Birthers, Tenthers, and now Thirteenthers

seeing as I have never made such an argument, you are completely wrong about that. If you are going to make such accusations, then back it up with specific citations (i.e. post date and time). Otherwise, you should make sure you know what you are talking about before you attack someone.

I have a long history of promoting religious freedom and tolerance in this forum, both as a user and as a mod. I have never used my religious beliefs as a justification for public policy. If you dispute that, then the burden of proof is on you.

Kimball Kinnison

 

Well, be that as it may, my beliefs influence how I vote.

On the gun control thing, on the percentage of murders you came up with, I would be curious to know how many of them are family members killing another family, such as a spouse, etc.

 

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/offenses_reported/violent_crime/murder.html
In 2004, 44% were unknown relationships, just under 13% were family members. Although that is also murders as a whole.


And I would think the point then becomes that it's not a position that can be well argued, as it's based more on subjective feeling, in that sense, than objective data.

 

I'd agree with that.

But, let me ask this: do the murder statistics include accidental shootings? Suicides? I'm looking for the total number of deaths that can be attributed to guns.

While I will retract my comment regarding KK's religious beliefs and will not use it as a public argument, I will continue to hold it privately as my personal opinion.

 

The link that I gave earlier to the CDC gives a web application to view data for multiple years. The numbers I gave were for 2007 (the most recent year they had available). What I posted:

They have data for 1999-2007, and you can break it down by age, sex, year, and type of injury.

The data is right there for you, and it was there before you asked the question, if you had only actually read my posts.

Quite honestly, this comment tells me that you don't really care about the truth. You've decided what your opinion of me is, and don't require any facts to back it up. You have no evidence to back up your accusation, but you are more than willing to personally convict me of trying to force my beliefs on others no matter what the truth actually is.

That says volumes about you, and none of it good. I hope you never get called up for jury duty, because you are unable to see beyond your own preconceptions.

Kimball Kinnison

 

I am entitled to my opinion, which is based on your posts which do not take into consideration the numerous times your secular arguments against same-sex marriage have been thoroughly debunked, both by other posters and now by the court system.

I'm sorry if that hurts your feelings, but at least you are sticking by your beliefs. I retracted the part about your trying to force your beliefs on others, tho.

And I do get called for jury duty, but because my brother-in-law was a homicide detective, the prosection attorneys always dismiss me, so I have only served once. That person decided to plead guilty shortly before the trial actually began.

 

This will be my last post on this topic, as we've dragged it quite a bit off topic.

However, I would say that you have been extremely blind if you think that my secular arguments against same-sex marriage have been "thoroughly debunked". I have not actually argued against same-sex marriage itself. I have only argued ever against specific methods of implementation. My concerns have always been based in the rule of law and the protection of rights (all rights, not just a right to marriage or anything like that) and not in religious or moral beliefs. Those argument have not been debunked in any way. Not by you, not by other posters, and certainly not by Judge Walker's travesty (where he blatantly ignored controlling Supreme Court precedent that clearly stated that there was no federal cause for action). Just because you disagree with an argument doesn't mean that it has been debunked.

You might want to take a very careful look at your opinions of other users here. You seem to operate more from stereotypes of what you think their positions are rather than actually examining what they are saying. People are individuals, and you don't seem to treat them as such when they disagree with you.

Kimball Kinnison

 

KK,

Just looked at the last page of your posts in the same-sex marriage thread. Same old argument from you even tho several posters have told you that argument is invalid.

Instead of finding a new argument or conceding the debate, you keep on presenting old arguments.

And when you refer to judges doing their job as 'judicial activism,' well, that's a phrase I have only seen used by religious types who don't seem to understand that in the US, we have (as is taught or used to be, in high school civics and government classes) what is called a separation of powers, so that each branch of our government has checks and balances on its powers.

The legislature makes the laws, the executive branch enforces the laws and the judicial branch tries the cases brought before it, both criminal and civil, and also interprets the laws and ensures that those laws do not violate the highest law of the US, which is the constitution.

So, what you call 'judicial activism' is just the judicial branch doing its job.

Believe me, if the legislature could get away with passing whatever law struck its fancy, and those laws could not be challenged in court, our nation would be very different and not in a good way.

The will of the people only goes so far. When a minority is being mistreated by the majority, the courts generally have no choice but to step in and ensure that the rule of law is what takes place, not the rule of majority opinion.

If this were not so, we would, I am quite sure, still have segregation of blacks in the south, women would still be second-class citizens, etc.

 

And no one has actually addressed my points. Instead they simply assert that I am wrong. That's not debunking anything.

Stop right there. This proves that you know nothing about me and instead are simply applying your own preconceptions and stereotypes to avoid addressing any points that I actually make.

I hold to an originalist interpretation of the Constitution - you know, where the meaning of the document only actually changes when the text of the document itself changes. I hold to the process of the law as being as important as the result. However, because you associate this historical and well-established legal theory with "religious types", you keep trying to pigeonhole me into your preconceptions. You don't care what I say, or what my real opinions are, because you obviously know better than me what my actual position is. (Yes, that's sarcasm there, in case you don't get it.)

this is yet another straw man of you pushing your preconceived stereotype as if it were my actual position. I have never said that the legislature should be able to get away with passing anything it wanted. What I have said is that the Constitution, as ratified (including amendments) was never intended to redefine marriage. As a result, defining marriage to be what it was understood to be at that time is not a violation of the Constitution. If a state chooses to change that definition through the legislative process, then they are free to do so (as the Constitution does not mandate any specific definition of marriage). But it's not the place of the courts to change that definition. The courts are supposed to preserve the law in the state it was passed and turn to the legislature for areas where it requires changes.

Yet another straw man. (Segregation was enabled by the non-originalist ruling in Plessy. Read the dissent in Plessy if you want to see what the original meaning of the 14th Amendment was. Had that been applied in a consistent originalist fashion, more than 50 years of Jim Crow would not have happened. The ruling in Plessy is by far one of the worst activist rulings in history, up there with Dred Scott and Korematsu.)

But then, you don't care about the truth of what I believe or anything else. You already have your opinions, and heaven forbid any messy things like facts get in the way of them. No matter what I post, you just make up what you think I really meant to say. In that respect, your posts are completely disconnected from reality.

Kimball Kinnison

 

Marriage is not defined in the constitution and that is your strawman argument. But, if you don't want to be associated with/mistaken for religious anti-gays, then don't use their arguments.

The constitution was meant to be a living document, not just some dead piece of writing left by our ancestors.

You say you don't have a problem with gay marriage, only with the way it is being implemented. That immediately, whether you realize it or not, says quite clearly that you have a problem with gay marriage. If you did not have a problem with gay marriage, you would not care how it was implemented.

You are worried about your religious rights and the religious rights of others being trampled by gays being given the right to marry. And that is why you have a problem with gay marriage itself.

The constitution guarantees the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. All the rest is commentary on how the government can help make that happen.

If I am not understanding your position correctly, please help me to understand by condensing your rather lengthy arguments to a few succinct paragraphs.

 

Actually, that's not a fair assessment at all. Just because I'm for a certain law or stance, doesn't mean there aren't good and bad ways to implement such a law or stance. I'm sure there have been laws whose intent you agreed with, but you thought the manner in which the law worked was not well thought out.

 

I'm actually fairly opposed to how same-sex marriage was implemented in California specifically because I DO think it was done the wrong way. And really oppose the attempts to overturn prop 8 as a judicial action while supporting it being done legislatively or at the ballot.

A lot of politics is about not just the what, but the how. For example, the whole tenther movement mentioned in the subject isn't about what government should do, but if it should be done at a federal level or at a state level, and the constitutional argument that one of those is valid and the other isn't.

 

I never said it is defined in the Constitution, so don't put words into my mouth. What I said is that the 14th Amendmnet was never intended to redefine marriage, and as such it cannot be used to do so now. Marriage at the time it was passed was understood to be between a man and a woman, not between two people of the same sex. Limiting marriage to that definition was considered constitutional for over 140 years after that amendment was passed. Unless the Constitution itself changed in that time, then what was constitutional in 1868 after the 14th Amendment was passed is still constitutional today.

Also, you might want to actually learn what a straw man argument is before you accuse me of one. A straw man is when you claim that someone argued something that they didn't argue, and then refute your imagined argument instead of what they actually said.

Wow, just wow. You really are incapable of evaluating a person's argument on its own merits.

That is a competing theory of constitutional interpretation. You are basically saying that my argument for Originalism is wrong because your reliance on a Living Constitution is right. That is not an argument, but an assertion. It's also a false assertion.

The Constitution is a grant of power from the People to the government. The government has only those powers that are explicitly granted to it, and nothing more. Unless the People explicitly grant more powers to the government, it cannot expand its powers.

To use a legal analogy, if I gave you a medical power of attorney to make decisions about my health care, you can't just decide that it grants you the authority to sell my house or my car to pay my medical bills. You can't just expand the authority that I gave you because you come up with a flimsy excuse that connects your behavior to my health. You have only the authority that I chose to grant you and nothing more.

Let me put this in very simple terms: The ends do not justify the means. I can support cancer research, but disagree with using death row inmates to test the drugs. Don't you support cancer research? They you wouldn't care how they went about it, would you?

I support donating money to charitable causes, but I would reject the idea of robbing a bank to finance it. Why? Because no matter how worthy the goal is, how you achieve it is just as important as what you are achieving.

You seem to take great delight in accusing me of duplicity. Every single one of your posts, you have essentially accused me of lying about my motivations, simply because of what you choose to read into my words. You don't know me. All your ideas about me are based in your own preconceived stereotypes abut who would oppose same-sex marriage.

Yes, I am worried about same-sex marriage being used to trample the rights of those who have religious disagreements with it. Why? Because we have already seen cases where the state has used the force of law to make people go against their religious beliefs when there are less restrictive ways to guarantee people access to services. I'm against any unnecessary go

 

Ever since the ruling in Massachusetts, that has been my PRIMARY problem on gay marriage.

If it is a good idea, you should eventually be able to persuade a majority of the people to support it. But getting there may require that you do things like... address their concerns about certain things. In a country of 300 million - or a state of 10 million that can take a long time. It can be much quicker and easier to convince 5 people out of an electorate of 9 to give you much more much quicker - but it can also come with a great cost. Roe v. Wade did not settle the abortion debate once and for all - it just made the issue a very divisive one. Perry v. Schwarzenegger will do no better in settling gay marriage.

Exactly. I think we would make life EASIER on school boards by just closing down the federal Department of Education. It contributes a small fraction of the budget, but adds tons of paperwork and compliance costs.

 

What is the color of the sky in your world?

Ever hear of the saying, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink?

 

My bad on the life, liberty, etc. That is in the Declaration of Independence, the constitution, which was drawn up by the representatives of the people, grants the government the authority to make laws to promote those ideals.

(Aside to KK) Why are you so concerned about what my opinion of you is? I am only one person, and very few people on these boards actually know me in real life. I live on the opposite side of the country from you, so there's very little chance of us ever meeting in real life.

I support medical research, yes, but don't believe such research has ever been done or should be done, on any humans without their prior consent, whether they are incarcerated or not.

Your argument on anti-discrimination laws being used to force people who are offering a public service to perform those services for something which with they disagree is not valid. If same-sex marriage went away immediately, the anti-discrimination laws would still be on the books.

And you cannot (and I mean the 'you' generally, not personally) pick and choose which anti-discrimination laws you will obey.

A strict, orginal language-type interpretation of the constitution may sound good as a sound-bite, but the founding fathers intended for the constitution to be a living document, that is why they set up methods for it to be updated as needed.

If you feel that the judge in the Prop. 8 case made an error in deciding the law, that is why there are a few more courts of appeal for the ruling to go thru and be reviewed by. If some other, higher court decides the ruling was incorrect, then it will most likely be sent back to the court it was first heard in to be tried again.

Bringing up the abortion debate is again pointing to a religious argument as to why something should be wrong. During the trial of Roe vs. Wade, the court discovered that, contrary to popular opinion of the day, the reason abortion was illegal was because the medical process itself used to perform the abortion was not safe, not because of any moral objections to abortion itself.

And there is no one who can be forced to have an abortion against their will.

EDIT:

The constitution does not define marriage. An amendment, such as the 14th, once ratified, becomes part and parcel of the constitution. It is not some separate piece of law.

As has been explained several times, both by myself and other posters, the 14th amendment is not being used to 'redefine' marriage. It is only applicable in the same-sex marriage case as it applies to 'equal protection under the law.'


One more edit:

And excuse me, but my opinion, however much you may disagree with it, is my opinion. To deny me the right to hold whatever opinion I have, based on whatever criteria I have used to arrive at that opinion, because you disagree with it, amounts to your trying to police my thoughts. And I did not and do not, appreciate your attempts to denigrate my thinking process.

