Prop 8?

@Debra Law,

Quote:

Have you NOT heard of the separation of church and state that is embodied in our First Amendment?

Since when is separation of church and state in our 1st amendment? It was an idea Thomas Jefferson expressed in a letter and isn't in our constitution.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

Debra I was under the impression that you was a lawyer until now.

After reaching for my copy of the constitution I found that I was one off it was indeed the 13 not the 14 that deal with slavery HOWEVER the 14 have zero do with gender rights in fact the part of it that deal with the right to vote for male repeat male inhabitants that are 21 and citizens that had not taken part in rebellion.

And it add that rebels who had taken an oath to honor the constitution before the civil war could not hold public office without a vote of 2/3 of congress.

The last part deal with the federal government refusal to honor the Confederation war debt.

The 19 amendment gave women kind the right to vote.

I am very much aware of the sad history of oppression of women and minorities in this country. I am aware that the laws of yore relegated women to second-class citizens and failed to acknowledge that they had any legal existence separate from their husbands. I am also aware that women had to fight relentlessly to achieve the "political" right to vote. The Nineteenth Amendment stands as a monument to the success of that struggle with respect to voting rights. But you fail to understand the distinction between the "political" right to vote and "civil rights." The Fourteenth Amendment clearly and unambiguously provides the following:

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees ALL PERSONS (regardless of race, gender, etc.) equal protection under the law. It says what it means and it means what it says. Again, at the time the Fourteenth Amendment was passed, "civil" rights were viewed differently than the "political" right to vote. That's why the framers of the post-civil war amendments found it necessary to adopt the 15th Amendment which provided the following:

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Do you understand?

2 Replies

@Debra Law,

Well you can claim anything you wish to but your position is not supported by the courts concerning the 14 and some of the wordings you let out clearly show it was not a 1865 ERA amendment. The wording you so carefully edit was to allow blacks full citizenship and even there the courts did not enforce that concept under the 14.

Please take note of the word male citizen below:
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is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
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Second you should be a liitle bit more honest when you quote rulings and the consitution not to leave out text that change the total meaning of what you are trying to prove. I also love you r adding your own words right under part of the 14 so anyone reading it fast and not knowing what the 14 contain would think it is the rejected ERA amendment.

Here is the completre text without Debra added words:
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1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions

2 Replies

@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

Here is a little bit of information on that ruling that you let out for some strange reason. Shame on you Debra.

Classifaction need to be reasonable like the classifaction of men and women who as a group are able to reproduce not being the same a gay couples who can not.

In applying that clause, this Court has consistently recognized that the Fourteenth Amendment does not deny to States the power to treat different classes of persons in different ways. Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U.S. 27 (1885); Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., 220 U.S. 61 (1911); Railway Express Agency v. New York, 336 U.S. 106 (1949); McDonald v. Board of Election Commissioners, 394 U.S. 802 (1969). The Equal Protection Clause of that amendment does, however, deny to States the power to legislate that different treatment be accorded to persons placed by a statute into [404 U.S. 71, 76] different classes on the basis of criteria wholly unrelated to the objective of that statute. A classification "must be reasonable, not arbitrary, and must rest upon some ground of difference having a fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation, so that all persons similarly circumstanced shall be treated alike." Royster Guano Co. v. Virginia, 253 U.S. 412, 415 (1920). The question presented by this case, then, is whether a difference in the sex of competing applicants for letters of administration bears a rational relationship to a state objective that is sought to be advanced by the operation of 15-312 and 15-314.

SHAME ON YOU for pretending to understand. SHAME ON YOU for ignoring the very words that you posted.

The Reed case discriminated against WOMEN and denied them the right to administer a decedent's estate if a MALE family member wanted the job. Administering a decedent's estate is NOT a "fundamental right." It is however a legal privilege that the State made available to a qualified women ONLY if a qualified man was unavailable or unwilling to take the job. This was pure State-sponsored GENDER discrimination that denied to WOMEN equal protection of the law. Thus, the Supreme Court applied INTERMEDIATE scrutiny--a level of judicial review that exists between the rational basis test and the strict scrutiny test. The state has the power to discriminate against different classes of people IF the classification survives the applicable test. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

Under the balancing test known as intermediate scrutiny (which deals with classifications based on gender or illegitimacy), the State must show that the classification serves an IMPORTANT (not merely a "legitimate") State interest and that the classification is substantially (not just "rationally") related to the object of the legislation.

In Reed, the State claimed the State had an IMPORTANT interest (objective) to resolve the controversy between two or more similarly situated persons who are qualified to administer estates, and to reduce the work of probate courts, by eliminating one class of contestants. The manner in which the State chose to serve its objective, however, was INCONSISTENT with the command of the Equal Protection Clause. The State did not show that granting mandatory preference to men over women served any possible important state interest in this country where all persons similarly situated must be treated alike.

