A Time for Action: The Federal Marriage Amendment

I'm not sure that this amendment is the way to go, but one thing is clear to me: This one's for the Republic, boys and girls.

BreakPoint/Chuck Colson Ping!

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Can we also have an amendment that states that breakfast is the FIRST meal, lunch is the second, and dinner is the third? Better safe than sorry. Oh yeah, also let's get an amendment that says the man controls the clicker. Thanks.

There should also be a phrase added about the ICC or any world governing body. The UN also seems ready to make homosexual marriage legal. We need to protect this Republic from any outside rulings.

Snooze. Call me when it's time to repeal the XVIth. This is why the Left laughs at us: Flag burning amendments, gay marriage ban amendments, and nothing of any substance.

[i]I believe this amendment must pass, or America will go the way of Scandinavia. We’ll have gay “marriage,” and heterosexual marriage will dissolve as a result. [/i]

surely someone can explain to me why homosexual marriage causes traditional marriage to dissolve? If you are married in the church, and have a strong relationship, why does anything that anyone else does (especially that which does not affect you directly) change that?

please note that I'm not saying I like the idea of same-sex marriage, but thisi s not a good arguement against it. Marriage is a stronger institution than you'd think, and if it's that weak, perhaps we need more than a ban on gay marriage to save it?

surely someone can explain to me why homosexual marriage causes traditional marriage to dissolve?

If marriage is defined to mean literally anything one wants it to mean, then it becomes meaningless. Government has enormous cultural influence. Many young people will believe that there is nothing special about the married relationship since "anybody" can marry, if the government says so.

Finally, once homosexual marriage is as legitimate as normal marriage, there is nothing stopping it from being taught as normative and attractive at all levels of public schooling.

So I believe it to be most significant for our country's cultural future.

This is the senate and house committees that have the Federal Marriage Amendment.
This is at www.house.gov and www.senate.gov
These members count the letters of support.

There are now enough states to pass this due to the fact
they individually have DOMA's.
The FMA will take the Federal Gov. out of the marriage
definition game and put it to state legislatures.
This includes Federally making marriage one man one woman for immigration matters.

These members count the letters of support.
Homosexual special interest groups are trying to organize letter campaigns.
This includes Internet and (oddly enough) nightclubs.

This is very doable.

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Subcommittee on the Constitution Mr. Steve Chabot, Chairman
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Mr. King	Mr. Jerrold Nadler
Mr. Jenkins	Mr. John Conyers
Mr. Bachus	Mr. Robert Scott
Mr. Hostettler	Mr. Melvin Watt
Ms. Hart	Mr. Adam Schiff
Mr. Feeney
Mr. Forbes

BELOW IS THE SENATE COMMITTEE WITH THE COMPANION BILL

Committee on the Judiciary image- panel 1

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MEMBERS

Orrin G. Hatch CHAIRMAN, UTAH	Patrick J. Leahy RANKING DEMOCRATIC MEMBER, VERMONT
Charles E. Grassley IOWA	Edward M. Kennedy MASSACHUSETTS
Arlen Specter PENNSYLVANIA	Joseph R. Biden, Jr. DELAWARE
Jon Kyl ARIZONA	Herbert Kohl WISCONSIN
Mike DeWine OHIO	Dianne Feinstein CALIFORNIA
Jeff Sessions ALABAMA	Russell D. Feingold WISCONSIN
Lindsey Graham SOUTH CAROLINA	Charles E. Schumer NEW YORK
Larry Craig IDAHO	Richard J. Durbin ILLINOIS
Saxby Chambliss GEORGIA	John Edwards NORTH CAROLINA
John Cornyn TEXAS

BELOW IS A FORM LETTER TO SEND TO THE SENATORS AND HOUSE REPRESENTATIVES

RE: Support in favor of the Federal Marriage Amendment
H.J. Res. 56 and S.J. Res. 26

Dear [ Decision Maker ]

I supprt the Federal marriage amendment. As you constituent I urge your support to amend the Constitution. Specifically, please cosponsor support H.J. Res. 56 and S.J. Res. 26 when these resolutions should come up for a vote. As you constituent I urge your support to amend the Constitution. Specifically, please cosponsor support H.J. Res. 56 and S.J. Res. 26 when these resolutions should come up for a vote.

