News and Politics Forum

And by the way...

Why are you even arguing with Chiscot?


He already demonstrated that he is incapable of explaining how allowing gay people to get married harms straight people.

All you're going to get out of him is, well... what you're getting.

chiscot wrote:

No, it doesn't. First of all, I don't support Civil Unions either

and what relevance does that have to what I said?

chiscot wrote:

Secondly, what they are seeking is for the government to officially state that homosexual relationships are just as important to our society as heterosexual relationships.

In terms of kid production and prevalence within our society, hetero relationships are more "important." OK sweet...

Hopefully you see it's not an issue of semantics but pointing out that the only reason a free people should ever allow the government to express interest in who they rub their naughty parts on is because there is a compelling public interest in that act

I see no compelling public interest in expanding the population. If there was a compelling interest in expanding our population then we could open our southern border.

I see a compelling public interest in fostering households that are stable and crime free. (married couples have a much lower crime-rate than single people)

I see a compelling public interest in increasing the adoption rate in our country. Since gay people are unable to procreate with their 'naughty parts', gay adoption could alleviate this problem. So that couples can raise these children in an enviornment that will make them productive adults, increasing the tax base and production. (Which I believe is the reason for the pop growth argument)

I see a compelling public interest in the people finally being able to celebrate their love for each other. In making that bond that is held so sacred by hetero couples that they darent allows others to taint it. I see a compelling interest in them being able to be societally accepted, for a reason other than their contribution to society and lawful behavior.

Kidding on the last one of course.

chiscot wrote:

You were assuming that I'd accepted the California policy on civil unions as tolerable, therefore reducing my opposition to what it was called to semantics. If I oppose the substance of a civil union policy as well as SSM the issue isn't merely one of semantics.

I wasnt assuming to know your position on civil unions, and I wasnt speaking with regard to your opposition at all. I was saying that you brought up the point that most marriage benefits "certainly the most important ones" could be arranged with a lawyer. If these rights are available to gays in the form of civil unions, then it seems illogical to me that they not be allowed to marry for the same benefits. I framed my confusion as a question, which I'm sorry you thought was directed at you for your personal opinion.

I was saying that if the law itself provided gays the same benefits as heteros through civil unions, then the conversion from civil union to marriage would be an issue of semantics.

chiscot wrote:

Not just sweet. I think it's more like, "Oh, I guess that makes heterosexual relationships indispensable for a society."

OK

chiscot wrote:

Gay people certainly can procreate. They do it all the time. I know many who have as a matter of fact.

I assume gay people do this while involved in gay relationships (artificial insemination/surrogate mother.) I also assume that they raise these children in gay relationships (A feat monumentally more impressive/important then pumping them out). So since gays produce and raise chirren, by your definition of importance they are involved in important.. err.. indispensible relationships for our society. Of course there is the issue of scale. Hetero couples produce and raise more children than gays because there are more hetero people than gay people.

chiscot wrote:

Or, even more minimally, how about just making it a public policy to establish something that encourages people to take care of the kids that result from them fucking someone?

Wouldnt that law apply only to heteros? I mean, homosexuals would only have sex with a different sex partner if they wanted the baby.

chiscot wrote:

Me too, it's not obvious to me that because a gay person gets married they will automatically want to adopt a kid.

No, but it is substantially more difficult to adopt a child if you are not married. So gay marriage would ease the adoption process.

I see a compelling public interest in the people finally being able to celebrate their love for each other.

People celebrate their love for each other in public ways all the time. I know some and have heard of many others who have celebrated their love in commitment ceremonies every bit as grand, and usually more grand, than most weddings I've gone to. I don't see how those couples celebrating their love for someone else was lessened without state recognition, nor was that love weakened because the state hadn't recognized it, nor do I think the state lost anything essential by not recognizing that celebration.



In making that bond that is held so sacred by hetero couples that they darent allows others to taint it.

If a Japanese person wanted to enjoy the benefits and recognition of American citizenship, but didn't want to live in this country or go through the process of attaining citizenship, would you consider opposition to that as unfair or bigoted?



I see a compelling interest in them being able to be societally accepted, for a reason other than their contribution to society and lawful behavior.

The idea that the level of social acceptance homosexuals enjoy or don't enjoy is significanlty holding them back doesn't wash with me. Homosexuals on average enjoy an income, quality of life, and measure of political influence well beyond that of other groups.

That part of the post kidding, note the bottom line. I agreed with your retorts though, except the japanese one. WTF, the two are not even comparable.

I'm off to bed. Thanks for the discussion so far.

