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Gay Marriage Overturned in San Francisco

Discussion in 'Alley of Dangerous Angles' started by Aldeth the Foppish Idiot, Aug 12, 2004.

  1. Aldeth the Foppish Idiot

    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot Armed with My Mallet O' Thinking Veteran

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    From MSNBC:

    Gay Marriage Licenses Voided by California Supreme Court

    It seems the mayor of San Francisco may be in some hot water too, as the State Supreme Court said that the mayor had acted illegally. California, like most states has a law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, and obviously, the mayor broke that law by issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples.

    Your thoughts? Is this the end? Is Massachusettes next?
     
  2. Death Rabbit

    Death Rabbit Straight, no chaser Adored Veteran Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    While I support gay marriage, especially civil unions, I agree with the California SSC on this. There's a right way and a wrong way to do things. Right or wrong, Gavin Newsom didn't have the authority to override California law to issue those licenses. I think everyone saw this coming, really.

    I don't think this is the end, just a setback. I don't think this will have much of an effect on the Massachusettes ruling, though the Christian right will try with all their might to make this into a "SEE!?!?" counterarguement to the Mass. ruling. No, Massachusettes was done by legal process, San Fran was done by circumventing the law. Newsom was clearly in the wrong, though I admire his bravery and conviction.
     
  3. Late-Night Thinker Gems: 17/31
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    Unfortunetly Death Rabbit, I do not think we are going to see homosexuals legally wed within at least the next fifteen years. The tide on that issue rose and was rebutted by ignorance, the Bible, and most sadly, the liberal party of our nation. I was in the same room as Kerry while he said he does not think homosexual marriage is morally correct.

    Adults are so much more sensitive and polite when they make someone feel like a "faggot".

    I would be interested to know the size of the homosexual demographic. What percentage of humanity still is acceptably ostracized?
     
  4. Splunge

    Splunge Bhaal’s financial advisor Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    I'm with D.R. here.

    It's one thing to try to change laws; it's another to act in defiance of those laws.
     
  5. Harbourboy

    Harbourboy Take thy form from off my door! Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Breaking news: New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey resigns his post, citing an extramarital homosexual affair.
     
  6. Wordplay Gems: 29/31
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    Great news! Arnold S. finally got the act through, and hopefully it STAYS as final. :) I firmly believe that marriage, a real church-marriage, should be done only between a man and a woman. Office weddings, okay, but church? No way in hell. IMO, gays are abnormal and thus giving them "normal" status-symbols makes mockery of them (symbols) and all people truly married.

    But then it is USA -I doubt nothing like that would had happened anywhere else in the first place.
     
  7. joacqin

    joacqin Confused Jerk Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    I dont have any cold facts at hand to support this but I am certain I have heard and read from many sources that around 10% of the population is gay, if we include bisexuals I am confident that the number will atleast double.

    This 10% thing has also been almost to the number been confirmed by my own experience as in every school class I have gone to have had 2-3 persons who have shown themselves to be gay later on. Keep in mind as well that they are only the ones that I know about and all of them are men, there are bound to be some females as well which I know little about.
     
  8. Chandos the Red

    Chandos the Red This Wheel's on Fire

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    The Constitution of Massachusetts was written by John Adams. It is the oldest surviving constitution in the Western World.

    http://www.mass.gov/legis/const.htm

    IMO, it is a beautifully constructed constitution that protects the liberties of its citizens.

    It is hard to say what Adams would have thought. His first reaction would have been against gay-marriage. But the rule of law would have prevailed in Adams' mind. Remember that Adams was a firebrand of the Revolution and detested English rule. Yet, as a young lawyer he defended, in a Boston court, the English soldiers who participated in the infamous "Boston Massacre" of 1770. He did so on the principle of the rule of law. "Facts are stubborn things," he said, in his summation.

    I'm sure that if he felt that the facts of the ruling squared with how he had constructed the Constitution, then no matter how personally distasteful he found gay marriage, he would have to agree with the ruling. But if they did not square with his intentions, he certainly would have opposed the ruling. This is the ruling:

    [ August 15, 2004, 07:33: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]
     
  9. Rallymama Gems: 31/31
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    HB, if you read deeper, McGreevey was using homosexuality as a cover for the real issue. My initial reaction upon hearing the headline was "So what?", but as I read deeper I found out that he's being sued by his former lover after he appointed the guy to a six-figure government position that he wasn't qualified to hold, and even kept him on the books after he was denied the job. It was bad judgement, not being gay, that forced McGreevey to resign, IMO. Too bad he continued to exercise poor judgement in choosing an excuse that will stigmatize homosexuals.

    A bad day all around for those of us who think that a person's worth is not defined by whom he or she sleeps with.
     
