California: Prohibition on gay marriage

how sad that this past but i can see some potentual issues with the ban

Firstly does your consitution put in place any provisions related to the free movement between states like Australias does?

If so how can this ban be consitutional?

if a person gets married in one state which alows gay marriage and then moves to california where its banned they would be treated differently right?

If so this posses a barrier to the free movement between states

If they wont be treated differently then what is the purpose of the ban in the first place, they just go to a different state, get married and move back

 

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The United States Consitution does not restrict movement between states. Article IV of the United States Consitution Section I is known as the "Full Faith and Credit" clause. It requires every state to recognize the laws and acts of every other state and give those acts full faith and credit.

So a marriage preformed in one state would and has been traditionally recognized by other states. However, with gay marriages states are modifying their state consitutions to forbid gay marriages. This is clearly not legal according to the consitution as it is written. But I imagine that this issue will someday in the not too distant future become an issue for the Supreme Court of the United States.

 

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A constitution is not for banning consensual behavior involving adults. They are supposed to make the law more tolerant of differences, not be a weapon of intolerance.

 

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The ACLU is challenging it in California's Supreme Court on the basis that repealing a minority right was put to vote by the majority and under California's Constitution it should have been put through a more stringent and structured course of action by the Legislature instead.

Essentially, they are saying that even if 90% of the people vote that blacks shouldn't have the right to marry - that right can't be taken away from them by a popular vote being that they can not sway the vote with their own minority numbers.
It's a human rights issue, accoring to the ACLU.

If that fails, they will take it to a referendum again in 4 years.
It failed by a much smaller margin than it did last time, and they are going to try and do the groundwork between now and then to try and convince people.

 

It's too bad that there is no requirement that a law be put to a constitutional test before it is used to ruin lives.

 

One state cannot grant more rights than another state, me thinks. I guess you'll have to "prove" you're gay in the court of law, me thinks?

 

Of course they can.
They do all the time.
Gay marriage, for example, is legal in Massachusetts.

Why?
What it bans is a man marrying a man and a woman marrying a woman.

 

In addition to the general coverage in the constitution, there are interlocking laws specifically recognizing legal marriages in other states in every state and by treaty we recognize legal foreign marriages.

Effectively gay marriage in one state is gay marriage in every state and gay marriage in any country is gay marriage in this country. Changes to the state constitution to ban it would be unconstitutional on several accounts, for instances states cannot make laws out lawing national treaties and state constitutions can't superceed the national constitution.

 

I can't believe it passed it made me so mad.(I voted no on prop 8) That people are still so discriminatory, but the fact that the margin was much smaller this time shows that people's attitudes are changing (it also might of had something to do with the record number of young voters that showed up to the polls this time around). Of course this issue is just going to go back and forth until the United States Supreme Court just makes it legal just like they had to do for other minorities or oppressed groups that wanted equal treatment under the law.

 

It was the record number of blacks and Latinos that turned out.
Both groups voted overwhelmingly in favor of prop 8.

I agree that the fact that it got so close to failing is encouraging.
I also agree that it will get to the Supreme Court before the next ten years.
If the Dems hold (or increase) control of the houses, they will likely get 2 - 3 placements in the coming few years and it has a real chance of passing through the court.

 

I know you'd think that blacks and latinos would understand what it's like to be discriminated against, but it appears that we just can't wait to do it to others. I really hope they get rid of this constitutional admendment which is blatant discrimination. To think it will be on record for ever, what an embarrassment for a progressive state like California.

 

It is a sad fact that being discriminated against rarely produces a person who can avoid the same error.

 

As I understand it, the California situation/law is not discriminating against anyone, it's just defining "marriage" as a legal union between a man and a woman. And the vote just proves that the people want "marriage" to be between a man and a woman, if gays want some other type of legal arrangement, nothing in the law says they can't live together under some legal contract ...just not "marriage".

As to discrimination, it's not such thing. A hetero male can't marry another male, a homosexual male can't marry another male. That's perfectly equal under the law. Now if gays are something other than "male", ...?

