Jophiel wrote:
By the way, here was the SUPER TRICKY DECEITFUL LANGUAGE used in Maine (for example):
Wiki wrote:
Maine Question 1 was a voter referendum on an initiated state statute that occurred November 6, 2012. The title of the citizen initiative is "An Act to Allow Marriage Licenses for Same-Sex Couples and Protect Religious Freedom". The question that appeared on the ballot was: "Do you want to allow the State of Maine to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples?"
Holy cats! Those people were so fooled when they didn't really want SSM but that ballot was confusing that they were cast under a web of illusion!
The title of the initiative was:
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An Act to Allow Marriage Licenses for Same-Sex Couples and Protect Religious Freedom
It was also broadly represented to the public, not based on the final wording that appeared on the actual ballot, but the previous wording used during the petition process:
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Do you favor a law allowing marriage licenses for same-sex couples, and that protects religious freedom by ensuring that no religion or clergy be required to perform such a marriage in violation of their religious beliefs?
The results were a reversal of the same issue that had been brought to the public (and rejected) just a few years earlier. One could argue that if you just keep trying the same law over and over, eventually you'll get a majority to vote for it. Especially if you engaged in clever wording of the law, and in the context of a national environment where it looked to voters like they were going to have gay marriage forced on their state by judicial fiat anyway. Best to put in protections for clergy before that happens, right?
And as it happens, they (and the citizens in Maryland and Washington) were right. Again though, I'd hardly take this as a majority endorsement of gay marriage. More a resignation to the fact that one way or another, their state was going to be required to grant SSM licenses. Given that the fear about clergy being forced to perform SSM was front and center during the debate at this time, it's hard to imagine that this didn't have some impact on the results.
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If the social movement was really in that direction anyway, why not just let this play out in the legislatures and among the voters of the states?
Why wait?
Because then it'll be the people making the decision and not the courts? Was that really a question?
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Why deprive people of their rights for another year, ten years, whatever?
Because, first off, this isn't an issue of rights, but benefits, and secondly, because when you force people to do something they don't like, they tend to resent it. If you allow an issue to gradually become acceptable, they'll tend to go along.
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Why do you care so little for people's rights that you'd rather deprive them in a fit of pique than get it over with? If the people have these rights (as the SCotUS ruled that they indeed do) then there's absolutely zero reason to "let it play out" and tell people "You guys just sit tight and we'll let you really have those rights in a while..."
Again though, this was never an issue of rights. It was an issue of benefits that the court felt were unequally being granted. I, and many people in this country, disagree vehemently with the courts ruling. And no amount of having that court ruling changes our minds on the issue.
We still have people fighting tooth and nail over abortion Joph. That's why you don't try to solve social issues with court rulings.
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I mean, the answer is obvious and it's not about your love of the constitution or liberty or anything like that. You're just petty and butthurt. But go ahead and write ten paragraphs pretending that that isn't it.
Sigh. I'm upset that our court has become increasingly progressive in its rulings. And by "progressive" I don't mean "supporting people's, rights, minorities, women, gays, etc...". I mean "using the court as a tool to push an agenda in the first place". The problem I have with the ruling is that you could replace the benefit in question with almost any other state granted benefit, and replace homosexuals with almost any other identity group, and you could make the same argument, complete with claims that said group's "rights" are being infringed by not being included on the list of recipients of said benefit. It's not about SSM. It's about the desire of the court to be used as a tool for a social agenda rather than a stop gap against constitutional violations as it's supposed to be.
I get that for *you* it's entirely about the people involved. But for me, it's about the process by which we apply the law. And in this case, it was a terrible application. There was no law preventing any state's citizens from choosing to grant marriage benefits to any set of people they desired. Thus, it was not a constitutional issue at all. Gay marriage was not "illegal" in any state in the US. It was merely not rewarded by the state. The ruling did not increase our liberty by making SSM legal. It reduced our liberties by taking away our ability to choose as citizens which sets of people should qualify for which state benefits, and why.
Again. You have to look past the SSM aspect of this. That's just the symptom of a much larger problem. Of course, they'll always use groups that appear the most victimized to push forward a federal power agenda. It's the poor people without health care that pushes for a ruling that the commerce clause can be used to mandate individual purchases of a product. It's those poor gay folks that are used to push a ruling that states can't choose who can qualify for various social focused benefits programs (in this case, marriage, but could be anything). That's the real problem. SSM is just one tool used to push us farther and farther into a government system that increasingly controls our lives.
There you go. And only three (oops four now) paragraphs!