  10. Aldeth the Foppish Idiot

    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot Armed with My Mallet O' Thinking Veteran

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    Um... Do you realize that ALL of the 4000+ weddings performed in San Francisco were done by a JP? These weren't church weddings. Heck, even if a Constitutional amendment passed saying same sex marriage was A-OK, it wouldn't mean churches would have to go along with it. Just to use Catholic as an example (because I am), there's no way in hell there were any same sex couples married in a Catholic church in San Francisco or Massachusettes.
     
  11. Wordplay Gems: 29/31
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    Ah, okay; no problem then -it's just a registry entry to give them equal benefits. It is the status-symbol that I really dislike giving to them, even though I approve this too.

    [ August 13, 2004, 22:14: Message edited by: Wirhe ]
     
  12. chevalier

    chevalier Knight of Everfull Chalice ★ SPS Account Holder Veteran

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    Don't know if Massachusetts is next. It surely isn't the end of it as of California, however.

    Still, a good thing has been done. Notice the marriages have been nullified - although the headline says annulled. There's a difference between something being void from the beginning and something being made, even effective from the beginning, but at a later time by the power of a decision. The judges, apparently, have declared them to be non-existent. At least that's what it seems from the news.

    [ August 13, 2004, 21:16: Message edited by: chevalier ]
     
  13. Slith

    Slith Look at me! I have Blue Hands! Veteran

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    Late-Night-Thinker - I've read that, at least in the US, the percentage of homosexual people is 2-3%, whereas the people who are bisexual is around 5-6%.
     
  14. Morgoth

    Morgoth La lune ne garde aucune rancune Veteran

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    Keep in mind that normally the percentage is actually of the people who came out of the closet, in a conservative country that number will be far less than in a liberal country.
    I think the percentage is about 13% in my country, not sure though, checking the Internet didn't seem to work.
     
  15. chevalier

    chevalier Knight of Everfull Chalice ★ SPS Account Holder Veteran

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    While I'm not immediately dismissive, I find that logic disturbing. First of all, a court ruling is an inference: basing on a general rule, the court, applying the rules of logic, infers what should be done in a particular situation.

    There is no inherent sanctity in a court ruling; it is only as good as the logic that it uses is valid.

    I would say that if Adams saw gay marriage allowance as directly and validly inferred from the law he established, he would condone it.

    However, even if a lawful judicial authority, in accordance with proper procedure, passed a verdict relying on faulty logic, I doubt the courts authority would suffice for the very legislator himself to accept such a ruling as valid.

    And on to the ruling or whatever the source of the quotes was:

    They so conclude. But judges are humans and humans are all prone to making mistakes. I want to see the initial premises, the way the conclusion was inferred from them and, especially, all the assumptions that were made in the process.

    First: Marriage confers said benefits, protections and obligations, but cohabitation, let alone mere sharing of sexual intimacy does not. What valid conclusion we have here is that:

    1. Everyone should be allowed to marry, and on equal conditions.
    2. Every marriage should be treated the same.

    But, there's nothing here about the definition of marriage. The sentence "homosexuals are not allowed to marry" is false. Homosexuals are free to marry a person of opposite sex and have children like anyone else.

    The questions is not whether homosexuals should be allowed to marry (they are), but whether people should be allowed to marry people of the same gender.

    Marriage is a term to describe the union between a man and a woman intended for and geared towards creating a family (joining two families, if you prefer) and raising children (though this is not a requirement per se) assigned benefits and protections by the state. ERGO: 1) as two men or two men are not a man and a woman, the term does not apply 2) all the benefits that marriage enjoys are given for a certain purpose and one that is not met by a homosexual union.

    ERGO: Same gender marriages are not consistent with marriage as it stands.

    ERGO: If we want to have homosexual marriages, we need to change the concept of marriage.

    ALSO: As unions between homosexuals don't meet the same purpose as those between a man and a woman, the marriages of homosexuals would enjoy the same benefits as traditional marriages, but without bearing the same burden. That would be against equality as it would, essentially, constitute an exclusive privilege.

    ERGO: Even the question "should people be allowed to marry people of the same gender" is not valid. The right question is:

    "Should we make an exception from the general rule and allow a certain group of people benefits and protections that are not in accordance with equality?"

    Now on to the benefits:

    Inheritance: everyone can make a will;
    Shared surname: everyone can change his surname;
    Representation: everyone can do or have that with proper authorisation; that authorisation can give more rights than a spouse typically has (which varies per different laws);
    Access to information: as above;
    Tax breaks: tax breaks for married couples are meant to offset expenses that follow raising children and having children is unique for a man and a woman, which two men or two women clearly are not;

    As you notice, I haven't mentioned child adoption. Why? Because there's no such right as a right to adopt children. There's a right to breed and raise the children one begets, but the court can still take the children from someone who fails as a parent. Next, adoption is for the benefit of the child and not the adoptive parents. No human can have any right to a person. So what it is? It's an obligation and one that is conditional upon requirements that a homosexual union does not meet.

