Protecting the institution

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Handy, those individuals left so they could form a society of their choosing. They were concerned about their children assimilating to the dominant culture.

As for my statement, go to most any legal text and you'll find that a foundational principles of the legal systems is to promote a common morality. To set limits on what behavior is allowed and what will be sanctioned. The very act of sanctioning certain behaviors is intended to make them less likely to occur. Societies form the same way: groups of individuals gather and determine what they will or will not accept. They then sanction or promote behaviors based on that. Everything from social shunning to executions were mechanisms for establishing and maintaining societal norms.
 
It should be abundantly clear to even the most obtuse that a law instantiated as a ratified Amendment to our Constitution is Constitutional. Whether or not such a law is moral or advisable is a topic of current debate, but it is certainly beyond rational dispute that any such law would be Constitutional and clearly not "... in direct contravention of the Constitution".

I would be remiss if I did not thank you for your words as they clearly demonstrate the validity of one of the principle arguments supporting a Constitutional Amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman, namely that a decision of such importance concerning our government should be decided by the people through the democratic process instead of allowing our judicial branch to impose its will on the body politic. In this instance, your pronouncement that such a law would be in direct contravention of the Constitution demonstrates a belief, on your part, that our Constitution should be construed by our judiciary in such a manner as to declare similar marriage laws, if instantiated by any lesser means, to be unconstitutional. I am unwilling to surrender my basic right to participate in the formation of our laws through the democratic process and our ability to provide Amendments to our Constitution is one of the very few mechanisms we have that serves as a check on the powers of the judicial branch of government.

Considering how poor a job our federal courts have done in protecting our 2nd Amendment rights or incorporating the same against the various States under the 14th Amendment, I have little trust that the judiciary, as an institution, will act with restraint when it comes to this issue.

Respectfully,
Richard
 
Handy,

In no way am I apposed to private individuals, without regard to their gender, race, faith or sexual orientation, forming whatever contractual relationships that might best serve their own interests. However, civil marriage also places a burden on society and I am opposed to allowing homosexuals the ability to make claims against the public treasury by the same means that are now afforded to married heterosexual couples.

What homosexual do between themselves is their own business but civil marriage is not a private act, it is a public contract provided for by the laws of the various states and as such it is an appropriate subject to be considered by any interested citizen.

Respectfully,
Richard
 
What homosexual do between themselves is their own business but civil marriage is not a private act, it is a public contract provided for by the laws of the various states and as such it is an appropriate subject to be considered by any interested citizen.
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It's a public contract? Any contract could be considered a public contract, because contracts are mediated by the government. It's fine with me if civil unions are privatized, with the government merely providing a boilerplate contract on a website somewhere which interested parties can take to a notary and sign.

As far as monetary benefits to marriage, it's called the "marriage penalty" for a reason. Couples only get a tax reduction if one of the couple is the primary earner and the other makes comparatively very little. Two people making 50k/yr end up paying more taxes as a couple.

There are a bunch of other negative tax consequences to getting married, too.

There should be no tax incentive or disincentive to get married. The advantage of only having to pay for one residence should be the main financial consideration, and given the price of housing, that savings is usually quite significant.
 
In no way am I apposed to private individuals, without regard to their gender, race, faith or sexual orientation, forming whatever contractual relationships that might best serve their own interests. However, civil marriage also places a burden on society and I am opposed to allowing homosexuals the ability to make claims against the public treasury by the same means that are now afforded to married heterosexual couples.
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Does not compute. You cannot have the contract without recognizing the same and affording every right granted to anyone else who has entered into such a contract.
Your position is self-conflicted.

More to the point of the debate itself, it's merely a self-serving exercise in diversion and gay-bashing. Election year nonsense.
This amendment will not reach even a simple majority, let alone a supermajority. And they all know it.
The only reason we're even talking about it is because the election is a few months away and the Republicans need to show themselves protecting us from some evil. They don't have Osama and Iraq's an embarassment. They failed to do anything about illegal immigration and deficit spending, so who can they make an example of?
The gay people.

Makes me proud to be an American. :barf:
 
Richard,

As I said, this is not about whether gays can marry, but whether pairs aside from men and women can seek the same legal protection.

Nor is marriage a "public act". Marriage or other civil unions are private acts with a government supplied license. The most public part of it is the courthouse record. The rest is on the person's tax documents and the legal handling of their personal affairs. The part that is the most public is the part you're not seeking to legislate: Homosexuals publicly displaying their relationships.


