Oh please, I have no clue what this woman(?)'s race is TJ In this thread, Jorge reminds me so much of his hero Bush . His only defense to being a liar is to plead rank ignorance.
Actually there's a fundamental flaw in your assertion. The following is my reasoning in two parts: The first stems from my viewing of the following link rstp://video.c-span.org/60days/ac031905.rm, a speech by Antonin Scalia in which he discusses the background of US constitutional law, the historical role of the supreme court all the way back to the first justices and Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist Papers. I appreciate it if you don't want to watch it, as it's from CSPAN, and is 1 hr long, but I watched it and have been doing some background around it and probably the most important is that the constitution was always meant to be interpreted specifically and literally. Alexander Hamilton, for instance, argued against the Bill of Rights as superfluous if the Constitution was a "living document", intended to be interpreted broadly and as a general philosophical guideline, as he believed it should be. Instead, the Bill of Rights is a specific endorsement of the concept that the rights granted by the Constitution are only those which are specifically enumerated. Judges are supposed to act basically as arbitrators of these final ultimate protections, and they are last resorts. From the video: But the constitution isn't supposed to work that way. The 19th Amendment is a specific document designed to change constitutional protections to fit our morality. It is not supposed to automatically alter to fit your perception of right and wrong. Scalia makes the point that he has often been compelled to make rulings that he didn't like, because he isn't ruling on the constitution as he thinks it should be but as it is. So essentially, the Constitution doesn't say that every should have the same rights, thats just what you'd like it to say, and the Judiciary is a cloistered minority not reflecting the majority moral views of the nation. That's what the Senate is for. The Judicary exists to protect the minority from the tyrany of the majority, but only on specifically delineated grounds that are spelled out specifically. Otherwise, they'd be the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution, able to veto any law that doesn't fit their particular views. They are slaves to the Constitution. Actually, we do regularly restrict the rights of people based on patterns of behavior, even if they are not outright "choices". Examples would include laws limiting firearm ownership for convicted felons and laws preventing pedophiles from living near schools. I appreciate the difference in the groups, but the difference is still one inside you not listed in the Constitution. If the constitution says "everybody should have the same rights" then how can you find such laws constitutional except on the basis of your own personal moral guidebook which swings wildly from generation to generation, to say nothing of individuals within a single generation? In that world, the Constitution wouldn't need to extend beyond the preamble. There's more on this subject in the video, and more reading still on the history of Germanic and Constantinian legal systems, and how they were melded in the US that I could recommend, but the short form is that the constitution is not supposed to be some magical document that conforms to your specific worldview of morality.
I made that point. The amendment isn't different, but the legalities of how it is implimented in the real world makes the healthcare a very real issue. Most companies are for legal reasons forced to be very specific in limiting spousal Health Care to couples that are legaly maried. If they extend it to non-maried gay partners, then they open themselves to lawsuits from people wanting health care for unmaried hetrosexual girlfriend. In these cases, there is no documentable legal difference among gay spouses and girlfriends. The idea for the compromise of civil unions occured when conservatives railed that marage was a religously mandated union between a man and a woman and that gay marage would infringe on their morality. The idea would be to let gay couples have spousal-type benefits, like parental rights, and death benifits, and health care, while respecting conservative needs to maintain the religous definition of marage. Apparently some lost apocraphal book of the bible was found which defines civil unions as well. The bottom line is that in Oregon, where a number of gay marage licenses were distributed and later revoked, there was a large number of people who had health care extended to them by their "spouses" companies when they could provide legal documentation. When these licenses were later revoked, they immediately lost coverage. That is why the desire to outlaw gay marage rankles me so. One side has sought to find a way to extend legal weight to what is often a more solid bond between two people than margage is in practice. When objections were raised on religious grounds, they sought to find a way to acomidate the religious concerns as they were voiced, but any attempt at finding a solution has been rejected, and in a way that is usualy reserved for relationships like Nazi-Jew (ie motivated by irrational hatred). Gay civil unions are proposed for exclusively practical reasons, not some wild Gay and Lesiban conspiracy to corrupt your children, but those opposed to it oppose it because they seek to punish people they don't like.
Thanks for the info. This issue has been brought up regarding a few of the other anti-gay marriage ammendments. From the initial discussion I wasn't sure whether the ammendment went so broad as to deny giving health care coverage to any homosexual. I was kind of curious about how they were going to get away with this. As for the issue of domestic partner benefits the thing that always strikes me about Republicans upset about this issue is that its just another sign of how far the current party has gotten from its original small government views. Shouldn't they just leave it up to the private sector to decide who gets benefits? I can understand how you could accuse of discrimination if they deny all their full time employees health care but this is about people who aren't their employees.
I think the issue with health benefits is the definition of family. An employer doesn't have to provide family benefits, even if they choose to provide benefits for their employees (though most do). Once a same-sex relationship is recognized by statute, then they have to extend benefits to same-sex partners if they offer them to more traditional relationships. They cannot choose which 'family' to insure, and which to exclude. That would be discriminatory. If, today, they chose to provide benefits to same-sex couples, they could do so. Some employers already do that. But they're not required to. Recognizing same-sex relationships would mean that it would no longer be at the discretion of the company. If the amendment passes, they could still offer to insure same-sex couples. But it would be entirely at their whim. As it is today. And some of us don't think that's just. As far as Republicans getting away from their small gov't roots. I'm not sure that applies here. They're leaving it up to the company to decide how far to extend benefits, instead of that being mandated by government. It may not be just, but it isn't really a philosophical flip-flop.
Bnb; I think you have it backwards. I believe that many states require companies to provide family benefits to their employees. Companies also have the choice to provide domestic partner benefits. The problem with this ammendment would be that it takes that choice of companies hands through government fiat. That's regulation. As you point out it might be government fiat to mandate that they provide benefits to civil unions if they give benefits to hetero families in that case there still is regulation. So if you really believe in small government why regulate it either way? Just leave it to companies to decide on their own how far to extend benefits.
You may be right on family benefits. I tried hard to think of a situation where the employee was covered but his/her family was not, and I couldn't. I was going on the assumption that since the provision of benefits was not manditory, that a very restrictive provision would be ok as long as it was evenly applied. It would be a lousy benefit plan...but since some companies provide no benefits I didn't think it would be forbidden. I could be wrong. I don't think this amendment restricts the ability to provide same-sex benefits at all. However, what it does, is prevent other legislation (recognition of same-sex relationships) from requiring coverage. So companies are currently free to decide how far to extend coverage (at least as far as same-sex couples go). This would change if same sex marriages are recognized. I do know, by the way, of several organizations that do provide benefits to same-sex couples and their families. As they do for common-law relationships. They are not the norm...but they are not forbidden either. They decided on their own to extend the benefits this far (or not). Free enterprise...Yippeee! Some of us think, however, that this is a place government should step in. THat long-term same-sex relationships are legit...and should be recognized...and should be entitled to many of the same benefits and protections as the hetero ones. Others disagree...and they back this amendment....
