Boy shuns Pledge of Allegiance for Gay Rights

Actually, it already doesn't since it current meaning is:1. An extremely annoying, inconsiderate
person most commonly associated with Harley riders.
2. A person who owns or frequently rides a Harley. (pop culture reference for the win)Edited by Huntard, : decided to add link for clarity

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I hunt for the truthI am the one Orgasmatron, the outstretched grasping hand
My image is of agony, my servants rape the land
Obsequious and arrogant, clandestine and vain
Two thousand years of misery, of torture in my name
Hypocrisy made paramount, paranoia the law
My name is called religion, sadistic, sacred whore.
-Lyrics by Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead

Yep, for things specifically in the Constitution and its adjoinging amemndments. But what Constitutional Amendment gives ANYONE the right to marry in the first place?Surely the Supreme Court would have shot it down if it was agreed upon that marriage is a basic Constitutional right. In fact, it is the opposite, as the federal DOMA law prevents homosexual marriage being federally recognized, regardless of the state.In fact, it says exactly the opposite of what you are claiming:

No state (or other political subdivision within the United States) needs to treat a relationship between persons of the same sex as a marriage, even if the relationship is considered a marriage in another state.

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The federal government defines marriage as a legal union exclusively between one man and one woman.

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I'm not saying that I agree with the outcome, I'm just saying that pointing to the 14th Amendment is specious because it never deals with marriage, either homosexual or heterosexual. The Constitution is completely silent on the issue, which you therefore have to leave to the states to decide for themselves.

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I would actually say that the 9th Amendment is more closely related to the fight for homosexual marriage because it is unenumerated

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Ninth Amendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

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Tenth Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

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That's exactly what we see today, States deciding for themselves, usually by a popular of vote by the People. Why else do you think we see only individual states recognizing homosexual marriages? If it is as clear cut as you allege, surely the Supreme Court would have declared that by now, no?

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"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." --John Adams

Marriage in fact is a fundamental right protected by the Constitution. See Loving vs. Virginia.DOMA was nothing more than political pandering. There was no need to say that states don't have to recognize gay marriages from other states. The Full Faith and Credit Clause does not apply to acts from other states that are against the public policy of the recognizing state. Irrelevant and immaterial. The Fourteenth Amendment requires states to give Equal Protection to all people in all areas. There's no need to specify each and every possible individual application.Please, if you're going to make claims about what the Constitution means, give authority. I'm not interested in what you think the Constitution means, I'm interested in what Courts say it means. An interesting fact about the Supreme Court; it can only decide cases that are brought to it.Another interesting fact about the Supreme Court; it doesn't have to hear any case brought to it.The fact that the Supreme Court hasn't heard the case yet is irrelevant and immaterial. But, reasoning from prior cases that the Supreme Court has heard can provide us with a framework for deciding this issue.Another interesting fact about the Supreme Court; some of the Justices seem inclined to decide cases based on their personal jurisprudence instead of precedent. Thus, I'm not predicting that the Supreme Court will decide the case that way if it gets there. I'm just saying that prior Supreme Court precedent more than supports the argument that gay marriage is a right under the Constitution.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. -- Thomas JeffersonFor we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Let's say that a new federal law recognizes that homosexuals have the right to marry. Pastor Joe thinks it's a violation of God's law, but he has to choose which one he wants to break. The two laws (God's law and US law) are at odds. Regardless of what he does, he has to break one of them. If he chooses God's law and refuses to marry the homosexual couple, pastor Joe could face a litany of charges, fines, and/or losing his power as a justice of the peace. You do know that pastors and priests have to file as an agent of the government to marry people, right?Why even make it that way if that is what is causing so many problems for homosexuals to be recognized. Why not just stop giving religious institutions the authority to marry people civilly? Exactly! But should it? is the more important question. They're both meddling. Why not separate them completely?

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"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." --John Adams

Without question, yes. That's the only real crux.

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"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." --John Adams

Once again, you fail.DOMA was, until very recently, impossible to challenge on Constitutional grounds only because there were no married homosexual couples to file suit.We now have married homosexual couples, and DOMA has been challenged...and a 9th circuit Federal judge has awarded damages to a Federal employee whose same-gender spouse was denied benefits because of DOMA, on 14th Amendment grounds.DOMA is subservient to the 14th Amendment, and it violates it by providing for unequal protection. It's quite simply a Federal version of the state laws struck down in Loving v. Virginia, except applied to homosexuals instead of interracial couples.The reason it hasn't been overturned already is quite simply that nobody has had standing to take it to court - only a married gay couple would have such standing, and until just a few years ago none of those existed. Further, you need a married gay couple who is being denied equal protection by the Feds. It's being challenged now...though there is already talk among Democrats of overturning it through Congress, without needing to involve the Supreme Court in the first place.To quote the article:

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Several other challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act are making their way through the federal courts but will take years to reach the Supreme Court for a judgment on the law's constitutionality.

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And I duly note that yet again you have failed to enumerate a specific right held by any Church that is violated by allowing gays to marry.I'm waiting for that concession.

