One Judge vs 7 million votes

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Yep Marriage was basicly a business contract.

That would be funny if it was not true!

[Aramike]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

SCOTUS disagrees:



Meaning that it's innate and doesn't need to be granted to us by the Constitution. What the states are trying to do is restrict and deprive humans of their innate rights - and why those laws will ultimately be struck down.

Different case, way out of context, considering that the question isn't about marriage (I should have been more clear) but about the definition of marriage, which is not Constitutionally defined.

[FIREWALL]

Just tell me what a vote is good for if it can be overturned by one person.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by FIREWALL

Just tell me what a vote is good for if it can be overturned by one person.

If a law is deemed unconstitutional by a duly appointed or elected member of the judiciary who has the legal authority to render such a decision, and to whom the matter has been brought for review, the number of votes cast in favor of it is irrelevant. It violates the already established law of the land, or denies some protection or right that the Constitution is understood to guarantee, and therefore cannot stand.

Any vote cast in favor of a law that is unconstitutional is worth precisely nothing in the long run. Checks and balances, doncha know.

But I think we already covered that, oh, about a million times.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Aramike

Different case, way out of context, considering that the question isn't about marriage (I should have been more clear) but about the definition of marriage, which is not Constitutionally defined.

Nor should it be. Nor should it be defined by law, unless that law fully and completely specifies the nature of the contract. What is protected by the Constitution is our right to live our lives the way we see fit, as long as it doesn't harm anyone else. The sole purpose of the "definition" in this case is to prevent one segment of the population from partaking in what the population as a whole considers to be an important part of life. It is indeed tyrrany of the masses.

Speaking of definitions, you haven't answered my question.

[Aramike]

Nor should it be. Nor should it be defined by law, unless that law fully and completely specifies the nature of the contract. What is protected by the Constitution is our right to live our lives the way we see fit, as long as it doesn't harm anyone else. The sole purpose of the "definition" in this case is to prevent one segment of the population from partaking in what the population as a whole considers to be an important part of life. It is indeed tyrrany of the masses.

But I agree they should be allowed to partake if they so choose. (Actually, I really don't care one way or the other, but I do see a distinct injustice in things such as denied visitation rights.)

Speaking of definitions, you haven't answered my question.

I apologize, I must have missed it. Are you referring to my definition of a Constitutional right?

If so, it's very simple: a right defined Constitutionally. Does that preclude other rights? Of course not. But I believe that even the rights explicitly granted within the Constitution must be realistically interpretted.

For instance, does the 2nd Amendment mean we all have the right to build nuclear arms? Naturally, no.

The 9th Amendment is tricky. It's definition seems to vary from one political ideology to the next. At its core it defends the rights not explicitly defined in the Constitution, but clearly implied (presumption of innocence, privacy, travel, choice of food and drink, judicial review, jury of peers, etc). Both sides regularly like to twist it to mean what they want it to mean.

For instance, the social liberals that want gay marriage to be applicable regularly ignore that one should have a right to own a resturaunt that uses sodium liberally.

The 9th Amendment has been used to create judicial precedence, which I find to be the most dangerous threat our republic faces. Regularly judges apply the 9th to a plethora of cases which somehow gives justification to further, similar cases regardless of whether or not the precedence is based upon a correct interpretation of the law.

Quite frankly, I believe the 9th Amendment has been used as a tool to legislate from the bench.

Going back to an earlier point, I refer to my analogy about Ramadan. Considering that even an explicit right (that one which allows us to bear arms) can be regulated in the name of common sense, why then can we not regulate the use of a term in order to advance a cause while preserving the meaning of a term which many hold dear? Hell, even most eveyone here believes in some restriction on marriages.

Ultimately, because the issue is unclear the authority should exist with the states to define marriage. However, the RIGHTS pertaining to the word would fall under the 9th Amendment - not the word itself.

Hopefully this better states my position. Sorry about the "wall of text".

[Aramike]

By the way, despite Mookie's assurances to the contrary, I predict the Supreme Court will overturn this decision. Likely it will take the typical party line divide, but I suspect that even a more liberal justice will vote this one down.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Aramike

But I agree they should be allowed to partake if they so choose. (Actually, I really don't care one way or the other, but I do see a distinct injustice in things such as denied visitation rights.)
I apologize, I must have missed it. Are you referring to my definition of a Constitutional right?

If so, it's very simple: a right defined Constitutionally. Does that preclude other rights? Of course not. But I believe that even the rights explicitly granted within the Constitution must be realistically interpretted.

