On 28/10/2006, at 12:56 PM, jdiebremse wrote:
And what has been invented and imposed out of whole cloth here?
Is it really not obvious to you?
No, it's not.
The NJSC decision in a nutshell is that it ordered the NJ
Legislature to
either:
1) Create gay marriages
2) Create gay "civil unions" that are identical to marriages in
every
way, save for the word "marriage."
Neither of these laws existed in New Jersey prior to this decision.
But that hasn't imposed anything on anyone. If you're not gay, it
doesn't affect you. It doesn't make you you do anything you don't
want to. It simply recognises that gay couples function just the
same. It hasn't "invented" anything, it's simply extended the
benefits of marriage to all couples.
What you are arguing is that gay relationships are fundamentally
different to straight ones, aren't you?
Moreover, I am willing to venture that none of the people who wrote,
debate, or voted for the New Jersey constitution ever imagined that
the
constitution could be construed as to mandate such a requirement.
None of the framers of the US Constitution could have imagined mix
race marriages either. So what?
This is called "bait and switch" and it is inimical to the democratic
process. If one can have no confidence that the laws one votes for
mean what they say that they mean, what is the purpose of the
democratic
process? Why bother participating in democracy at all?
Why bother living in a society with gross inequality?
Some people argued that they should be entitled to the same rights in
a long term relationship as married people. The court agreed but said
it can't be called marriage. So what new law has been created?
Actually, it just said that it need not be called "marriage."
OK, "need not". So NJ recognises gay civil unions as a result of
this? So what's actually changed?
Charlie
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