20 Comments

1. ewe
   Posted February 27, 2010 at 4:54 pm | Permalink

   Why not just say what you really think which is "I am better than you." Then we can discuss that in the courts as well to see if it gives you the right to take for yourselves what you are so willing to deny others. Your whole group is backward and twisted.

2. TC Matthews
   Posted February 27, 2010 at 4:55 pm | Permalink

   "Why not just say what you really think which is “I am better than you.” "

   ewe, is mind reading one of your skills now? How convenient for you.

3. Kevin
   Posted February 28, 2010 at 10:06 am | Permalink

   NOM oversimplifies this issue. The US Constitution places a great burden on states to recognize contracts from other states, regardless of a state’s own requirements for a contracts. Since marriage is a contract between two persons, states cannot willy-nilly determine that it will ignore some contracts but not others from a particular state.

4. ConservativeNY
   Posted February 28, 2010 at 10:25 am | Permalink

   That's why we have DOMA.

5. Kevin
   Posted February 28, 2010 at 10:38 am | Permalink

   Because DOMA will be struck down as unconstitutional, I suspect Maryland's Attorney General was merely advocating a position that best aligns Maryland with constitutional imperative, that is, adhere to "Full Faith and Credit" requirements of the US Constitution.

6. ConservativeNY
   Posted February 28, 2010 at 12:09 pm | Permalink

   "DOMA will be struck down as unconstitutional."

   Actually, it is the government enforced redefinition of marriage that is unconstitutional. Because free speech and religious rights have been known to be curtailed as a result as critisism of the homosexual lifestyle is criminalized as "hate speech" as is now the case in Canada and Sweden. It also means more government regulation to impose a new morality of politcal correctness upon individuals and places of worship.

   Keep in mind that U.S. Supreme Court typically does not get too far ahead of either public opinion or the law in the majority of states. For example, few states still had laws requiring racial segregation or outlawing interracial marriage by the time the Court struck those laws down. Most states had already struck down or repealed their own laws against same-sex intimacy when the Supreme Court finally invalidated Texas’s law in Lawrence.

   So the scenario that the SCOTUS will side with the gay activists when 31 out of 31 states have rejected redifining marriage by referendum is one that I find very unlikely.

7. Kevin
   Posted February 28, 2010 at 2:09 pm | Permalink

   Conservative

   I doubt that DOMA will make it to the US Supreme Court. A federal court will strike it down as unconstitutional, and who will then pursue the issue with a federal appeals court? Certainly not the Obama Administration.

   Like the Proposition 8 Trial in California, if Judge Walker strikes down Prop 8 and an appeals court upholds him, who is going to have the guts to take the issue to the Supremes, who might then impose same-sex marriage on ALL states?! If the lawyers defending Prop 8 in California are typical, there aren’t any good lawyers willing to damage their reputation by being the guy or gal who “lost” marriage at SCOTUS. The best a marriage discrimination lawyer can do is have the Supremes say a state may prohibit same-sex marriage; they can’t stop the states from doing it though. The worst is the Supremes say marriage discrimination is unconstitutional. Given the choice, would you want to be the lawyer arguing in favor of marriage discrimination?

   Scalia has already expressed concern in Lawrence v. Texas that the majority decision in that case makes it impossible to maintain marriage discrimination. A “win” for marriage discrimination at SCOTUS is far from certain. Fearing a “lose” for marriage could actually yield a court unwilling to take the case in the first place. And again, given the performance, or lack thereof, of the Prop 8 attorneys in Judge Vaughn’s court, the conservative Supremes might not wish to have yet another embarrassing public display of homophobia and bigotry. Don’t count on the Supreme Court to accept a case where they have to decide the constitutionality of same-sex marriage.

8. Chairm
   Posted February 28, 2010 at 2:11 pm | Permalink

   The contract to marry is just an agreement to enter the social institution of marriage. Once formed, the marital relationship is not some ordinary civil contract.

   That relationship, as a type of relationship (meaning not this or that particular person's customized agreement or contract), is regulated in various ways by society through the power invested in local government.

   Those SSMers who seek to impose a nation-wide merger of SSM on marriage would take away the state-based argument that swayed a significant portion of the Senators and Congressmen who defended marriage while also not voting in favor of a federal marriage amendment.

   No attorney general is empowered to legislate. The executive branch is obliged to show restraint especially when it comes to taking a stand against the settled law of the state.

   It is appalling how many SSMers are a-okay with judiciaries and executives abusing their limited constitutional roles.

   It is appalling how many SSMers are impatient to show just how much contempt they have for their fellow citizens that they are prepared to excuse the corruption of the principles of good governance that make it tolerable, even encouraged, for them to engage in public discourse on contentious issues.

   Shortly after Massachusetts' high court imposed SSM, and in so doing said that they did not anticipate their actions would cause inter-state conflict, that same court imposed recognition of SSMs of non-residents by sowing ambiguity where there actually has been clarity.

   This sort of mischief making is not in aid of good government vis-a-vis "Full Faith and Credit" nor in the aid of justice but, as the gay activists are so quick to reveal, it is about "just us".

