The Dem response to Gay Marriage Ban.

[DKW 86 7,899]

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Kerry, Edwards, Even Mrs Kerry have all come out with this "States Rights" answers to questions. "It should be left up to the individual states" the typical response.

There is a problem with that. The Interstate Commerce Act. This is the act used to start busing across the country as a backdrop to the many uses it has had historically. I hope no one here tries to pin a racist tag on me with it. You would fail horribly.

Back to the thought, Say MA issues a license to a driver. That license must be respected in CA as well. Tags, insurance, etc from MA must be upheld as well. So too, must the Marriage License of a citizen of MA. That is part of the ICA. Goodfaith transfera-bility of state inacted-decreed-legal contracts is at the center of the law. A business in MA can sell in CA, as the business license is recognized by all 50 states, etc.

Basically, if MA legalizes Gay marriage, then, every state must then accept any marriage made in MA. Thereby affectively legalizing Gay marriage in all 50 states without a national debate on the subject. This is very wrong!

You can argue the shifty way they are handling it and the tried-and-true use of the legal system to get around something that would not pass in the legislatures. It is a deception that I find at the core of the Dem Party and liberalism for the most part.

To their honor, most reporters are seeing right through this and openly questioning the crapola factor here. They know that this will not stand even the most cursory look by anyone with a brain.

Dem-Intellectual Dishonesty in 21st Century America, The tradition continues.

I guess it all depends on what your definition of the word Marriage is....

[Tiger Al 0]

Aren't you comparing apples to oranges when comparing observation of marriage licenses to drivers licenses? The comparison fails because when you're talking about a driver from Ma. driving in Ca. as a visitor, not as a resident. If he moves to Ca., won't he have to get a Ca. license, registration and tag?

It's to keep Ca. from forcing all drivers from other states to get a Ca. license, etc., when they drive in Ca.

I think the more relevent comparison would be comparing it to a carry license for a handgun, wouldn't it? I may have a carry license in Al. but it isn't automatically good in all states. I would have to abide by those states' particular laws regarding that. If it was illegal to carry a gun under my car seat in Ok. then I couldn't do that, even if the laws in Al. permitted it.

[channonc 466]

Well, I see where both of you are going, and I am a proponent of gay marriage, but that being said...

Heterosexual marriages licenses are recognized b/w states, so theres the apples and apples comparison.

Al, I completely see what you are saying, but unfortunately, I think the ICA will be challenged in court on this issue. Not sure which side will challenge it, but I know it will be challenged.

[TexasTiger 14,283]

I haven't heard about the application of the Interstate Commerce Act to either busing or same sex unions. I think busing was based on the Equal Protection Clause, once the concept of "separate but equal" was struck down by Brown v. Board in 1954.

However, the Defense of Marriage Act is probably susceptible to challenge under the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution:

Article. IV.  Section 1.

Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.

I suspect that the Supreme Court would rule that one state had to recognize a legal marriage from another state (which probably would not include those from San Fransisco right now since CA doesn't even recognize them) as the Constitution currently stands.

Still, even if the actual goal was to prevent Alabama from having to recognize a gay marriage from MA or San Fransisco, or wherever, the ammendment could be narrowly drawn so that the Full Faith and Credit clause did not apply to gay marriages. Such an ammendment need not establish what marriage absolutely will be in all 50 states. Republicans could argue that such a narrowly drawn ammendment is consistent with their supposed support for state rights, by protecting the right of each individual state to decide for itself. By defining marriage for all 50 states, such an ammendment does restrict the right of states, and the voters of those states, to decide if they want gay marriage in their state. Bush is essential saying he supports state's rights, except for those which he is taking off the table. T

One can also argue that there is intellectual dishonesty in this position.

[War Eagle 96 10]

Aren't you comparing apples to oranges when comparing observation of marriage licenses to drivers licenses? The comparison fails because when you're talking about a driver from Ma. driving in Ca. as a visitor, not as a resident. If he moves to Ca., won't he have to get a Ca. license, registration and tag?

It's to keep Ca. from forcing all drivers from other states to get a Ca. license, etc., when they drive in Ca.

I think the more relevent comparison would be comparing it to a carry license for a handgun, wouldn't it? I may have a carry license in Al. but it isn't automatically good in all states. I would have to abide by those states' particular laws regarding that. If it was illegal to carry a gun under my car seat in Ok. then I couldn't do that, even if the laws in Al. permitted it.

You make a good point, but I just believe gay marriage is wrong.

[DKW 86 7,899]

I haven't heard about the application of the Interstate Commerce Act to either busing or same sex unions. I think busing was based on the Equal Protection Clause, once the concept of "separate but equal" was struck down by Brown v. Board in 1954.

However, the Defense of Marriage Act is probably susceptible to challenge under the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution:

Article. IV.  Section 1.

Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.

I suspect that the Supreme Court would rule that one state had to recognize a legal marriage from another state (which probably would not include those from San Fransisco right now since CA doesn't even recognize them) as the Constitution currently stands.

