End regulation of genitals - Page 3

It holds plenty of relevance because those things are all societal constructs and not FACTS as you claimed.

Whatever. I guess it's not a fact that gay marriage is against the law according to Prop 8 then... after all, law is just a societal construct...

As have I. Their motives deserve belittling.

You can prove it is against the law. You can't prove a law exists. You can't overturn a law because laws are societal constructs because all laws are societal constructs.


Yes well mockery isn't exactly sound reasoning.

Seriously... are you mocking yourself?

Nope just showing the judge's bad reasoning for what it is there.

...a conservative constitutionalist judge who was appointed by Reagan and reappointed by Bush...

Other than some obscure and generally unenforced sodomy laws, the government doesn't care whose genitals you touch, provided that person is of the age of majority and not a relative---and neither do I.

I do care about the definition of marriage though. I do think that it's hard to call a statewide ballot initiative banning gay marriage to be unconstitutional from the Federal perspective, especially when said ban was instituted as a result of the CA Supreme Court legislating from the bench, simply declaring gay marriage to be legal on its own.

I also think that the judge deciding this should have recused himself. He stands to personally benefit from his own judgement and as such cannot render a decision w/o bias. Imagine the uproar if a devout Christian and anti-gay activist decided the case and it went the other way.

All that said, I think all of this is leading to a federal constitutional crisis, and perhaps an amendment. On one side you'll have people screaming "Equal Protection and Civil Rights!" On the other, you'll have a states' rights/voters' rights argument. When these two unstoppable forces meet, a constitutional amendment may be the only way to settle the issue.

I'd go much further than that. My reasoning's better than pretty much any leftist. Classic GIGO.


Everyone has an area of bias. Also people change over the course of a lifetime appointment. Clearly though you have to go into personal attacks because the reasoning attempting to defend this is shite.

I initially found the Judges opinion outrageous. However, after some thinking and reading I have to be a bit more forgiving. While he was partisan, and determined to find Prop 8 unconstitutional I also suspect the defense was pathetic.

And given recent case law, his logic might be more compelling than I'd like. It seems that a judge now has the right to declare any law based on "morality" to be unconstitutional. It has to be "rational", whatever that means.

Of course, the 14th amendment has already been misused and misunderstood for many decades, and the judge is wrong in that light. But in terms of hewing to recent court findings, perhaps not.

And thus is exposed the general mindset of the Conservative. And they call the Left "elitists".

The judge has presented his reasoning very clearly. I have summarized it many times over the course of the thread. You may still disagree with it, but it is clearly not "shite".

Thank you. Now go forth and join your Conservative brethren and try to repeal the 14th Amendment. Though the current push is in regards to immigration, this adds another angle for protectionists to think about. Meanwhile, it's there. Just like the Second Amendment is there as a thorn in the sides of pacifists.

Being more forgiving of the Judges taking advantage of bad case law does not make his opinion any more valid. Two recent cases, Romer v. Evans (1996) and then Lawrence v. Texas (2002) opened the door for Walker's finding and made it easier for him to walk through.

Of course the 14th amendment should not be repealed, it should be enforced as it was intended - not fodder for more silly and stupid rulings by jurists who want to create their own public policy. Equal protection in law, for example, was understood to be protection against the denial of a person's civil rights due to their race/ethnicity - not for same sex marriage disputes.

Moreover, even in 'rational basis test' I find the Judge's opinion strained - a more or less determined rejection of any opinion of the defendents as sourced in irrational private moralisms (if not bigotry).

That smacks more of the Judges moralisms running loose than that of the public's.

They do call the left elitists and it is because they do not want their rationales to be right due to sound reasoning. Rather they want their rationales to be right due to the fact that they have a historical grievance, a good intention, because of an educational title or family background. Those are all forms of elitism.

If you are right because you think your ancestors were here first...
If you are right because you think you are saving something from a caricatured villian....
If you are right because you have a claimed expertise or educational attainment...
If you are right because you are a Kennedy, a Clinton, a Gore, a Cuomo, etc...

......then those are all forms of Elitism.


His reasoning is circular and easily understood as such. Tradition cannot be both a means of discrediting the majority because it is completely irrational and likewise a means of rationally imposing a right. You can't say people who think marriage should only be a man and woman are insane and then turn around and say, now we can't just have the rights given under the title of domestic partnership, we have to call it marriage because otherwise sane people won't afford it the same status. It is completely incoherent reasoning.

Now, see, this is where you are wrong.

First of all, since state recognition of marriage is official policy, it is in fact a civil right. Period. Marriage is a civil right.

