Gay Marriage: Should It Be Allowed?

I could write a 1000 word reply or I can simply say: why are we debating such a trivial topic in the midst of all of the very real, very serious problems facing humanity today? Wars, damage to the enviornment, a general lack of humanity in many parts of the world...and I should concern myself with the sexual practice of any given group of consenting adults?

I saw all the power to them and less power to those who dispute one man or woman's right to live as they see fit.

 

All kidding aside (Grim, I did get the point but I thought the wry reference was amusing, lol), this is a very serious issue because the conversation is not about preference for sexual practice but the desire for the significant financial benefits bestowed upon a legally married couple. I'm not taking sides either way, but I'll guarantee that you'll see the "gay" population jump exponentially if gay marriages are permitted without some thoughtful checks and balances because of more inherent opportunities for fraud. If you think this is fiction, just ask anyone about the length people are willing to go through for "rent control" housing in New York City. At the end of the day, the taxpayers could be funding a double digit percentage of the population who are in a sham relationship for the benefits. This is a complicated issue of rights and an appropriate system.

 

I don't understand why this would be any more likely to happen with gay people then it would with heteosexual people?

 

This all comes down to equal protections under the law. "Marriage" is one area our Framers never really jumped into (don't imagine there were a ton of gay couples seeking the sanctity of marriage in colonial America, to challenge the common notion as to what constituted marriage), and it will be a constitutional mess to figure this one out.

Definition of Marriage

One the one hand, respecting state statutes and amendments defining marriage, it will likely be up to each state to decide what it would. The federal government has no say in how states define marriage.

Benefits for one, Benefits for All

However, the other issue - the material benefits that accord to straight married couples under the federal system, pose an obvious benefit to potential gay marrieds, should such a thing come to pass. I would imagine we will be seeing more and more constitutional challenges that speak to this, that economic benefits accrued by one should be accruable by all; and would expect the challenges to come under the Commerce Clause.

Private Business "Rights" to Segregate, Jim Crow

On the Commerce Clause, and, briefly, as to the argument that private businesses may do whatever they wish, even to the point of a return to Jim Crow, white supremacy and segregation: Hogwash. We are not a confederacy, we are a federal system; and the central government is not subordinate to state power with respect to the civil rights of its citizenry. Under that federal system, no individual living within our land may be subjected to practices prejudicial to their rights as free and equal citizens.

* Constitutionality

Those who would return to the days of segregation and Jim Crow may look wistfully back to the shameful history since Plessy v. Ferguson (sanctifying white supremacy in the South, and the grievous stain of raw American apartheid), but through the long march to commonsense, from Powell v. Alabama (1932) through to Brown v. the Board of Education (1954) and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and, finally, in a test case challenging the constitutionality of Title II of the Act, Heart of Atlanta Motel v. the United States (1964) it was established that indeed the federal government very much has the right to exert its constitutional duty. Plaintiff's ridiculous attempt in Atlanta - which I hear voiced on this forum, unfortunately not much to my suprise - that to disallow segregation was somehow an "enslavement" or "deprivation of liberty" and so banned under the 13th Amendment, was roundly dismissed as frivolous, as it should have been; only a tortured logic would construe a racist motel wishing to ban "niggers" would be "enslaved" in violation of the 13th by being barred from discriminating against blacks (tortured as it was, it was still tried). Moreover, segregation is by definition a restriction on interstate commerce - people coming from one state are necessarily forced to choose someplace other than the place of their choice, when entering the environs of a segregationist state, and such a structure is simply unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.

Nope, you cannot tell "'dem niggers, or kikes, or orientals, or fags" or whatever other filth you would choose to believe in this respect, that they may not patronize your establishment. We are America, 2008, and have fought long and hard to come to where we are now. Separate fountains may exist in a dream, for some, but Jim Crow is irrevocably dead, consigned to the dustbin of our history.

 

I don't either. This illogic is a non-starter for me.

 

In the majority of heteosexual marriages there are children born from the union.

Sham are identified when the the participants start having children with their real partners and leave a paper trail.

 

Come again? Does not compute:

"sham are identified when the the participants start having children with their real partners and leave a paper trail."

 

OK. You got me there

Many sham marriages are identified when the participants start having children with their real partners and leave paper trails like birthe certificates and school enrollment records.

 

If you're going to ignore me, ignore me. But if you're going to respond to me, at least understand what I have written.

I don't recall anyone advocating a return to Jim Crow. Chill out.

I really don't have time to lecture you on this, suffice it to say, the government has no business telling me who to hire, who to serve, etc. If I have 100 qualified black applicants, I'm not going to hire 1 white employee to meet a quota.

And likewise, if for whatever reason I choose not to serve someone because they are gay, or male, or white, or old or whatever, that is to the deficit of my business. I have just reduced my sales, and in a socially conscious society, probably hurt my reputation by displaying my bigotry publicly.

But It's ridiculous to think that the government can mandate how I run my business. Or who I talk to. Or what I say. Or who comes onto my property. Or how much I dislike (insert collectivist group here).

