Prop 8 OverturnedFollow

Oh, well if you skimmed a Wiki article, that's just as good as a working knowledge. Your excuses aside, when someone asks "How come we didn't start over with marriage law if we hated Britain so much?", it's obvious that they're coming from a place very far down the scale.


That "something" wasn't the Crown's or parliament's role in marriage.


Yeah. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."


Do you eat paint chips or something? Government's role in marriage was never an issue so there was never a reason to do a wholesale change of it. But at this point we do have writings from various legislators and politicians from the era so the burden falls on those who would claim that there was an overarching reason to provide evidence for the claim.

You know, it's interesting that for most political conservatives the default state is to allow action unless there's compelling reason to disallow it. Social conservatism takes just the opposite stance, of course. I wonder how people who are both politically and socially conservative resolve this conflict, which they must feel keenly at times since one of the earmarks of conservatism is discomfort with internal conflict.

There's no indication that we didn't support them. There's no indication that the issue ever came up at all. So the question is moot.


There's no indication that anyone thought so.


Are you reading a different thread on some other forum and then posting your replies here?

Edit: Again, you have some misguided notion that there was some grand revising of every law in the land or something. While the federal government underwent an obvious shake-up, marriage was (and is) handled at the state & county level. After a hundred years or so of being populated, there were already local laws in place throughout the colonies, most of which would have remained intact since they had little to do with Britain at all.

Edited, Aug 13th 2010 12:49pm by Jophiel

I thought the reason we rebelled from the British was the whole "No taxation without representation" thing.

Furthermore, what does the American Revolution in the 18th century have to do with (soon to be) unlawful discrimination based on sexual orientation in the 21st century? I must have missed the boat somewhere.

He's confusing the Founding Fathers with the Pilgrims.

Ok, that's a start, now you have to validate it. I'm not saying it isn't, but simply saying it is, even if it is, isn't efficient. You have to actually support it.


/woooosh..

Seriously, the point wasn't about that debate, but the argument used. That's the point you are missing. It doesn't matter what you're arguing for or against, your arguments have to support it. You can't say some blanket argument as "it isn't fair" or "it isn't right" without any supporting claims because that would hold true for everything.



Why do you keep asking me why it shouldn't be allowed when I keep telling that I'm not arguing for/against SSM, but against poor arguments such as "it's an unjustified restriction"

Besides, you're going about this all the wrong way. It isn't the opponents job to show why it should be illegal, but the proponents to show why it should be legal. You're on the defense and your goal should be to turn the tables on your opponents and make them play defense.



The argument was made that there is no "overriding theme" because marriage was naturally inherent to our laws through so many hundreds of years through many different cultures.

I countered to say that the US is fairly new and had a very historical moment in time where the country was redefining itself, making it different from the rest of the world, i.e The whole Bill of Rights thing, which was first introduced only a few years after the Revolutionary War.

If the people had a problem with the way marriage was handled, i.e same sex marriage, it would have been handled then. You can't hide behind the "old social marriage tradition" when you are literally redefining peoples' rights. By them not addressing it, means they approved of it and they had a reason even if it's as trivial as "that seems 'right' ". To claim otherwise is contradictory to their actions of creating citizen rights.

That is correct.


This isn't to say that there was some overarching rationale for government being in marriage. It just means that all the old independent rationales still held. As well, same sex marriage wasn't even a consideration then as homosexuality was illegal. This does not mean that any (or a majority) of the rationales regarding marriage laws had a legitimates reason to exclude homosexuals, it just means that homosexuals were never considered for purely discriminatory reasons.

If the best defense people have for denying homosexuals the right to legally marry is "Back in the 1780s, people thought homosexuals were deviant monsters who deserved to be arrested", you should probably give up now.

It might be true. I don't think anyone (Alma included) knows what he's arguing about.

Probably their illegitimate kid.

Week's over. It's my 10th anniversary at this job. I don't have to waste time any more this week. I quit.

As for insults, Alma, I'm tired of having to talk to you like you're four years old. I'm sorry if that hurts your feelings, but there it is.

She went home early.