Gay Marriage to Alfred: Your Thoughts

enforceable contracts

what does this mean

I wonder what Ann Coultier thinks about Ted Olson now.

jeez ned the comments thread under that story o_0

i'd quote some but they make me too gnaqrr

My favorite obtuse comment, and one that I have read more than a few times: "Homosexual men can marry....women. Homosexual women can marry....men. How are they not equal to heterosexuals?"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rob-thomas/the-big-gay-chip-on-my-sh_b_208183.html

Sorry this isn't about the US but over here in Ireland, did not realise this: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0227/1224241892986.html

A NATIONAL poll commissioned by a group campaigning for gay marriage has found that 62 per cent of respondents would vote Yes in a referendum to extend civil marriage to same-sex couples.

The campaign group MarriagEquality said yesterday the poll results showed the public was ready to accept civil marriage for lesbians and gay men.

Government ministers have ruled out same-sex marriage on the basis that it would require a referendum which, they say, would be the subject of a deeply divisive public debate.

The poll was conducted by Lansdowne Market Research between October 15th and 30th, 2008. A national sample of 1,000 people over 15 years of age were interviewed.

A breakdown of the results shows that support is strongest among younger people and in urban areas. Women were more supportive at 68 per cent compared to 56 per cent of men.

There was slightly less support for same-sex couples being given the right to adopt. A total of 58 per cent of those under 50 believe same-sex couples should be able to adopt, falling to 33 per cent among the over-50s.

A total of 54 per cent believe the definition of the family unit in the Constitution should be changed to include same-sex families.

Gráinne Healy, co-chair of MarriagEquality, said the findings supported the group’s calls for the Government to recognise that equality includes the human and civil rights of lesbian women and gay men to marry.

“There are many different family types in Ireland, including lesbians and gay parents. The Irish public recognise this fact, with seven out of 10 believing that being raised in a loving home is the key determinant in ensuring that children are happy and well.”

A civil partnership Bill is due before the Dáil shortly which will allow lesbian and gay couples to register with the State and avail of privileges in areas such as pensions, inheritance and tax.

Officials say it will stop short of marriage and will not provide any right for same-sex couples to adopt. Groups such as MarriagEquality say this does not go far enough. Moninne Griffith, MarriagEquality’s co-ordinator, said it was within the Government’s power to legislate for civil marriage for same-sex couples.

“Until the Government acts, Ireland is infringing upon the rights of a section of Irish society. There is no time to waste; equality for all people on this island must become a reality,” she said.

That's great. Also, don't apologize, this is not an American thread, it's a gay marriage thread!

Read this earlier

Eamon Farrell will marry his partner Steven Mannion this summer as his proud brother, Colin Farrell serves as best man.

The excited groom-to-be says unfortunately, the nuptials cannot take place in his homeland of Ireland. 'We have to get married abroad. It's absolutely terrible," Eamon Farrell says. "We have to go somewhere legal, which narrows it down to about five countries."

(bastard BBCode won't let me make that a link grumblegrumble http://www.gaywired.com/Article.cfm?ID=22895)

what does this mean

article 4, section 1 of the constitution:

Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State.

the thinking basically is that it will be an easier sell that contracts made in one state have to apply in others than that the "right to marry" is a constitutional right. several states have laws or state constitutional amendments specifically exempting same-sex marriages from this, which seems blatantly unconstitutional. if the supreme court said that, then any same-sex marriage in any state would have to be honored everywhere.

honest question, and not a lawyer: what is blatantly unconstitutional about that? is "Full Faith and Credit..." a power explicitly delegated to the United States? if it isn't, then the 10th amendment would suggest that the states can explicitly excise same-sex marriages from those public acts or records they feel like honoring. right? i mean, i'm in favor of same-sex marriages, but i'm not sure that that thinking is bullet-proof, or an easier sell.

as a condition of belonging to the union, the states are constitutionally required to recognize each other's "acts, records and judicial proceedings." e.g., wisconsin can't unilaterally decide not to recognize debts incurred in utah. if it did, all the utah debtors would just move to wisconsin. a marriage is a contract (as far as the state is concerned, anyway), and contracts made in one state, under the constitution, have to be enforceable in another. which is exactly why some states have passed laws or amendments carving out same-sex marriages as an exception. there may be a constitutional case for that (i'm not a lawyer either), but the case against it is on the surface pretty straightforward and compelling.

there's a bit about its specific application to gay marriage on the wikipedia faith-and-credit clause page, noting that scalia identified it as the likely chink in the armor.

i don't know if it's come up since then but someone tried this in florida a few years ago and it failed. they just said florida can legitimately decide its state policy is not to have gay marriage, and making them recognize it would mean that massachusetts would be determining what the law is for every state (that seems like if you took that to its logical conclusion the FFC means nothing but i think that's what it says). and by passing DOMA congress is within its power to say what effect the laws of other states have. i don't know too much about the FFC but it's not really a magic bullet.

