riVeRraT responds to me:
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Intended and wanted are 2 different words last time I checked.
How can one "intend" to do something without "wanting" to do it?
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What if what the majority wanted directly contradicted the Constitution?
Isn't that up to the nation to figure out, not you or I alone?
But you, as the president, have a unique position where you can guide the nation by discussing the question and pointing out that the Constitution contains a very cherished right of equality before the law. You can tell the populace that there is a deep meaning to that concept and that it is not to be dismissed lightly. You could point out that we are a nation of laws and that it diminishes us all if we treat people differently under the law and that is why the Constitution, the guiding principle of our system of government, explicitly and expressly requires that all people be treated equally before the law.
You can then go on to say that nothing in the Constitution requires anybody to do anything they don't want to do. Nobody will be forced to enter into a marriage they find to be reprehensible. You can point out that the fact that the federal government does not have any problem with divorce does not mean that any religious group is required to recognize divorce. The Catholic church, for example, is well within its rights to refuse to marry people who have been divorced. The government cannot and will not interfere with the Catholic church's right to practice their religion however it wishes. The legal recognition of divorce does not alter the religious opinion about divorce and those who wish to follow a religion that does not allow divorce are not impeded.
And thus would same-sex marriage be treated. The fact that the federal government recognizes the inherent equality of all citizens, gay or straight, and thus happily provides them equal access to the legal contract of marriage will not affect any religious group in any way, shape, or form. No religion will ever be forced to perform a marriage it finds to be against its theology. The right is for citizens to be equal before the law and the law is not god.
You could point out that this requirement to protect unpopular opinions is what protects the majority opinion. If you were to succeed in writing discrimination against me into the law, what is to stop me from writing discrimination against you into the law? The only way to have a free society is to ensure that you and I are equal before the law, and that requires that the minority be protected from the majority.
And yet you would instead say that the Fourteenth Amendment is to be discarded whenever god tells you it ought to be. That equality before the law is a weakness. That morality is relative, that there are no standards, and that whatever the majority thinks is good and right and just is actually good and right and just.
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Constitution first then majority(consitution has priority over majority, intil the majority changes it). Didn't I type it that way?
No.
You originally claimed that you would fight for laws that explicitly discriminated against gay people by denying them equal access to the legal contract of marriage.
For you to then claim that you would fight for the Constitution first doesn't wash given your primary statement. You don't get to have it both ways. If you truly believe that the Constitution comes first, then you would not only fight against laws that prohibit same-sex marriage, you would be on the front lines fighting
for same-sex marriage since the Constitution requires it.
Or do you think that equal treatment under the law was a mistake?
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But the Constituion requires equal treatment under the law and thus things like same-sex marriage.
Using the words "equal treatment" and "same sex marriage" in the same sentence is a contradiction of terms.
Why is my sister allowed to marry a person I am not? How is that equal treatment? What is it about my sister that makes her capable of entering into a legal contract with this person that I lack?
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You have to define that same sex marriage is different than straight, but you also claim that it is equal.
Incorrect. I claim that same-sex marriage is identical to mixed-sex marriage. There is nothing a same-sex couple can do that a mixed-sex couple is incapable of doing. Since marriage has already been defined for mixed-sex couples, substituting "spouse" for "husband" and "wife" causes absolutely no change in marriage. No new laws need to be created.
Therefore, same-sex marriage is identical to mixed-sex marriage.
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Can you think of a single non-religious argument that can justify denying the Fourteenth Amendment's requirement of equal treatment under the law and thus same-sex marriage should be legal? Let's hear it. Let's hear this wonderful legal argument that somehow justifies treating one class of people differently under the law that doesn't invoke any sort of religious theme.
I believe I gave valid reasons for this also. are you reading my posts?
No, you didn't give a single valid reason. How would anything change if "husband" and "wife" get changed to "spouse"?
Of course I'm reading your posts. The problem is you aren't responding to my questions. Let's try it again, shall we?
Can you think of a single non-religious argument that can justify denying the Fourteenth Amendment's requirement of equal treatment under the law and thus same-sex marriage should be legal?
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If it was OK to "redefine" marriage as being between people of different races, even though the founders never considered that to be allowable, why is it not OK to "redefine" marriage as being between people of the same sex?
Because we are talking about man with man woman with woman and man with woman, which has nothing to do with race, why would you compare the 2?
Being gay is not a race. There is no race of gay people.
Yes, there is.
You can't make gay people turn straight.
But let's assume you could. By your logic, then, we should be allowed to prevent people of different religions from getting married. After all, your religion is most definitely a choice. Religion isn't a "race." It isn't something you are. It is something you adopt.
And yet, we all understand that treating religions differently under the law would be a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of equal treatment under the law.
So if interfaith marriage is protected under the Fourteenth Amendment, why isn't same-sex marriage?
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You can understand why some would find you a threat to a free society.
This is what my belief religous and non-religious is trying to protect, our freedom.
You cannot protect freedom by denying it to people.
By denying gay people equal access to the legal contract of marriage, you deny them their Constitutional rights and freedoms.