    ERGO: the benefits of marriage that are not specifically associated with breeding are already accessible to homosexuals

    ERGO: the gay campaign is not about rights; it's about promotion of gay lifestyle. In this particular case, they want to be given name ("marriage") that doesn't belong with them and it truly seems to be a battle over the name "marriage" itself and the half-social half-religious connotations of it in the cultural legacy of the Western civilisation. That's where the state needs to put a stop to this farce.

    Edit: fixed quotes

    [ August 14, 2004, 17:42: Message edited by: chevalier ]
     
  16. Abomination Gems: 26/31
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    @chev: Why don't you send that to a gay activist group in the States? Hope it gets to the 'head' of the organisation and he/she actually considers it. You might bring some joy to the world.
     
  17. Chandos the Red

    Chandos the Red This Wheel's on Fire

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    I'm so glad. I was worried there for a minute.

    I'm not sure about its "sanctity" but it is the law in Massachusetts. That means that gay-marriage is a reality.

    This is the original document of 1780. It's not very long, so you can read it for yourself and draw your own conclusions. The next link will take you to the full ruling of the court, including the dissenting opinions, which are interesting also. Apply whichever kind of LOGIC makes you comfortable. ERGO: Knock yourself out.

    http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch1s6.html

    http://www.masslaw.com/signup/gtwFulltext.cfm?page=ma/opin/sup/1017603.htm

    [ August 15, 2004, 07:33: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]
     
  18. Jaguar Gems: 27/31
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    To go off slightly on the current beat, I have a small opinion that I would like to slip in. Please pardon the rather undirectness of my wording, as I cannot quite get it right.

    If there is so much uproar about gay marriages, why do they not just create a copy of the marriage laws and call them something else, while editing them to apply to same sex couples instead of a man and woman.

    Like chev says, the definition of marriage doesn't fit what the people protesting want it to do. So, bundle up the same package of laws and rights, change it to same sex couples, and slap a new name on it. Its possible right?

    (Again, I apologize for my crudeness. Proper words I just cannot find.)
     
  19. chevalier

    chevalier Knight of Everfull Chalice ★ SPS Account Holder Veteran

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  20. Chandos the Red

    Chandos the Red This Wheel's on Fire

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    Only 24? I was expecting at least 50. :p : But I'm sure you are busy. I heard distant rumors that you have a life outside of SP. :shake:

    Just as I felt there were some good arguments in the dissenting opinions offered by the court, you also have some good arguments here. But I must point out that there is an historical background for some of these articles. Adams mentioned these in his numerous letters.

    Adams was referring to an aristocracy. This was a huge argument in the context of the Revolution.

    Same thing here. Adams, like most Americans during his time, was opposed to special benefits from the wealthy and any aristocrats who gained from serving in government. Ben Franklin, who authored the Constitution of Pennsylvania, and some others wanted to require that those serving in government would not receive any pay. The counter argument was that this would mean that only the wealthy could "afford" to serve in high office. Adams was one who scoffed at this idea, but at the same time he wanted to protect the public interest from those who would serve for their own interests.

    Hamilton was often wrongly accused of formuating policy that would benefit him and his friends on Wall Street, (yes, that was already the center of finance in NY). Many of his "Repulican" enemies felt that Hamilton, as Secretary of Treasury, was almost always privately gaining from his own policies.

    If I understand your correctly, gays are given Christian compassion, (as any other group)but not awarded recognition of the gay lifestyle in oppostition to doctrine (and I agree with this). That is a problem for the churches, because there are some churches that recognize not only gay marriage, but now have gays on the clergy. This is where I draw a line. No church that is Christian should recognize an authority figure who openly transgresses Christian doctrine, IMO. But some still do. The Episcopalian Chruch recently appointed a gay bishop. If gays continue to gain authority in the Churches themselves then that agument is more difficult. This is very different than a secular range of authority, IMO, and I certainly know that you are opposed to the Chruch awarding equal status to gay marriage.

    As both DR and Splunge have pointed out the rule of law has more weight than a simple declaration by an individual official. It helps to prove that we are a nation of laws and not of men.

    Yet, I have to believe that Adams would not like the notion of his Constitution supporting gay marriage; it did not even provide these rights for the opposite gender, let alone gays. Adams has to be seen in the context of his own times and he must be recognized as man of his own times as well as his staunch New England puritanical background. Still, if he was fast-fowarded into the present, it would be interesting to hear his own thoughts on the subject of the Liberty, the rule of law and the pursuit of happiness for all individuals.

    [ August 19, 2004, 08:14: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]
     
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