Do you always fail so completely at reading comprehension? Do you really have so little understanding of how marriage works right now?Pastor Joe thinks I am a violation of God's law. He'd think me marrying my Atheist girlfriend is a violation of God's law.But I can marry her in a state ceremony.Where, precisely, does Pastor Joe have to do anything against his conscience? Which law does Pastor Joe have to break, since he isn;t even remotely involved int eh process?Gay marriage is identical. Marriage as recognized by the state is an entirely secular affair, so as to apply equally to people of all religions and no religion. It has nothing to do with Pastor Joe.And the separation of Church and State already protects Pastor Joe. He doesn't have to hold a religious ceremony if he doesn't want to.The County Clerk simply has to allow the couple to sign a marriage license, and then they can have a nice secular wedding.As a Justice of the Peace, do you really think Pastor Joe is forced to marry me and my Atheist girlfriend in his church? Are Mormons forced to perform ceremonies for Muslims?What bizarre world do you live in, Hyro? Religious institutions already do not now have the authority to marry people civilly.Religious institutions already do not now have the authority to marry people civilly.Religious institutions already do not now have the authority to marry people civilly.Religious institutions already do not now have the authority to marry people civilly.How many times do I need to say it, Hyro? Your proposed separation of teh church and state already exists. State and religious marriage are already two different things. A state marriage license has nothing to do with any church. No church has anything to do with a state marriage license. No church is forced to perform ceremonies for people of different religions or to otherwise break their own internal customs and beliefs. No Catholic Priest will perform a marriage ceremony for me and my girlfriend. Why would you expect him to be forced to perform a ceremony for Jill and Jane or Jon and James? ...no. I thought we were in agreement that state marriage and religious marriage should be different.The problem is that you fail to recognize that they already are different and separate, even though the same word is used out of cultural significance. They already are. Try reading a little more of what I've said instead of just repeating yourself. The world does not work the way you seem to think it works. State marriage is already completely separate from religious marriage, as it should be. Your fantasies about the state and religion meddling with each other exist only in your mind, except where religious institutions are trying to tell the state who the state should recognize as married.

It appears his only issue is that churches not be compelled to sanctify gay marriages, at least as far as his "discrimination" and "rights" argument goes.Edited by subbie, : No reason given.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. -- Thomas JeffersonFor we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

The church hasn't been given any "power". The power is still held by the state. And even that is negligible. Marriage is, and should be, mostly a matter of registering an incorporation. It is entirely reasonable that such an incorporation should be witnessed by a third party. That the government recognize religious institutions as capable of performing so simple a task and allowing them to do so should be welcome. We've enough petty bureaucrats as is.Try this as a solution. The state allows any organization to act as the third party; i.e., churches, the BSA, GSA & YMCA, meat packing guilds, rock clubs, miniature dog breeding associations, quilting bee circles, petty bureaucrats, ect. These institutions would devise any ceremony they thought appropriate to make witness to the signing of a certificate of incorporation. Parties A & B then take the certificate to a state register of such certificates and enter said on the books as a marriage between parties A and B. The state register officer would not file the certificate if either party was being held in a crossface chickenwing, arm-hook sleeper, full nelson or purple nurple.

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It's not the man that knows the most that has the most to say.

Which is moot, because churches are already not required to perform ceremonies for people of other religions. The separation of church and state protects religions from government interference - you can;t force a Catholic Priest to marry a pair of Atheists, so the argument that they'd be forced to marry a gay couple is simply absurd.No provision is even necessary, but I certainly wouldn't object to leaving such a statement in to assuage the deluded, like our dear Hyro here.

You know, given that there are rather militant elements in the gay rights movement, it might not be a bad idea to make it clear that they can't force it on religions that don't accept it yet. In addition to the element of comforting the squeamish.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. -- Thomas JeffersonFor we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Had I picked woman/woman for my example I'm sure the point would be missed equally as well.- Which was kind of the point of my post: the nonsense that occurs when you start fooling around with words because you think by doing so you'll advance your agenda. You'll now no doubt agree that there is no reason to have husband/wife in a hetrosexual marriage. Both parties can be husband. Both parties can be wife. Hell! Both parties can be 'husbands' on even week numbers and 'wives' on odd.I might as well add, at this point, that I've no absolute objection to gays getting married and calling it marriage, husband+husband etc. Whilst I think it is damaging for society and I would prefer that society not be damaged so, I don't think gays getting married in anyway means they are (in the sense of their conforming to an institution set up and blessed in particular fashion by God) actually married.I might as well object to people who aren't Christians (as defined by God) calling themselves Christians.- A cultural significance which you insist on making a nonsense of (as outlined above and in my original post).Some of those cultural significances might revolve around producing biological offspring (which, nature tells us, tends towards producing stronger ties than non-biological relationships). They might also revolve around balances that can be found when men bring what men have to offer to the table and women what women have to offer. That a man be sexually attracted to another man doesn't make either of them a woman (in the traditional, unaltered sense of the word)When a minority grouping decides they want the world, and all it's role modelling turned upsidedown in order that they can clamber on board (and in so clambering, alter the world and it's role modelling) then they should have no reason to object to the fact of resistance.- I wasn't so much referring to 'rights' in the sense that I have the right to call day, night. It was 'rights' in the sense that society must take me seriously and jump through hoops to protect the notion of night having all the attributes of night (formerly called day).- I suppose we could argue things with an eye on the Constitution as if that was some absolute decider of things (it was decided upon by men and can be altered by men - provided sufficient men decide so).My way of seeing things considers a child to have a right to be raised by it's biological parents. Whilst the State cannot force such a situation, it can encourage such a situation and dissuade deviance from that situation. Gay marriage leads to gay parenting leads to denial of the above rights. Edited by iano, : No reason given.