Which is why when DOMA finally becomes before SCOTUS, a laywer may cite the full faith and credit clause to assert the act's unconstitutionality.

meanwhile the Ted Olson saga gets stranger: Gay groups: We don't want Olson.

the case is wilson v. ake. it wasn't appealed to the 11th circuit though so that's just one district in florida.

it is definitely not a magic bullet, but it's a more hardcore constitutional issue than the "right to marry."

(like, it's very easy for me to believe that a 5-member majority including kennedy would decline to rule for a right to marry. but a constitutional contracts argument could sway at least one of them. maybe even scalia, although he'd probably do some kind of jujitsu to get out of it.)

On an anecdotal sidenote: Jeffrey Toobin's book on the Court describes most of the justices being ok with homos personally. A clerk was touched by a letter Rehnquist wrote him when his partner died. Clerks brought their partners to the annual cocktail hour with the justices, and were introduced as such.

For the I'm Not Surprised File: Clarence Thomas even kept pictures of a lesbian clerk's partner on his desk (!!)

except there is a constitutional right to marry! like you're right the court would definitely decline to extend it to same-sex couples if it came up today but it's not because it doesn't exist. xp

right, yeah, i mean a right to marry that extends to gay couples.

sorry what i meant was i don't feel like either one is more likely to succeed because arguments exist both ways, but still...........gays.

i don't know, i think a ruling on faith-and-credit seems more inevitable, because there are going to start be a kazillion complications from having people married in some states but not in other states.

in other words, the exact kind of legal nightmare that the clause very explicitly intends to obviate.

Um, what explicitly pissed me off with the Irish one is the government saying in advance that marriage isn't going to happen despite the massive support in its favour.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gUUXsl3sakXbS8W1AYb4xSxxEMIgD98JE1IG0

lol this isn't even on CNN.com yet

i think at this point the media just assumes everyone north of new haven is in a gay marriage.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/12/741817/-Obama-on-DOMA:-He-IS-Keeping-A-Promise

vs

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/06/what-was-obama-thinking.html

Dan Savage calls for civil disobedience. I'm almost ready to join him.

Go for broke, I figure.

Still mad at Savage for his scapegoating black people in the wake of Prop 8.

Gays too busy mourning MJ to be pissed off about this?

Why would gays be pissed off by the Vice-President pledging to push harder on issues that affect them?

cuz they'd been talking for months about how they were going to boycott this event and make a big stink at it about Obama's lack of action?

from all the talk previously this was shaping up to be a PR nightmare for Obama, but now its completely buried

50 of them did protest and called gay representatives "gay Uncle Toms" (which kind of points up how ppl should really read source material and not just be lazy parrots but that's another argument)

called gay representatives "gay Uncle Toms"

wow, I'm sure these people have the best of intentions but they really can go fuck themselves

right there with you on that

ppl should really read source material

I know, right? Uncle Tom was totally gay.

'Gay Excorcism'

called gay representatives "gay Uncle Toms"

lolz was "house homos" already taken

just view it like the 100% wrong use of "immaculate conception" for "virgin birth"

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/07/08/massachusetts-takes-aim-at-federal-definition-of-marriage/#more-59669

DC, WE TAKIN OVER

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/05/AR2009050501618.html

DADT to be taken up by Senate committees this fall

Maggie Gallagher, I love you:

The Borg Blinks [Maggie Gallagher]

In "The Carrie Effect," I point out that gay-marriage advocates are like the Borg. Resistance is futile.

LA Times interviews Ted Olson about gay marriage.

Clinton has "changed his mind" about gay marriage and is now no longer against it. Gee thanks a lot douchebag.

Way to put your figer to the wind, there, Bill.