On the other hand, MARRIAGE is a fundamental right. Thus the Courts apply strict scrutiny with respect to classes of persons whom the state EXCLUDES from exercising that right. The classification must serve a COMPELLING State interest and it must be NECESSARY to serve that interest. In other words, the classification must be narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest.

YOU claim that the State has a compelling interest in WHAT? Favoring couples who are biologically capable of producing biological children? And that denying gay couples the right to marry is somehow NECESSARY to serve that interest? States have NEVER required that couples to be biologically capable of producing children in order to obtain a marriage license. That alone blows your argument out of the water. Infertile "opposite sex" couples may marry. "Opposite sex" couple who do not intend to have children may marry." "Opposite sex" couples who desire to adopt other people's biological children may marry. "Same-sex" couples are similarly situated to all those other couples who are allowed to marry, yet they are singled out for discrimination. That violates the equal protection clause. Do you understand?

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@Debra Law,

You do know Debra if you wish to grant gay couples the right to be married in the constitution the only way to do so is by amending it as even reading the current constitution upside down and adding your own words to the 14 will not do the job.

The 14 did not give women the right to vote the 19 did that and the ERA amendment that was rejected in the 60s was written to ban such things as forbidding women from servicing in the combat arms of the military.

Good luck in getting your fellow citizens to allow such an amendment to the constitution.

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@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

Debra would you also like to post a ruling of the US Supreme Court ending the ban of open homosexuals serving in the military?

Shush! Don't ask, don't tell. If you stash your sexual orientation in a closet and keep it a secret, you may serve our country. How nice.

Liberty must be won one step at a time. Your argument merely acknowledges that discrimination exists in many facets of our society, but its mere existence does not justify its perpetuation.

Quote:

Howabout the military ban on women in combat arms could you point to a ruling of the court disallowing this ban?

Women serve in the military and they are put in harm's way everyday. A combat ban based on gender serves only to deny women the necessary training they require to survive as they serve our country.

Quote:

Guess the court must consider both of the above reasonable correct Debra?

At one time, "the court" considered it "reasonably correct" to treat negros as inferior human beings. The Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson cases demonstrate that our concept of liberty and justice for ALL have evolved to include those whom we have "disfavored" in the past.

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@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

And way would that be TKO? We allow cars to be license on the assumaption that most cars will run if not all on the public highways.

We don't demand proof that a car is in running order to grant a license.

Granting a car license to a rowboat however make as must sense as granting a married license to gay couple because after all not all cars are in running order!

How dumbed down do I have to say this for you to understand?

Married people are not required to have children. IT is in no way a part of some social contract between individuals and the state.

Being that homosexuals can't have offspring with out assistance is not a reason to exclude them from marriage.

You act as if gay marriage would be a failure to meet one end of a agreement between the state and a couple. No such thing exists. Never has.

You can get married and have dozens of kids, one kid, no kids, or adopt. Your marriage's validity is completely unaffected by all.

T
K
O

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@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

Well you can claim anything you wish to but your position is not supported by the courts concerning the 14 and some of the wordings you let out clearly show it was not a 1865 ERA amendment. The wording you so carefully edit was to allow blacks full citizenship and even there the courts did not enforce that concept under the 14.

I see. So in your skewed view of the Fourteenth Amendment, women were not included within the meaning of "any person." Because women had no rights secured by the Fourteenth Amendment, I guess men could drag alleged female criminal offenders out to the nearest tree and hang them without providing them with the right to a trial? But wouldn't they be placed on trial for murder? Isn't murder generally defined as intentionally causing the death of another person? Perhaps, when you kill your wife because she refuses to kiss your ass, you can defend yourself by claiming that your state murder laws were never intended to penalize the intentional killing of women because they are not included within the definition of a "person."

You are hilarious, Bill. You ignore the first rule of construction: When the law is written in plain language that everyone understands, you do not disregard the "letter" of the law in order to pursue the "spirit" of the law. Thus, when the framers of the language said, "any person," they MEANT "any person," (and, believe it or not, the word "person" includes women) even if some of the people who ratified the language desired to exclude women.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

Well you can claim anything you wish to but your position is not supported by the courts concerning the 14 and some of the wordings you let out clearly show it was not a 1865 ERA amendment.

Oh my Gosh! You should write a letter to the United States Supreme Court and inform the justices that the Court's application of the equal protection clause in the Reed case (and to other gender cases) was improper because the language of the Fourteenth Amendment was never intended to apply to women! You should do everything in your power to correct this great injustice to mankind!

But, but . . . if it is your position that the 14th was intended to secure the voting rights of black people, why the need for the 15th? Could it be that the "political" right to vote was viewed differently than "civil" rights? Hmmmm. Food for thought for those who have the ability to think.

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@Debra Law,

Without a question women was not cover under the 14 and if you have any question concerning that view take note of the word male as in not a female in the wordings of that amendment.