A free and civilized society tolerates different views, it doesn't try to enforce particular ones. Then again, I don't have the myopic vision of humanity that the socialists, neo-libs and neo-conservatives have. I actually believe people can behave without government coercion or tyranny.

And if you want to have a conversation with me, don't make it personal. Or make up your mind, and keep pretending you have me on ignore.

 

Uh, Guerilla, you will recall that despite protesting your desire to "stay away," it was you who PM'ed me, and I will tell you again I am ignoring you; but not the gross errors of your reasoning. I'm not interested in a cross-talk, so please adopt the strategy you've used elsewhere tonight to follow me around - such as tonight's "religious/government" thread - and deal with this "progressive's" post if you will, but not this "progressive."

All others:

That is exactly what is being called for, a return to Jim Crow. And just as flatly destroyed, and rightfully so, by Supreme Court decisions I have already, specifically enumerated - the duck and cover of a segregationist establishment literally proclaiming "enslavement" under the 13th Amendment was laughably tossed; and all the rest, as I've said. "No time to lecture" because there is nothing there - the position is utterly, irrefutably, constitutionally unsupportable, as I hope I've shown.

And this issue, it seems to me, is precisely relevant to the broader concern - whether committed gay couples should, or should not, be afforded the same benefits currently given to heterosexual married couples.

 

Whatever dude.

Again, no it is not. In the public sphere, city, county, state or federal, no discrimination should exist. The government must not provide two or more levels of service based on race, religion, sex etc....

Actually, the sad thing is, the Founders believed profoundly in private property, they never envisioned that the government would get this big, manipulate the commerce clause, and start to dictate morality and social virtue to the citizens.

That sort of tyranny is absolutely un-American. This is not a nation of single party, lock step, leftist guilt. That would be a Communist country like Russia.

Why do married couples have different benefits than single people? Are not all citizens equal?

Collectivists like to argue over group rights, they like to argue for this minority group or that, thinking they are advancing the cause of civil liberty, unaware that with every intervention and exception, they undermine the principle of total and absolute respect for each individual, equally.

The Jim Crow laws were unconstitutional. There was no need for the Civil Rights Act. People merely needed to follow existing law and treat all citizens equal. Instead, the government used it as another power grab under the Commerce Clause.

Conservatives of the day were outraged, and rightfully so as the true defenders of civil liberties. The right to private property is the basis for all other rights.

 

The destruction of segregation and the destruction of the Jim Crow laws, surviving untold numbers of constitutional challenges, was precisely what I said it was: the right of the federal government, in a federal system, to assert its basic, constitutional protections to all citizens. The argument "it isn't fair" is really meritless, since the challenges were made, and destroyed, on constitutionality (as with here; it rests on the constitution). Sad as it may be to some, you do not have a right, in this land, to tell someone they can't eat at your place because they're a particular skin color, gender, sexuality. Jim Crow had its day, and lost.

To this thread, hard as it is for some to accept, society exists, and it makes laws it deems benefits society. Society deems that married couples are a good thing, hence the benefits that have thus far accrued to them under federal laws. It can be reasonably argued that the reason married couples get the tax benefits they do, for instance, is due to the probability of procreation. But this ignores the distinguishing benefits between committed singles, married couples, and married couples with one or more children. Marrieds without kids are still given incentives over committed singles - so this society values marriage. Should the argument be made, eventually, that the same beneficial result will obtain with the simple act of allowing gay couples to enjoy the legal union of marriage, so will it be; we will have it.

And I again fail to understand how here, as with so many others, from a libertarian perspective, it can be reasonably argued that two people wishing to enjoy something as fundamental as legal marriage should be barred from that, based simply on their sexuality. "Do what you will, harming no other?" Isn't this a basic premise of individual liberty?

 

No, we no longer have the right. We did, but we "lost it". Nowhere is the Federal government enumerated with the power to dictate social values. It is quite literally, the road to socialism when our government tells citizens how they can conduct their business, who they must socialize with, for how long, and under what circumstances.

There is nothing moral about a forced association.

I thought people created government, and government was by the people, for the people. Society? Does that word appear in the Constitution?

Can you point me to this in law?

So government is enumerated to favor breeders over non-breeders? Care to point me to this law?

It doesn't matter what society values. If you're going to talk Constitution, let's talk about what is enumerated, and what is left to the states. The federal government has no place dictating marriage, procreation etc. That's some sort of Orwellian-Fascist nightmare.

So gays who will be single, will receive less benefit than gays that are married, even though they can't procreate, and most mainstream religions don't accept gay marriage as acceptable.

This is a great case of when gay marriage is not really marriage, but we'll treat it like marriage, whatever that is.

Not sure who you are talking to, but you fail to understand all sorts of libertarian perspectives.

Equality as an individual is a fundamental libertarian premise. Libertarianism doesn't recognize collective groups. Married vs. unmarried. Straight vs. Gay. Everyone is an individual, and as such deserves equal opportunities, access, laws, respect and rights.

