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Location: By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea
68,327 posts, read 54,350,985 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AeroGuyDC
SCOTUS cannot legitimize anything in society. It can only make it legal. There's a difference between what the law will allow and what the people who make up society will allow. North Carolina told homosexuals yesterday that it will not give legitimacy to perversion.
Or maybe it just told everyone it WILL give legitimacy to knee-jerk reactive bigotry.
I am thankful, I suppose, that I'm young enough to hopefully one day experience an America where religious-based intolerance, ignorance and bigotry are relegated to the dustbin of history. This is the last gasp of the old and soon to be irrelevant.
Every time I consider leaving New York to escape the high cost and traffic, I can count on the American Taliban to change my mind.
SCOTUS cannot legitimize anything in society. It can only make it legal. There's a difference between what the law will allow and what the people who make up society will allow. North Carolina told homosexuals yesterday that it will not give legitimacy to perversion.
Indeed. But acceptance eventually comes as society progresses. For example, a year after the USSC struck down interracial marriage bans, only 20% approved of such marriages.
I certainly agree their are enough uninformed voters to go around. There are derogatory posts from all sides. I don't see how supporters of the amendment comparing gay marriage to marrying animals wouldn't be construed as derogatory as well. Whether people want to accept it or not, the passage of this amendment is rooted in ignorance and bigotry. Ignorance because people did not educate themselves on what the amendment really entails, and bigotry because the campaign focused on getting people worked up over the gay marriage issue and pandering to all the negativity and divisiveness that comes with it. Those of us who live in NC are aware of the tactics used to obscure the truth about this amendment. You may view terms like stupid and bigotry as harsh, but the truth isn't always pretty. Had the contents of the amendment been spelled out in plain language for more people to really understand how it would affect anybody who's not legally married (not just gay people), I have no doubt the outcome would have been different. A lot of uniformed people turned out to vote for something they didn't understand at all, thinking that they were voting against gay marriage. And the result will affect countless people, not just the gay people they don't approve of. That's the bottom line.
The agents of ignorance and bigotry get um young in NC:
I doubt the NC constitutional amendment can withstand legal challenge in the U.S. Supreme Court. Then again, the Court is a right-leaning activist court ... and I may have misjudged the outcome.
Right leaning "activist" court? PLEASE .... the court is conservative by 1 justice, and it's the foundation of "conservative" ideology to adhere to the language of the constitution .... the left are the "activists" who continue to re-interpret the plain language of the constitution.
In any event, what would be your grounds for a constitutional challenge? I'm really interested to know ... because I just can't find a legitimate one.
And before you say the 14th Amendment and cite the "equal protection" clause, there is nothing there to hang your hat on.
The equal protection portion maintains that no state may "...deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws". And this is where people get extremely confused ... "equal protection", with the operative term being "protection", simply maintains that the laws must be applied equally to all citizens .... which would prohibit a state from selectively denying protection to certain individuals. But this has nothing to do with guaranteeing equal distribution of benefits ... if it did, every affirmative action implemented over the past 40 years would be unconstitutional ... every benefit extended to one of the special class of citizens based on ethnicity, race or gender would be a direct violation ... and any benefit offered one group would have to be extended to all people .. but that's just not the case.
Right leaning "activist" court? PLEASE .... the court is conservative by 1 justice, and it's the foundation of "conservative" ideology to adhere to the language of the constitution .... the left are the "activists" who continue to re-interpret the plain language of the constitution.
In any event, what would be your grounds for a constitutional challenge? I'm really interested to know ... because I just can't find a legitimate one.
And before you say the 14th Amendment and cite the "equal protection" clause, there is nothing there to hang your hat on.
The equal protection portion maintains that no state may "...deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws". And this is where people get extremely confused ... "equal protection", with the operative term being "protection", simply maintains that the laws must be applied equally to all citizens .... which would prohibit a state from selectively denying protection to certain individuals. But this has nothing to do with guaranteeing equal distribution of benefits ... if it did, every affirmative action implemented over the past 40 years would be unconstitutional ... every benefit extended to one of the special class of citizens based on ethnicity, race or gender would be a direct violation ... and any benefit offered one group would have to be extended to all people .. but that's just not the case.
So, you can't have your cake and eat it too.
By that same "logic" interracial marriage bans don't violate the 14th Amendment either.
Right leaning "activist" court? PLEASE .... the court is conservative by 1 justice, and it's the foundation of "conservative" ideology to adhere to the language of the constitution .... the left are the "activists" who continue to re-interpret the plain language of the constitution.
In any event, what would be your grounds for a constitutional challenge? I'm really interested to know ... because I just can't find a legitimate one.
And before you say the 14th Amendment and cite the "equal protection" clause, there is nothing there to hang your hat on.
The equal protection portion maintains that no state may "...deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws". And this is where people get extremely confused ... "equal protection", with the operative term being "protection", simply maintains that the laws must be applied equally to all citizens .... which would prohibit a state from selectively denying protection to certain individuals. But this has nothing to do with guaranteeing equal distribution of benefits ... if it did, every affirmative action implemented over the past 40 years would be unconstitutional ... every benefit extended to one of the special class of citizens based on ethnicity, race or gender would be a direct violation ... and any benefit offered one group would have to be extended to all people .. but that's just not the case.
So, you can't have your cake and eat it too.
I see.
This is exactly the argument the state of Virginia made in 1967, when they pointed out that everyone was equally free to marry anyone of the same race in the state of Virginia, during oral arguments for Loving v. Virginia.
Let me quote from the unanimous 9-0 decision in that case:
Quote:
...the State argues that the meaning of the Equal Protection Clause, as illuminated by the statements of the Framers, is only that state penal laws containing an interracial element as part of the definition of the offense must apply equally to whites and Negroes in the sense that members of each race are punished to the same degree. Thus, the State contends that, because its miscegenation statutes punish equally both the white and the Negro participants in an interracial marriage, these statutes, despite their reliance on racial classifications, do not constitute an invidious discrimination based upon race.
So, if you would, please confirm that you agree with the state of Virginia that interracial marriage bans should never have been struck down. Or, alternately, feel free to do you best to distance yourself from the position you've taken.
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