Federal Marriage Amendment

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I of course am opposed. I can't say which is a dumber misuse of the Constitution, this or the flag burning amendment. As long as the Republican party keeps putting out idiotic proposals like this, I will never be a Republican.

[The Dowager Mod]

they just want to legislate morality.

[YRABNNRM]

Oppose.

[Fritz]

STRONGLY oppose.

[Brambila]

Legistlate morality? Huh? That's what the government does, dudes. If the government didn't legistlate morality, pedophilia, poligamy, murder, harassment, all of these things would happen. Seeing that homosexual marriage is extremely detrimental to society, I see no reason in NOT having a FMA. They can do very well with civil unions.

[nclib]

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Absolutely opposed.

It is one thing to oppose gay marriage, but to support this amendment is clearly an act of desperation.

[Brambila]

What needs to be understood is what marriage is. Marriage, in it's definition, is the UNION between a MAN and a WOMAN. NO SAME SEX IS INCLUDED IN THIS DEFINITION.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

200 years ago people would've said marriage is a union between a man and a woman of the same race.

and please explain how gay marriage harms society one bit.

[Aaron]

200 years ago people would've said marriage is a union between a man and a woman of the same race.

They may have said that, but that does not make it the defintion. Much like saying marriage can be between a man and another man. You can say it, but it doesn't change what marriage is.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

200 years ago, that WAS the definition.

No one has explained how changing this so sacred definition will destroy society.

[Brambila]

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That's never what it's meant though. Recognized marriage between different races has always existed. Nobody doubts when two people of different races marry, that they truly have a marriage. It's just trivializing history by comparing the two. The problem is, GLBTs are trying to change the definition of marriage completely.

It was never a definition that marriage was the union between two people of the same race.

[Fritz]

Oh brother, here we go again....

Folks, I've already had this debate at some length with Brambilla in another thread, I believe its called something like "Desperate Attempt to stop gay marriage in MA" and its in the US General Discussion section.  I let it be after he said he wouldn't oppose civil unions.  Don't get him started again, please!

[Aaron]

200 years ago, that WAS the definition.

No one has explained how changing this so sacred definition will destroy society.

No it wasn't. Show me some kind of proof where marriage was defined as between a man and woman of the same race ONLY. Society may have frowned upon inter-racial marriage. Look at the old Webster dictionaries from the 1700's and tell me what the definition of marriage is in there. If it mentions race I promise to cut my legs off

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

you fail to mention what the problem with changing the definition is though.

[Lunar]

I think he was referring to how it was practiced.  Much like you couldn't get married if you were of different religions even further back.  Some Supreme Court case struck down the State's ability to restrict interracial marriage.

Personally, I say get the government out of marraiges and leave that to the churches.  The government should only be involved in treating people as an economic unit, so you can get a government union with your grandmother if you want.

[Brambila]

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Because it's the definition that societies for thousands of years were built on. Marriage has ALWAYS represented the future generations, NOT sexual pleasure.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

then should people who are infertile or who don't wish to have kids be able to get married?

[Brambila]

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Of course not. But the intention still remains. It's still POSSIBLE for those two people to have children. It's still following the definition of between a man and woman.  But homosexuals, it's completely out of the question- it's impossible for two people of the same sex to produce one child.

[angus]

I oppose this amendment, and most others which have been recently proposed.

As an aside, it has long been illegal for whites to marry nonwhites.  According to Harvard Law School Professor Randall Kennedy:  From the 1660s to the 1960s "At one point or another, 42 states passed laws prohibiting marriage across the race line."  Many states eventually made marriage across the color line a felony.  In the Commonwealth of Virginia, until 1910, you were white so long as you were not more than 24 percent black.  But in the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, anyone with any African ancestry would not be considered white.

There was also a question about what to do with Native Americans.  Many of the leading families of Virginia were very proud to trace their lineage Pocahontas and John Rolfe, so Virginia created the Pocahontas Exception, allowing the slightly "tainted" WASP aristocracy to marry other virginia aristocrats.  This caused a tremendous furor because the Anglo-Saxon Club of Virginia said, "Listen. This is terrible.  Light-skinned colored people are now just popping up everywhere and talking about how they're Indians.  And this is leading to the contamination of all white people."

[migrendel]

First of all, Aaron, O Great One, jealous God condemning those to Hell who question the Catholic hierarchy, you are in no position to call someone an idiot. Let me give you some background.

Seventeen southern states had laws banning miscegenation as late as 1967. While the California Supreme Court struck their state ban down in 1948 in the case of Perez v. Lippold, a Virginia court upheld their law on Biblical grounds saying that God created races different and placed them on separate continents, conveying a wish that they He didn't want them to mix. In 1967, the Supreme Court struck down those laws in the case of Loving v. Virginia, and they reasoned that such laws violated Equal Protection based upon race. Now apply this logic to discrimination based upon gender, since this is an arbitrary denial of a state benefit because of the gender of one of the partners, you have a firm Constitutional foundation for same sex marriage.

Needless to say, I oppose this amendment. I see no legitimate state goal furthered by it, only a dislike of a certain class of citizens or an attempt to codify a religious understanding of a secular institution. The definition of marriage is not immutable. It is open to change just as any social institution is, such as when marriage was reunderstood as a relationship between peers rather than a husband dominating, abusing, raping, and manipulating the economic and reproductive vicissitudes of a wife. Naturally, a contemporary understanding of equal rights will modify how we used to understand marriage.

[Brambila]

That's not my point. My point is it's a historical trivialization to compare marrying the same people to marrying people of two different races- after all, race doesn't exist; sex does. With two different races, you're still following the evolutionary code and marrying for the possible later production of children. Same-sex marriage doesn't do this.

[angus]

fine.  I wasn't going to go there anyway, except to point out that there may be misunderstanding about intermarriage, which, but I'll allow that it is beside the point.

The question is,  Do you want to amend the United States Constitution for the silliest of reasons:  to win?  Can you see it that way, or is President Bush and Company beyond reproach?  Because the continuation of the Nixon strategy, even in light of its exposure as a major cause of the current political bigotry on both sides, seems like a very bad idea to me.  Particularly when we start to tweak the highest law in the land.

[© tweed]

Opposed

[migrendel]

The propagation of children? People marry for various reasons. Some marry for that reason, others marry for financial reasons, and many marry for love. I'm sorry, but you can not be married and have children and can be married and be childless. And no one talks about restricting someone's civil rights for either of those reasons.

[7,052,770]

opposed