And, no, love has nothing to do with it. It's no different to how we've defined marriage in the past ...where a mother can't marry her own son, or father can't marry his own daughter. It's not discriminatory, it's legal definition of a legal contract.

Baron Max

 

There are so many problems in this world, why people should create more problems and add more complexities? Let the gays get married. Afterall, USA is not a religious country (not Islamic or Christian or any other religious state). Makes me wonder..

 

Okay, sure. But then why complicate things ....let's let mothers marry their own sons, and fathers marry their own daughters. And let's legalize polygamy, too. And perhaps, let me marry my favorite goat and sheep.

Baron Max

 

This and that

The Defense of Marriage Act, signed by President Clinton and passed by a veto-proof majority in both houses of Congress, says that states need not recognize gay marriages from other states, and prohibits the federal government from recognizing any gay marriage.

The state-level challenge of the initiative may well succeed. The purpose of the homophobes at this point is to maintain a constant litany of new laws in order to keep anything from being tested in federal court. If the state challenge fails, the next step will be to bring suit in federal court under the Fourteenth Amendment. An equal protection finding repealing California's law could well endanger DoMA.

• • •​

Here we go again.

The equal protection clause does not pertain to numbers, such as the difference between monogamous and polygamous marriages. The basis for legal challenge would necessarily be different.

Furthermore, do you ever intend to support your comparison of homosexuals to farm animals?

Oh, and do you still hold that sexual consent is inane?

 

If my goatess "presents" to me, isn't that consent?

To me, this is a seperation of church and state issue. Marriage is a religious ceremony. Some secular contract of some sort should be made available to those who want to be availed the idea of incorporation. If homosexuals want to be wed religiously, they should find a religious person with similar beliefs. The unitarian church is well known for free thinking along those lines.

 

This issue shouldn't have even been on the ballot in the first place. Most people just voted yes on the proposition because of semantics. I mean the excuses they were giving it sounded like they should have been arguing with Webster's dictionary. "Homosexual people can do whatever they want and love whoever they want and they can have domestic partnerships, we just don't want them to redifine what marriage means" This is just like Plessy v Ferguson seperate but equal, in other words it's segregation. If marriage is so sacred the government should have no say in it. Everyone should have civil unions from a legal standpoint and you get married in your church or have whatever ceremony you want.

 

Yep, but it's the same discussion, just a different title.

Gays want the right to marry because they want society to recognize, sanction and legitimize their strange, abnormal sexual desires and behavior. To me, it's as simple as that. There is no other reason that gays should wish to marry when they could have an attorney draw up a legal contract that's just as, or moreso, binding between the partners and the state.

Why should society sanction specific sexual practices with some legal document ceremony called marriage? And if they should, why shouldn't they sanction any and all other strange, abnormal sexual desires and practices in the same way? Like incestuous marriages, for example?

Support it? First, I've never, ever, compared homosexuality with beastiality. One is weird, strange, abnormal sex between same-sex partners ...the other is weird, strange, abnormal sex between a man and his animal sexual partner. See? It's not comparing the two practices at all. Those are just two different weird, strange and abnormal sexual practices, that's all.

What I have stated is that if gays should get their way, special rights, because of their weird, abnormal sexual practices, why should other weird, abnormal sexual practices not be acceptable? We could have, for example, the "Cocksucking Wives of America" legally sanctioned by the state. And maybe the "Husbands Who Love Pussy Licking", too?

Consent from my goats and sheep? Do we ask for consent before we kill and butcher cows and pigs so that we can eat them? I love my goat and two sheep, I'd never let anyone kill, butcher and eat them. Which do you think needs the attention of the "consent" argue the most?

Baron Max

 

Pursuing this case right now is stupid. What if they win? California would then, most likely, appeal to the Supreme Court which would probably overturn their win. On the other hand, if they wait a while until Obama has had the chance to name a justice or two, things might just turn out differrently.

Why do you think the right waited so long to file a lawsuit on the second amendment? We waited until we had a court we felt would find in our favor. If they win in California and they then go to the US Supreme Court and lose, they could set gay rights back 100 years. Not smart at all.