North Carolina to Add Marriage Amendment to State Constitution
Dr. Patrick Wooden Sr. pastor of the Upper Room Church of God In Christ and his wife Pamela Wooden celebrate early returns that show strong support for Amendment One during an election night party at the N. Raleigh Hilton on Tuesday May 8, 2012. (Picture and caption from the Raleigh, NC News and Observer)
North Carolina voters have overwhelmingly approved adding Amendment One to the state constitution. Amendment One bans same-sex marriage. The vote as of this evening (May 8) is about 60% in favor of the amendment.
The Raleigh, NC News and Observer is leading with the picture above, which shows why this issue poses a fascinating problem for liberal Democrats. It's difficult to claim that all those in favor of Amendment One are racist throwbacks to the KKK.
Edit: Ricochet member Tabula Rasa posted an item on this just before I did.
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Re: North Carolina to Add Marriage Amendment to State Constitution
Klaatu
Only if you accept your premise that not receiving a license that you do not meet the requirements for constitutes an infringement upon freedom.
Every licensing scheme consists of issuing the license to one group but not the other. Are all licensing schemes an infringement of personal freedom?
They would be limiting personal actions in your hypothetical. · 21 minutes ago
They can limit to one group and not another, so long as (depending upon the thing limited), the limitation is...
A. Rationally related to a legitimate state interest;
B. Substantially related to an important state interest; or
C. Supports a compelling state interest.
Which test do you think applicable to marriage?
Is marriage more or less important than access to water?
Jan '11
Re: North Carolina to Add Marriage Amendment to State Constitution
Tommy De Seno
Klaatu
Only if you accept your premise that not receiving a license that you do not meet the requirements for constitutes an infringement upon freedom.
Every licensing scheme consists of issuing the license to one group but not the other. Are all licensing schemes an infringement of personal freedom?
They would be limiting personal actions in your hypothetical. · 21 minutes ago
They can limit to one group and not another, so long as (depending upon the thing limited), the limitation is...
A. Rationally related to a legitimate state interest;
B. Substantially related to an important state interest; or
C. Supports a compelling state interest.
Which test do you think applicable to marriage?
Is marriage more or less important than access to water? · 5 minutes ago
Are you now shifting from making your moral argument that it is an infringement of personal freedom to a constitutional argument that it somehow violates the 14th Amendment?
Let's pick one and stick with it, shall we?
Feb '11
Re: North Carolina to Add Marriage Amendment to State Constitution
Douglas
Fred Cole
Douglas
Voting is HOW things are determined. · 17 minutes ago
Let's be clear on things:
Voting isnothow things are determined.
Voting is how one group of people gain legitimacy to use force on another group of people. · 20 minutes ago
The alternative is anarchy. I'll take voting, thanks. · 2 hours ago
Jager
Fred Cole
Voting is nothow things are determined.Voting is how one group of people gain legitimacy to use force on another group of people. · 20 minutes ago
This view does not lead to smaller government, it leads to no government. .....
Douglas and Jager, keep in mind that Fred Cole is an avowed anarchist.
Sep '10
Re: North Carolina to Add Marriage Amendment to State Constitution
ABC News is reporting that Obama is endorsing gay marriage today.
Feb '11
Re: North Carolina to Add Marriage Amendment to State Constitution
The problem we keep running into here is that there is an assumption on the part of same sex marriage supporters that amendments like the one in NC somehow restrict the actions or rights of homosexuals.They remain free to live together, have sex with one another, commit to one another, own property together, etc.
Charitable organizations are a decent analogy: some groups come together to serve an altruistic purpose; most of us believe that the work of these groups is ultimately beneficial to the public, even if the benefit isn't immediately or specifically quantifiable and the work wouldn't otherwise be undertaken efficiently for lack of a profit motive. Now, if the public decides to create a formal program designed to encourage the formation of such groups and to aid in their work by promising that the public will interact with them in certain ways (perhaps with tax or legal exemptions or specific legal forms for the entity) as long as certain related qualifications are met, we wouldn't claim that civil rights are being violated would we?
