Federal Marriage Amendment Debate and Discussion Thread

If it's in the constitution, it's constitutional. Just like 1=1.

However, if enough states change their minds (I don't remember what percent), they can one by one propose a repealing amendment, i.e., prohibition.

/Senior year gov't class

 

I will not repeat all of what I have said in numerous US Constitution threads. Suffice to say that I am firmly of the view that both the federal constitution and state constitutions should be interpreted according to 'originalism'; that is to say, to give them the meaning that existed when they were adopted. Such is required both by philosophical considerations (if a constitution is an empty bottle for current values rather than a superstatute, then judges have no business filling it) and by practical ones (just look at what the politicisation of the judiciary has done to Senate confirmation hearings).

Since it is inconceivable that the equal protection-related clauses of either the federal constitution or several state constitutions were understood, when adopted, to require gay marriage to be legalised, the recent favourable court rulings are entirely wrong. If equal protection clauses can be wrenched from their historical moorings and are just a blanket edict that "discrimination is illegal", then why was a separate consitutional amendment needed to safeguard women's right to vote?

If the purpose of this amendment is only to prevent gay marriage being instituted by federal or state courts, then it should be--but unfortunately isn't--entirely unnecessary. However, if the legislature or people of a state decide democratically to allow gays to marry, there should be nothing in the US Constitution to stop them.

 

I agree-creating amendments to DENY rights to people is wrong.

How can you deny people a right if they never had it to begin with? ?

I don't have the right to marry my cousin.
I dont have the right to marry my dog.
And I don't have the right to marry someone of the same sex.

Why?

Because its not possible to raise a healthy family is any such enviroment where the children are raised by parents who have emotional or psychological issues. You just can't GET the same kind of emotionally stable person from a gay marriage that you can from a man/woman marriage.
It harms the children.

Don't think of it as the government picking on gay people. Think of it as the government preventing the general colapse of the family structure. They are doing it for the children's sake.

Now if the gay couple in question didn't ever have kids...
I'm not sure where I'd stand then.
I still think its wrong but I'm not sure the government should be the ones to stop them in that case since its not harming others.

 

Because its not possible to raise a healthy family is any such enviroment

Single parents, married couples who can't have/don't want kids ... what about them?

Are we outlawing single parenthood next? If so, the states had better reform adoption.

 

"You just can't GET the same kind of emotionally stable person from a gay marriage that you can from a man/woman marriage.
It harms the children."

Is this psychologically proven?

 

Because its not possible to raise a healthy family is any such enviroment where the children are raised by parents who have emotional or psychological issues.

That is an outright lie. Retract it. "Emotional or psychological issue?" What the **** are you on?!

You just can't GET the same kind of emotionally stable person from a gay marriage that you can from a man/woman marriage.

You being a master of gay marriage? Don't flame others.

It harms the children.

Prove it.

Don't think of it as the government picking on gay people. Think of it as the government preventing the general colapse of the family structure. They are doing it for the children's sake.

It's not gay people who are ruining the family structures, it's idiots like Britney Spears and the vaunted Fox Network who are doing that.

Now if the gay couple in question didn't ever have kids...
I'm not sure where I'd stand then.
I still think its wrong but I'm not sure the government should be the ones to stop them in that case since its not harming others.

How is it harming you? Tell me that, or shut the **** up.

 

Well you know what?
You got me there.


If you ask me, I'd ban divorce while we're at it.


EDIT: Dont kill the messenger JFT. Just telling you what the governments thinking probably is. You can call me whateven the hell you want and I don't really care. Like I said... just the messenger.

Tell you what, google psychological effects of gay marriage on children and find out for yourself JMT.
Unless you really dont want to know and oyu just want to remain convinced of what you believe. You wouldn't be the first to ignore the facts...

 

If you ask me, I'd ban divorce while we're at it.

A man comes home every night and beats his wife. She does not leave him for the longest time out of fear. One day, she decides she's had enough and gets the **** out of Dodge. Should she be allowed to file for divorce?