This amendment will remove the courts from redefining the marriage based on social activist judges. This will also protect our state from any actions taken or will be taken in any other state. Private sexual behavior should not be the standard which defines marriage. Marriage is a public institution which is how we raise and support societies children. This institution needs protecting by putting into the Constitution what we have today.

This is not the first time the constitution has been used for social issues. All of the Constitution is based on various social issues. This only codifies what exists now.

This amendment will remove the Federal Government from this issue and return this topic to the individual state legislatures.

Any same sex couple has the legal right to make a private cohabitation agreement, they have the right make powers of attorney and have the right to make health care surrogate directives. These form documents are readily available for nominal cost or free on the Internet. Non of these agreements require any special lawyer help. Marriage under the law is one man and one woman. There is no sexual behavior test. Homosexual rantings to the contrary, their opposition is only attempting to impose public acceptance on what should remain a private consensual behavior.

Please support the support H.J. Res. 56 and S.J. Res. 26, amend the Constitution and protect marriage.

Sincerely,
[Your name]
[Your address]

---Many young people will believe that there is nothing special about the married relationship since "anybody" can marry, if the government says so. ---

ok, but, (and that's a big Hillary Clintonesque Butt) anybody can already get married, as long as they are of age and of opposite sexes. I will support an amendment to protect marriage when it makes it very difficult to get a divorce (save for adultery and abuse) and punishes the person responsible for the dissolution of a marriage. We cannot pretend that marriage is sacred when we profane it in this manner. I can go to Vegas and marry someone I just met, then get it annulled in the morning, no problem. Anyone who debases marraige should be punished, I would argue that the acceptance of adultery in this country is far worse for marriage than anything gays could do to it. I propose we ban divorce, except for abuse and adultery, in which case the gulty party loses everything. Adulterers should be banned from public office, or receiving public funds. Let's make it mean something.

Beware of trolls, this seems to have brought them out of the woodwork.

The omit that the FMA will take the federal government out of the marriage issue and return civil unions or whatever to the states. It will then be to the individual states to decide what if anything to do with the homosexuals' efforts to impose by law, acceptance of the private sexual behavior.

The FMA is exactly what the framers envisioned as a check on the courts. When judges suddenly take to writing their personal sexual agenda into law, the amendment process stops them. THIS is what is meant by living document, not the redefinition of the word "is" game that black robe fevered judges play.

Divorce laws do need to change but marriage is about children.

You can do both. Keep no fault divorce language to allow those who want out, out. BUT, put in equitable distribution rules. No more community property. If he or she cheats, the distribution is adversly afected against them. No more is mariage to be treated like the cashing out of a whole life insurance policy.

You wholesale ban on divorce is absurd. Even the orthodox church allows eclisiastical divorce.

Of course the key to re-evigorating marriage is to give fatherhood the respect that has been taken with the "great society" engineering.

Same sex perversion legalized is a disgrace to every American who is alive today. May God see fit to spare us.

you are being obtuse. Race is a visible and immutable characteristic. Sexual behavior is a behavior. We do not give special rights to those who want ot have sex with animals, swingers, or bondage people.

Sanctioning private sexual behavior in an institution is different from the mere issue of skin color. A man and woman regardless of skin color are by design able to have children. A man and woman regardless of skin color are by desing able to bring a child up as a father and mother. Even a childless couple will still bring up an adopted or inherited child as father and mother.

Perhaps you should join your fellow DUmies.

. . . and then we can have an amendment saying that we really meant the last amendment. And then . . .

Or else we can do the sensible thing, and impeach a judge. That only takes a supermajority in the Senate, and none of the rest of the folderol. If you do that--one judge, just one--you don't need an amendment. If you can't do that, you probably can't get an amendment either--and it wouldn't much matter if you did.

