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Eloping to California


tvashtarkatena

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Many civil rights leaders won't jump on the bandwagon for gay marriage because they don't equate their struggle with what they see as a lifestyle issue. I'm not saying I believe the whole thing is about lifestyle issue. I just don't believe you can equate the two.

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OK, let's here it: how many of you are planning a nuptual sojourn to California in the near future?

 

The groundswell to legalize gay marriage has resulted in a number of court cases pitting religious organizations against gays; often regarding the use of their public facilities. So far, religion has been losing case after case.

 

I applaud this. The establishment clause of the constitution was never meant to give religion cart blanche to descriminate or violate basic civil liberties. Believers may dissapprove of gays all they want for (ostensibly) religious reasons (fabricated bullshit, if you know your bible), but when this translates into public action in the form of discrimination, these churches are now breaking the law.

 

The days when society accepted religion as an excuse to abuse children, practice racial and sexual descrimination, and violate the equal protection clause are now, thankfully, numbered.

 

If your religious doctrine violates the basic civil liberties of others, either work to change your doctrine, or move it on down the road. There are plenty of countries where that kind of discimination is still OK. This one is no longer one of them.

 

Regarding marriage:

 

quote: The Majority Opinion of the New York Court of Appeals in Hernandez v. Robles rejected any reliance upon the Loving case as controlling upon the issue of same-sex marriage, holding that:

 

“ [T]he historical background of Loving is different from the history underlying this case. Racism has been recognized for centuries — at first by a few people, and later by many more — as a revolting moral evil. This country fought a civil war to eliminate racism's worst manifestation, slavery, and passed three constitutional amendments to eliminate that curse and its vestiges. Loving was part of the civil rights revolution of the 1950s and 1960s, the triumph of a cause for which many heroes and many ordinary people had struggled since our nation began. It is true that there has been serious injustice in the treatment of homosexuals also, a wrong that has been widely recognized only in the relatively recent past, and one our Legislature tried to address when it enacted the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act four years ago (L 2002, ch 2). But the traditional definition of marriage is not merely a by-product of historical injustice. Its history is of a different kind. The idea that same-sex marriage is even possible is a relatively new one. Until a few decades ago, it was an accepted truth for almost everyone who ever lived, in any society in which marriage existed, that there could be marriages only between participants of different sex. A court should not lightly conclude that everyone who held this belief was irrational, ignorant or bigoted. We do not so conclude.

 

quote: Similarly the concurring opinion in the same case stated that:

 

“ Plaintiffs' reliance on Loving v. Virginia (388 US 1 [1967]) for the proposition that the US Supreme Court has established a fundamental "right to marry the spouse of one's choice" outside the male/female construct is misplaced. In Loving, an interracial couple argued that Virginia's antimiscegenation statute, which precluded "any white person in this State to marry any save a white person, or a person with no other admixture of blood than white and American Indian" (id. at 5 n 4), violated the federal Due Process and Equal Protection clauses. The statute made intermarriage in violation of its terms a felony carrying a potential jail sentence of one to five years. The Lovings—a white man and a black woman—had married in violation of the law and been convicted, prompting them to challenge the validity of the Virginia law. The Supreme Court struck the statute on both equal protection and due process grounds, but the focus of the analysis was on the Equal Protection Clause. Noting that "[t]he clear and central purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to eliminate all official state sources of invidious racial discrimination in the States," the Court applied strict scrutiny review to the racial classification, finding "no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification" (id. at 10, 11). It made clear "that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the [*12]Equal Protection Clause" (id. at 12). There is no question that the Court viewed this antimiscegenation statute as an affront to the very purpose for the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment—to combat invidious racial discrimination. In its brief due process analysis, the Supreme Court reiterated that marriage is a right "fundamental to our very existence and survival" (id., citing Skinner, 316 US at 541)—a clear reference to the link between marriage and procreation. It reasoned: "To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes . . . is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law" (id.). Although the Court characterized the right to marry as a "choice," it did not articulate the broad "right to marry the spouse of one's choice" suggested by plaintiffs here. Rather, the Court observed that "[t]he Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations" (id. [emphasis added]).[FN2] Needless to say, a statutory scheme that burdens a fundamental right by making conduct criminal based on the race of the individual who engages in it is inimical to the values embodied in the state and federal Due Process clauses. Far from recognizing a right to marry extending beyond the one woman and one man union,[FN3] it is evident from the Loving decision that the Supreme Court viewed marriage as fundamental precisely because of its relationship to human procreation.

 

 

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Until a few decades ago, it was an accepted truth for almost everyone who ever lived, in any society in which marriage existed, that there could be marriages only between participants of different sex. A court should not lightly conclude that everyone who held this belief was irrational, ignorant or bigoted.
Exactly, the meaning of the word 'marriage' is pretty unambiguous. Solution: the government stops recognizing 'marriage,' officially calls it no more than a 'civil union,' and then lets the people call it whatever they want. More freedom, less government, right? And this way judges are never again required to think about the meaning of the word 'marriage' when considering whether it is okay for two people to legally join.

 

Far from recognizing a right to marry extending beyond the one woman and one man union, it is evident from the Loving decision that the Supreme Court viewed marriage as fundamental precisely because of its relationship to human procreation.
However, same-sex couples are capable of child-rearing through adoption, and legal unions would strengthen this capability. Given the typical social and economic qualifications of many same-sex couples, this could be pretty good deal for otherwise unwanted/mistreated infants and children. And no, I don't think they would necessarily all turn out 'gay,' although they would certainly be more tolerant of homosexuality (which could sound like a good thing or a bad thing, depending on who's considering the notion).
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if same-sex partners are allowed to adopt, then the kids might catch their gay! :o

 

Until a few decades ago, it was an accepted truth for almost everyone who ever lived, in any society in which marriage existed, that there could be marriages only between participants of different sex. A court should not lightly conclude that everyone who held this belief was irrational, ignorant or bigoted.

 

Quite recently (in the grand scheme of things), it was generally accepted that african-americans were inferior to whites. A century and a half ago, they were slaves!

 

Should the courts not lightly conclude that everyone who held this belief was irrational, ignorant or bigoted? :rolleyes:

 

(I don't even know who that quote came from, cause I'm too lazy to wade through the many pages of quasi-intellectual diarrhea on this thread)

 

Thank god we have the courts, to ensure that the majority can't take away rights from the minority. We're not a purely democratic nation, you know, and fucking thank god for that, since we're all a bunch of fucking morons.

 

Oh, and in closing, I just wanted to say you're all a bunch of wankers.

 

HAND! :wave:

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