That is the very reason the 19 amendment needed to be pass to grant women the right to vote. The 14 clearly did not do so.

Now is that fair or right? Who cares we are taking about the rights we have under the 14 not what is fair or right in my mind or your mind.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

Without a question women was not cover under the 14 and if you have any question concerning that view take note of the word male as in not a female in the wordings of that amendment.

That is the very reason the 19 amendment needed to be pass to grant women the right to vote. The 14 clearly did not do so.

Now is that fair or right? Who cares we are taking about the rights we have under the 14 not what is fair or right in my mind or your mind.

Well, as mentioned twice before, the Fourteenth Amendment didn't secure the right to vote for blacks either. The Fifteenth Amendment did that. So what's your idiotic point?

1 Reply

@Debra Law,

Debra Law wrote:

BillRM wrote:

Without a question women was not cover under the 14 and if you have any question concerning that view take note of the word male as in not a female in the wordings of that amendment.

That is the very reason the 19 amendment needed to be pass to grant women the right to vote. The 14 clearly did not do so.

Now is that fair or right? Who cares we are taking about the rights we have under the 14 not what is fair or right in my mind or your mind.

Well, as mentioned twice before, the Fourteenth Amendment didn't secure the right to vote for blacks either. The Fifteenth Amendment did that. So what's your idiotic point?

FYI, the Fourteenth Amendment does not grant or confer rights--it SECURES the entire universe of rights (to life, liberty, property) for ALL persons from arbitrary STATE government infringements and guarantees equal protection of STATE laws for ALL persons similarly situated.

1 Reply

@Debra Law,

The author Robert Heinlein came up with the concept of the crazy years in the 1950s where the US society would for a time go completely around the bend.

It would seem like real life had once more catch up with art and we are now entering the crazy years where black is white and we are allow to read want we wish in our dreams to be true instead of what is in front of us in black and white.

To be fair the bulk of the people are still sane but our so call intellectual class need some serious treatment on the couch of common sense.

The fourteen amendment written to clean up some of the issues remaining after the civil war is now a total rights giving amendment for any PC sub group who might wish to call upon it words. If some of the words do not happen to fit our wishes we will just pretend they are not there and if some words should be there that are not we will add them.

Heinlein chart of our future call for a backlash that ended up with a anti-science religious dictatorship if memory serve me correctly. Could be.

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California Supreme Court
Links to Prop. 8 filings:

http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/courts/supreme/highprofile/prop8.htm

1 Reply

@Debra Law,

Why can you not accept the reality that most American do not want homosexuality "normalized"?

Most Americans do not want homosexuals discriminated against either (relative to property etc...).

Why will the minority not compromise and accept civil unions?

Feel free to drop any names you want since you will refuse to argue this point?

3 Replies

@Woiyo9,

Woiyo9 wrote:

Feel free to drop any names you want since you will refuse to argue this point?

Is this the way you operate? You show up and tell someone that they refuse to address a point in which they have been addressing repeatedly then try to pose as some sort of victim?

Grow up.

T
K
O

1 Reply

@Diest TKO,

Try answering the question.

1 Reply

@Woiyo9,

Woiyo9 wrote:

Try answering the question.

What question Woiyo? There's no question that you ask that I haven't already answered in this, or any other thread about this topic.

Ask something original.

I've already answered why I believe gays should be able to marry, and what the legal basis for my stance is.

I've answered your questions.

T
K
O

1 Reply

@Diest TKO,

2 questions were posed and you answered neither. All your side tries to do is force your point of view on others. That is the problem with "your side".

Again, IMO this is not a legal issue, but a social issue.

Try to convince me otherwise as I remain open minded and objective.

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@Woiyo9,

I'm going to get bored really quick with your games here Woiyo. That's what wrong with "your side."

Since you don't care to simply read what I've already written, I'll answer you this one time on something I've discussed at great length already.

Woiyo9 wrote:

Why can you not accept the reality that most American do not want homosexuality "normalized"?

I accept that they don't want it. Do they accept that regardless of their wants, it needs to be granted? Otherwise, our notion of liberty is fraudulent.

If this is a social issue and not a legal one (which I'm not sure how it is exclusively a social one, but I'll entertain the notion), then all the more reason that the government should not be stepping in an discriminating. Why can't gays be allowed to express their love in marriage?

Marriage has no owner, no steward. Family is the same. You would have us deny these people that? For what? What do you stand to gain? What does it matter to you?

Woiyo9 wrote:

Why will the minority not compromise and accept civil unions?

How is this a compromise? The people who don't want gays to marry have to give nothing up. How is this a compromise?

Civil unions are a consolation prize issued out not for the benefit of gas, but to temper the shame of those who don't like gays, but would hate to have to acknowledge their own prejudice.

It's not a compromise.

0 Replies

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