The Marriage Amendment
It was lost in the Senate, again, by a vote of 49-48. Cloture was not obtained, and it was not moved forward. It died in this vote. I was not in support of altering the Constitution for something like this. A Constitutional Amendment should only be included if it is truly necessary. This was my gripe with the idea, and it was because I believed--foolishly--that the courts would abide by what the states had decided. But as we have seen over the course of the last couple of years, the courts aren't doing that.
So, after careful consideration, I switched my position. It made sense to move forward with this solely to restrain rogue jurists from imposing "law" from the bench regarding an issue that has never been questioned before. And the wording of the proposed amendment shows that this is not banning what activists claim it is:
`Marriage in the United States shall consist solely of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.'.
The only thing that is happening with this amendment is an attempt to cut off all avenues for judges to decide that gay marriage is legal. The federal government recognizes marriages between a man and a woman. States recognize marriages between a man and a woman. Some states, during the 2004 election, passed amendments to their respective constitutions that protected this institution. The courts dug in, and continued their idea of what is right for the nation in terms of the law.
Marriage--that sacred institution where a man and a woman are joined as one entity--is not a right. We do not have a "right" to marry. We (heterosexuals) have no more right to marry whomever we desire (rather than choose) than homosexual couples do. We are not against gay people at all. Both Marcie and I have a few gay friends (she more than I). We have no problem with their choices, and it's because they don't flaunt it in our presence in public. They respect our choices as much as we do theirs. There are ways for them to basically have the same perks of marriage that married people do. There are legal choices they can make. Marriage isn't needed to have the same things that heterosexual couples have.
And as long as the courts keep blowing off the will of the people, state amendments, and injecting the "right" to gay marriage into the laws of the land, a federal marriage amendment is needed.
Publius II
It was lost in the Senate, again, by a vote of 49-48. Cloture was not obtained, and it was not moved forward. It died in this vote. I was not in support of altering the Constitution for something like this. A Constitutional Amendment should only be included if it is truly necessary. This was my gripe with the idea, and it was because I believed--foolishly--that the courts would abide by what the states had decided. But as we have seen over the course of the last couple of years, the courts aren't doing that.
So, after careful consideration, I switched my position. It made sense to move forward with this solely to restrain rogue jurists from imposing "law" from the bench regarding an issue that has never been questioned before. And the wording of the proposed amendment shows that this is not banning what activists claim it is:
`Marriage in the United States shall consist solely of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.'.
The only thing that is happening with this amendment is an attempt to cut off all avenues for judges to decide that gay marriage is legal. The federal government recognizes marriages between a man and a woman. States recognize marriages between a man and a woman. Some states, during the 2004 election, passed amendments to their respective constitutions that protected this institution. The courts dug in, and continued their idea of what is right for the nation in terms of the law.
Marriage--that sacred institution where a man and a woman are joined as one entity--is not a right. We do not have a "right" to marry. We (heterosexuals) have no more right to marry whomever we desire (rather than choose) than homosexual couples do. We are not against gay people at all. Both Marcie and I have a few gay friends (she more than I). We have no problem with their choices, and it's because they don't flaunt it in our presence in public. They respect our choices as much as we do theirs. There are ways for them to basically have the same perks of marriage that married people do. There are legal choices they can make. Marriage isn't needed to have the same things that heterosexual couples have.
And as long as the courts keep blowing off the will of the people, state amendments, and injecting the "right" to gay marriage into the laws of the land, a federal marriage amendment is needed.
Publius II
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 6:01 PM
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