Still, even if the actual goal was to prevent Alabama from having to recognize a gay marriage from MA or San Fransisco, or wherever, the ammendment could be narrowly drawn so that the Full Faith and Credit clause did not apply to gay marriages. Such an ammendment need not establish what marriage absolutely will be in all 50 states. Republicans could argue that such a narrowly drawn ammendment is consistent with their supposed support for state rights, by protecting the right of each individual state to decide for itself. By defining marriage for all 50 states, such an ammendment does restrict the right of states, and the voters of those states, to decide if they want gay marriage in their state. Bush is essential saying he supports state's rights, except for those which he is taking off the table. T

One can also argue that there is intellectual dishonesty in this position.

Very good points.

The ICA was the crux of Bobby Kennedy's Civil Rights attention in the Kennedy Administration. He used the fact that Ollie's BBQ in Bham used bread that was delivered from Atlanta as the basis for emposing Federal Law on Ollie's in Bham.

By corollary, either the FF&C Clause or the ICA could be used to establish gay marriages from locality to the other.

The citizenship of locale argument that Tex brings here is very good and I have to think on that one though. My watching the news this am showed that the press was shooting this stuff down over the FF&C or ICA though. But residence may be the sinker to all this. Could your marriage be defined by locale? Are me and my wife not married in Utah where the Mormons actually recognize "Sealings" in some communities?

[Tigermike 3,715]

Some here and most if not all of the gay rights activists wish to compare gay rights with the civil rights movement. Here is some thoughts on that.

Rosa Parks -- Not

Debra Saunders

February 23, 2004

It's funny that, in a city that prides itself on its nonconformity, so many people make the exact same argument exactly the same way. To wit, after I write that Mayor Gavin Newsom was wrong to flout state law by authorizing same-sex marriages, a legion of readers write comparing gay and lesbian newlyweds with civil rights legend Rosa Parks. To say that Newsom should have more respect for the law, they argue, is like saying Rosa Parks should not have engaged in her landmark act of "civil disobedience."

I think the term "delusions of grandeur" fits here.

In 1955, Parks was a lone black woman on a Montgomery, Ala., bus, who after a hard day's work courageously refused a driver's edict to give up her seat to a white man. "I did not get on the bus to get arrested," she later said. "I got on the bus to go home."

For that, Parks was arrested. She was fingerprinted and jailed for two hours until a $100 bond was posted. Parks then was convicted and ordered to pay a fine, which she refused to pay so that she could challenge the segregation law. Ultimately, her resistance led to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling against the segregation law.

Parks was a pioneer in a nascent civil rights movement that demanded great personal courage. Many of her contemporaries paid for their beliefs with their lives. Parks' family endured threats. The home of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who led the Parks-inspired black boycott of Montgomery's bus system, was bombed while King's wife and children were inside. King's price to achieve his dream was his life.

How can anyone compare the Parks experience with that of San Francisco's same-sex newlyweds? They don't face arrest. They won't be jailed. They won't be fined. City Hall is sponsoring the ceremonies. Why, the City Hall cafe sold splits of Champagne so there would be bubbly at last weekend's weddings. Civil disobedience? Hardly.

Rosa Parks stood firm in hostile territory, the segregation-era South. Under Jim Crow, blacks had trouble registering to vote, could not sit at lunch counters, and had to drink from separate water fountains, use different bathrooms and send their precious children to substandard segregated schools. Segregation was a system that subjected blacks to relentless humiliation.

San Francisco is gay-centric. Jewelers and liquor stores offered discounts to gay and lesbian couples about to take their vows. The city bureaucracy is so gay savvy that it has adopted the acronym LGBTQQ for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Questioning youth. Not only has the Special City registered domestic partners for more than a decade, but City Hall will pay for your sex change -- if you work for the city or are the registered partner of a city staffer.

Parks stood up against a powerful government. The mayor is the powerful government. He could have searched for a way to challenge state marriage law without violating it. But this stunt curried more favor.

When Rosa Parks defied the law, her fate and the outcome of her cause were uncertain. In San Francisco, the issue of gay rights has been settled in every area but marriage. As Jesse Jackson noted, gays always could vote and enjoyed other rights. The only question left is whether same-sex marriage can be called marriage -- and there are plenty of gay people who don't care about the outcome.

If there's a group that has to work up courage to voice its beliefs in this town, it's religious fundamentalists. Ask the Rev. Eugene Lumpkin, whom then-Mayor Frank Jordan fired from the Human Rights Commission in 1993 because the reverend said he believed, as the Bible told him, that "the homosexual lifestyle is an abomination against God."

It didn't matter that no one could point to any discriminatory act on Lumpkin's part. What he thought was his crime.

As for the self-congratulatory term "civil disobedience" -- well, the civil part is missing. Hello. It can't be civil disobedience when there is no civil penalty and there is a government sponsor.

But the Special City has long held a cheap view of civil disobedience. Remember last year's anti-war demonstrators. They deliberately clogged city streets and blocked access to government buildings under the mantle of "civil disobedience" -- only to react indignantly when they were arrested. (No worries. This is San Francisco. Former District Attorney Terence Hallinan dropped charges on nearly all of the 2,300 protesters who were arrested.) Only in San Francisco does civil disobedience mean never having to say, "Guilty, your honor."

http://www.creators.com/opinion_show.cfm?columnsName=dsa