Edited on May 9, 2012 at 9:48pmMay '10
Re: North Carolina to Add Marriage Amendment to State Constitution
"A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep." – Saul Bellow
"Never underestimate the difficulty of changing false beliefs by facts" – Henry Rosovsky
"It is one thing to wish to have truth on our side, and another thing to wish sincerely to be on the side of truth." -- Richard Whatley; philosopher, economist, and Anglican bishop
Edited on May 9, 2012 at 9:45pmRe: North Carolina to Add Marriage Amendment to State Constitution
Klaatu
Tommy De Seno
Klaatu
Only if you accept your premise that not receiving a license that you do not meet the requirements for constitutes an infringement upon freedom.
Every licensing scheme consists of issuing the license to one group but not the other. Are all licensing schemes an infringement of personal freedom?
They would be limiting personal actions in your hypothetical. · 21 minutes ago
They can limit to one group and not another, so long as (depending upon the thing limited), the limitation is...
A. Rationally related to a legitimate state interest;
B. Substantially related to an important state interest; or
C. Supports a compelling state interest.
Which test do you think applicable to marriage?
Is marriage more or less important than access to water? · 5 minutes ago
Are you now shifting from making your moral argument that it is an infringement of personal freedom to a constitutional argument that it somehow violates the 14th Amendment?
Let's pick one and stick with it, shall we?
Since I accept that my freedoms were natrually endowed by the Creator, and the Constitution written to shield those freedoms, I find no difference between the moral and legal argument here.
Jan '11
Re: North Carolina to Add Marriage Amendment to State Constitution
Tommy De Seno
Klaatu
Are you now shifting from making your moral argument that it is an infringement of personal freedom to a constitutional argument that it somehow violates the 14th Amendment?
Let's pick one and stick with it, shall we?
Since I accept that my freedoms were natrually endowed by the Creator, and the Constitution written to shield those freedoms, I find no difference between the moral and legal argument here. · 9 minutes ago
So Supreme Court created tests are the basis of your moral judgments?
All those years of the good fathers and brothers teaching philosophy and morality but not once do I recall them mentioning the rational basis or strict scrutiny tests.
Nice try but pick a moral/philosophical argument or a constitutional one, only a lawyer would pretend they are the same.
Re: North Carolina to Add Marriage Amendment to State Constitution
Klaatu
Tommy De Seno
Klaatu
Are you now shifting from making your moral argument that it is an infringement of personal freedom to a constitutional argument that it somehow violates the 14th Amendment?
Let's pick one and stick with it, shall we?
Since I accept that my freedoms were natrually endowed by the Creator, and the Constitution written to shield those freedoms, I find no difference between the moral and legal argument here. · 9 minutes ago
So Supreme Court created tests are the basis of your moral judgments?
All those years of the good fathers and brothers teaching philosophy and morality but not once do I recall them mentioning the rational basis or strict scrutiny tests.
Nice try but pick a moral/philosophical argument or a constitutional one, only a lawyer would pretend they are the same. · 10 minutes ago
You can look down on lawyers if you like.
But I'm quite sincere about the interplay between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
Disagree with an arguemt or disagree without making an argument. Both are acceptable. However I'm sure Ricochet is the wrong place to disparage what a man does for a living as your argument.
Jan '11
Re: North Carolina to Add Marriage Amendment to State Constitution
Tommy De Seno
Klaatu
So Supreme Court created tests are the basis of your moral judgments?
All those years of the good fathers and brothers teaching philosophy and morality but not once do I recall them mentioning the rational basis or strict scrutiny tests.
Nice try but pick a moral/philosophical argument or a constitutional one, only a lawyer would pretend they are the same. · 10 minutes ago
You can look down on lawyers if you like.
But I'm quite sincere about the interplay between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
Disagree with an arguemt or disagree without making an argument. Both are acceptable. However I'm sure Ricochet is the wrong place to disparage what a man does for a living as your argument. · 2 minutes ago
When you decide what type of argument you are going to make then I can decide whether to agree with it or not.
The idea that Supreme Court tests can form the basis of a moral judgement is one that only a lawyer could conceive. It you find this observation to be disparaging then you are inferring a sentiment not implied.