9. Chairm
   Posted February 28, 2010 at 2:15 pm | Permalink

   Heh.

   Kevin reveals once again just how the courtcentric SSM campaign is about injecting politics into the judiciary; and about removing a social policy issue from the consent of the governed.

   Scalia's written opinion does not do the magical things that some SSMers imagine in their dystopian fantasies.

10. Kevin
    Posted February 28, 2010 at 2:23 pm | Permalink

    I don’t think magic is needed, Chairm, just an understanding of the law. Equal Protection means Equal Protection, not, by definition, for some and not others. Opposite-sex marriage can have whatever meaning you want it to have, and peacefully co-exist with same-sex marriage. Your concerns for honoring “responsible procreation” are unfounded: the principle can be invoked if and when there are children in the opposite-sex couple household.

    The arguments against same-sex marriage appear to hinge on implying that society must choose between opposite-sex marriage and same-sex marriage. That’s false; both can exist comfortably, and appear to be doing so in the real world in places where both are legal.

11. Chairm
    Posted February 28, 2010 at 3:14 pm | Permalink

    You misunderstand the law and do invest magical qualities in things you do not understand.

    Meanwhile, where there has been marriage there has also been nonmarriage on the other side of the boundaries drawn around the core meaning of marriage.

    The SSM idea stands in contradiction of the marriage idea and is pushed as a government-enforced substitution.

    So, no, co-existence is not the goal of the SSM campaign. If you are sincere that the marriage idea is bigoted, then, you would not hedge and would instead clap your hands at the prospect of crushing the marriage idea. As has been well underway in those places where the SSM merger has been imposed.

    And, yes, Kevin, I've read your comments in which you and other SSMers have celebrated just that.

12. Kevin
    Posted February 28, 2010 at 3:27 pm | Permalink

    I think I understand the law pretty well.

    Marriage need not be bigoted to exist. In most states, marriage has been restricted to opposite-sex only couples and marriage bigotry exists. Slowly, states are undoing their bigoted marriage statutes. Opposite-sex marriage hasn’t gone away but rather has been joined by same-sex marriage. It’s like voting: men didn’t lose the right to vote when women won that right. Eliminating discriminatory marriage laws doesn’t mean eliminating marriage.

13. Chairm
    Posted February 28, 2010 at 4:42 pm | Permalink

    You have celebrated what you now skip over.

    The law discrimiantes between marriage and other stuff. A merger with SSM would remove the justification for treating marriage differently from nonmarriage. That flattens the special status of marriage. And, under a merger, that is the goal -- to abolish the special reason for special status.

    Your latest comment is your way of anticipating the day when you hope to applaude just that.

    Thank you for saying it. Readers can now be forewarned. You are not here to praise marriage, but to bury it.

14. Emma
    Posted March 1, 2010 at 2:39 am | Permalink

    Funny you should argue that the supreme court tends not to get ahead of public opinion. Today, of course, the Court is at times way behind public opinion (a la corporate personhood for campaign finance purposes). But historically the Court has quite often been on the cutting edge of public opinion, if not outright in front -- just see Brown vs. Board of Education, Loving vs. Virginia, Roe vs. Wade.

15. ConservativeNY
    Posted March 1, 2010 at 7:12 am | Permalink

    "I doubt that DOMA will make it to the US Supreme Court. A federal court will strike it down as unconstitutional, and who will then pursue the issue with a federal appeals court? if Judge Walker strikes down Prop 8 and an appeals court upholds him, who is going to have the guts to take the issue to the Supremes, who might then impose same-sex marriage on ALL states?! "

    That sounds like a gay activist's wet dream come true. But that's all it is.

    The reason federal suits of this type have never been brought before is that attorneys familiar with the federal courts find them filled with conservative Republican judges that are not inclined to legislate from the bench – they could actually be damaging, by setting an anti-gay marriage precedent. In short, given the current federal appellate bench, such efforts are not merely futile, but potentially counterproductive to redefining marriage in spite of all your wishful thinking and ad hominem.

16. Kevinn
    Posted March 1, 2010 at 9:20 am | Permalink

    Conservative

    Given how badly the Prop 8 supporters have performed in Judge Vaughn’s court, do you think they’ll take the issue to the Supreme Court if Judge Vaughn strikes down Prop 8 as unconstitutional and an appeals court upholds his decision? My point isn’t what makes a pleasant scenario for supporters of marriage equality but what makes a nightmare scenario for supporters of marriage discrimination. I don’t think there’s a lawyer capable of facing the Supreme Court who has the desire to tarnish his reputation and risk his life (yes, homophobes can get pretty violent, based on FBI data!) by being the guy who “lost” “traditional” marriage before the Supreme Court.

    Under the scenario I’m predicting, that Vaughn strikes down Prop 8 and an appeals court upholds him, the best the marriage discrimination crowd can get from the Supreme Court is a finding that it is constitutional for states to prohibit same-sex marriage. The court will not, however, find that states can’t allow same-sex marriage. But the risk for “traditional” marriage folks is that the Court actually finds that prohibiting same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.