You won't have to argue with me that marriage should be defined as a basic right, because as of now it is unenumerated. Loving v Virginia still does not get at the heart of the issue. That's dealing with race, not gender. That same-gender wants to marry is what is the problem, as marriage is defined as being between a man and woman.So either take my proposal or redefine marriage are the only real decisions. Yes, of course it is. But my sole intention is that unless one wants to get around these legal pitfalls, a new amendment needs to be drafted just like they did with race. That's because it is too ambiguous. Surely you know that to be true otherwise SCOTUS would have made it a Constitutional right by now if it were so clear cut. The fact that the States are left for themselves to decide, through popular vote, only strengthens my assertion.Again, I don't like it. I think it ought to be recognized as a fundamental right of free people to marry if that is their desire, but there has to be something more concrete. I also have no doubt whatsoever that one day soon that is exactly what is going to happen. You are forgetting the qualifier here. If marriage is legally defined as a being between one man and one woman, then it isn't a matter of Equal Protection. That's the real reason why they created DOMA; for the qualifier. Is it bullshit? Fuck yeah it is, but I'm telling you. As soon as we get religion out of the government, you won't see any problems. You want specific cases, like Romer v Evans? What is it going to prove in light of what you state below; that the SCOTUS is susceptable to human emotion? Or we unable to read the Coonstitution for ourselves our must Justices read it for us? It is a fact that marriage of any kind, if it is a right, is unenumerated. Why? Because they probably had no idea something like this would come up. Are you against having it enumerated so that we never have to point to other cases by proxy? They only hear cases that they feel cannot reasonably be interpreted by a lesser court. What of it? Loving v Virginia could be construed as immaterial and irrelevant on the basis that it is entirely a different perspective and qualifier altogether. Why focus on an obscure and ambiguous equal protection clause, which could very well be inclusive to just about anything because of its ambiguity, when an entirely new amendment be drafting and thus settling this nonsense once and for all? Yep. Liberal versus conservative, just like the real world. It's all a matter of interpretation when it is not clearly enumerated. So why not make it unambiguous?

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"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." --John Adams

Huntard responds to me:

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Any idea what the current text in the law syas regarding marriage?

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Depends on where you live. In the United States, marriage is regulated by the states, not the federal government. Most states define it as only between mixed-sex couples while some have extended it to same-sex couples. There is a federal law, known as the "Defense of Marriage Act" or "DOMA" (defending it from people who want to get married, apparently), that says the federal government will not recognize same-sex marriage (for all sorts of legal issues from taxes to insurance to immigration rights to social security benefits...more than 1000 federal rights alone) and that other states do not need to recognize the same-sex marriages licensed by other states (in direct violation of the "Full Faith and Credit" clause of the Constitution).Recently, Texas passed an amendment to its constitution attempting to ban same-sex marriage...and in the process banned all marriage. The amendment reads: That's it. That second clause, however, means that marriage is illegal in Texas. Marriage is only between a man and a woman and is not recognized by the state.

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There's absolutely no legal consequence, but I'm guessing the church will view them as "married", right?

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Depends upon the church. Some churches who have...well, let's call it "issues" with the government won't really care. Others, who tend to be more mainstream and want to maintain their full influence with the government, will insist that the contract be made legal.Now, it doesn't always go the other way. Divorce is legal but the Catholic church doesn't recognize it. You have to get your marriage annuled (it's how Rudy Giuliani managed to get married a second time in the church...he had his marriage to his cousin annuled.)

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Yep, that's the way it is here, except that a priest can't sign the document.

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It's one of them "traditions" we have and there's no real issue with it here. Captains of ships have the ability to do it (my best friends were married by the captain of the ship as they had their wedding on a harbor cruise ship.) You can also go online and become appropriately bestowed the ability to marry people...many people want to have someone specific marry them and this allows them to do it.The paperwork still needs to be filed with the clerk (and you still need a witness to the wedding, which I was happy to sign for my friends), but the legal system is a little less strict about who gets to be the official signatories.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

I actually addressed all of the arguments you laid out here in my message 56 above. In essence, all you did was say, "nuh uh!" If you're going to ignore what I say, there's little point in my participating.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. -- Thomas JeffersonFor we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat