Prop 8?

@littlek,

Here in San Diego there were even fist fights between neighbors over prop. 8.
Anyone who had "NO on 8" signs out there was vandalized or the signs were
ripped of. I couldn't believe how intolerant people are when it comes to gay marriages.

Quote:

A Carlsbad man accused of punching an elderly couple because they had Yes On Prop 8 signs in their yard says he's innocent.

Thursday, Lawrence Pizzicara pleaded not guilty to attacking his neighbors on Monday allegedly during an argument over Prop 8 signs.

The couple suffered numerous injuries.

Pizzicara is being held on $200,000 bail.

0 Replies

@Debra Law,

Debra Law wrote:

...Under our system of government...

Well, look folks. You've made it clear before that you don't give a damn about the will of the people and prefer to have laws passed by liberal courts. Why don't you try to have the three state votes nullified by a court - maybe pretend that it violates the national constitution, since gay marriage was so obviously on the Founders' minds in the 1780s?

2 Replies

@Brandon9000,

Quote:

maybe pretend that it violates the national constitution, since gay marriage was so obviously on the Founders' minds in the 1780s?

Good point, especially since the purview of the constitution should cover only those things that were on the minds of the Founders in the 1780s.

1 Reply

9000,

History disagrees with you, ancient societies had homosexuals living quite openly. Homosexuality became largely criminal when Rome adopted Christianity. Additionally, groups like the druids etc had the practice of same sex marriage. I only bring that up because Christians are attempting to define something that has been around longer than Christianity. Further, this proposition actually hurts religious freedom because not all religious views define marriage this way.

Science disagrees with you to. Homosexuality exists in many pack animals as well, and while it brings no inherent breeding benefit, pack animals all benefit from defending each other etc. Additionally, you argument is one about procreation and not civil interaction. If gays aren't privilege to marriage, then why are heterosexuals privilege to it? You don't have to be married to breed right?

Your argument is full of holes-made of holes.

T
K
O

2 Replies

@Brandon9000,

Brandon9000 wrote:

Debra Law wrote:
...Under our system of government...

Well, look folks. You've made it clear before that you don't give a damn about the will of the people and prefer to have laws passed by liberal courts. Why don't you try to have the three state votes nullified by a court - maybe pretend that it violates the national constitution, since gay marriage was so obviously on the Founders' minds in the 1780s?

Brandon:

Your statements above demonstrate that you have showered yourself in ignorance. That's not acceptable.

From the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 to the present, millions of our countrymen (and women) have sacrificed their lives and their limbs for FREEDOM from tyranny. An ocean of blood was shed on the bloody battle fields of the Revolutionary War and is still being shed in two wars in the Middle East. Unless you are willing to pronounce that our brave and nobel warriors have shed their blood for naught, then you owe it to them to learn the basic concepts upon which this country was founded and for which we fight to preserve.

Our government was not designed by our founders to be a pure democracy where "the will of the people" prevails regardless of what that "will" may be. In a pure democracy, 51 percent of the people (a majority) is capable of forming a coalition for the purpose of oppressing the remaining 49 percent of the people. However, coalitions of people always shift. One day you might be the beneficiary of a majority coalition, but the next day you could be in the minority.

One day you could be the smug man who holds the torch and lights the fire that burns your fellow citizen at the stake because the majority declared her to be a witch. The next day, however, you won't be so smug when they drag you to the stockade to await your own witch trial. In the absence of checks and balances, the basic rights of individuals (to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness) can never be secure from tyranny and oppression in a climate of shifting winds and fires.

Our founders understood that freedom can be lost in many ways, not just at the hands of an oppressive and tyrannical dictator. Individual rights can be lost at the hands of the majority. To protect and secure ALL the people of this nation from tyranny and oppression (in whatever form it takes), our founders designed a consitutional republic with checks and balances distributed among three branches of government. The judicial branch of government is our last bastion of hope and liberty that stands between the individual and the government.

Don't take my word on the foregoing. Read the Federalist Papers. Jump ahead to the Federalist No. 51:

The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks and Balances Between the Different Departments

Quote:

It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure….

In a free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights….

Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger; and as, in the latter state, even the stronger individuals are prompted, by the uncertainty of their condition, to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves; so, in the former state, will the more powerful factions or parties be gradnally induced, by a like motive, to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful….

http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fedpapers.html

Thus, our Founders recognized that the very essense of the REPUBLICAN CAUSE is security for civil rights and justice for ALL: the weaker as well as the more powerful. It is that security and protection that is our birthright as Americans and it will forever be pursued by the weaker classes of persons in civil society until it is obtained. Our republican form of government was designed to enable the liberty interests of the minority to be secured and protected against the injustices of the majority.

If it were not for those damn "liberal" Founders and all those damn "liberals" who came after them who have fought, bled, and died for the security of civil rights for all individuals, we would NOT live in the greatest nation on earth. YOU would not be the beneficiary of the freedoms that you enjoy today. Therefore, when you foam at the mouth and blast the "liberal" courts when they fullfill their designed role and enforce the civil rights of minorities, you are demeaning all of our brave warriors who gave their lives and limbs to create our special form of government and to secure your individual rights.

0 Replies

@Shapeless,

Shapeless wrote:

Quote:
maybe pretend that it violates the national constitution, since gay marriage was so obviously on the Founders' minds in the 1780s?

Good point, especially since the purview of the constitution should cover only those things that were on the minds of the Founders in the 1780s.

My point is that one shouldn't claim that the document says things that it doesn't actually say, and that the authors absolutely didn't intend for it to mean. Since you probably don't give a crap about the integrity of the Constitution, I expect that you have some snappy comeback.

1 Reply

@Diest TKO,

Diest TKO wrote:

9000,

History disagrees with you, ancient societies had homosexuals living quite openly. Homosexuality became largely criminal when Rome adopted Christianity. Additionally, groups like the druids etc had the practice of same sex marriage. I only bring that up because Christians are attempting to define something that has been around longer than Christianity. Further, this proposition actually hurts religious freedom because not all religious views define marriage this way.

Science disagrees with you to. Homosexuality exists in many pack animals as well, and while it brings no inherent breeding benefit, pack animals all benefit from defending each other etc. Additionally, you argument is one about procreation and not civil interaction. If gays aren't privilege to marriage, then why are heterosexuals privilege to it? You don't have to be married to breed right?

Your argument is full of holes-made of holes.

T
K
O

Ignoring that for the moment, what about the will of the people as expressed in their votes? I'm assuming that having the courts override democratic votes by claiming that the law says things that it doesn't say is your preferred mode of government?

2 Replies

@majikal,

majikal wrote:

Debra, I ask you because you're very well versed in law (a practicing attorney i would assume), whats next? Where does CA go from here, in a legal sense?

Your assumption is wrong. I'm not a practicing attorney. I retired a few years ago. On occasion, I research and write motions and briefs for local attorneys mainly in the area of criminal defense. I've been involved in many interesting issues involving constitutional issues and recently wrote a successful brief that persuaded a court to declare a state statute void for vagueness. I recently wrote motions and briefs on three other matters involving the Fourth Amendment that are currently pending. Mostly, however, I assist my husband in our retail business, manage my family mineral trust, take care of my home and cats, and enjoy considerable amounts of free time that allow me to pursue my interests.

Legally, there are many varied steps that members of a class may take to fight discrimination in our state and federal courts. Those efforts may or may not be successful depending on the skill of the attorneys involved and how they develop their legal arguments. The problem here is that the California Supreme Court recently reviewed the issue of discrimination against gay couples under the equal protection clause in the STATE constitution. In May 2008, the CA Supreme Court declared that "separate but (allegedly) equal" civil unions for gay couples were, in fact, NOT equal and did not satisfy the equal protection clause. The civil right to marry must be afforded to all couples (heterosexual and homosexual) on an equal basis.

Because a coalition of people would not accept that the state must constitutionally afford equal protection of the laws to ALL people in the state, they sought to AMEND the state constitution to make it LEGAL for them to discriminate against gay couples. In California, it is not difficult to AMEND the constitution. You gather the requisite number of signatures on a petition and place the matter on a statewide ballot. A mere majority of the voters may then vote to legalize oppression and tyranny of the minority. Given the intentions of our FOUNDERS when they designed our CONSTITUTIONAL Republic (as outlined in my previous post), California's method of amending its organic document effectively makes its STATE constitutional republic a farse. Or does it?