The Constitution isn't the problem and needs no adjustment. The federal courts are the problem and are in critical need of Congressional adjustment.

Federalism

The Marriage Protection Act, as the bill is known, removes jurisdiction from certain federal courts over questions pertaining to the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, better known as DOMA.

DOMA says that no state is required to give full faith and credit to a marriage license issued by another state if that relationship is between two people of the same sex. It also defines the terms "marriage" and "spouse" for purposes of federal law as terms only applying to relationships between people of the opposite sex.

DOMA is good law and passed with broad support, but many are concerned that an activist federal court will find some way to overturn it and create a "right" to homosexual marriage.

The Marriage Protection Act addresses that possibility by removing the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction, as well as inferior federal courts’ original and appellate jurisdiction, over DOMA’s full faith and credit provision. It also removes appellate jurisdiction from the Supreme Court and inferior federal courts over DOMA’s marriage definition.

This is the sort of legislative check the Founders intended. Article I, Section 8 and Article III, Sections 1 and 2 of the Constitution grant Congress the authority to establish inferior federal courts, determine their jurisdiction and make exceptions to the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction. By implementing this legislative power we can preserve each state’s traditional right to determine its own marriage policies without federal court interference. (For instance, a state of appeals court in Arizona last week upheld that state’s DOMA law.)

Marriage is a divinely ordained institution, not a social experiment to be reinvented and redefined by a handful of unelected elites. The courts do not have the constitutional authority to redefine words and institutions in order to comport with judges’ ideologies or whims.

But if recent history is a guide, that won’t stop them. For too long the courts have felt free to exceed their constitutional boundaries. We’ve forgotten that our Constitution established a government of "We the People" - and the people, through their elected officials, have the final say in Constitutional questions.

Marriage Protection Act of 2003

H. R. 3313

To amend title 28, United States Code, to limit Federal court jurisdiction over questions under the Defense of Marriage Act.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

October 16, 2003

Mr. HOSTETTLER (for himself, Mr. PENCE, Mr. SMITH of Michigan, Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey, Mr. GOODE, Mr. AKIN, Mr. GUTKNECHT, Mr. WELDON of Florida, Mr. JONES of North Carolina, Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland, Mr. FORBES, and Mr. PAUL) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

A BILL

To amend title 28, United States Code, to limit Federal court jurisdiction over questions under the Defense of Marriage Act.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Marriage Protection Act of 2003'.

SEC. 2. LIMITATION ON JURISDICTION.

(a) IN GENERAL- Chapter 99 of title 28, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:

`Sec. 1632. Limitation on jurisdiction

`No court created by Act of Congress shall have any jurisdiction, and the Supreme Court shall have no appellate jurisdiction, to hear or determine any question pertaining to the interpretation of section 1738c of this title or of this section. Neither the Supreme Court nor any court created by Act of Congress shall have any appellate jurisdiction to hear or determine any question pertaining to the interpretation of section 7 of title 1.'.

(b) AMENDMENT TO TABLE OF SECTIONS- The table of sections at the beginning of chapter 99 of title 28, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following new item:

`1632. Limitation on jurisdiction.'.

