That's a good question, actually. The government shouldn't have any control or say over what the people do... but what happens in the instance where the people are the government?ChickenSoup wrote: Where do you draw the line? I ask because we've established "keep the gummint out of marriage! You shouldn't legislate religion," but it seems to get hung up on "well, I mean, unless the people want it."
This probably won't happen unless the entire nation turns communist as based on Karl Marx's ideas. Or we become a true democracy, which history has shown, tends to fail if it gets too big (e.g. every person votes on every issue every time). But until that happens (and I hope it doesn't) we'll have to stick with what the Constitution says and how it applies to the Federal government. We are a republic, after all, bound by the laws that created this nation. And yes, there is a provision to change these laws, if the people feel that it is necessary. But we'll get to that in a moment.
If there was no financial incentive to get marriage and no laws protecting people based on their marital status, then what would be the reason to get married in the first place? From a non-religious standpoint, that is.Bruce_Campbell wrote:Here's an interesting question. Let's say the government completely backs out of marriage and leaves it to religious institutions. Where does that leave non religious folks who want to get married? Do we really want to dump all civil marriage because a (shrinking) portion of religious people disagree with who is allowed to get married?
Basically, if the only benefits of marriage are spiritual, then why would non-spiritual people want it?
More or less, you're right. About marriage, at least (I won't get into the rest of the argument about slavery, because that would be derailing even farther than we already have). If the definition of marriage is to be in the Constitution, it should be presented as a new Amendment. Personally, I don't think it should be in any way, shape or form, but I've already indicated that, so no need to hash out old arguments.selderane wrote:
If you want to enshrine same-sex pairings in the Constitution then pass a new amendment because the 14th was passed with the understanding that it extended the civil rights already enjoyed by Americans to slaves (who were by all definitions already Americans). It didn't create new rights, and was never intended to be read as having done so.
That's an entirely different discussion, but I do have to wonder if the Louisiana Purchase should have been put to a public vote since it did use finds out of the U.S. treasury. Too late to do anything about it now, though....ArchAngel wrote:Man, y'all really think that such strict construction is any way practical? Thought that should have died when Jefferson made the Louisiana Purchase.
We could have differences of opinion on how the Supreme Court rules (I can count a few cases where I think the court took the wrong decision, for example). But our opinions don't matter too much once the court issues a ruling. And the decision could be, indeed, that the case is not under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, they refuse to hear the case, and defer it back to the lower court's ruling (generally the circuit court of appeals). So you would be quite correct in your statements.ChickenSoup wrote: Actually, it is the job of the Supreme Court, among other things, to decide what is constitutional and what isn't. If, for example, it ruled that states cannot impose bans on gay marriage as it violated the 14th amendment--well, that would be completely within its bounds.
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Once again, the SC would simply be ruling on the constitutionality of state-level law, so I'm not sure where you think they've overstepped their bounds.