Posts Tagged Marriage Equality
Why You Wanna Break My Heart?
Posted by zoboxrox in church and state, human rights, justice, malfunction, politics, tragedy on June 16th, 2009
I realize I haven’t been completely objective (not that I ever claimed to be), and for a while there, I was a member of the Obama cheer-leading squad, but I’ve got to say, for me at least, the honeymoon is now officially over. Its not that I expected the new administration to do everything right, especially considering the seemingly insurmountable trouble they are faced with; its just, I never thought they would do something so clearly wrong.
To be fair, lets give a little context.
The Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA as it is known, was a bill signed into law by President Clinton – NOT President Bush — on September 21, 1996. It basically says that no state can be forced to recognize other state’s same-sex marriages and that the federal government is required not to. So yeah, its pretty bad.
No State, territory, or possession of the United States, or Indian tribe, shall be required to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other State, territory, possession, or tribe respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage under the laws of such other State, territory, possession, or tribe, or a right or claim arising from such relationship.
In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the word ‘marriage’ means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word ’spouse’ refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife
Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer, a gay couple who were married in California before Proposition 8 and had taken the two bans on marriage to Federal Court, were fought by the Obama Administration’s Justice Department. While it is rare for an administration not to defend the current laws (though not unheard of), whether or not they agree with them, it makes matters worse that Justice Department has written a brief which makes arguments comparing gay marriage to incestuous relationships.
The brief insists it is reasonable for states to favor heterosexual marriages because they are the “traditional and universally recognized form of marriage.” In arguing that other states do not have to recognize same-sex marriages under the Constitution’s “full faith and credit” clause, the Justice Department cites decades-old cases ruling that states do not have to recognize marriages between cousins or an uncle and a niece.
This is not a direction I expected this president to go in. For someone who travels the globe, preaching tolerance and understanding, he should make more of an effort to practice it at home.
End the War on Love
Posted by zoboxrox in church and state, human rights, justice, malfunction, politics on May 28th, 2009
Prop(aganda H)8*
CALIFORNIA CONSTITUTION
ARTICLE 1 DECLARATION OF RIGHTS
SEC. 7.5. Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.
Can you imagine anything less threatening than a gay wedding? Someone please explain to me what is so troubling to Americans about other people’s private lives. I will never get that. Are we in Saudi Arabia? I understand being threatened by violence, hatred, and fundamentalism, but certainly not by love — or sex for that matter. If you’re not the one having it, who cares?!
Anyway, that really doesn’t have very much to do with Tuesday’s ruling of the California Supreme Court, and while it is disappointing, it was actually a fair decision by the Justices. The fault lay with the argument brought forth on behalf of the plaintiffs, and the Court had no choice but to side with Prop(aganda H)8.
Every state has their own constitution, which, like the big one, can be amended as time passes, communities integrate, states modernize, etc. The Constitution of the State of California has been amended over 500 times and has a fairly clear set of instructions for the process:
ARTICLE 2 VOTING, INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM, AND RECALL
SEC. 8. (a) The initiative is the power of the electors to propose
statutes and amendments to the Constitution and to adopt or reject
them…
ARTICLE 18 AMENDING AND REVISING THE CONSTITUTION
SEC. 3. The electors may amend the Constitution by initiative.
SEC. 4. A proposed amendment or revision shall be submitted to the
electors and if approved by a majority of votes thereon takes effect
the day after the election unless the measure provides otherwise…
It is under this pretense that opponents of Proposition 8 appealed to the State Supreme Court, arguing that the 52% vote for Proposition 8 was, in fact, not an amendment, but instead a revision to the Constitution, which cannot be written into law without further legislation (unlike an amendment). The ever trusty New York Times describes the lawsuit fairly clearly:
Supporters of same-sex marriage, who filed several suits challenging the proposition after its adoption, argued that the change to the state’s Constitution was so fundamental that the initiative was not an amendment at all but instead a “revision,” a term for measures that rework core constitutional principles.
Under California law, revisions cannot be decided through a simple signature drive and a majority vote, as with Proposition 8. Instead, they can be placed on the ballot only with a two-thirds vote by the Legislature.
But the justices said the proposition was an amendment, not a revision. It has been historically rare for the state’s courts to overturn initiatives on the ground that they are actually revisions, and many legal scholars had deemed the challenge to Proposition 8 a long shot.
Whether or not the justices felt Proposition 8 was constitutional, they have to rule in favor of the majority under this law suit. To ignore the majority vote would be to take the power out of the hands of the electors, and to do so would ultimately be considered tyranny. In this particular case, the California Supreme Court, which voted in favor of gay marriage just one year ago, was right in their decision.
Next time, why don’t you try Article 1, Section 1, which is pretty much a universal constitutional right, but in California is worded as such:
All people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights.
Among these are enjoying and defending life and liberty,
acquiring, possessing, and protecting property,
and pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy.
I mean, there’s your argument right there. Pretty basic.
It should be noted that the vote was 6-1, with the sole dissenting voice coming from Justice Carlos R. Moreno (once considered a possible Supreme nominee), who determined that the amendment was an illegal revision based on its unconstitutionality. He wrote that Proposition 8 requires “discrimination” and “strikes at the core of the promise of equality that underlies our California Constitution and… places at risk the state constitutional right of all disfavored minorities.”
Iowa!
Posted by zoboxrox in human rights, miracle, politics on April 3rd, 2009
If it hadn’t been on more than one news station, I probably wouldn’t have believed it, but it appears that Iowa has legalized Gay Marriage — or, more precisely, il-legalized the ban on it. This makes Iowa one of a very small handful of states, and the only non-coastal one, that legally permits any two adult people to get married, no matter what the sexuality of the couple.
The Iowa Supreme Court legalized gay marriage Friday in a unanimous and emphatic decision that makes Iowa the third state — and the first in the nation’s heartland — to allow same-sex couples to wed.
In its decision, the high court upheld a lower court’s ruling that found a state law restricting marriage to between a man and woman violated Iowa’s constitution.
“We are firmly convinced the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage does not substantially further any important governmental objective,” the Supreme Court wrote in its decision. “The Legislature has excluded a historically disfavored class of persons from a supremely important civil institution without a constitutionally sufficient justification.”
Ok, so whats going on here? California bans gay marriage and Iowa legalizes it?
Gay rights supporter and former state lawmaker Ed Fallon told NPR that the ruling is consistent with Iowa’s history.
“Iowa has always been on the cutting edge of civil rights,” Fallon said. “Whether it’s regarding desegregation of schools or the rights of African Americans to be full citizens.”
“This is huge. And I think it’s a testament to the fairness and sense of decency that Iowans have,” he said.
To be honest, this isn’t the first time Iowa has surprised me. In fact, its neither the second NOR third time either! The first was in college and is related to a home-grown corn-fed lad, but the second and third I think you all may remember as well:
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