Sep '10
Re: North Carolina to Add Marriage Amendment to State Constitution
Fred Cole: A few comments:
1. Does the joy expressed in this thread (and the other) count as schadenfreude?
2. Conservatives were on the wrong side of the last great civil rights struggle too.
3. This is the kind of thing that makes a person a libertarian: The notion that a majority of citizens can, through voting, deny rights to their fellow citizens. · 10 hours ago
Please clearly define what civil right is being violated??
Edited on May 9, 2012 at 11:53pmApr '11
Re: North Carolina to Add Marriage Amendment to State Constitution
Fred Cole
Klaatu
Fred Cole
Only because the state insists on it. ·
In what way does the state insist?
They insist on a license! ·
They don't insist on a license for a contract; there are some marital type contracts that are banned; if I take up with another woman (or, possibly, man; I don't know UK law on bisexual bigamy) as if she were my wife, I run into trouble. If I get divorced and take up with another man as if he were my husband, though, I'm fine and dandy.
We can draw up custody arrangements for our kids (although the state may get involved there, I don't believe there's a categorical difference to if we were married), share our real property, securities, and chattels. We can leave each other stuff in our wills, act as social insurance for each other in case of illness, etc. We can't legally promise sex, but marriage doesn't either, any more.
The difference is government benefits. Is it your position that, in a perfect libertarian world, the government would deny state benefits to nobody?
Apr '11
Re: North Carolina to Add Marriage Amendment to State Constitution
Foxman:
Fred Cole
Because a thing has thousands of years of history behind it does not make it morally valid. · 1 minute ago
Slavery, for example, had thousands of years of history behind it
and not a word of condemnation in the bible.
And what about the one-man-one-woman thing? Lots of polygamy in the bible. · 8 hours ago
I agree there isn't much condemnation of slavery until Pentecost, but both Peter and Paul describe it in negative terms. Paul asks Philemon to release his slave, urges slaves to seek freedom, and asserts equality between masters and slaves before God. Peter likens slavery to the relationship with the state; given the brutality of Rome, this seems fair.
They did not preach rebellion, but did criticize slavery. Christians should recognize the world as it is, even as we try to change it.
Polygamy is a slightly more complicated question. I can go into it if you'd like, but if it was simply intended as snark, I won't go further than noting that Christianity has, from its earliest days, been a monogamous faith, albeit one growing from a faith that practiced polygamy.
Apr '11
Re: North Carolina to Add Marriage Amendment to State Constitution
Tommy De Seno
Since I accept that my freedoms were natrually endowed by the Creator, and the Constitution written to shield those freedoms, I find no difference between the moral and legal argument here. · 3 hours ago
I'm surprised to hear you embrace such an explicitly living Constitution. The line of argument is more familiar to me from Chavez, though, than from any American legal scholar I'm familiar with. The idea that personal moral interpretations should dominate over legal precedent is typical of dictatorial regimes.
Do you believe that you were endowed by the creator with the right to run for POTUS, while I, as a foreign born person, was not thus divinely favored? Alternatively, is the Natural Born Citizen clause somehow invalid?
Shakespeare wrote admiringly of a consummated marriage between a 12 year old Juliet and her lover, Romeo. Did God endow her with the right to marry without waiting for a greater maturity (which she would never see)? If so, do you likewise view the laws prohibiting her marriage (only New Hampshire allows marriage at 13, and none at 12) as similarly invalid? If not, what objective authority can you turn to that denotes authentic endowment?
Re: North Carolina to Add Marriage Amendment to State Constitution
Klaatu
Tommy De Seno
You can look down on lawyers if you like.
But I'm quite sincere about the interplay between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
Disagree with an arguemt or disagree without making an argument. Both are acceptable. However I'm sure Ricochet is the wrong place to disparage what a man does for a living as your argument.
When you decide what type of argument you are going to make then I can decide whether to agree with it or not.
The idea that Supreme Court tests can form the basis of a moral judgement is one that only a lawyer could conceive. It you find this observation to be disparaging then you are inferring a sentiment not implied.
Actually I have to concede that you may be right - Jefferson was a lawyer and Madison studied law.