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You don't see that, because you choose not to believe in God
Since when was it determined that I'm an atheist?
You seem to think that because I don't believe in
your god, that means I don't believe in
any god. I have been extremely careful to keep my actual opinion about the existence of god out of this forum because it is completely irrelevant to any discussion. My belief or non-belief in god has no effect upon the reality of things. Two and two equal four whether I believe in god or not.
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Have you ever been approached by a gay person?
Yes.
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Has he asked to be with you?
Yes.
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Did you make a choice?
No. There was no choice involved in whether or not I would find members of my own sex sexually desirable. The fact that someone propositions me does not make me question my sexual orientation.
I didn't choose to find ice cream pleasurable. I didn't choose to find liver disgusting. That's just the way it is. For a person to come up to me and proposition me doesn't change my sexual orientation or make me question what it is. Any choice I make is in regard to indulging the proposition, not in whether I would like it. If someone offers me some chocolate cake, I do not wonder whether or not I actually like chocolate cake. Instead, the choice is whether or not I wish to have some chocolate cake knowing what I know about my likes or dislikes regarding chocolate cake.
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But the First Amendment clearly indicates that religious justifications have no place in government.
So why are you bringing it up?
Because this is a forum(not the government) where people state their opinions, reguardless of what you think it should be.
But we're talking about the government. Therefore, we are necessarily constraining the discussion to the ways in which the government must behave given the constraints imposed by the Constitution.
Your statements are that you think the Constitution can be discarded if your god tells you to do so.
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I am being asked to give tax dollars to support such an issue.
But you already give tax dollars to support marriage. What would change by allowing people to get married? If you have two men and two women, how is the tax burden altered if the couples pair off boy/girl, boy/girl rather than boy/boy, girl/girl?
If you're going to complain about your taxes, then your argument is not against same-sex marriage...it is about
marriage. Married couples routinely come out ahead in the area of money (the "marriage penalty" on income tax is more than set off by the tax breaks allowed to move taxable income to the spouse who is at a lower tax bracket, the ability to have your spouse covered under your employer's insurance, inheritance tax breaks that only next-of-kin such as a spouse can utilize, etc., etc.)
If you really want your taxes reduced with regard to marriage, then you'd be against marriage and would insist that the tax burden be distributed equally among all players regardless of marital status.
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Because I want a clarification between the 2 different kinds of marraige
But there are no different kinds of marriage. There is simply marriage and it is irrelevant what the sex of the partners are. Denial of gay people to equal access to the legal contract of marriage is contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution. There is no difference.
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never said I fight a law that would grant equal access to marraige of people of the same sex.
Yes, you did. Do you really need me to go looking for it?
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What if I want to marry a lamb? Would I be covered?
No. Marriage requires the ability to give consent. Animals cannot give consent, therefore there can be no marriage between humans and animals.
And I would like to ask: How does same-sex marriage lead to bestial marriage any more than mixed-sex marriage does? What is it about changing "husband" and "wife" to "spouse" that automatically leads to "animal"?
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What if i wanted 3 wives?
Non sequitur. Changing "husband" and "wife" to spouse causes absolutely no change in the administration of the legal contract of marriage. Changing the number of people involved in a marraige, however, does require laws to be changed.
The contract of marriage provides exclusive rights to the spouse. Suppose you were to become incapacitated and were hospitalized. If you are not married and in the absence of a living will, your parents have the right to decide what to do.
If you get married, that right gets taken away from your parents and is given to your spouse. Your spouse now has exclusive rights to decide what to do.
If you were to have two spouses, which one has that exclusive right?
Now, we may come up with a perfectly acceptable answer to that question, but the fact that we have to ask the question in the first place shows that polygamous marriages require different legal administrations compared to monogamous ones.
But changing "husband" and "wife" to "spouse" requires no other alterations in any other law.
You seem to have the arrow backwards. You are saying that because heterosexual people can do things that homosexual people can't (have children where the two married people are the biological parents with no other source of DNA), that means that mixed-sex marriage is different from same-sex marriage.
Instead, you need to go the other way. There isn't anything a same-sex couple can do that you don't find mixed-sex couples doing. We don't deny marriage to infertile people. They adopt children. We already have laws in place regarding the custody of adopted children when a mixed-sex couple divorces. We already have laws in place regarding the custody of sperm-donor or egg-donor or surrogate children when a mixed-sex couple divorces. Since a same-sex couple will fit precisely into one of the scenarios we already find mixed-sex couples in, we would simply follow the exact same laws that apply to mixed-sex couples...simply change the words "husband" and "wife" to "spouse."
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Also you need to go look up the word spouse and see why that word wouldn't work either.
Of course it would. The word "spouse" simply means "married person." It makes no distinction with regard to sex. "Husband," on the other hand, means "married male" and "wife" means "married female."
By removing the obsession with the sex of the partners involved in the marriage, we do not change marriage. We simply stop obsessing about something that is irrelevant.
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Spouse is plural of spouse
Incorrect.
The plural of "spouse" is "spouses"...though I am partial to "spice," myself.
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!
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