I have been trained in logic and in reading and understanding literature. So, when I read your posts, I read them with an eye to reading 'between the lines' as the saying goes. You may read the same Shakespeare play as I do, but come up with a different take on what the play means. That does not make you wrong and me right, it just means we have a difference of opinion.

 

But if you support medical research, it shouldn't matter how it's implemented? Or could it be that the ends don't actually justify the means?

You can't say that the ends justify the means on implementing same-sex marriage, and the n turn around and say that it doesn't apply in other areas of public policy.

Go back to that thread and read what I wrote about leverage there. I have no problem supporting same-sex marriage as long as 1) it is implemented through the legislature (or public referendum, where applicable), and 2) it is coupled with explicit protections for religious freedom for individuals (not just churches).

If you want same-sex marriage implemented and want my support, then I expect to get your support for protecting religious freedom. That's called compromise. We each give a little and get a little.

Straw man. I haven't advocated disobeying the law. I have advocated changing it to something that is more appropriate.

You're right. They did set up methods to update the Constitution. They are outlined in Article V. One of those methods has been followed 27 times (congressional passage of an amendment and ratification by the states), and the other has never been used (calling for a new Constitutional Convention). Those are the only methods set up by the Constitution to allow it to be "updated as needed". They did not provide for the Courts to simply rewrite its meaning according to whim.

And again, you are merely asserting that "the founding fathers intended for the constitution to be a living document". Just because you keep repeating that doesn't prove anything. I can give you the logical and historical proof for my position. Can you do likewise?

I know that Walker made a clear error, because he blatantly disregarded controlling Supreme Court precedent. A District Court Justice is required to follow binding precedent. Under the ruling in Baker v. Nelson (1972), refusal to issue a marriage license for a same-sex couple is not a violation of due process nor equal protection. The only court with the authority to rule otherwise is the Supreme Court. What Walker should have done is dismiss the suit, and let the plaintiffs appeal the dismissal to the Supreme Court, where they have the authority to overturn their own precedent.

 

Yes, I have read Baker and I have read Judge Walker's ruling.

I also read all the material you provided with the convenient link to wikipedia.

Judge Walker felt that since Baker had been decided in 1962, subsequent cases covering anti-sodomy laws that the Supreme Court ruled on, were more in line with today's reality and indicated a shift in the Court's (Supreme) stance towards same-sex issues. And he therefore did not mention Baker in his ruling.

Now, the Supreme Court may rule against Judge Walker on that issue. However, that is for the Court to decide as they are the experts.

And I know there are non-religious people who are against abortion, but they do not seem to be as strident as religious people are.

There are also religious people who are not against abortion, just as there are religious people who are in favor or at least not opposed to, same-sex marriage.

When you try to make the case that anti-discrimination laws should be changed so that whatever a person's religious views are, they can decide not to follow the anti-discrimination law if it violates their religious beliefs, this is where I see your argument as not a secular one, but one based on your religious beliefs.

A person could found a religion, if the anti-discrimination laws were re-written so that if a person found that obeying the law violated his/her religious beliefs, that said that blacks/insert name of minority group here, were inferior or bad or evil. They could also probably find enough verses in the Bible to support their claim, however ludicrous that claim was, and could use that to deny that group whatever service he/she so chose.

That's why the law has to apply equally, to everybody.

 

...with due process. That is to say that if a legal and secular justification for a right not to apply to a citizen or group of citizens can be established under due process of the law, then said right(s) may be lawfully abridged.

Of course, the courts that have thus far heard the cases for/against same-sex marriage have in their decisions noted that no such just cause has been established by the opponents of same-sex marriage. Barring that, the state constitutions as they are currently written stand.

As to California, again, the constitution cannot contradict itself in the way Prop 8 would have. The constitution allowed for equal rights to all under due process, but then the revised amendment said that this did not apply to marriage. Without just cause, it cannot stand (and has not). Because you're dealing with equal protections, you must tackle that as well as the right to marry in order to make it legal to refuse the right to marry for select couples.

And by the way... this is waaaay off topic.

 

Baker was decided in 1972, and covered the exact facts at issue in Walker's ruling. Under established legal procedures, the only proper ruling was to apply the exact standing precedent and allow it to be appealed to the Supreme Court. That's how it's supposed to be done.

A District Judge has no business ignoring binding precedent (and Walker outright ignored it, not even addressing it in his ruling) simply because he "felt" that the Supreme Court's attitude had changed. The anti-sodomy rulings in Romer and Lawrence that Walker referenced both specifically cast doubt upon their application to marriage and in no way overturned Baker.