I resigned myself to believe that SSM (and more) will become a reality over the coming years.  There is no argument a post-post-modernist world will accept to stop it from happening.

Watching the Mayor of San Fran and Ancerson Cooper bouncy with glee still made me a bit ill though...

MC Escher wrote:

1) Marriage need not be a necessary or sufficient condition to serve the end of family stability in order to have as its primary purpose establishing the conditions for the prospering of families.

Thank you for agreeing with me, ...

I don't believe we do.  If the argument is that marriage establishes conditions that play a role in allowing the bulk of families to flourish, then failing to prove a different point, that marriage is a necessary or sufficient condition, is not a failure of that argument.

MC Escher wrote:

Matt, I'm going to trim this down a bit. You can refer back to page two if you need to. Let's both of us try to keep the nested quotations to a minimum.

That's fine.  As you know, I do like to reproduce the specific parts to which I am responding.

For anyone reading this, I am not trying to bury Nak in gibberish.  I know from experience that on the issues in which he maintains an interest he is likely to have a better knowledge of the case law than a mildly interested attorney.

MC Escher wrote:

That's correct.  The COTUS itself doesn't directly address marriage.  However, in our system of constitutional law, case law is a vital element.

Only when constitutional law is insufficient to answer the question.

Yet the cases of the SCOTUS are part of our body of constitutional law.

I don't believe you mean that anything beyond the text of the COTUS is beyond constitutional law.  I have argued with people who hold that Marbury is unconstituional because there is no provision in the COTUS for Marshall's conclusion.  I understand that point, but think it is far afield of the main body of constitutional jurisprudence.

MC Escher wrote:

Since the question was, specifically; Does the constitution say "X"?, the reference to case law was neither neccesary nor appropriate.

The reference goes beyond the answer to your question, which is that the COTUS text does not address it, and addresses the larger issue in this thread.

MC Escher wrote:

I don't.  Are you referring to Loving or Standhart?  Or another case?

Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), Trial Judge Leon Bazile speaking:

Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and He placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with His arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that He separated the races shows that He did not intend for the races to mix.

I brought that up because his statement essentially rendered his ruling a violation of the 1st Amendment clause respecting establishment.

I've not read Loving in decades, but I recall the SCOTUS holding involving race as a suspect classification subjecting the VA law to strict scutiny.  I remember it being a 14th Am case, not a 1st Am. one.

As a substantive matter, I do not agree that a reference to God in a court's decision is a violation of the establishment clause.

MC Escher wrote:

The reason it's ironic is because by granting certain rights to one class of citizen (heterosexuals) and then denying them to others (homosexuals) is a violation of the 14th amendment.

I do not agree that sexual behavior is a suspect classification that would categorically render any differences in legal treatment a violation of the 14th Am.

I also disagree that noting that a homosexual has the same right to marry as a heterosexual is a semantic game.  A negro denied the right to vote seek to vote just as anyone else would, in the same elections governed by all the same laws a white counterpart does; he does not seek some other form of "voting" for which a special provision is law is required and some kind of ersatz "vote" would be a denial of genuine voting.  A gypsie denied residence in a state does not seek some separate form of "gypsie residence", but to reside legally in a state as would any other person and under all the same laws.

A homosexual can marry under our marriage laws, and one must believe that they frequently do.  Changing the laws so that they can do something else entirely is not letting them into marriage but creating a special ersatz "marriage".

MC Escher wrote:

... not all of which are pleasing to everyone, everywhere, all the time.

Which is fine, provided that the regulations under discussion are essentially bureaucratic in nature.

The state certainly has an interest in ensuring the things I already mentioned in terms of identity, "singleness" and sometimes even public health.

However, the assumption that you appear to be making is that The State has made the case that there is a compelling public interest in preventing homosexual marriages. This is the same assumption that most opponents of gay marriage make. But in fact, The State has done no such thing.

I do not assume that the state has shown that marriage serves a compelling state interest and that it is necessary to serve that interest.  It owuld only have to do that in order to satisfy struct scrutiny of a law pertaining to a suspect classification, i.e. race, nationality, religion.

I do believe that the state can articulate how marriage is rationally related to serving a legitimate state interest, i.e. a rational basis test.

MC Escher wrote:

Backing up a bit here, this is a very simple issue.

Because the Constitution is mute on the question of marriage, gay or otherwise; it falls within the 10th amendment right of the states to generally deal with the running of their own domains.

However, the 14th amendment requires that all laws treat all people the same; to the maximum extent possible.

It really doesn't.

MC Escher wrote:

If the state wishes to treat one group differently than the others, it has an obligation to explain why the need to do so is so profoundly compelling that an entire class of people should be stripped of their rights.

Unless the group is not suspect class.

MC Escher wrote:

We have only to look at our own behavior during WWII and the coram nobis hearings that followed to see what happens when we allow our prejudices to overpower our laws.

Indeed.  A court that reads into constituional law a right to judicially amend state laws to serve the current prejudice does the law no favor.

MC Escher wrote:

If The State wishes to deny to Homosexuals the rights that it grants to Heterosexuals, then it has an obligation to explain, clearly and objectively; why it is necessary.

The state does have the burden of articulating articulate how marriage is rationally related to serving a legitimate state interest once it is challenged.  My guess is that either the state of CA failed to do this persuasively, or the CA court simply disregarded conventional analysis and invalidated a law for political reasons as it did within the last several years on the immigration and social services issues.

I dislike result oriented jurisprudence in no small part because the Ohio Supreme court produce so much of it.  This is too long for me to proof read, but I can revisit later if my grmmatical and spelling errors are fatal.

MC Escher wrote:

2) I haven't seen any bad faith arguments in this thread and don't see how likening someone to Quarken is accurate or useful.

It is accurate in the sense that Quarken quit the field when he realized he was in over his head.
It is useful in the sense that the comment was designed to ensure that "pulling a Quarken" was precisely what Chiscot would NOT do.

Fair enough.  My nannyish chiding is withdrawn.

chiscot wrote:

If you want to make legal arrangements based on your sexual behavior, fine, go ahead and get a lawyer and draw up a contract. But don't waste everyone else's time and energy in an effort to make us care about how you excite your privates.

Why do you insist that gay marriage is undertaken simply to make you care?

I dont see how anyone else's time and energy is being wasted.

chiscot wrote:

Having biological parents take care of the children they produce is in fact necessary for society to function. People producing children in a purely transactional way, where they hand over their kid and walk away so others can enjoy being a parent isn't necessary for society to function.

The end result of these 'transactions' however, is more children being raised. Which is just another means to the end that you think marriage exists for.

chiscot wrote:

Hetero couples produce more kids because heterosexual interaction is the only means by which a kid is produced. It amazes me that you're trying to reduce the biological imperatives of reproduction to statistcs.

Obviously it takes a male and a female to produce a child.

Heterosexual interaction is the only way to produce kids, but marriage isnt a requirement for child production. Plenty of kids are born out of wedlock. Marriage exists as an institution in order to facilitate the raising of children, among other things.

Since gay couples raise children together, regardless of how they 'procured' those children, they are satisfying the basic goal of marriage and are entitled to the benefits that marriage provides.

Marriage isnt simply about sex. Your relationship transcends sex when you decide to devote yourself to someone for the rest of your life. Marriage is the formal recognition of that transcendental relationship, and is of interest to the state because it provides the best enviornment to raise children.

Allowing gays to marry harms nothing and no one, but expands the number of relationships that are ideal for the raising of children. (Of course you have to believe that gays are capable parents to buy that, which I do.)

chiscot wrote:

I doubt the number of homosexuals who want to adopt would make a significant improvement in that problem at all.

Significant to each child raised in an enviornment that allows then to succeed. And significant to the state which will save tax dollars on their care and be able to tax their per capita GDP.

JRoyC07 wrote:

chiscot wrote:

If you want to make legal arrangements based on your sexual behavior, fine, go ahead and get a lawyer and draw up a contract. But don't waste everyone else's time and energy in an effort to make us care about how you excite your privates.

Why do you insist that gay marriage is undertaken simply to make you care?

If people in CA had access to SSM in all but name, what other purpose is there in compelling the state to name that collection of rights and obligations "marriage'?

JRoyC07 wrote:

Perhaps they just wanted to fill out the married circle when given surveys.

Maybe they want to cement their relationship the way their parents did.

Maybe they want to get married so it will be easier to adopt.

Maybe they want to have a formal ceremony in a church, with a willing priest officiating.

You don't think CU permitted those?

so, who lives in CA?

MM wrote:

so, who lives in CA?

Some queers that want to get hitched, it appears.




Will we begin to see gay freindly Jared adds?

"He went to JARED!!"

chiscot wrote:

The umbrella wasn't invented to let people who live in arid climes could stand under their showers and enjoy the use of an umbrella.

But the umbrella has more uses then merely a rain blocker. These arid climate dwellers might want something to shade from the sun.

Umbrellas are the inspiration for lurid songs and college fashion statements. They are also effective anti-zombie ordinances.

Sometimes an item is used for purposes that it wasnt originally intended. As long as those purposes harm no-one, why cant they also be acceptable utilizations?