I Can See This Coming
I picked this up from Google News. It is a report from the AP.
TORONTO -- Canada became the fourth country to legalize gay marriage nationwide when a landmark bill was signed into law on Wednesday.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin signed the bill, and it was read in the House of Commons and Senate, making it law. The Senate voted late Tuesday to adopt the legislation to legalize gay marriage despite fierce opposition from Conservatives and religious leaders.
The bill grants same-sex couples legal rights equal to those in traditional unions between a man and a woman, something already legal in eight of Canada's 10 provinces and in two of its three territories.
The legislation drafted by Prime Minister Paul Martin's minority Liberal Party government easily passed the Senate, which essentially rubber-stamps any bill already passed by the House of Commons, which approved it late last month.
The Netherlands, Belgium and Spain are the only other nations that allow gay marriage nationwide.
The enactment of the law comes after years of court battles and debate.
Martin, a Roman Catholic, has said that despite anyone's personal beliefs, all Canadians should be granted the same rights to marriage.
"It is a signal to the world that Canada ... believes in the notion of full citizenship for all," said Alex Munter, national spokesman for Canadians for Equal Marriage.
I can just see some of the justices on the Supreme Court licking their chops over this move from our northern neighbors. Justice Breyer and Justice Scalia engaged in a debate on C-SPAN over the relevance of foreign law in the judicial decisions of America. Scalia, for those wondering, was adamantly against such a move. Breyer was in favor of such things. Breyer’s idea is that if it is not in the Constitution, someone, somewhere, has to have decided the issue; no matter the nation the decision comes from.
Scalia, a superb justice that believes in a "dead" Constitution, as opposed to those like Breyer that believes in a "living, breathing" Constitution, believes that if the issue is not in the Constitution, then the matter is best left to the States and the people. What a ground-breaking idea! To actually let us decide something is truly revolutionary, but it requires a judiciary that leaves its paws off of those decisions. Several states have already allowed voters to decide this issue, or their lawmakers have. Every time such a decision is reached, a lawsuit steps in to prevent its implementation.
This is not how our nation works. We work by what the majority says. If the majority of people in a state wish to see gay marriage illegal, they have that right. They have that right as much as the state of Texas did when they made abortions illegal, which led to the landmark case of Roe v. Wade. Another Texas law was struck down in 2003 in Lawrence v. Texas over an old, outdated sodomy law; a matter that would have been best left to the legislature to deal with.
But that is not how the Court has been acting, and Breyer’s belief in using foreign law to interpret the Constitution is dangerously malfeasant. Our Framers never envisioned such a move, which is precisely why our Constitution—the rock solid base of our laws—was distinctly different from anything like it around the world. We were granted freedoms, enumerated by law, that no other nation had. England did not allow their citizens to personally own firearms because it was seen as dangerous to the status quo of power. No king wanted to see his populace rise against him, and be armed.
We protected our rights to privacy, though the right is not as broad as judges have interpreted. The Fourth Amendment is not a broad brush on privacy. It is explicitly precise as to where our privacy begins and ends, and enumerates the process by which the government may trump that right.
We protected the right to freely practice our religion without interference by the government. Likewise, we know our church will have nothing to do with the government. It is not the broad brush, again, that the Supreme Court ruled of a non-existent "separation of church and state."
If we are heartened by the direction the court has been taking, then remember that which I have cited above because decisions based, in part or in whole, on foreign law will have the same wacky repercussions that the above has caused. If the court stays on the same track that it is currently on, we will continue to get more of these idiotic decisions.
Justices like Breyer seem to forget that a decision rendered by the courts is seen as precedent; just as powerful as a law itself, with no recourse to repeal it. Such decisions must be overturned, which usually results in the case being remanded to the court it originated from. It does not immediately strike down anything, but the previous court’s ruling would then stand.
And now that Canada has decided that gays are allowed to marry, I am positive this issue will make its way to the Supreme Court, and those bringing it will cite the new law in Canada, in the Netherlands, in Belgium, and in Spain. In short, their entire argument will be based on a law from a different nation. Chances are the case will hail from a state that still has their ban in place, and they will cite that their Fourteenth Amendment rights have been violated.
He is the rub, and I hope this is a point that will be delivered to the judicially-inept: Marriage is not a right. Marriage is a "privilege." Were it a right, we could demand the right to marry whom we want without a refusal. We are not a draconian society with such ideas. We are a representative republic, and when the republic speaks it is time for the minority to be silent. Work to change minds, expand your numbers, and bring the issue back up, but once the majority has spoken, and that voice has been recognized, quit throwing temper-tantrums like filing lawsuits.