    So, would you want to be the lawyer who gets same-sex marriage imposed on all 50 states by the US Supreme Court because your lawyering proved inadequate and your opponent’s lawyering proved superior? I’m guessing you wouldn’t. I’m guessing lawyers from the Alliance Defense Fund or Liberty University Law School would prove no match for the lawyers the government can use.

17. Chairm
    Posted March 1, 2010 at 11:40 am | Permalink

    The pro-marriage litigators in the Walker trial did very well on the actual question of law.

    The anti-8 litigators put on a show and treated the courtroom like a legislative hearing.

    That contrast is important. Whatever Walker does, and he may yet decide in favor of the pro-marriage side and against the anti-8 side on the question of law, he cannot over-rule the controlling federal precedent. What his personal opinion is on the social policy question is irrelevant, actually, to the appellate courts right up through to the Supremes.

    As for the other guesses, well, those only worth the reliablity of the gut you are pulling them from.

18. Kevinn
    Posted March 1, 2010 at 12:43 pm | Permalink

    Well I’m not all that well versed on what the defense in the trial presented, but from what I read, they didn’t make a very compelling case that the state has an interest in preventing same-sex couples from marrying. In pre-trial hearings, the judge noted, in helping the defense lay out its strategy, that they would have to prove a state interest in outlawing same-sex marriage, and that permitting same-sex marriage would somehow threaten opposite-sex marriage (and that there is a rational state interest in protecting opposite-sex marriage). Given that the state itself refused to defend Prop 8, the judge is going to have to make quite a leap to say the state has an interest in outlawing same-sex marriage: if it did, it would have defended the proposition in court.

    In any event, my post isn’t really about how Judge Vaughn will decide but rather the inevitability of the case going to the Supreme Court, as so many keep saying. If Judge Vaughn rules that Prop 8 can stand, the marriage equality people have very little to lose by appealing his decision, all the way to the US Supreme Court if necessary. If he rules against Prop 8 and if the Prop 8 supporters appeal the decision, and again lose, they may have very serious reservations about going to the US Supreme Court, for fear of actually imposing same-sex marriage across the country, rather than slowing down the state-by-state implementation as is currently happening.

    If Vaughn rules against Prop 8 and an appeals court supports him, it is unlikely that marriage discrimination supporters will want a showdown at the Supreme Court, and the Court itself might want to avoid a showdown itself, and refuse to take the case. There is nothing inevitable about this case ending up in the US Supreme Court, in other words.

    More likely to go the Supremes, in my mind, is a lawsuit by a child or children of a same-sex couple suing for Equal Protection. Because having married parents is such a big benefit to children, the children of same-sex marriage are being denied access to it, and therefore Equal Protection. And as I’ve said before, I sure wouldn’t want to be the lawyer arguing that some children, but not others, deserve the benefits that marriage gives.

19. Chairm
    Posted March 1, 2010 at 1:01 pm | Permalink

    The actual question of law is quite different than what the anti-8 litigators spent their efforts addressing.

    Also, contrary to your comment, the attorney general is not the state. Governing authorities represent the state.

    Since California does not have residency requirements, this federal case will be decisive one way or the other. The anti-8 litigators have made this a nationwide issue to be decided on a nationwide basis.

    1. Judge Walker is restrained, at least if he acts as a judge and not a legislator, by the controlling federal precedent which disfavors the anti-8 litigators.

    2. The 9th Circuit is likewise not empowered to overrule the Supremes.

    3. The Supremes will consider the question of law, not the social policy arguments, and are very likely to favor the constitutionality of the CA marriage amendment.

    4. If avoiding a showdown is a concern for the Supremes, they'd just hold to the federal precedents and that will be an end to the anti-8 litigation.

    The odds are against Olson. That is why he has worked hard to make this a show trial in which he hoped to add some weight to the propagandic message of the SSM campaign. He also has worked to create excuses for yet more federal suites against the successful marriage amendments across the country.

    This trial is a political effort far more than a legal effort based on the judicial process.

    * * *

    If a pro-SSM lawyer used a child to prompt yet another federal case, he or she will be on thin ice constitutionally and on thinner ice politically. But SSMers are prone to lower standards any which way that gives them the glimor of hope to impose SSM on all of society. So I wouldn't rule out the possiblity that such a crude tactic might be undertaken somewhere from the ranks of the SSM campaign.

    A parent who chooses a one-sexed arrangement also chooses to deny that child the benefits of a married mom and dad.

    SSM cannot do what adoption might do in forming the direct child-parent relationship. So SSM is not the solution to any constitutinal question in that regard.

    There are constitutonal alternatives for nonmarital families -- especially those with young children -- to mitigate vulnerabilities. Indeed, in California there are gaycentric alternatives. It is absurd that such alternatives would be deemed unconstitutional just because California is generous toward families in the nonmarriage category.

20. sw
    Posted July 3, 2010 at 12:39 pm | Permalink

    http://protectmarriagemaryland.webs.com/