Buzz,

You don't seem to understand my example. Not only were those groups dissimilar from the cultures they came from, they were dissimilar from each other. Moravians and Shakers and Quakers have nothing to do with each other. All they wanted was to go somewhere where they would be TOLERATED, and had the protection of law. America is a country founded on the tolerance of disparate groups living in the same land - not a "common morality". Those groups probably cared little for each other's morality, but agreed wholeheartedly about the government not taking sides in such a comparison.


Remember: The truly traditional definition of marriage is all about the union of man and woman for the purpose of reproduction. The Shakers didn't fit that definition, and many modern couples don't either. So what, exactly, are we preserving? Or is it just institutionalizing a prejudice?
 
America is a country founded on the tolerance of disparate groups living in the same land - not a "common morality". Those groups probably cared little for each other's morality, but agreed wholeheartedly about the government not taking sides in such a comparison.
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Those groups tended to punish those who failed to abide by their particular code of ethics. Those failing to adhere to the common morality of the group were censured, shunned, or banished (a death sentence at the time the Puritans engaged in it). So, your examples are proving the point. They wanted those in their group to abide for a common morality. And in a larger sense, the groups themselves operated within the common morality of the overall society and the law. The groups couldn't function as they wished, restrained only by their own morals. They had to abide by societal and legal structure.
 
Certainly any contract exists in the context of our laws, but most contracts between private individuals do not place burdens on the public. This is not the case with marriage contracts as their exists a wide and diverse range of laws, both federal and state, that speak to the institution of marriage including laws governing inheritance, taxes, and Social Security benefits to name a few.

Respectfully,
Richard
 
Buzz,

Within the group, only. When they came together to write a Constitution they left that stuff at the door. Apparently, the legal structure they wanted was rather silent on moral issues, and wrote a document much more concerned with freedoms and property rights.

We are talking about the national Constitution, right? Not how marriage should be handled among the Lutherans of Butte, Montana.



Richard,

Your point speaks to mine. How can you offer "equal protection under the law", and then write an Amendment specifically saying that certain groups don't qualify as equal?
 
I agree that this is just more election year posturing for the benefit of us right wing folk. The idea of banning gay marriage today is as laughable as the idea of repealing the Civil Rights Act or the 13th amendment. Maybe 10-15 years ago this would have been acceptable to Americans,but a steady pro-gay campaign in America by a variety of homosexuality proponents has rendered the religious opposition (including myself) into irrelevancy and minority status,making us into pariahs of "intolerance" before the American people.
As far as "improving America" the Gay Marriage Amendment is right up there with the flag burning amendment and rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic in terms of sheer useless gestures.
 
Certainly any contract exists in the context of our laws, but most contracts between private individuals do not place burdens on the public. This is not the case with marriage contracts as their exists a wide and diverse range of laws, both federal and state, that speak to the institution of marriage including laws governing inheritance, taxes, and Social Security benefits to name a few.

Respectfully,
Richard
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How does a marriage between two men place a burden on society any more than a marriage between a man and a woman?
 
Redworm,

I think the burden would be substantially equal but my willingness to sustain that burden is certainly not equal. I am glad to have our government, especially the governments of our various States, create laws that encourage stable heterosexual marriages as I perceive the traditional nuclear family to be the bedrock of any moral society. In no way am I inclined to provide the same consideration for homosexuals as I view their behavior to be immoral and revolting and detrimental to the interests of society.

Respectfully,
Richard
 
er, scratch that question. it's probably too loaded....let me rephrase

edit: Why should your perception of morality dictate the course of my life? What about me not wanting to sustain the burden of a heterosexual couple? Why should anyone sustain any burden because two people choose to marry? Marriage or civil union should place no burden on any member of society outside of the participants involved.
 
I thought that the Constution was suposed to tell us what the goverment can and cant do? not what the people cant do?

And shouldn't marrige be the churches jurisdiction and not the states?
 
I thought that the Constution was suposed to tell us what the goverment can and cant do? not what the people cant do?

And shouldn't marrige be the churches jurisdiction and not the states?
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Yes, and yes. Unfortunately, the Constitution is now a "living, breathing document" that only matters when you've got an ax to grind.

As for the second point, the state is involved because there are a massive number of benefits, privileges and inheritance laws tied to matrimonial status. If the state gets out of it, many of the laws on the books have to get rewritten and the state loses a source of revenue.
 