The Bunny ;)
I picked this up from Google News. It is a report from the AP.
TORONTO -- Canada became the fourth country to legalize gay marriage nationwide when a landmark bill was signed into law on Wednesday.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin signed the bill, and it was read in the House of Commons and Senate, making it law. The Senate voted late Tuesday to adopt the legislation to legalize gay marriage despite fierce opposition from Conservatives and religious leaders.
The bill grants same-sex couples legal rights equal to those in traditional unions between a man and a woman, something already legal in eight of Canada's 10 provinces and in two of its three territories.
The legislation drafted by Prime Minister Paul Martin's minority Liberal Party government easily passed the Senate, which essentially rubber-stamps any bill already passed by the House of Commons, which approved it late last month.
The Netherlands, Belgium and Spain are the only other nations that allow gay marriage nationwide.
The enactment of the law comes after years of court battles and debate.
Martin, a Roman Catholic, has said that despite anyone's personal beliefs, all Canadians should be granted the same rights to marriage.
"It is a signal to the world that Canada ... believes in the notion of full citizenship for all," said Alex Munter, national spokesman for Canadians for Equal Marriage.
I can just see some of the justices on the Supreme Court licking their chops over this move from our northern neighbors. Justice Breyer and Justice Scalia engaged in a debate on C-SPAN over the relevance of foreign law in the judicial decisions of America. Scalia, for those wondering, was adamantly against such a move. Breyer was in favor of such things. Breyer’s idea is that if it is not in the Constitution, someone, somewhere, has to have decided the issue; no matter the nation the decision comes from.
Scalia, a superb justice that believes in a "dead" Constitution, as opposed to those like Breyer that believes in a "living, breathing" Constitution, believes that if the issue is not in the Constitution, then the matter is best left to the States and the people. What a ground-breaking idea! To actually let us decide something is truly revolutionary, but it requires a judiciary that leaves its paws off of those decisions. Several states have already allowed voters to decide this issue, or their lawmakers have. Every time such a decision is reached, a lawsuit steps in to prevent its implementation.
This is not how our nation works. We work by what the majority says. If the majority of people in a state wish to see gay marriage illegal, they have that right. They have that right as much as the state of Texas did when they made abortions illegal, which led to the landmark case of Roe v. Wade. Another Texas law was struck down in 2003 in Lawrence v. Texas over an old, outdated sodomy law; a matter that would have been best left to the legislature to deal with.
But that is not how the Court has been acting, and Breyer’s belief in using foreign law to interpret the Constitution is dangerously malfeasant. Our Framers never envisioned such a move, which is precisely why our Constitution—the rock solid base of our laws—was distinctly different from anything like it around the world. We were granted freedoms, enumerated by law, that no other nation had. England did not allow their citizens to personally own firearms because it was seen as dangerous to the status quo of power. No king wanted to see his populace rise against him, and be armed.
We protected our rights to privacy, though the right is not as broad as judges have interpreted. The Fourth Amendment is not a broad brush on privacy. It is explicitly precise as to where our privacy begins and ends, and enumerates the process by which the government may trump that right.
We protected the right to freely practice our religion without interference by the government. Likewise, we know our church will have nothing to do with the government. It is not the broad brush, again, that the Supreme Court ruled of a non-existent "separation of church and state."
If we are heartened by the direction the court has been taking, then remember that which I have cited above because decisions based, in part or in whole, on foreign law will have the same wacky repercussions that the above has caused. If the court stays on the same track that it is currently on, we will continue to get more of these idiotic decisions.
Justices like Breyer seem to forget that a decision rendered by the courts is seen as precedent; just as powerful as a law itself, with no recourse to repeal it. Such decisions must be overturned, which usually results in the case being remanded to the court it originated from. It does not immediately strike down anything, but the previous court’s ruling would then stand.
And now that Canada has decided that gays are allowed to marry, I am positive this issue will make its way to the Supreme Court, and those bringing it will cite the new law in Canada, in the Netherlands, in Belgium, and in Spain. In short, their entire argument will be based on a law from a different nation. Chances are the case will hail from a state that still has their ban in place, and they will cite that their Fourteenth Amendment rights have been violated.
He is the rub, and I hope this is a point that will be delivered to the judicially-inept: Marriage is not a right. Marriage is a "privilege." Were it a right, we could demand the right to marry whom we want without a refusal. We are not a draconian society with such ideas. We are a representative republic, and when the republic speaks it is time for the minority to be silent. Work to change minds, expand your numbers, and bring the issue back up, but once the majority has spoken, and that voice has been recognized, quit throwing temper-tantrums like filing lawsuits.
The Bunny ;)
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 3:35 PM
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