Wrong. The 14th Amendment was passed to ensure that black people enjoy the same rights as whites under the law. There is no historical precedent for same sex marriage in Anglo-American jurisprudence, nor in our culture. The judges and petty officials are making it up as they go along.
Corrected to: "There is no historical precedent for same sex marriage in Anglo-American jurisprudence,"
On Feb 23, 2004, at 6:14 PM, Nathan Hunstad wrote:
This shouldn't proceed through the courts at all. If these renegade jurists had any sense of constitutional duty, they'd sent the complainants packing - back to the legislatures - where this debate belongs.
Legislatures didn't fight for people's constitutional rights and desegregate
schools; the judiciary did.
Wrong. A citizen brought suit against the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. The judiciary did not initiate the suit.
Legislatures didn't fight for people's
constitutional rights and repeal laws against miscegenation; the judiciary
did.
Wrong. Loving brought suit against the State of Virginia to grieve a violation of Amendment Fourteen of the U.S. Constitution. See cite, Loving v. Virginia, post.
Legislatures didn't fight for people's constitutional rights and
repeal laws against consensual sexual activity between adults; the judiciary
did.
That was an overreach by the judiciary. The courts did not have authority to repeal statutes concerning sodomy. That is the perogative of the legislative branch, representing the People.
We don't live in an absolute democracy. The majority can't do whatever it
wants just because it is in the majority. When the majority tries to ignore
the basic rights of the minority, the judiciary is bound to act.
The authority of the judicial branch is limited by the constitution and the separation of powers. The judiciary operates unlawfully when it acts outside of it's constitutional authority.
<snip>
It may take a year or five or twenty, but progress is inevitable.
Towards what, exactly?
Towards equal treatment of everybody.
Ever read Harrison Bergeron?
On Feb 23, 2004, at 9:59 AM, Eric Meininger, MD wrote:
<snip>
Towards what, exactly?
Towards ending discrimination based on who an individual loves. Statutes in the city of Minneapolis make me a second class citizen by allowing me to register my relationship with my spouse but denying me the full civil rights afforded to other couples based purely on his gender. This is as odious as separate but equal racial segregation laws - which we know were never truly equal. These are rights that I don't have right now, that the majority of people on this list do.
Look Doc, the overturning of the antimiscegenation statutes concerned the marriage between a man and a women of different races: the analogy to same sex marriages is entirely false. Homosexuals are not forcibly compelled to use separate bathrooms, schools, sections of buses, medical facilities, nor are subject to literacy tests, nor poll taxes.
I repeat: there is <no> precedent in Anglo-American jurisprudence, in the United States Constitution, nor the Minnesota Constitution, nor it's laws, that sustains a view to same sex marriage. None. And you can't abrogate our representative democracy for your own interests, nor can you control the judiciary for the same.
To put the "same sex marriage is the same as interracial marriage" farce to rest, the following is from Loving v. Virginia. Before anyone reacts, READ THE TEXT CAREFULLY:
------Begin cite
[...]
The clear and central purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to eliminate all official sources of invidious racial discrimination in the States. There can be no question but that Virginia's miscegenation statutes rest solely upon distinctions drawn according to race. The statutes proscribe generally accepted conduct if engaged in by members of different races. At the very least, the Equal Protection Clause demands that racial classifications, especially suspect in criminal statutes, be subjected to the "most rigid scrutiny", and, if they are ever to be upheld, they must be shown to be necessary to the accomplishment of some permissible state objective, independent of the racial discrimination which was the object of the Fourteenth Amendment to eliminate. Indeed, two members of this Court have already stated that they "cannot conceive of a valid legislative purpose...which makes the color of a person's skin the test of whether his conduct is a criminal offense."
There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification. The fact that Virginia prohibits only interracial marriages involving white persons demonstrates that the racial classifications must stand on their own justification, as measures designed to maintain White Supremacy. We have consistently denied the constitutionality of measures which restrict the rights of citizens on account of race. There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause.
II.
These statutes also deprive the Lovings of liberty without due process of law in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.
Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.
These convictions must be reversed.
It is so ordered.
[Richard Perry Loving et ux. v. Virginia, 388 US 1 (1967), Mr. Chief Justice Warren, for the Court.]
------End cite
Douglas Gardner wrote:
Dear Ms. Young,
The Mayor received your e-mail and asked that I respond. He is very supportive of the issues of equality that surround gay marriage.
Deflected.
<snip>
Neal Krasnoff Loring Park
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