Secondly, equal protection is not only applicable to race, nor was that its intention. It is applicable to protect anyone of any minority (and majority) group, be that based on race, gender, physical disability, lefthandedness... whatever. And now, it's clear that sexuality is inclusive. You can argue that sexuality should not be inclusive, but that would expose your true intent. Go ahead and say it plain and clear. You don't think sexuality should be a factor in any discrimination law. Once upon a time people thought the same thing about race and gender.

The only other alternative here, besides making any state recognized right available to all including gays, is to make it available to none. I would fully support a measure to remove marriage altogether from law, and call every partnership a civil union. Let the churches deal with marriage. Your church can refuse to marry gays, and mine can choose differently. A gay couple can then get "married" at a gay-friendly church, synagogue, mosque, whatever, and call themselves "married", and you are free to refuse to call them married. But in law they would have a legal partnership, and would be afforded the same benefits as those married by an exclusively "straight" church. Win-win.

Just like those on the right who claim the Founding Fathers were Christian, so this is a Christian nation.

Like Saddam Hussein or "Al Qaeda".

Like MJ telling us to read Friedman.

Or a Bush or a Bloomberg or a McCain or a small-town country girl, m'kay?

Yep. And we see that on both sides, especially when those sides say things like, "My reasoning's better than pretty much any leftist."

Except that's not his reasoning. Don't you get it? You keep saying that's his reasoning again and again, and I show you exactly how that is not the case, and you ignore the facts that I present.

Nobody said that.

Read my a above reply to Max. Would that solution (to remove marriage from law as long as it's exclusive, because it is inherently discriminatory) appease you?

Yes marriage is a civil right - the right being that any opposite gendered people have a right to join in matrimony. It's a right as old as civilization, and a part of English and American common law (as well as written law). Any person in the US, of age, may do it.


You are wrong there. Equal protection, for most of its history, was used for race/ethnic based cases. Up until the 1960s only one case (in 1942) was an exception, and that established marriage/procreation as a right.

Read the Slaughterhouse case - that should bring you around.


I have no idea what "inclusive" means to you. But I do not believe that the 14th actually provides equal protection for sexual orientation or gender, only that activist judges have tortured it into supporting their moral beliefs.


I have no problem with civil unions as a subset of married rights, mainly economic in nature. However, gay marriage is socially sub-optimal and is not something to be encouraged in the law.

And if that's your definition, then it's inherently discriminatory against same-gendered people. So it cannot be part of law, since law cannot be discriminatory. Either remove the discriminatory aspect ("same-gendered people only") or remove it from law. There is no alternative.

That is your opinion, and there are many valid arguments and have been many valid studies that say otherwise. Law must never be based on widely debatable opinion.

There are many advantages to allowing gay couples to marry. More families available to raise children. More of a social support system to help individuals succeed in their lives. Fewer suicides. More social acceptance is never a bad thing.

Pease show me where in the 14th amendment sexual preference and gender are excluded. Not being excluded means they are included, as are lefthandedness, six-fingeredness, and thick headedness.

Be honest. Be honest.... BE HONEST.

You think we should be allowed to discriminate against gays because you believe that gayness is wrong. Period. Say it. Admit it.

Yet like all rights, it is not an absolute. There clearly are many criteria applied to the granting of marriage licenses including age, number of parties, family relations, etc.


First it isn't clear that sexuality is included. The judge in order to include it declared that gender was a societal construct and that it no longer applied.

"Gender no longer forms an essential part of marriage; marriage under law is a union of equals."

Now again, when discussing facts, male and female are not just societal constructs. Marriage at 18 years old, or with only one partner, or not between relations of a certain closeness, those are in fact societal decisions based on tradition and it is easy to show those traditions have been formed over time and have also changed over time.

However a man being a man and a woman being a woman is not a societal construct. That is truly a fact.

We aren't so far apart here. You know I've supported civil unions for heterosexual people as well. I've said that one form of relationship endorsement is far too limiting.


How does claiming they believe this somehow default someone else into being wrong? People can argue about what Christianity endorses or doesn't. It in no form says that because your ancestors weren't here by a certain time, you are excluded from consideration or debate.


Yes. We can see how people actually invading countries, warring with their neighboring countries or launching attacks on U.S. targets is the same as saying someone with a television radio show or radio or people you imagine listening to them are engaged in evil acts.


If the source contains sound reasoning then noting it does nothing wrong. Saying the source is infallible as a source is a logical fallacy though.

[QUOTE]Or a Bush or a Bloomberg or a McCain or a small-town country girl, m'kay?[/QUOTE

What planet are you on? The media constantly tear down Republicans. The treatment of Bush and Gore is a great example of this whereby Bush had higher military placement scores, holds actual graduate degrees, and had better grades when they were revealed yet was an idiot, a dunce and declared to lack intellectual curiosity and we all know Al Gore is a genius.


You don't have to work so hard to be an example of why this is true.

You've not shown anything. You've merely declared it wrong and moved on. I've linked to multiple articles that cite the text and go into depth on the reasoning on it. You've declared you'll read them when you have time. The reality is that California' domestic partnership laws made marriage and domestic partnerships the same under law. They couldn't do that at the federal level but California doesn't control Social Security survivor benefits and other federal level benefits.

The judge stated that domestic partnerships as a label is not traditionally viewed the same as marriage. He also declared that tradition was not a rational basis for society to render law. Equal protection challenges as a first step must meet rational-basis review. I linked to this as well. He declared gender a societal construct and tradition to be non-rational. He then said gay couples must have the label due to... tradition which is non-rational.

He said that supporters of traditional marriage were not engaged in a rational belief and that it did not meet the rational-basis review. They are thus acting in an irrational manner.


I've addressed this in the past. First marriage as a relationship form is quickly being abandoned by most heterosexual couples in favor of cohabitation. The marriage rate has dipped 40% in the last couple decades. This is mostly because instead of marriage being an institution that endorses love, it is actually an institution that protects females. Concepts like alimony, child support and the statistical analysis of family court decisions all show this. This is why increasingly why men refuse to marry. Women have been allowed to enlarge their gender role but men have not per the courts.

I've said I'd gladly endorse multiple state sanctioned relationship forms. But I don't think it right to automatically remove the old forms. Leave them and people will choose the better forms over time.

Not to be an ass, but as a left-handed person, I've yet to see where lefthandedness is a protected class and whereby they can file for legal protection, remedy, etc.

I do not see any left-handed manual pencil sharpeners, left hand drive cars made available, etc.

Can I go sue any place I find where the toilet handle is on the right and claim federal protection?

Come on dude, be honest, you're just making that part up.

Equal protection under the LAW. The LAW. Not private services. Those are covered under different laws than the 14th Amendment.

If there were a law that said only right handed people could serve in the military, for instance, or only right handed people could collect social security, it would be unconstitutional.

Sure it is - that which is included and not included is by definition discriminating. So yes of course it is discriminatory, discrimination occurs all the time in the law - many students are excluded from public universities because of grades or test scores; others are excluded from public employment for lack of qualifications; only some businesses are subsidized by law; some persons have to pay higher taxes, commercial pilots cannot fly beyond 60, women cannot serve as correctional officer's in male prisons, etc.

So in this case, all persons have the same right to marry the opposite gender BUT marriage does not include same gendered persons. Californian's made a choice not to expand the concept to those who are unable to bond with the opposite sex. Perfectly valid.



I am sure there are many valid arguments in favor of gay marriage. And because it is a matter of debatable opinion the voters agreed with one side to reconfirm the prior law. And therefore, under the rational basis test, the judge had no right to strike down the law.

As this case did not involve a fundamental right, or even a suspect class, under case law the public has a right to discriminate if their is any 'rational' basis offered.

Let's begin with the 14th amendment operative phrase (and the meaning) under dispute:

"... nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. "

First, note that it does not say WHAT it protects a person from... "the equal protection of the laws" does not specify a group or race, only that persons are protected under the law from something undefined.

We have only two choices: we could, of course, freely speculate on what persons are equally protected from. Perhaps they are equally protected from disease in the law, or from unequal taxation, or equally protected from foreign invasion, or from ignorance, or from 14 hour days, or from denial of their right to vote, or unequal building codes, or unequal tooth decay, or from unequal job losses, or just from unequal unhappiness.

And if all of the above were true then laws which provide for the unequal taxation of persons (eg the rich taxed more than the poor), or that specifies funding research on some diseases but not others, or that specif ices the limited working hours of blue collars but not white collars, or laws that vary from state to state on occupational practice or building safety, or that limit public college enrollment based on grades and ability, or to help one economic profession more than another, or protect one coast more than another, etc. would all violate equal protection of the law.

In spite of your 'just knowing', equal protection of the law has no "plain meaning" unless it is grounded in historical understanding. The ONLY other option is to make your own assumptions based on your OWN bias and desires.

Second, the history of slavery and reconstruction, the Congressional debate and case law tells us what people understood the clause meant. The three amendments (13th, 14th, and 15th) were created in response to the black codes, the post civil war laws of slave states that denied freemen their civil rights because of their race.