That said, I believe a skilled attorney may effectively argue that Proposition 8, which "constitutionalizes" discrimination, is inimical to the equal protection clause itself. In other words, the two cannot survive together in the same organic document. The people have a right to alter their form of government, and if they choose to do so, they may repeal the equal protection clause altogether and form a pure democracy rather than a constitutional republic. But, because the equal protection clause says what it means and means what it says--exceptions to the organic clause cannot be tolerated without rendering the entire clause meaningless. Thus, if the majority of the people desire to render individual life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness INSECURE and UNPROTECTED and subject to the whims of changing coalitions of people--they may do so by REPEALING the equal protection clause in its entirety. Because Proposition 8 did not repeal the equal protection clause, it may be argued that its attempt to write discrimination into the constitution is legally ineffective.

Another way to attack the results of Proposition 8 is to challenge it under the equal protection clause of the FEDERAL constitution. However, from a pragmatic sense, the people of California may wish to wait. Proposition 8 passed by a small margin. TWO-THIRDS of the young people who voted in the election voted NO on Proposition 8. This indicates that the youth of this country are more enlightened than their elders and understand that discrimination is unfair, unjust, and plain wrong. Given how easy it is to amend the CA State Constitution, in a few short years the people of CA will most likely repeal the offensive language. They should ALSO make it much harder to amend the constitution, i.e. require a SUPER MAJORITY, in order to prevent injustices like this from happening again in the future.

2 Replies

@Brandon9000,

Brandon9000 wrote:

Diest TKO wrote:

9000,

History disagrees with you, ancient societies had homosexuals living quite openly. Homosexuality became largely criminal when Rome adopted Christianity. Additionally, groups like the druids etc had the practice of same sex marriage. I only bring that up because Christians are attempting to define something that has been around longer than Christianity. Further, this proposition actually hurts religious freedom because not all religious views define marriage this way.

Science disagrees with you to. Homosexuality exists in many pack animals as well, and while it brings no inherent breeding benefit, pack animals all benefit from defending each other etc. Additionally, you argument is one about procreation and not civil interaction. If gays aren't privilege to marriage, then why are heterosexuals privilege to it? You don't have to be married to breed right?

Your argument is full of holes-made of holes.

T
K
O

Ignoring that for the moment, what about the will of the people as expressed in their votes? I'm assuming that having the courts override democratic votes by claiming that the law says things that it doesn't say is your preferred mode of government?

By taking a civil term such as "marriage" and defining unnecessarily in the state government, the state of CA (and other states) now must somehow rationalize how this does not impair on the rights of the minority. How can CA reconcile the marriages of gay couples from Maine who move to CA? Their are issues here for the federal courts, it's not just there because people didn't like it. It's questionably constitutional and raises larger issues about freedoms and second class citizenry.

I would like you to respond to all of my previous points 9000.

T
K
O

1 Reply

@Debra Law,

Well put.

T
K
O

0 Replies

@Debra Law,

Quote:

Given the intentions of our FOUNDERS when they designed our CONSTITUTIONAL Republic (as outlined in my previous post), California's method of amending its organic document effectively makes its STATE constitutional republic a farse. Or does it?

NOTE:

United States Constitution, Article IV, Section 4.

The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.

_________

The core tenets of a republican form of government (discussed at length in the Federalist Papers) embody equal protection of the laws for all persons and checks & balances to protect and secure individual civil rights from tyranny and oppression by the majority.

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@Brandon9000,

Quote:

I'm assuming that having the courts override democratic votes by claiming that the law says things that it doesn't say is your preferred mode of government?

Is caricature the only form in which this conversation can happen? I can do no better than to quote you, Brandon:

Quote:

I argued for my candidate up to the moment of the election, and now I'll support the winner. None of this stops anyone from arguing his opinions.

Just substitute "proposition" for "candidate" and you'll have described the situation here. I, for one, will support the Proposition as it stands to the extent that I will not violate it or encourage others to do so, but none of this stops anyone from having a discussion about it--a discussion that might fruitfully begin with the points DiestTKO brought up, for example. You suggested ignoring them for the moment, but given that 47.5% of Californians who voted were against Prop 8, now might be a good time for everyone to stop ignoring them.

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@Brandon9000,

Quote:

Since you probably don't give a crap about the integrity of the Constitution, I expect that you have some snappy comeback.

Wrong. I care about its integrity as much as those in the past who saw fit to add Amendments to it. Like them, and presumably like you, I realize that the purview of the Constitution should not be restricted to what the Founders had in mind in the 1780s. Whether or not one agrees with proposed amendments, one does not have to believe that a proposed amendment is necessarily equal to desecrating the Constitution. A discussion can proceed a little more intelligently than that if the participants are willing.