You're right that it is for the Court to decide, but it was always for the Court to decide. Walker overstepped his authority by flaunting the Court's existing decision in this exact issue.

You seem quite happy to say "it's for the Court to decide as they are the experts" after you get a lower court ruling that you like. I've said from the start that it's the Supreme Court's place to decide this matter. What you are missing is that it wasn't Walker's place to overturn the Supreme Court's existing precedent.

And that justifies your stereotyping anyone who mentions abortion as making a religious argument? You are consistently taking the intellectually lazy and dishonest path in these discussions. Instead of actually evaluating what others write, you immediately jump to conclusions about their "real" motivations so you can just dismiss them.

I'm sorry, but you have lost any semblance of logic or reason in your arguments.

I object to people being forced to violate their religious beliefs when there are other options available to the government, and because of that you claim that my argument is based on my religious beliefs? It is based in the principle of limited government and freedom of religion. Period.

The government is prohibited from infringing the free exercise of religion under the First Amendment. As such, any infringements should only be as an absolute last resort when there are no other options available to protect the rights of others. If there are others willing to provide photography services for a same-sex ceremony, then there is no need for the government to infringe the right to free exercise of religion by forcing someone to provide those services contrary to their beliefs.

What in that argument is at all based in anything remotely resembling religious beliefs? it is a simple application of the plain text of the Constitution!

 

Except that it doesn't contradict itself.

By your logic, the US Constitution would directly contradict itself today. After all, the 17th Amendment contradicts Article I Section 3 in how Senators are selected. The 12th Amendment directly contradicts Article II Section 1 in how electors select the President and Vice President. Do you claim that these contradictions cannot stand? Or is there already an established means to resolve such conflicts?

In fact, there is such an established means. A newer provision overrules an older one. Therefore, it is not a contradiction between the provision defining marriage and the provision requiring "equal rights to all under due process". The marriage provision, being newer, would take precedence in its narrow sphere of influence.

Kimball Kinnison

 

"Other options" implies separate but equal, another item that has been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme court.

Anti-discrimination laws cover everything from housing to employment to schooling. Offering "other options" just doesn't cut the mustard.

Go back to the prop. 8 thread and reread just the last page of posts. All your arguments were dealt with there by other posters.

Your rights to freedom of religion or any of your rights, as guaranteed and enumerated by the constitution, end/stop/finish where the other guy's rights start.

 

Perry v. Schwarzenegger is more Brown v. Board than Roe v. Wade.

 

It implies nothing of the sort. "Separate but equal" as a legal doctrine only ever applied to public (i.e. government-run) facilities. It applied to laws that mandated such things, but it did not apply to private actions or organizations.

By "dealt with" what you actually mean is "other people expressed opinions that agree with mine, and so your opinions must be wrong". They did not actually prove anything.

Except it's not one sided. Someone else's right to my services end where my rights begin as well. You can't have it both ways. Their rights don't trump mine.

A refusal of services is at best a passive infringement of someone's right to that service. Compelling someone to violate their religious beliefs is an active infringement of their right to free exercise of religion. I don't know about you, but I find an active violation of civil rights to be far worse than a passive violation.

Kimball Kinnison

 

I haven?t been following this thread, so forgive me if this has been answered...

JS

If it is a good idea, you should eventually be able to persuade a majority of the people to support it. But getting there may require that you do things like... address their concerns about certain things. In a country of 300 million - or a state of 10 million that can take a long time. It can be much quicker and easier to convince 5 people out of an electorate of 9 to give you much more much quicker - but it can also come with a great cost.

Of course that is the better way, and I mean better in the sense that it's always preferable when there is a majority opinion on such issues. But what do you think of Ted Olson's response to a similar question?

"Well, would you like your right to free speech? Would you like Fox?s right to free press put up to a vote and say well, if five states approved it, let?s wait till the other 45 states do? These are fundament constitutional rights. The Bill of Rights guarantees Fox News and you, Chris Wallace, the right to speak. It?s in the constitution. And the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the denial of our citizens of the equal rights to equal access to justice under the law, is a violation of our fundamental rights. Yes, it?s encouraging that many states are moving towards equality on the basis of sexual orientation, and I?m very, very pleased about that. ? We can?t wait for the voters to decide that that immeasurable harm, that is unconstitutional, must be eliminated."

Here's the interview in case you are interested:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJwSprkiInE