Frist Endorses Constitutional Amendment to Ban Gay Marriage

It's probably just cause they are in power and control the presidency and both houses of congress; so they make more news, and hence are hit with more criticism.

 

Ok, I'll steer back on track:

Polygamy: this never really bothered me all that much, I mean the people who do it are a bunch of wackos and should be kept as far away from me as humanly possilbe, but other than that, fine, go ahead and do what you want.

Incest: There's publlic health justifications behind this, I believe, cause it would prevent genetic defects. Now I know some of this has bee n questioned recently, but you got to figure, if they can keep mar1juana illegal for public health reasons, you can keep incest out too. So I guess this one is a no.

Sterile siblings? Gross I guess, but I guess if it doesn't hurt no one who cares. This is a pretty small subset of a population.

Now we get into the realms of public choice though, I mean on an objective level, sterile siblings really can't be that much grosser than all sorts of nasty fetishes, but the fact that it is already illegal requires enough momentum and incentive to "legalize" it, and I don't see that happening, at least as unlikely as a movement to make illegal other wierd stuff like shoe fetishes or whatever.

 

Sam, in the posts above, we cover that. How about a brother and sister who want to get married but will sign a document that says they will not procreate. They want to adopt or own cats or something.

I know it's extreme, but what the hell. By the way, to reiterate my stand, I am all for gay marriage. I'm not trying to weaken that cause with "fringe" examples, but I want to explore the boundary and the underlying issues.

 

not only would i approve, i'd pay a significant amount of money to attend. then i'd follow them to their honeymoon locale and attempt to partake in the glory that is "Olsen-on-Olsen" action (as i have coined it).

that, my friend, should be in the Constitution, for that is the true "Pursuit of Happiness."

 

Yeah, my bad, I edited to refelct this.

 

I apologize for directing your quote towards something it wasn't intended before. I may have misread.

The right to be married is a right. There are limitations on many rights including freedom of the press(not publishing classified documents) freedom of speech(no yelling fire in a theatre) freedom of information (again info classified). For many years the right for Americans to vote was limited by sex, race, landowners etc. The right to bear arms is also limited. bazookas and .50 cal machine guns are arms that are limited by that right.

As with some of the cases mentioned above rights are granted to some people and not to others. Laws against same-sex marriages do indeed deny equal rights to segment of our population.

 

I think the way to reach this compromise, where we have gay marriage but do not allow all these freak marriages, would be to do it through the legislatures. This is sorta continuing my from my previous point about the Supreme Court. Because if the Supreme Court makes marriage a "right" between consenting adults, then it's only a matter of time before it gets ugly, and I think each of your examples would be a possible court case in the future.

A legislature could easily legalize gay marriages and ban incest marriages if it feels like it, but a court would have to come up with some rationale to distinguish between them. (And this rationale probably couldn't use morality, since morality is considered separate from legal reasoning. Even Scalia and Thomas would not uphold the sodomy ban based on morality).

Personally I'm not sure if I support gay marriages. On the one hand I think it is good for 2 people to have a monogamous relationship, and it seems really unfair for gay people not to be able to get married. On the other hand I fear that the institution of marriage will grow weaker and family breakdown will just get worse.

 

I'm not trying to argue, but I would really like to your view point on the subject. I hear the argument being put up about weakening the institution of marriage quite often. I'm curious how would two homosexuals getting married hurt the marriage status or idea of marriage between two heterosexuals who loved each other? Why would allowing one hurt the other? I'll listen to what you think the dangers are. AGain I'm not trying to argue, just understand where the argument comes from. Thanks

 

this doesn't get it, either, Mr.Clutch. If a court determines that there is a right to homosexual marriage, then there is little the legislature could do. yes, they could pass a law that restricts it...but the courts would then strike it down.

 

I think your analogy is a bit off. We don't have a "right" to marry anymore than we have a "right" to drive a car, or a teenager has a "right" to consume alcohol. Our society has always limited marriage to man and woman as a way to promote healthy families.

 

Nice, thoughtful post, Mr. C.

I guess I see family concerns in the following way. I am all for families with competant, loving, and supportive parents who are willing to do everything they can for their child. And I think it's a little easier to do all the work with two people than it is with one.
(As a side note, this is one aspect that leads my friend from Cameroon to tell me that three and four is even better still, but that's another matter).

A priori, I don't see that a man and a woman are the only way to achieve this. We all know of copious evidence that shows bad traditional parenting, broken homes, or kids raised by television these days while their parents overtime wage earn.

As for "freak marriages," I hear you, but honestly if the Olsen twins (once they hit 18) want to get married and adopt a kid, and they're devoted to raising that kid, I say go for it. If the fear is that the kid wanders into the bedroom and views carpet munching or something, how is that more traumatic than any other kid seeing their parents having sex? Parenting seems pretty non-sexual to me.

 

At present two people do have the right to marry each other, provided they are man and woman of legal age, not already married etc. They don't have to exercise that right, but it does exist for them, and they receive benefits by doing it. There are insurance benefits if one of them has a job where the insurance is covered by the employer, hospital visitation, should one be hospitalized... etc. In most cases these things are denied to two homosexuals who are in love but not allowed to marry.

You are right that our society has limited marriage to a man and woman, hopefully that will change. For a while our society had always enslaved other humans, then segregated them based race, denied them the right to vote etc. Eventually legislation and courts changed those wrongs that our society had always done. Hopefully the change for equality will continue.

 

B-Bob, you are now agreeing with Timing that we should allow sisters to marry? You seriously don't see how this is damaging to society?

Even more shocking is the fact that nobody on this BBS challenged Timing's assertion that sisters should be able to marry.

Has this world gone mad??

 

Right, I know that. I don't think it should get to the point where legislatures don't have a say at all.

 

i agree with you...but legislatures can be just as dictatorial as executive branch leaders...in fact, there are more than a few quotes about Parliament in that very same guise back during the American Revolution. that's why we have an independent judiciary to check laws passed by the legislature against the Constitution. just because the majority want to do it, doesn't mean it's constitutional.

but if that decision gets us to a point where we're saying that sisters have a right to marry their sisters...then i'm backing away from support of the decision to the extent it does that.

 

I understand what your asking. B-Bob, I think this relates to your post as well. I'll post a response David Frum (a conservative guy) gave to the same question.


"Yesterday’s post on gay marriage in Canada triggered a spurt of emails asking a similar question: Why do I think that allowing gays to marry will in any way affect the behavior of the 97% or so of the population that is not gay? I have to say I always find this question a little startling. So many of the people who advocate gay marriage are smart and sophisticated – and then they turn around and ask a question that makes you wonder whether, for all their intelligence and sophistication, they have given even ten minutes’ serious thought to the reform they are advocating.

Gay marriage opens the doors to a series of changes in the law of marriage. Not the law of marriage for gays - the law of marriage for everybody. The whole point to gay marriage is to make the rules for gays the same as the rules for straights. Logically, then, the rules for straights will have to be the same as the rules for gays.

It's a good guess, for example, that we will see an end to the concepts of “motherhood” and “fatherhood” in our legal practice. The law will increasingly see couples as interchangeable “parents.” This reinterpretation of motherhood as parenthood will have large impacts on, for example, custody decisions during divorce. Right now, the courts still tend to award custody to mothers, even if they work, even if they work more hours than their husbands do. (Some years ago, a Florida court awarded custody to an at-home dad over his working wife, and feminists raised a huge fuss against the sexist court that extinguished maternal rights just because the mother worked 70 hours a week.) But as the courts have to make new law to cope with gay divorces, look for the old idea of maternal preference to disappear. You can’t have maternal preferences when both parents claim to be the mother.

People’s behavior is affected by the legal regime that governs their behavior. Change the rules, and they change their behavior. Gay marriage advocates are able to grasp the point that new rules mean new behaviors when they are explaining why marriage would be good for gays. It’s disingenuous then to turn around and look baffled when opponents of gay marriage point out that new rules will mean new behaviors for straights as well - and that these new behaviors are very likely to be undesireable."


(BTW, I hope that gay people would adopt the traditional view of marriage that straight people have had, but I think Frum has a point when he says it will happen the other way around).

 

You're right about legislatures being dictatorial. But then don't we get to the point of separation of powers? A legislature's duty is to pass the laws. And a legislature more clearly reflects the public's will. Further, a legislature can come tocompromises and change its mind as the culture changes. The courts aren't supposed to change their mind whenever they feel like it. Our idea of what is Constitutional shouldn't change. Don't you think that when a court continually changes its mind, it runs into the problem of contradicting itself and making the Consitution more meaningless?

 

yes...i think that's something we should be concerned about. if the constitution can mean everything and anything we want it to mean...than ultimately it means absolutely nothing.

Kramer: "you just blew my mind."