The Slaughterhouse case provide the earliest understanding, soon after the amendments were passed. In 1869 the City of New Orleans passed a law to "protect the health of the city of New Orleans, (and) to locate the stock landings and slaughterhouses, and to incorporate the Crescent City Livestock Landing aud Slaughter-House Company." The law forbade the landing or slaughtering of animals within the jurisdiction except at a particular location, run by a City chartered monopoly with its own slaughterhouses.

But the law also required the corporation to provide access to it's own slaughterhouses by independent butchers and fixed "a limit to the charges to be made by the company for each animal so slaughtered in their building, and another provides for an inspection of all animals intended to be so slaughtered by an officer appointed by the governor of the State for that purpose.".

This statute was denounced by the City butchers as a monopoly, conferring exclusive privileges upon a small number of persons and the expense of the community and the butchers of the city. In their suit, they claimed that this law was a violation in that it created a form of involuntary servitude (13th amendment), abridged privileges and immunities (14th), and denied the butchers equal protection of the laws (14th).

Justice Miller, in writing for the majority explained what equal protection is protecting:


So Judge Miller explained the meaning: EQUAL PROTECTION means equal protection of persons civil rights regardless of their race. This applies to all persons. Nothing about left-handedness (etc.).

Finally, Judge Miller understood that the amendment did not provide any guidelines to its application, other than that which is grounded in its original purpose and understanding:


Miller understood that without boundaries, "equal protection" could mean anything to any judge. It could be a policy making tool of judges (as it has been recently by Walker) who decides what is to be protected, and in what regard.

Rest assured, I do wish it meant to protect (for example) economic rights. It did not...no more than it was intended to protect against limitations on same sex marriage.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/htm...3_0036_ZO.html



LOL...reminds me of "Back to School" and professor Turgenson screaming louder and louder "say it...Say It...SAY IT"...

Anyway "gayness" is not wrong per se', it is just nature's mistake. Abnormalities in the brain occur all the time in the womb (or in upbringing) leading to mental disorders - epilepsy, Tourette's syndrome, pedophilia, bestiality, and homosexuality. I am not judgemental, except when such severe disorders harm others.

Discrimination against gays, regarding marriage, should be allowed because it is within the democratic rights of the people.

LMFAO. You are citing the Slaughterhouse judgment to defend your position? OMG. How quaint.

I suggest you read up on opinions with regard to the case. Including those from your free-market brethren.

"quaint"? Oh that's not unique. I even quoted the 'quaint' Constitution. (I know, HOW SHOCKING).

You asked to to show you where any notion of equal protection was excluded, I replied and then replied to your legally incoherent assertion that 'not being exluded means included'.

Need I repeat my key points, or don't you have any substantive objections other than sneering?

Till then...

We do abort gay children, and straight children to. Glad to see you conceed that fetus's are children. Or did you slip up?

Do you think the Cato Institute is someone you should be paying attention to, Max?

More accurately it is inherently discriminatory against gays, lesbians, and bi-sexuals. However, sexual orientation is not a suspect classification so if the discriminaton passes the 'rational basis test' then it is quite ok under the equal protection clause.

If you mean that a "mother with child" is a female who is pregnant then the fetus must a child, in order to abort it (as you predicated). If you mean a born fetus/child with a mother then no, we don't abort gay children or straight children because you can't abort that which is born.

Can't have it both ways...which is it?

Shamelessly stolen from reddit...this is just for you, Jazzguru, my little mormon buddy:

Anyway, no one took the bait. But for anyone interested, in the October 2009 Cato Policy Report, an article arguing that gun rights can lead to economic liberties, calls for the final nail to be placed in the coffin of Slaughterhouse.

To support their objection to Slaugterhouse, the Cato Institute (those crazy Liberals!) points out the following quote:

Yale law professor Akhil Amar agrees: Virtually no serious modern scholarleft, right, and center thinks that [Slaughter-House] is a plausible reading of the [Fourteenth] Amendment.

Yet when it's convenient, fools unaware that Slaughterhouse was considered a mistake since its first reading, think it's a reason to deny rights.

Um... you're kind of making Liberals look a little ignorant here.

First of all, the founding fathers didn't write the 14th Amendment.

Second, while I agree with you in regards to the obsolescence of the 2nd Amendment, it has nothing to do with assault rifles and everything to do with modern warfare and the ballistic capabilities of the state military. When the military has grenade launchers and tanks, arming the general populace with rifles of any kind as a way to protect against an oppressive government has absolutely no point.