 

I dont have the right to marry my dog.

You also don't have the right to marry a 12-year-old for the same reason: ability to consent.


Because its not possible to raise a healthy family is any such enviroment where the children are raised by parents who have emotional or psychological issues.

Well then, it's a good thing that emotionally and psychologically unstable individuals (like Andrea Yates?) aren't allowed to marry.

 

Thats where we would improve the spousal abuse laws.

Look, no matter where you go with this you're going to have a chain event of laws created to support the one before it.


And I'm also not saying that its not possible to have a screwed up relationship with a hetero-sexual marriage either Womberty. I know its quite possible.

Anybody else want to take my words out of context?

 

Dont kill the messenger JFT. Just telling you what the governments thinking probably is. You can call me whateven the hell you want and I don't really care. Like I said... just the messenger.

You aren't being a messenger, you're being a parrot. Want a cracker?

Tell you what, google psychological effects of gay marriage on children and find out for yourself JMT.
Unless you really dont want to know and oyu just want to remain convinced of what you believe. You wouldn't be the first to ignore the facts...

It is not scientifically proven, so don't act like it is. Correlation =/= causation.

 

"How can you deny people a right if they never had it to begin with?"

Discrimination is discrimination is discrimination, whether or not gay people had the legal right in the first place. When black people first arrived at the US, did they already have the right to vote?? Does your backward logic apply to that aswell?

"Because its not possible to raise a healthy family is any such enviroment where the children are raised by parents who have emotional or psychological issues."

There is no proof that gay people have "emotional or psychological issues". If there were, maybe we would have something to talk about, but there isn't.

"It harms the children."

If the couple is a good, loving couple that will love their child, they will bring no harm to the child. The only thing i worry about is the opinions of the neighbours and the children of the playground. Thats what would be most harmful, and its discrimination that the government should consentrate on handiling. The government shouldn't be endorsing discrimination.

"Think of it as the government preventing the general colapse of the family structure. They are doing it for the children's sake."

Thats not what Bush said. And its funny how when a conservative religious person thinks of "family structure" they always see it in a conservative religious fashion. Expand your mind. Not everyone is Christian, and most families certainly don't follow any kind of "normal" structure. If there is a guide book on how many members a family should have, what gender each member should be, and what roles they should play, i haven't read it.

 

I think the Daily Show excrept that was posted earlier (by OWM, if I remember right) echoes my sentiments.

*Everything you need to know can be found on the Daily Show*

 

And I'm also not saying that its not possible to have a screwed up relationship with a hetero-sexual marriage either Womberty. I know its quite possible.

But you seem to assume that all homosexual relationships are emotionally and psychologically unbalanced, to the extent that they must prevented while we let unstable heterosexuals slip by.

You're not suggesting we verify anyone's emotional or psychological stability before we let them marry; instead, you're asserting that homosexual couples are by their very nature problematic in this regard.

Where's your proof?


Think of it as the government preventing the general colapse of the family structure.

You mean the U.S.'s traditional nuclear family structure, don't you?

You do realize that "the family structure" is not the same throughout the world?

Are you trying to uphold some universal ideal, or just protect a tradition?

 

Anybody else want to take my words out of context?

You:

If you ask me, I'd ban divorce while we're at it.

Would you be so kind as to clarify the context, if I did indeed take it out of context?

 

Well you know what JMT?
Its not my job to convince you of anything.
You can convince yourself of anything if you try hard enough.

I've stated my opinions. This is what I accept as fact.
just as you accept the opposite as fact.

You can spend the next 100 years typing entire paragraphs to people here trying to convince them of your views. But really, all you're doing is trying to convince yourself that you're right.
I dont need to waste entire paragraphs doing that.

I've already made up my mind.

 

Marriage is a religious institution. Leave it that way. Get government out of Marriage.

The government should allow for the creation of Civil Partnerships between two unrelated individuals. I say unrelated because of the harm that can come to children born to a brother-sister couple. Even though a brother-brother or sister-sister union would not have that problem, they too would not be allowed to Partner because that would give them special status. There will be no special status under this new idea, only equal protection and equal treatment.

When you get a licence for a Civil Partnership, you get wed by a Justice of the Peace. Filing status on tax forms would be changed to single, partnered, partnered but filing separately, head of household.

If you want to get MARRIED, you go to a church or other religious institution. Individual religions will be able to decide who they will marry and who they won't marry.

 

I think Jades Fire, has the best solution.

If I remember right, I have seen that solution echoed by OWM and by others elsewhere.

 

The government should allow for the creation of Civil Partnerships between two unrelated individuals.

And what would be the government's reason for offering these partnerships? (Why does the government have an interest in treating them as a unit, instead of as two distinct individuals?)


I say unrelated because of the harm that can come to children born to a brother-sister couple.

What about the harm that can come to children born to people with genetic abnormalities? Are you going to restrict marriage/partnerships to people who can demonstrate a certain level of health?


Even though a brother-brother or sister-sister union would not have that problem, they too would not be allowed to Partner because that would give them special status.

How is partnering with an unrelated individual not giving them special status?


EDIT:
I've already made up my mind.

Which means, to me, that you have no interest in learning why people would hold a different view - so what are you doing here?

 

Marriage is a religious institution. Leave it that way.

Atheists marry.

 

KK
Don't flame others.

It's not a flame, it's a statement of fact. You don't like it cause it hits too close to home.

malshabek

I've already made up my mind.

Then you're just burying your head in the sand.

 

While I am myself in favour of the law making no distinction between heterosexual and homosexual acts, and indeed of gay couples being given equal legal rights (either through gay marriage or some partnership registration scheme with the same legal benefits), I do not accept that to criminalise homosexual intercourse or to disallow gay marriage is to discriminate (in the commonly used sense of the word).

It is now well accepted that you should not discriminate against people because of the way they are, whether that be skin colour, disability, or gender. But it has always been permissible to discriminate against people on the basis of what they do or have done--i.e., according to their actions. That, indeed, is what the criminal justice system does every day. In every criminal case, the court determines whether a person has acted in a certain way. If it decides that the person has so acted, they are punished, and thereby discriminated against in comparison to people who have not acted in that way.

To make gay sex illegal is not to discriminate against people on the basis of their sexuality. It would only be possible to do that by testing people for 'gayness' in some way. Rather, banning gay sex discriminates against the action, in the same way as every other criminal law. That someone of a homosexual orientation has an uncontrollable urge to engage in gay sex is neither here nor there. Paedophiles are not discriminated against by banning laws against child abuse, though they may find the impulse to engage in it quite irresistable. If a person were (for some strange reason) to find the idea of stealing to be sexually arousing, they would not be discriminated against by a law against theft. For a final example, nudists (in the sense of men who feel the inherent sexual urge to expose themselves) are not discriminated against by laws against nudity.

Now then, if it is not discriminatory for a state to outlaw homosexual intercourse entirely, which it is not, then it is not discriminatory for a state to give preferential recognition to heterosexual intercourse through the institution of marriage. Marriage, after all, is a sexual union; in Britain, a marriage is still voidable if it has not been consummated. By denying gays the right to marry, the state is not discriminating on the basis of their inherent sexuality. It is discriminating on the basis of what they do--i.e., engaging in homosexual intercourse.

 

Marriage, after all, is a sexual union; in Britain, a marriage is still voidable if it has not been consummated.

But that's only if one partner had expected sex as part of the marriage; hence, it's like a breach of contract. However, a couple could be married and never have sex, and as long as neither of the spouses challenged it, the marriage would still be fully valid.

 

Not at all JFT.

I hold my head high with my opinions.
I'm not hiding anything. If i was, I would have said that gay marriage is alright and we should all join hands and accept everything as being ok and be happy happy people for the rest of our lives.

 

I hold my head high with my opinions.

But refusing to defend them?

It doesn't matter whether or not you'll convince JFT; if you want anyone else reading this thread to understand why you hold those opinions, you'll have to engage in the debate.