Okay, you got me there. Once again I was expecting more of what I usually see, which is the belief that the Constitution grants us our rights, so the ones not mentioned don't count (resulting in my constant references to Madison).

For instance, the social liberals that want gay marriage to be applicable regularly ignore that one should have a right to own a resturaunt that uses sodium liberally.

I believe in the right to both. In the case of the restaurant the owners should probably be required to advertise the use of sodium, in the interest of public safety, but there it is. I guess I just believe in too much freedom.

Quite frankly, I believe the 9th Amendment has been used as a tool to legislate from the bench.

I haven't studied modern social and legal conditions to form a fair assessment of that. I do see a great many accusations of 'Legislating from the bench' that I question, if not actually disagree with. Again, with my head planted firmly in the past, I see the first case of that in American law being John Marshall's famous decision in Marbury vs Madison. Marshall established the Supreme Court's status as the prime interpreter of the Constitution by ruling against himself. Agree with it or not, it was brilliant.

Going back to an earlier point, I refer to my analogy about Ramadan. Considering that even an explicit right (that one which allows us to bear arms) can be regulated in the name of common sense, why then can we not regulate the use of a term in order to advance a cause while preserving the meaning of a term which many hold dear? Hell, even most eveyone here believes in some restriction on marriages.

The common sense you speak of in the right to bear arms involves public safety. I think the question here is not one of common sense, but prejudice. Most of the people who "hold the meaning dear" don't seem to have done so until their morality was offended.

Ultimately, because the issue is unclear the authority should exist with the states to define marriage. However, the RIGHTS pertaining to the word would fall under the 9th Amendment - not the word itself.

You could end up being right on that. The challenge issued is one of interpretation, but the sole ground the judge can make this decision is Constitutionality, otherwise the voters do have the legal right to make that decision. If the Appeals Court and the Supreme court uphold the decision, then that is that. If either court overturns it in favor of the vote, then that is also that (at least until the next challenge).

This debate has become heated, but has remained at least semi-civil. I always fall on the side of freedom - at least as I percieve it - but we're not really going to decide anything here except perhaps to influence one another in some small way.

And my friend who told me about the ancient Greeks? He is firmly opposed to gay marriage, but his grounds are that if marriage requires a license then it is the state's priveledge to create the rules for the issuance of that license, just as with any other license.

[Skybird]

If the social core-institution of "family=1 woman, 1 man, children" is given special status and protection by the socieity and state, we must no be bothered by forms and models of partnerships of people not forming such family. Me must not bother for how Lesbians live together, gay men, or how singles like I live.

Unfortunately, this isnot only about basic human rights, but also money, tax reliefs, financial support for families, etc. And it must be feared by european example that by giving homo relations the same legal status like mixed couples, the special status that is to be demanded for families gets softened up by decreasing or even nullifying the relative difference in financial benefit and legal proptection between homsexuals living together, and heterosexual relation forming families.

This is bad, because the future of a society lies in families producing children. No children, no future - it's as simple as that. And this is why families are so very much more improtant than gay rights or lesbian marriages, or singles like I am. Singles like me should not enjoy the same level of protection by the state, like families. And homosexuals and lesbians also should not be given the same status and benefits like families shoild be given. I do nothing to the biological securing of my societies future. Gays and lesboians also do nothing to secure the billogical future of the society threy live in. In this regard I am as unimportnt, as they are.

It is absurd to claim same rights for gay marriages like for mixed couples forming families, and it is a vital damage to our socieiy'S selfunderstanding and recognising that if it wants to survive it must prioritize certain aspects of interhuman life. Homosexual marriages leading to same tax benefits and relativising the spoecial status and vital importance of the institution of family, are not such a priority.

And now i want recognition of my sxpecial status as single, please, and could I also please have official recignitiuon of my friendship relations to freinds or colleagues also desrving the same rights and recognitions like married hetereosexual couples raising children. Else I feel discriminated over my being-single, and I feel offended by the lacking respect for the social relations I maintain. I really think that my social relations deserve to be recognised by the state by giving them tax reliefs. It is a basic human right to maintain social relations and friendships and to live single. Why should I accept financial and legal disadvantages to gay marriages and families when singles like me essential are of the same normality and biological nature like gays, lesbians and heteros?

I really think that marchers at CST are not representative for gays and lesbian, and are just narcissistic inhibitionist freaks using the opportunity to raise provokation to the society they live in, and I also think that gay/lesbian marriage-activists are not even half as important to mankind than they assume they are. The fact that they are gay or lesbian, does nothing for mankind, nor must be their choice of form for living together with somebody be of any concern for mankind. It does not effect mankind. What effects mankind, are couples creating children and raising them.

Beyond this basic aspect, I do not care whether or not somebody is gay or not, and lives in a partnership or not. Why should I feel bothered? I only be bothered by the future of our society - and for that, neither singles living alone, like me, nor gay marriages make a positive difference. Families do, and they must be our priority. Not singles or gay marriages.

[antikristuseke]

Skybird, if you haven't noticed, there are 7 billion people on this planet, giving homosexual marriage the same protections and benefits under law as heterosexual marriage has will not push us to extinction. Hell, it probably wont ever affect birth rates.
Another part of your argument seems to rest on the assumption that heterosexuals will automatically have and raise children, but this is simply false. Many are unable or choose not to. Also while on the subject, why couldn't a homosexual couple raise an adopted child?
If there must be more benefits for a couple raising a child in your mind, why not then have a separate clause in the law making it so that marriages, regardless of the sex of those involved, get benefits and protections a, while those married couples who also raise a child get a+1?
That way you keep the boon for procreation, while not denying anyone any rights.

Now that the important stuff is out of the way I would like to say that as far as the state is concerned marriage is nothing but a binding contract between two willing parties, how in the name of **** should the sex of those involved even be relevant?

[Skybird]

First, I am not talking baout the planet's population, but I talked of "our society". As you may have taken from pulbications and the media, Wetsern society take incr4easing stress from over-aging, and native mothers having less than 2.1 children, significantly less.

Second, only with regard to "our society", my remarks on how families make a positive difference for the society's future make sense.

Third, this implies of course that it is not only the social low class creating children, what is the case with he majoirty of immigrants, because the statistics that certain such groups and the social low class create offsprings that have little chances to ever attribute to the nation's net income, but in fact will cause more costs than incomes for the nation, cannot be denied anymore, I described that in a whole thread some weeks ago by translating an essay by scientist Gunnar Heihnsohn. At the same time we have the dramatic trend that the higher the sopcial class is in our soceities, the smaller the avergae children per couple. We need no more low class offsprings - we need academic families having more children. Only this will, amongst others, create the tax income we will need in the future.

I am aware of not every hetero cople having children - but hetero couples are the only couple constellations that could have children, and still: many have at least one child. On e the one hand I want to outline the basic logic only and thus did not go into details like "has a couple children indeed or not?", on the other hand one could argue that within the group of hetero couples now opening this can of worms of endlessly defining subcategories and excemptions rom rules, only increases the number of rules we have, and bureaucracy, and threatens to overshadow what it really is about: to recignise that the family is the most vital social core cell of a community, that it is a thosuand tikes more important than gay marriages or signles like I am, and that a society depends on creatong a social climate hwere this fact is not endlessly relatives and thus: endangered, damaging our own future survival perspective as a nation and a national community. We do not need gay couples in this national community. we also need not more and more social low class improtant from other ****ries that are kicking the bills of our social insurance systems upwards. We need more children from educated, even academic families.

The planet has more than 6 billion people. That is 4-5 times as much as I estaimate the planet can bear over longer times. Global population is not our problem. Our problem is that there are too many people in poor countries, giving too many births to children that will remain poor, and that there are decreasing, over-aging populations in the high developed countries, producing less and lesser offsprings from middle and upper class families with education perpsectives and academic background.

Gay marriages do nothing to even adress these crushing problems. They only help to relative the status and reputation of families even more, increaisng our troubles that way instead of at least having a nheutral effect, not to mention: improving the situation.

This is no discrimination what I say. It is simply sovber thinking on facts from reality that cannot be denied. the problemI outline is much more pressing than the what singles like me or homo relations want in public attention or legal recognition. Singles like me and homosexual relations simply do not contribute anything to the formula on birth rates. That is all, but for itself that also is a pressing problem - much more pressing than gay rights, or singles' desires.

On the question of adoptation by gays, I am strictly against it, not only because it does nothing to adress the problem of birth rates, but also for psychological reasons and cultural reasons. While exceptions already exist were homosexual coiuples raise children one of the partner had from earlier marriage, it should remain to be an exception, last but not least in the interest of a child. As a spychologist (es) I objct to some study things being done that politivally correct found what they were intended toi find; that there is no difference for children'S future wheh they have hetero or homo parents. Earlier studies from the 70s and 80s showed something different: a statistically higher probabitly for them becoming depressive, and staying isolationistic. That has probably something to do with the social constellation at home (after all two women or two men are somethign different than one women and one man, becaseu the first two lack the social rolemodeol of a mother/a dad, and it would be nive,mif not incompertent to assume that this does not alter the social reality the child lives in, and effects it), but also with the fact that children of gay parents at school and in their social envrionment mjst be expected to be treated differently by the other children: that is how children are, they can behave cruel and not even knowing it.

Hetero parenting is absolutely to be preferred. Not single mothers. Not homo couples. No singles. this is also to let the child raise in an envrionment where it takes it as normal that a mother and a father form the normal constellation of family, not single parents, or homosexual couples. and this is needed to help to anchor in a society's awareness that it is thr status of family life that should be given special protection and status. why that is to be preferred, I have explained earlier.

we need not only to have laws recognising the priority of family life. we also need a social and cultural climate in which family lkife is specailly protected, and given more status and prestige again. I do not like at all that young people so easily create children nowadays, and then easymindedly sepaarte again, and by this the number of sikngle mothers raising children has been explsively risien over the past years. The statistics show us clearly that thesechildren have best chances to fall thorugh the social roster later on, and will not gain jobs and education and chances that enable them to contribute to the tax income level of the state, but will suck off bucks fromt he social safety net. There is a significant linking between single paretns raisj gn a kid, and later social/financial handicaps of that kid. Also, there is a strong link between number of parents present, and poverty risk for that family. Single mothers are an extreme risk group.

On history, "marriage" indeed often was just somethignlike an economy and cooperation contract - between a man and a woman. the term also has a cultural-relgious relevenace and trdition, basing on the christian-judaic understanding, which again is that marriage includes one man and one woman with the prospect of having babies later on. It is not just any term that can be taken out of any hostoric and cultural context, in fact it is a term that is heavily embedded in a cultural and historic conetext. Without that context it makes little sense to call a marriage a marriage. and I personally can accept this and not another understanding quite well, it has proven it's worth, and started to raise troubles not before it'S worth was put into question and got relativised in recent decades. As a society needing to not forget itS vital interests for ensuring it's communal survival in the future, we have won nothing from signle mothers and gay rights so far. Even more, they have risen additional problems for us, as I outlined .

It is dangerous when political correctness even gets pushed when it is obviously in intended ignorration of reality's needs. Because needs are needs - they are not negotiable.

We need no more low class offsprings

Yay ban people of a certain religion and stop low class people breeding.
Did Sky by any chance get his superior gymnasium sureness at the same establishments as Herman Aubin or Max Heim.
Everyday in every way sky puts up some more Mein Kampf....

So I wonder what his solution is to low class offspring, forced sterilisation or just mass murder?

[antikristuseke]

If wester society can not sustain itself, then it deserves to die out, simple as that. Gay marriage has nothing to do with that, all it actually has to do with is equality under the law. Refusing that is discrimination, it maybe practical, even necessary, but it is discrimination none the less. I would dislike you less if you were honest about these things, but right now you come off as trying to justify your own bigotry.

There is such a thing a necessary evil, I don't think it applies in this case, but the concept is out there.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Skybird

This is bad, because the future of a society lies in families producing children. No children, no future - it's as simple as that. And this is why families are so very much more improtant than gay rights or lesbian marriages, or singles like I am. Singles like me should not enjoy the same level of protection by the state, like families. And homosexuals and lesbians also should not be given the same status and benefits like families shoild be given. I do nothing to the biological securing of my societies future. Gays and lesboians also do nothing to secure the billogical future of the society threy live in. In this regard I am as unimportnt, as they are.

Do you also believe that women who are barren or men who are sterile should not be permitted to marry? They also don't add anything to the "biological securing your society". How about couples who choose not to have kids? Should they also be forbidden to marry as they don't add anything either?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Platapus

Do you also believe that women who are barren or men who are sterile should not be permitted to marry? They also don't add anything to the "biological securing your society". How about couples who choose not to have kids? Should they also be forbidden to marry as they don't add anything either?

See:

Originally Posted by Skybird

I am aware of not every hetero cople having children - but hetero couples are the only couple constellations that could have children, and still: many have at least one child. On e the one hand I want to outline the basic logic only and thus did not go into details like "has a couple children indeed or not?", on the other hand one could argue that within the group of hetero couples now opening this can of worms of endlessly defining subcategories and excemptions rom rules, only increases the number of rules we have, and bureaucracy, and threatens to overshadow what it really is about: to recignise that the family is the most vital social core cell of a community, that it is a thosuand tikes more important than gay marriages or signles like I am, and that a society depends on creatong a social climate hwere this fact is not endlessly relatives and thus: endangered, damaging our own future survival perspective as a nation and a national community.