Collectivists like to talk about groups, discriminate, and create inequalities. Like the bogus defense that married couples are entitled to added benefits because "society" (as hypothetical and faceless a defense as possible) endorses it.

The strange thing about a libertarian philosophy, is that it doesn't compromise on liberty based upon what the majority thinks. It's consistent, and resistant to abuse by a manipulated, poorly informed, emotional, ignorant, fanatical etc. majority.

 

Here, as well as the government/religion thread, there is simply no support, constitutionally, for the stated position. Jim Crow wasn't ended in an attempt to legislate morality, any more than slavery itself was ended out of a deep sense of moral compassion, though that certainly lent moral force to the constitutional drive. It ended so as to ensure the constitution, legally and finally, applied to all citizens. Simple. I have provided the court cases and constitutional review leading to this proper conclusion, and simply repeating "state's rights," or any of the other erroneous lines of argument, are meritless.

It should be commonsense that society is made up of people, but I guess I'll say it - yep, society is made up of people. And in our system, we elect representatives who enact laws we deem are useful. If we don't like the laws, we can the bastards who wrote them and seek a move in another direction. In the case of marriage, tax incentives, rights to recover for the loss of a spouse (loss of consortium, probate, etc.), workers' compensation spousal rights, and many others, are legally established in our land. Bottom line, we consider marriage a good thing, and reward it with our laws. This should be apparent - isn't it?

Others should judge whether a libertarian perspective supports peoples' inherent right to marry who they wish, or whether laws barring such legal right are consistent with a libertarian perspective.

 

You do understand that the Constitution works off of enumerated powers? If a power is not given to the Federal government, by default, it belongs to the states and people. So the question is, where is the Constitutional basis for Federal involvement in marriage?

I never said it was.

Actually, they are not without merit. Your rights are preserved by government, they are not preserved on private property. In my house, I can refuse entrance to anyone, male or female, black or white, straight or gay at my discretion. Or are you saying that the government is enumerated to say who I can let in my home? Or to force me to allow anyone onto my property to exercise their religion or free speech?

A little rational thought and logic please. The Jim Crow laws had to go. But there was no need to interfere with private property laws.

As long as the laws do not violate the Constitution and are enumerated in the branch passing them, correct?

Is the right to tax income enumerated? <== Think carefully about this one.

Are federal entitlement programs enumerated? Is determining the terms and boundaries of marriage enumerated, or does it belong to the states?

You have either not been reading my posts, or there is a comprehension problem here. Libertarianism supports the idea of social contracts between two consenting adults. Libertarianism also supports the idea of civil unions.

Again, libertarians don't see collectivist groups like you do. Straight and gay. It's irrelevant. Under a libertarian government, straights and gays could get married, have sex, have children, raise dogs, buy a house, snowboard, whatever. But they couldn't expect any additional privileges or benefits from the government for being straight/gay, married/single.

Meanwhile, you endorse a system that treats gays with less rights and benefits. Because based upon your ideology, gays will only gain rights when their peers choose to recognize it in a majority, and then hope their elected representatives also vote based upon the will of their constituents (after the Dems chickening out on stopping the war, don't count on your government fulfilling the will of the minority, or majority. Government answers only unto itself). Until then, gays are unequal.

And supposedly I am for the jungle, segregation and end of civil society. lmao

Weird, hunh?

Your system makes it possible that gays will never be equal, or makes it possible for a majority to later take away their rights because a majority will grant those rights in the first place.

The whole idea as I understand it about the Bill of Rights, is that those are universal, absolute rights. Beyond the reach of a simple majority (50%+1) or a Congressional super majority to change or alter.

 

Here's one factor that is common only to heterosexual marriages - chances are extremely slim that a heterosexual couple will produce a natural child just to keep up a sham marriage. I do agree that in some respects the 3 year sham green card marriage does have some similarity.

 

Yes, he did.

And this was one of the challenges raised against the Civil Rights Act. It failed.

Actually, there was. The private property practices that allowed for segregation were constitutionally barred. We exist in a federal, and not a confederal, system, and the defense of "No Coloureds Allowed Here" failed, on constitutional grounds:

It should be self-evident.

 

Considering the state of the economy and immigration problems, it doesn't make sense to allo gay marriage.

Gay marriage can also be a loop hole for terrorists to enter the country.

 

VOTE: Most priceless post in DP history.

 

The civil Rights act only affected private property through creative use of the Commerce Clause.

Government cannot discriminate, but I can. That was what needed to be rectified with the Jim Crow laws. Instead, the federal government seized the right to regulate business under the auspice of enforcing a Constitution that was never created to restrict the rights, morality, thoughts or tendencies of private property owners.

Or is your rationale that it is actually illegal for a white man to not want to interact with a black man? Or a heterosexual with a homosexual?

Certainly if it is not illegal (which it cannot possibly be), then the government has no business regulating it.

Do you agree with the last line? Or do you think that the majority should rule over what is acceptable personal behavior in order for "society" to advance?