Article III, Section 2 - The Washington Times: Editorials/OP-ED

Over the last 200 years, Congress has exercised this authority to except certain areas from the jurisdiction of the federal court system. In Turner vs. Bank of North America 4 Dall. (4 U.S.,8(1799)),the Supreme Court concluded that the federal courts derive their judicial power from Congress, not the Constitution.
In Cary vs. Curtis 3 How, (44 U.S.), 236 (1845), a statute made final the decision of the secretary of the Treasury in certain tax deductions. The statute was challenged as an unconstitutional deprivation of the judicial power of the courts. The Supreme Court concluded that the jurisdiction of the federal courts (inferior to the Supreme Court) was in the sole power of Congress.
In Sheldon vs. Sill 8 How (49 U.S. 441 (1850)), involved the validity of the assignee clause of the Judicial Act of 1789 restricting such action to establish federal court jurisdictions. The Supreme Court sustained the power of Congress to limit the jurisdiction of the inferior federal courts.
In Ex Parte McCardle 6 Wall. (73 U.S.) 318 (1868), the Supreme Court accepted review on certiorari of a denial of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus by the circuit court. Congress, fearful the Supreme Court would honor the writ, passed a law repealing the act which authorized the appeal. The Supreme Court dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction.
In Lauf vs. E.G. Shinner & Co. 303 U.S. 323, 330 (1938), the Supreme Court upheld the power of Congress to define and limit the jurisdiction of the inferior courts of the United States in the form restrictions on the issuance of injunctions in labor disputes under the Norris-La Guardia Act of 1932.
In Lockerty v. Phillips 319 U.S. 182 (1943), Congress provided for a special court to appeal price control decisions under the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942. The Supreme Court sustained this restriction.
One of the outstanding Constitutional scholars in the Senate is Robert Byrd, West Virginia Democrat. In 1979, in order to once again allow voluntary prayer in public schools, he introduced a law to except this subject from the federal court system under Article III, 2.2. Unfortunately, it was not enacted into law.
In the 107th Congress (2001-2002), Congress used the authority of Article III, Section 2, clause 2 on 12 occasions to limit the jurisdiction of the federal courts.
Sen. Thomas A. Daschle, South Dakota Democrat, used the exception authority of Article III, 2.2 in order to cut some timber in South Dakota.

JUDICIAL TYRANTS SHOULD BE IMPEACHED(Bill Graves is a lawyer and a member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives.)

The Justices are fully engaged in social and cultural engineering. George Washington said those who labor to subvert religion and morality may not be called patriots. Yet subverting religion and morality is exactly what the Court is doing. It is in the business of changing America from the Christian nation the Court said America was in 1892, to an anti-Christian secular state whose religion is secular humanism.

The Court, in its nihilistic quest to alter the culture, has, among other things, banned prayer to God and Bible study in public schools because, it said, such practices violate the 'wall of separation' between church and state even though no such wall is found in the Constitution. Posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools was also banned because it might induce the children to (God forbid) "obey" them. Conversely, the Court prohibited a public school from banning from its library books that were vulgar, obscene, "anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic and just plain filthy." It created the right of privacy and then found in it a right to abortion even though the Constitution makes no mention of such a right. Now sodomy is included. The Court has rewritten the law as to free speech and created protections for pornography and obscenity.

The Supreme Court, in its contempt for representative government, has in the last 14 years overridden direct elections by the people in ten different cases, including Romer. Also among these was Missouri v. Jenkins, in which the Court revived the concept of taxation without representation, by overruling a vote of the people, and affirmed an order for a massive tax for public education.

Such rulings and others equally outrageous have not been made because they are required by the Constitution as written, but because the Court no longer sees itself as bound by the words of the Constitution (as they swear to be) as Chief Justice John Marshall said it should be. Rather, the Court views the Constitution as a living, evolving document that means anything a majority on the Court says. Thomas Jefferson warned of such a lawless Court when he said, "The Constitution ... is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please."

As a result, majority rule, which George Washington called "(t)he fundamental principle of our Constitution," is being destroyed. James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, said under our government the legislative branch necessarily "predominates." Alexander Hamilton said the judiciary was the "weakest" branch of government by which "the general liberty of the people can never be endangered..." This has changed. We now have minority rule. What radical liberals cannot accomplish through majority vote by their elected representatives, they now obtain through majority vote of unelected judges. As a result, we in effect no longer have a Constitution or republic, but government by judiciary.

What is worse, the People and their elected representatives continually, by their inaction, concede without a whimper that our imperial judiciary virtually has carte blanche to say the Constitution means anything it wants it to mean. This brings to mind an anecdote related by Robert Bork. A new State Supreme Court Justice upon meeting a U.S. Supreme Court Justice said, "I'm delighted to meet you in person because I have just taken an oath to support and defend whatever comes into your head." Congressional leaders seem to think that the only thing that can be done is to urge appointment of conservative constitutionalists to the Court, or urge passage of constitutional amendments to correct judicial excess. However, there is a better solution.