But I don't think you need to be a lawyer to understand their construct:
That freedom comes naturally endowed and the constitution was drafted to protect from government that naturally endowed freedom.
Edited on May 10, 2012 at 1:25amApr '11
Re: North Carolina to Add Marriage Amendment to State Constitution
katievs: A contract between two men or two women is not marriage.
To call it marriage is to lie. To legally force the public to regard it as the equivalent of marriage is radically unjust and destructive of the common good. · 8 hours ago
I think that this is a bit uncharitable. If I'm genuinely persuaded, perhaps as a practical joke, that dachshunds are a breed not of dogs, but of pygmy elephants, I am not lying when I tell the world about this astonishing "fact". It is possible, of course, that Fred doesn't believe what he says, but the Ricochet ethos, as I understand it, involves a presumption of good faith.
Re: North Carolina to Add Marriage Amendment to State Constitution
James Of England
Tommy De Seno
Since I accept that my freedoms were natrually endowed by the Creator, and the Constitution written to shield those freedoms, I find no difference between the moral and legal argument here. · 3 hours ago
The idea that personal moral interpretations should dominate over legal precedent is typical of dictatorial regimes.
And what do you make of the statement "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights" - something other than a moral interpretation?
Edited on May 10, 2012 at 1:31amApr '11
Re: North Carolina to Add Marriage Amendment to State Constitution
Tommy De Seno
Klaatu
When you decide what type of argument you are going to make then I can decide whether to agree with it or not.
The idea that Supreme Court tests can form the basis of a moral judgement is one that only a lawyer could conceive. It you find this observation to be disparaging then you are inferring a sentiment not implied.
Actually I have to concede that you may be right - Jefferson was a lawyer and Madison studied law.
But I don't think you need to be a lawyer to understand thier construct:
That freedom comes naturally endowed and the constitution was drafted to protect from government that naturally endowed freedom. · 5 minutes ago
I don't think Jefferson or Madison understood the Constitution in the way you describe; it was the Federalists who believed in expansive and flexible readings, while the Democratic-Republicans wanted strict construction and, generally, textualism. Neither of them could have conceived of the Constitution as demanding SSM, and I do not believe that even you would hold that the Constitution did so during their lives (it's a 14th Amendment argument you're making, right?)
Re: North Carolina to Add Marriage Amendment to State Constitution
James Of England
Tommy De Seno
Actually I have to concede that you may be right - Jefferson was a lawyer and Madison studied law.
But I don't think you need to be a lawyer to understand thier construct:
That freedom comes naturally endowed and the constitution was drafted to protect from government that naturally endowed freedom.
I don't think Jefferson or Madison understood the Constitution in the way you describe; it was the Federalists who believed in expansive and flexible readings, while the Democratic-Republicans wanted strict construction and, generally, textualism. Neither of them could have conceived of the Constitution as demanding SSM, and I do not believe that even you would hold that the Constitution did so during their lives (it's a 14th Amendment argument you're making, right?)
Nor do I think the Constitution "damands" gay marriage.
Equal protection for certain, which of course is the governing extension of the self-evident truth that we are all created equal found in the Declaration.
Edited on May 10, 2012 at 1:37amApr '11
Re: North Carolina to Add Marriage Amendment to State Constitution
Tommy De Seno
James Of England
Tommy De Seno
Since I accept that my freedoms were natrually endowed by the Creator, and the Constitution written to shield those freedoms, I find no difference between the moral and legal argument here. · 3 hours ago
The idea that personal moral interpretations should dominate over legal precedent is typical of dictatorial regimes.
And what do you make of the statement "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights" - something other than a moral interpretation? ·
I think that it's not a notion that finds a lot of enforceable support in the Constitution. Your "unalienable rights" turn out to be pretty alienable; there isn't much in the way of "pursuit of happiness" rights, and both life and liberty are explicitly surrendered to the state under the Constitution under a wide variety of listed conditions. Jefferson did not mean that traffic laws were unconscionable, nor that murderers should escape without consequence, nor that taxes should not be levied; the government he presided over was different in relatively subtle ways from King George's, democracy (like South Carolina) being essentially the whole of the difference, although unalienable rights discussions also focused on religious liberty.