"_____Do you really envision people lining up around the block to get hitched to their hamsters? Doubt it. So this isn't really an outcome that we need to lose sleep over._"

"_____We can quibble over what "human" means, but the legal system has already dealt with that to most people's satisfaction.__"

It's not my favorite vision but I figure anything is possible with humans running the place.

It wasn't so long ago that living a homosexual lifestyle was against the law and our societal moral code. Now, a few decades later, homosexuals are wanting legal recognition for their unions and we have special laws that protect homosexuals.

From my experience human's idea of freedom will over ride wisdom once again.
 
It wasn't so long ago that living a homosexual lifestyle was against the law and our societal moral code. Now, a few decades later, homosexuals are wanting legal recognition for their unions and we have special laws that protect homosexuals.
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It wasn't so long ago that interracial marriage was against the law and our societal moral code, too. In fact, virtually all the arguments that were used against interracial marriage back in the day are now being used against gay marriage.

Why should gays not seek legal recognition for their unions? What's so bad about that? Since the state has made it its business to issue scrips of permission for marriage, they have to issue them to anyone who wants them regardless of race, creed or sexual preference, otherwise the whole "equal protection" thing goes out the window.

Lastly, we do not have "special laws that protect homosexuals", unless you're referring to the laws that make it a crime to attack or discriminate against someone because of their sexual orientation (which protects you as well as homosexuals, although we both know that straight folks rarely have to fear getting beaten up by a car full of jocks because of their straightness.)

It's sad that you make it sound like protection for gays is a deplorable thing...they are entitled to precisely the same legal protection against violations of their rights which are afforded to everyone else.
 
Handy,

"equal protection?"

Was the intent of the 14th amendment to insure that every contrived minority would be granted equal treatment before the law, or that every person, specifically including former slaves, would enjoy the same basic rights as every other person?

What of pedophiles? Should their sexual preferences be extended the same considerations that you would extend to homosexuals or should the law discriminate between these two minority groups of sexual deviants such that the treatment they receive before the law is unequal? It is my view that pedophiles should be, upon conviction, sentence to long terms in prison, but I do not hold to a similar view concerning homosexuals excepting only those homosexuals that are also pedophiles.

I would note that our current tax laws are particularly discriminatory as the minority that are affluent suffers under a far greater tax burden then the large majority that reside in the lower economic classes but few would argue that the 14th amendment was intended to force the government to maintain a flat tax so that both the rich and the poor should be given equal treatment before the law. I favor a flat tax but I would not argue, nor even desire, that the judicial branch should compel the federal government to substitute a flat tax for the current system based on a 14th Amendment equal protection argument.

It is the very fact that some would broadly construe the 14th Amendment to provide protections to homosexuals, in the same manner that it provides protections to African-Americans, that requires that the will of the people be expressed in an Amendment to our Federal Constitution instead of by any lesser means. If not, then the issue will be decided by the courts and not by the people and I am unwilling to leave it to the courts.

Respectfully,
Richard
 
It wasn't so long ago that living a homosexual lifestyle was against the law and our societal moral code. Now, a few decades later, homosexuals are wanting legal recognition for their unions and we have special laws that protect homosexuals.

From my experience human's idea of freedom will over ride wisdom once again.
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It also wasn't so long ago that blacks were considered second class citizens. Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't interracial marriages one of the primary reasons for licensing in the first place? Back in the "good ole days" blacks marrying whites was considered immoral. Wisdom indeed. :rolleyes:

That being said there should be no special laws protecting any group above another.
 
er, scratch that question. it's probably too loaded....let me rephrase

edit: Why should your perception of morality dictate the course of my life? What about me not wanting to sustain the burden of a heterosexual couple? Why should anyone sustain any burden because two people choose to marry? Marriage or civil union should place no burden on any member of society outside of the participants involved.
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Redworm, you have every right to advocate for your position and I can assure you that if the proposed Amendment where to become law, it would not be my views that are imposed but rather the views of a super majority of the American people. Your question is very fundamental and can be best answered by understanding that our government is based on the theories of social contractarianism derived from John Locke's Second Treatise of Government. We have voluntarily vested in our government certain powers such that we live in a state of civilization instead of in a state of nature. Why have any law and what is to be the nature of that law? I am certainly not an anarchist.

Is not our legal prohibition against murder simultaneously a moral principle expressed in a number of major religions including Christianity?

Respectfully,
Richard
 
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