundamentally untrue.
The gov’t is never going to give up its involvement in marriage, to that institution’s detriment. It affords too much control in the culture, and is a great weapon for the Enemy. Do you think the homosexualists want the gubberment to quit defining marriage? Not hardly. They want gov’t to be able to regulate marriage, or at least fool folks into thinking it does.
Freegards
Yes it is at that point people begin to look to other means of having their voices heard...
The Right simply cannot take anymore destruction of private and traditional rights and institutions, or federal usurptations. The Left will not accept Federalism as a compromise - they want it all, and they want it all imposed on everybody by the Supreme Court.
Polarization is at its highest, perhaps ever. It may be a bloodless separation, but I think there will be a separation.
>However, please feel free to try to make a cogent case for why marriage should not be in the interest of the commonwealth.
If the fact that the government can twist marriage to be whatever an unelected official wants it to be isn’t good enough cause for removal of government from the picture, then nothing is.
I still contend that this issue is, ultimately, not about marriage itself. If that were true, there would have been thousands of same-sex couples moving to Massachusetts to legally “marry”. I lived in MA when the State Supreme Court created that “right” and there was a brief flurry of marriages, but those were to get media attention. Then it all quickly died down.
I believe this is truly about an assault on the churches in this country. Once the “right” to marry is recognized as a being “Constitutional” we’ll see hundreds, if not thousands, of same-sex couples filing lawsuits against churches who refuse to perform their “marriages”.
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy.
We may want to separate -
we are like the wife in a domestic violence prone marriage.
The “husband” will come after us and kill us.
Exactly. This is about the homosexualists using the power of gubberment to force an impossibility upon folks that is contrary to their faith.
Now people look at marriage as just another lousy gov’t contract to be broken and resumed as long as gov’t gives its permission. The government has conditioned many to think that marriage actually comes from them, and that they get to define the institution as opposed to what a persons faith says about it. If marriage was left to the faiths of people, I bet only a fraction would accept the impossibility of “gay marriage”, and eventually even more bizarre combinations that the gubberment will deem as marriage and force folks to accept as marriage.
Freegards
In fact, it's not.
Unelected judges could also, theoretically, redefine murder to be "whatever they want it to be." Do you think we should remove government from the picture w.r.t. defining and punishing murder?
This case is a good example of the need to rein in judges and make them accountable to the people, who are the source of sovereignty in a representative, republican system such as we have used to have. Simple abuse by a judge, however, does not make the case you're trying to argue.
We could put an end to a lot of that by eliminating no-fault divorce in toto.
It would help, but the gov’t would still try to define marriage and force folks to accept whatever bizarre combination they deem to be marriage, as opposed to what a person’s faith says about it.
The only way anyone can force me to recognize an impossibility like “gay marriage”,against the teaching of my faith, is if the state is involved in the institution and forces me to do so.
Freegards
>In fact, it’s not.
I beg to differ.
>Unelected judges could also, theoretically, redefine murder to be “whatever they want it to be.” Do you think we should remove government from the picture w.r.t. defining and punishing murder?
Hyperbolic examples are not overly compelling.
Look, Proposition 8 only won by a small margin. You poll people under 40 (or even more so under 30), and see what their opinion is on gay marriage.
In due course it is almost guaranteed that society is going to change enough that gay marriage will become the majority opinion. At that point your advocacy of marriage as a government licensed institution means there will be every justification for gay marriage being stuffed down your craw without a damned thing you can do about it. You advocate a government intrusion into a very private matter, and that is truly a ceding of personal authority. Without expulsion of government from the marriage contract, you will be at the mercy of whatever social fad comes into being and pulls 51% of the vote.
Power given up to the government almost never comes back. Now granted, that power has already been handed over, but this event might be an opportunity to take it back.
>This case is a good example of the need to rein in judges and make them accountable to the people, who are the source of sovereignty in a representative, republican system such as we have used to have. Simple abuse by a judge, however, does not make the case you’re trying to argue.
As I said above, you are ignorant of the way the winds are blowing. Even without the activist judges trying to push things along before most people are ready to move that way, the fact that the younger people today already hold those views means what is coming is coming. You can either propose a solution that will prevent coercive enforcement of gay marriage, or you can get run over by the juggernaut of state run marriage morphed into a form you don’t like.
Ultimately, you know whose fault that is? Our own. We all talk like the government is this foreign entity imposed upon us from on high by some mysterious force that we cannot possibly understand, but only accept and deal with.
I disagree. If we really are a commonwealth, a representative system in which the people are the source of sovereignty, then let's act like it. Let's stop playing patty cake and whining about how stuff like impeaching judges or defeating these losers in primaries or using the full power of the Constitution to beat these losers is "radical" and "scares the moderates."
We ARE the government - let's start acting like it.
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