This was written by a friend of mine who is my age:
I feel I now must rant out of disappointment.
1. We are a democratic republic. Not a democracy. Our founding fathers' realized that in reality, the general public is not fit to make decisions for itself, and that the ability to give people the right to vote for action anonymously and as a group only leads to the manifestation of mob mentality. This is why we elect representatives, like the senate, congressmen, and executives.
2. They further realized that even these people might not make the right decision or do the right thing, so they set up a system for them to all be able to balance each other. Yet, know that these people might be but from a very similar cloth, they instituted a final check, the supreme courts, who were to act as agents of law to insure that nothing was done beyond the scope of power.
3. Legislators make the law, so how can courts rule about what is lawful? In reality, their job when it comes to ruling on "constitutionality". They do this by seeing if a law somehow conflicts with the "spirit" of the constitution, also called the intent.
Now onto the main point:
"Tuesday's ruling found that the proposition restricted the designation of marriage 'while not otherwise affecting the fundamental constitutional rights of same-sex couples,' as Chief Justice Ronald George wrote."
His argument is that it says that it is illegal to call the union marriage, but no other right is affected, thus constitutionality is maintained.
1. Did we not learn that separate but equal is not equal?
2. His words lead one to believe that this issue is what we call it, the word marriage. Why is this an issue? Well, seemingly because it has a religious connotation, and in our country the many of the religious sects that use this word also believe that same sex marriage is immoral. Well, if that is the case allow me to reference something that might matter to this decision:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
The first amendment. By saying that the calling it marriage is what is illegal, you are certainly "abridging the freedom of speech." By saying that it is a religious issue and a religious union, you are certainly prohibiting the free exercise of religion. It doesn't matter, even if their religion involves only wanting to get married, as long as it does not in itself infringe of the rights of others, it is legally their right to practice is freely and without legal discrimination. So that argument certainly doesn't work.
But that argument is pointless, since something more general exists:
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
Is the right to be married one retained by the people? Is the right to call your marriage a marriage one retained by the people? Seeing as the idea behind our government is that it is one "by the people, and for the people" then a right retained by the people is one they believe that they (every person), should have. And the best way to find out if they believe this is a right is to take it from them.
Imagine if any state tried to make marriage illegal, or calling your marriage a marriage illegal. You would see the arguments I just made (freedom of practice of religion, free speech) come up so fast that the federal supreme court would overturn that ruling in a heartbeat. If people disagree, lets try it, lets remove marriage for everyone. If it doesn't remove any rights, as the California Chief Justice claims, it wont harm anyone or change anything anyway. We can all have civil unions.
But that would cause an uproar, so obviously there are some rights being denied here, yet no one will step up and say it. The president says is pro gay rights, then he is con. The Federal Supreme Court says it is not their job to decide, it is up to the states. California says its not our job, make the people decide.
Which obviously goes against the structure of our government.
Hopefully time will change people slowly, and eventually all this foolishness will stop, at least in the legal sense, but for now it appears Justice is only blind literally.
1. We are a democratic republic. Not a democracy. Our founding fathers' realized that in reality, the general public is not fit to make decisions for itself, and that the ability to give people the right to vote for action anonymously and as a group only leads to the manifestation of mob mentality. This is why we elect representatives, like the senate, congressmen, and executives.
2. They further realized that even these people might not make the right decision or do the right thing, so they set up a system for them to all be able to balance each other. Yet, know that these people might be but from a very similar cloth, they instituted a final check, the supreme courts, who were to act as agents of law to insure that nothing was done beyond the scope of power.
3. Legislators make the law, so how can courts rule about what is lawful? In reality, their job when it comes to ruling on "constitutionality". They do this by seeing if a law somehow conflicts with the "spirit" of the constitution, also called the intent.
Now onto the main point:
"Tuesday's ruling found that the proposition restricted the designation of marriage 'while not otherwise affecting the fundamental constitutional rights of same-sex couples,' as Chief Justice Ronald George wrote."
His argument is that it says that it is illegal to call the union marriage, but no other right is affected, thus constitutionality is maintained.
1. Did we not learn that separate but equal is not equal?
2. His words lead one to believe that this issue is what we call it, the word marriage. Why is this an issue? Well, seemingly because it has a religious connotation, and in our country the many of the religious sects that use this word also believe that same sex marriage is immoral. Well, if that is the case allow me to reference something that might matter to this decision:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
The first amendment. By saying that the calling it marriage is what is illegal, you are certainly "abridging the freedom of speech." By saying that it is a religious issue and a religious union, you are certainly prohibiting the free exercise of religion. It doesn't matter, even if their religion involves only wanting to get married, as long as it does not in itself infringe of the rights of others, it is legally their right to practice is freely and without legal discrimination. So that argument certainly doesn't work.
But that argument is pointless, since something more general exists:
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
Is the right to be married one retained by the people? Is the right to call your marriage a marriage one retained by the people? Seeing as the idea behind our government is that it is one "by the people, and for the people" then a right retained by the people is one they believe that they (every person), should have. And the best way to find out if they believe this is a right is to take it from them.
Imagine if any state tried to make marriage illegal, or calling your marriage a marriage illegal. You would see the arguments I just made (freedom of practice of religion, free speech) come up so fast that the federal supreme court would overturn that ruling in a heartbeat. If people disagree, lets try it, lets remove marriage for everyone. If it doesn't remove any rights, as the California Chief Justice claims, it wont harm anyone or change anything anyway. We can all have civil unions.
But that would cause an uproar, so obviously there are some rights being denied here, yet no one will step up and say it. The president says is pro gay rights, then he is con. The Federal Supreme Court says it is not their job to decide, it is up to the states. California says its not our job, make the people decide.
Which obviously goes against the structure of our government.
Hopefully time will change people slowly, and eventually all this foolishness will stop, at least in the legal sense, but for now it appears Justice is only blind literally.
No comments:
Post a Comment