Mixed feelings

I approve of the end result but I wish we had got there via the legislature rather than the courts:

A federal judge has issued an injunction Tuesday blocking enforcement of Idaho’s ban on same-sex marriage, saying it is unconstitutional.

U.S. District Magistrate Candy Dale issued the ruling in the case of four same-sex couples who challenged the constitutionality of Idaho’s marriage laws, which voters approved as an amendment to the state constitution in 2006.

In her decision, Dale wrote that Idaho’s laws barring same-sex marriage unconstitutionally deny gay and lesbian citizens their fundamental right to marry.

I see marriage law as being in the domain of the state legislatures. I haven’t read the court decisions but it would seem to be a stretch to find a fundamental right for same sex couples to marry in the U.S. Constitution, common law, or natural law and yet there be some question about the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms being protected.

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9 thoughts on “Mixed feelings

  1. Do you feel the same way about firearms laws, in regards to whether they are struck down in courts or taken up with legislation? I have mixed feelings both ways: doing it with legislation adds more laws to the already too confusing books and further confirms (in my eyes) that the government thinks and acts like they have the right to tell you what to do, even if they are “giving” you more freedom. If they can give, they can take. Getting it struck down in the courts takes a law off the books, and gives a certain sense of having a big middle finger raised to one’s opponents. But that also means that people are fighting you and actively trying to deny your rights. And they’ll probably try again.

    • I suppose it is possible my bias is showing but because the right to keep and bear arms is a specific enumerated right as opposed to something far more nebulous I view it a proper domain for the courts to get involved in.

  2. Just curious: How would you feel about marriage law enacted by voter referendum, i.e. by he People as opposed to the Legislature? The reason I ask is because Oregon’s ban on same-sex marriage was done by referendum, and is being challenged in court.

    Personally, I don’t have a problem with the state recognizing same-sex marriages. The part I don’t like is when the state empowers same-sex couples to demand more from their fellow citizens than a “traditional” couple. (See the infamous stories of the bakery, florist, and t-shirt printer who were court-ordered to serve same-sex couples’ weddings, after initially refusing on religious grounds.) I guess I just don’t understand why the “right to marry who I choose” must include the “right to demand services from people who disapprove of my choices.” Can’t we get the first, and leave off the second?

    • I think voter referendum is a valid way of changing the law. But that doesn’t mean it can override constitutional protections.

  3. The game (and it’s an old game) is to get as many people as possible, who have some beef with society (real or imagined) to attack and wear down the foundations of society all at once. While we’re arguing the details and nuances of each and every attack, as if they matter (they don’t–what matters is that we’re distrascted by them), there are a dozen more attacks in the works.

    By the time homosexual married couples realize that this was not such a good idea after all (for several reasons, not the least of which is that they’re now on what amounts to a list of “registered homosexuals” on a planet with a billion people who want to kill them) it will be too late for them. Who will they blame then? Probably everyone, which is the plan. Certainly the divorce lawyers will make out OK for a while.

    In short; none of these issues have anything to do with their stated reasons for existing. The War on (some) Drugs, immigration, terrorism, “gay” marriage, “climate change”, banking and healthcare, gun control, they’re all imaginary or arranged crises/scandals for the purpose of setting you (and Western society) up to fail. So far it’s worked pretty well, though most of the people actively fomenting this crap don’t know what they’re doing.

  4. “See the infamous stories of the bakery, florist, and t-shirt printer who were court-ordered to serve same-sex couples’ weddings, after initially refusing on religious grounds.) I guess I just don’t understand why the “right to marry who I choose” must include the “right to demand services from people who disapprove of my choices.” Can’t we get the first, and leave off the second?”

    While I don’t disagree with your basic premise here, I would point out that (at least as I understand it) if someone were to deny these services for, say, a mixed-race couple on the same religious grounds, they would be subject to the same kind of anti-discrimination lawsuits and court orders.

    Whether you agree with it or not (and I don’t – my preference is to let the free market sort it out), if that kind of protection/enforcement/whatever is being extended to one group, then under the idea of equal protection it should be extended to all.

    • They probably would, and I agree with you on letting the free market sort it out. There’s no sense in manufacturing nationwide outrage over what should be a minor, private disappointment.

      At what point will (if ever) society’s and the courts’ response to these lawsuits be, “Y’know, maybe the customers should at least try to find a business more in tune with their wants and needs”?

    • As long as the ACLU and courts will fight JUST AS HARD when the local Nazis have a Jewish deli cater their Annual Torchlight Parade Dinner For the Fuhrer’s Birthday, the Klan force a black-owned (and primarily staffed) caterer do their parties, or the (hypothetical) the Islamic Society for the Extermination of the Zionist Pestilence gets those Jewish caterers to do their September 11th Anniversary (11 Sep 1972) Dinner (because kosher food is generally halal), sure.

      If forcing businesses to be a part of a same-sex wedding is justifed under “public accomodations”, then these other two are justified as well.

      If my counter examples are not ones that would be pursued with the same vigor by teh same groups and institutions (excepting the gay rights lobby – a single-issue group is certainly not being hypocritical when they stick to their single issue. . . although they _could_ jump in as well, since it is tangentally related by being the same *sort* of discrimination issue) , then it is simply government-mandated religious discrimination AGAINST private citizens (a direct violation of an enumerated right).

  5. Lyle is exactly right. The details don’t really matter, and it’s pointless to get bogged down with them. “Free association” sounds great, but what it means today is it’s OK for Mozilla to fire its CEO for supporting Proposition 8, but totally unacceptable for a wedding photographer to turn down a gig at a lesbian commitment ceremony. Because The Cause is advanced thereby, that’s why. Which is also why gun rights folk have to fight tooth and nail for their gains, and then watch while politicians and judges just ignore the law, not to mention the Second Amendment itself; The Cause is not advanced by gun people being left alone. Yes, I am a lawyer, and you can quote me on this: Rule of law is a sham, the veneer on which is wearing increasingly thin.

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