1 Reply

@Shapeless,

Shapeless wrote:

Quote:
Since you probably don't give a crap about the integrity of the Constitution, I expect that you have some snappy comeback.

Wrong. I care about its integrity as much as those in the past who saw fit to add Amendments to it. Like them, and presumably like you, I realize that the purview of the Constitution should not be restricted to what the Founders had in mind in the 1780s. Whether or not one agrees with proposed amendments, one does not have to believe that a proposed amendment is necessarily equal to desecrating the Constitution. A discussion can proceed a little more intelligently than that if the participants are willing.

No, I wasn't talking about amendments. I was referring to court decisions which assert that the national Constitution or a state Constitution say things that they absolutely do not say. Typically, such interpretations claim that very vague language means something very specific which the authors clearly didn't intend.

0 Replies

@Diest TKO,

Diest TKO wrote:

By taking a civil term such as "marriage" and defining unnecessarily in the state government, the state of CA (and other states) now must somehow rationalize how this does not impair on the rights of the minority. How can CA reconcile the marriages of gay couples from Maine who move to CA? Their are issues here for the federal courts, it's not just there because people didn't like it. It's questionably constitutional and raises larger issues about freedoms and second class citizenry.

I would like you to respond to all of my previous points 9000.

T
K
O

You haven't shown that gay marriage is a right in the first place. We need not grant people a government endorsement of anything they may wish to do.

2 Replies

@Brandon9000,

Quote:

You haven't shown that gay marriage is a right in the first place. We need not grant people a government endorsement of anything they may wish to do.

Brandon: Our founders emphatically asserted, "In a free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights."

For you to allege that people haven't shown that "gay" marriage is a right is the same as alleging that people haven't shown that "interracial" marriage is a right. Your allegation is without merit and it totally misapprehends the issue. MARRIAGE is a CIVIL RIGHT. That has been established by the United States Supreme Court. Thus, you need to focus on the classes of people who may exercise that civil right and the classes of people who may not. In our republican form of government, a civil right CANNOT be denied to an entire class of people unless doing so serves a COMPELLING legitimate government interest and the means used are narrowly tailored to serve that interest. In this matter, we have two comparable classes of people:

1) Committed adult heterosexual couples who desire to marry; and
2) Committed adult homosexual couples who desire to marry.

The first class of people may freely excercise the civil right to marry, but the second class of people cannot due to the operation of our law. What COMPELLING legitimate government interest is served by depriving an entire class of people of the civil right to marry? The fact that some or even a majority of the people morally disapprove of gay couples is NEVER a justification for state-sponsored discrimination.

1 Reply

@Debra Law,

Debra Law wrote:

Quote:
You haven't shown that gay marriage is a right in the first place. We need not grant people a government endorsement of anything they may wish to do.

Brandon: Our founders emphatically asserted, "In a free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights."

For you to allege that people haven't shown that "gay" marriage is a right is the same as alleging that people haven't shown that "interracial" marriage is a right....

Everyone has precisely the same right to marry as everyone else. The questions is whether people may marry other people of the same gender. None of you have established that this right exists. I suspect that if you polled the people who wrote the Constitution - the entire convention in 1787 - that all or virtually all of them would say that the right doesn't exist. It may exist, but the Constitution is silent on the matter. Certainly many modern day voters have stated with their votes that it doesn't exist.

1 Reply

@Brandon9000,

Brandon9000 wrote:

Debra Law wrote:

Quote:
You haven't shown that gay marriage is a right in the first place. We need not grant people a government endorsement of anything they may wish to do.

Brandon: Our founders emphatically asserted, "In a free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights."

For you to allege that people haven't shown that "gay" marriage is a right is the same as alleging that people haven't shown that "interracial" marriage is a right....

Everyone has precisely the same right to marry as everyone else. The questions is whether people may marry other people of the same gender. None of you have established that this right exists. I suspect that if you polled the people who wrote the Constitution - the entire convention in 1787 - that all or virtually all of them would say that the right doesn't exist. It may exist, but the Constitution is silent on the matter. Certainly many modern day voters have stated with their votes that it doesn't exist.

