Quote:
Originally Posted by Protential
yup yup! on to the supreme court! A ruling from them supposedly within a year.
Time to hope that Scalia, Alito, Thomas, Kennedy, or Roberts want to randomly quit in the next year?
If all five of those guys vote along with their general political stance, it's a no-go. Thomas/Kennedy could possibly flip I guess. I think Kennedy is always the flip vote...lol But I really don't follow politics terribly close. I think Scalia would still vote "no" even if God told him to vote "yes" on gay marriage. Dude has 9 kids too...just wow.
And I took the time to reread the Constitution since I haven't really looked at it in years. I'm one of those technical guys, and personally I don't see anything explicit in the Constitution that would deem Prop. 8 unconstitutional. I think gay marriage should be allowed, but if there is a portion of the Constitution that protects gay marriage from being banned by passage of a law, I missed it. Maybe the preamble? I bolded the phrase that one could argue that gay marriage should be protected.
Quote:
Originally Posted by The US Constitution
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
For now, the constitution explicitly defends very few rights explicitly, except in some of the amendments. Hence over these issues, it pretty much becomes a liberal/conservative argument. And most laws passed shouldn't be unconstitutional since the US Constitution is terribly outdated and vague, especially to a non-lawyer type like myself. The way the Constitution is written currently; there is plenty of wiggle room to find a "no" vote on gay marriage. I would have to base a "yes" vote on a 7-word phrase on the Preamble? That really blows.
The unfortunate part is that we failed (well, I didn't because I was unborn/too young) to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment in the 70s/80s. The ERA proposed:
Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
And Emeril says BAM!, much easier gay marriage protection due to the wording of this amendment. I would think that it could pass 9-0 then, or more likely, Prop. 8 probably would have never happened. This should have been passed in the 70s, imo, and would be beneficial to this country if it was passed in the future. And of course, a gay marriage amendment would be quite useful. However, I would sadly guess neither of these would have enough nationwide support for either of these to be ratified. The Bible belt holds a few more than 12 states last time I checked.
South Africa included equal rights for everyone and clearly pointed out equality on the basis of sex clearly in their constitution in 1996, which eventually led to the acceptance of gay marriage in 2006. Heck, their Bill of Rights may be longer than our entire Constitution...
http://www.info.gov.za/documents/con...96/96cons2.htm
I chose South Africa to look at since I saw a headline today saying Ruth Bader Ginsburg (obvious "yes" vote) that she suggested that the people of Egypt follow South Africa's lead in writing a new Constitution and NOT the United States. I totally agree with her; clarity is a good thing for everyone.