Prof. James McClellan, referring to liberal Justices, said, "We call them Justices; the Founders would have called them tyrants." The real problem is not a defective Constitution, but tyrannical judges. Proposing constitutional amendments to correct judicial imperialism implicitly concedes that the Court’s despotic constitutional interpretations are correct. They legitimize the abuse of power and do not address the fundamental problem of judicial despotism. "Tyranny" is of course the arbitrary and unlawful exercise of authority. The Court is usurping power that belongs to the people and their elected representatives. Chief Justice John Marshall called such usurpation "treason to the Constitution." It is, George Washington said, "the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed."

The People of America and their elected representatives must draw the line and reclaim their Constitution and republic. Congress has the power, under Article II, Section 4(l) to remove judges from office, by impeachment and conviction of "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." Article III, Section 2(l), allows Supreme Court and other federal judges to hold office "during good behavior."

It is now generally believed that grounds for removal under impeachment must be only for treason, bribery or for violation of a criminal statute. However, David Barton, in his book "Impeachment: Restraining An Overactive Judiciary," has documented that the Framers of the Constitution had a much broader view. Barton states that "impeachments of federal judges in the century-and-a-half following the ratification of the Constitution usually revolved around non-statutory and non-criminal charges rather than today’s standard of a direct violation of statutory law."

Justice Joseph Story, the U.S. Supreme Court’s greatest scholar, believed such a restriction was preposterous and said, "No one has as yet been bold enough to assert that the power of impeachment is limited to offenses positively defined in the statute book of the Union as impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors." Justice Story said impeachment was for protecting the rights of the people "and to rescue their liberties from violation," and a remedy for "political offenses, growing out of personal misconduct, or gross neglect, or usurpation, or habitual disregard of public interests," as well as a check upon "arbitrary power." So were "unconstitutional opinions" and "attempts to subvert the fundamental laws and introduce arbitrary power."

Founding Father and later Supreme Court Justice James Wilson said "(i)mpeachments are confined to political characters, (and) to political crimes and misdemeanors.." George Mason, who is called "the Father of the Bill of Rights," saw impeachment as a remedy for "attempts to subvert the Constitution." Hamilton said the subjects of impeachment are those which may "be denominated political." Justice Samuel Chase was impeached for his judicial high-handedness and arbitrary uses of the judicial power. Barton also points out that one federal judge was impeached for supporting the secession movement. Federal judges were removed from office in 1904, 1912 and 1926 for judicial high-handedness.

Judge Robert Bork warned that lawless Courts are "engaged in civil disobedience, a disobedience arguably more dangerous, because more insidious and hence more damaging to democratic institutions, than the civil disobedience of the streets." The Battle of Bunker Hill was not fought and the Founders did not pledge their "lives, fortunes and sacred honor" to empower federal judges to twist, as Jefferson said, the Constitution into any form they please. If constitutional liberties are to be restored and republican government preserved, Congress must utilize its constitutional impeachment power.

The FMA is exactly what the framers envisioned as a check on the courts.

See posts #16 & #17

I would very much like to impeach but the Mass Constitution seems to make that harder than amending the Mass constitution.

A law is way too weak and subject to simple majority changes. This is an issue for the generations. Passing this is no differnet than the voting age or any other social issue memorialized in the constitution.

Removing one judge does not stop the subsequent generations of judges. Remember all those law student heads full of mush are being taught by refugees from the real world.

I'm not sure that this amendment is the way to go, but one thing is clear to me: This one's for the Republic, boys and girls.

There is but one lesson that needs to be learned from the states - modifying the constitution not something to take lightly. States do it far too often and for the least cause. Fix the courts; if you MUST have a constitutional amendment, make it simple:

Through no order shall a judge or judicial board create through their action a law, theory of law or legislation. These powers are reserved solely for the legislative branch.

But wait, doesn't the constitution already say this?