You keep repeating yourself, Brandon. Yet, you are arguing from a position of ignorance. You ignore every effort to be educated concerning basic constitutional jurisprudence. Read this and try to understand the core concepts of a republican form of government:

http://able2know.org/topic/124910-3#post-3466627

Your argument that "Everyone has precisely the same right to marry as everyone else," was considered and REJECTED by the Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia. The right to marry embodies the right to marry the person of your choice. It is completely meaningless to a gay woman who is in a committed relationship with another gay woman to tell her that she can't marry the person of her choice, but she can marry a man. You continue to misapprehend the issue because you refuse to educate yourself.

The people who lived in the 1700's did not purport to be all-knowing and all-seeing. They KNEW that they could not anticipate every possible civil rights issue that may arise in the future between different classes of people. What they gave us was the organic law and the tools to deal with these issues as they arise.

Why don't you poll them and ask them what they think of the Church of Scientology? How would they react if told that two-hundred years in the future, a Sci-Fi writer will create a religion based on the "belief" that millions of years ago aliens used space ships to transport millions of undesirable citizens to earth where they were laid around volcanoes and nuked with weapons of mass destruction? How many of them envisioned that security for religious rights would embrace that particular belief?

Our Founders understood that "different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure." Our Founders did not presume to know how our civil society would evolve. However, in their wisdom they provided all future generations with the tools necessary to secure and protect the rights of the minority against the oppressions of the majority. Just like the Constitution does not allow us to discriminate against Scientologists (even though a majority of the people might think Scientology is crazy), the Constitution does not allow us to discriminate against gay couples.

1 Reply

@Brandon9000,

Brandon9000 wrote:

Diest TKO wrote:
By taking a civil term such as "marriage" and defining unnecessarily in the state government, the state of CA (and other states) now must somehow rationalize how this does not impair on the rights of the minority. How can CA reconcile the marriages of gay couples from Maine who move to CA? Their are issues here for the federal courts, it's not just there because people didn't like it. It's questionably constitutional and raises larger issues about freedoms and second class citizenry.

I would like you to respond to all of my previous points 9000.

T
K
O

You haven't shown that gay marriage is a right in the first place. We need not grant people a government endorsement of anything they may wish to do.

I don't have to. Marriage be it straight or gay is not a right. What right do straight couples have? Understand?

If you aren't prepared to defend your ideas, you shouldn't have posted to begin with. You set my statements aside, but my statements were directly in response to what you said. You brought it into the dialog, not me. It's fair game. Please address the points I originally made.

T
K
O

1 Reply

@Diest TKO,

Diest TKO wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:

Diest TKO wrote:
By taking a civil term such as "marriage" and defining unnecessarily in the state government, the state of CA (and other states) now must somehow rationalize how this does not impair on the rights of the minority. How can CA reconcile the marriages of gay couples from Maine who move to CA? Their are issues here for the federal courts, it's not just there because people didn't like it. It's questionably constitutional and raises larger issues about freedoms and second class citizenry.

I would like you to respond to all of my previous points 9000.

T
K
O

You haven't shown that gay marriage is a right in the first place. We need not grant people a government endorsement of anything they may wish to do.

I don't have to. Marriage be it straight or gay is not a right. What right do straight couples have? Understand?

If you aren't prepared to defend your ideas, you shouldn't have posted to begin with. You set my statements aside, but my statements were directly in response to what you said. You brought it into the dialog, not me. It's fair game. Please address the points I originally made.

T
K
O

You're contradicting yourself. Part of your argument was based on the idea that marriage is a right and a part of being free. You said:

Quote:

... the state of CA (and other states) now must somehow rationalize how this does not impair on the rights of the minority. How can CA reconcile the marriages of gay couples from Maine who move to CA? Their are issues here for the federal courts, it's not just there because people didn't like it. It's questionably constitutional and raises larger issues about freedoms and second class citizenry.

You cannot argue that a right or component of freedom is being denied, when you haven't established that gay marriage is a right or component of freedom in the first place. I am prepared to move on, if you like, but by refusing to prove that gay marriage is a right or necessary component of being free, you will have nullified the position you took in the above quotation. Furthermore, it's absurd to argue that every state must endorse something if any state endorses it. Finally, it's ludicrous to claim, as you seem to have, that gay marriage is a right protected by the national Constitution, since it isn't mentioned in the national Constitution and was probably never mentioned by any Founder.

1 Reply

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