Coy Andy writes:
I don’t believe that we should give up or change the fight for marriage equality. But I do think it behooves people like me to listen to what the other side is saying. I’m struck by how many of you have told me that your real objection is not with the issue of marriage equality itself, but by the means of achieving it. Court-imposed mandates rub people the wrong way, even those who support including gay couples within the family structure. Extra-legal tactics like Gavin Newsom’s particularly rankle. I wasn’t sanguine about this at the time but minimized it because I was so swept up in the emotion of seeing gay couples finally getting the respect they deserve. I should have been stricter in opposing Newsom’s grandstanding. I’ll have more to say in a forthcoming TNR piece. But it’s important to hear what others who disagree with me are saying. I’m trying harder.
I guess now that the election is over, Andrew is conceding that you can vote against gay marriage without being an all-out James Dobson-like bigot. Thanks for nothing, Andy- not that I need your approval one way or another. At any rate, it is too late for you anyway- now that the election is over, this is a meaningless gesture.
What is most disturbing is that it took us, Andy’s readers, to force him to finally see the light. Andrew fancies himself a deep thinker, yet he was never able to turn the table and run this quick little mental exercise:
“Say gay marrige is legal. How wouls homosexuals feel if activist judges in Alabama and Georgia, out of nowhere, decided to change the established understanding of marriage code so that homosexual marriages that today are legal would tomorrow be illegal??”
Kimmitt
You honestly don’t see the difference between granting new civil rights and taking established civil rights away?
Sandi
Kimmitt rights are granted by the constitution, not the courts out of thin air.
The gays need to work bottom up, not top down. As an example, like the civil rights movement did.
And to the judges that want to read everything somehow into the constitution I repeat the words of Ayn Rand
“Today, when a concerted effort is made to obliterate this point, it cannot be repeated too often that the Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals–that it does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government–that it is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizen
Al Maviva
Sandi,
They need to work bottom-up on the gay marriage issue?
Heh.
For the record, Sullivan isn’t too wrong. I wouldn’dn’t have any objections to my state taking a vote on this, whether through the legislature or by referendum. I do, however, have a major problem if the state supreme court tries to impose this kind of major change to a fundamental social institution, without giving the people a say in the matter either directly or through their legislature.
Slartibartfast
As much as I hate to argue Kimmitt’s case, the Constitution is a restriction on the power of the State, not a granter of rights. IMHO, of course.
Sandi
..the Constitution is a restriction on the power of the State, not a granter of rights. IMHO, of course.
That is what I was getting at. The courts at times seem to use extremely broad interpretations of the constitution to interpret what is not there to begin with.
So let the legislators and the people decide it.
Kimmitt
Yeah, because tyrrany of the majority was so successful in Athens — and the Jim Crow South.
ray
Dude, the majority rules. Period.
BTW, you do realize, don’t you that slavery was not overturned by some court ruling, but rather because the majority of the people decided that it was wrong? Not only in the US, but in England.
Kimmitt
BTW, you do realize, don’t you that slavery was not overturned by some court ruling, but rather because the majority of the people decided that it was wrong?
Not at all; slavery was overturned because the North conquered the South, based on President Lincoln’s decision to uphold the Constitution at the expense of the majority view of the voting citizens of the South.
There was no “Manumission Act of 1843.” There was Lincoln’s decision, upheld by the Supreme Court in multiple cases, to enforce the law at the expense of the wishes of the majority in the South. It was the exact same process.
Majority rules, minority rights. That is the system which makes America powerful and strong. Those who advocate the tyrrany of the majority spit on the vision of the Founding Fathers.
Slartibartfast
Once again I find myself in agreement with Kimmitt.
wild bird
Its not a legal or real marrage unless its between one man and one woman and we need a constitutional amendment defining that and anyone who supports or conducts a gay or lesbian wedding should be sent to prison