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Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Perhaps so, but that does not prevent legislatures from defining it to serve other ends. E.g., people who do not breed can still get married, nor do you suggest the law should be otherwise. Just as we wear eyeglasses when nature makes us nearsighted, we can change the law when we want.
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Nice non-sequiter. No one said the legislatures were prevented from defining it from serving other ends.
The issue we were discussion is whether our US constitution bars legislatures from defining marriage as between one woman and one man. Got it now?
The state legislatures can make gay marriage legal. No one (or at least I didn't) said anything otherwise. The issue was can courts use the US constitution to force the legislatures to open up marriage to gays.
My whole point in bringing this up was that if they can be forced to open up marriage to gays, under what theory of US con law would they not also have to open it up to polygamists also. I have not yet heard one way to force legislatures to allow gay marriage that couldn't also require polygamy under the US constitution.
Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
So what?
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Ty - you keep quoting Loving as the basis for which gay marriage will be required under US Constitutional Law. I keep quoting Loving and other USSC caselaw to show you why that is unlikely to happen. That is why I quoted Loving. Because you say it somehow requires gay marriage.
The other reason I quoted that is because when I did an FYI post about where the definition of marriage that is used in the DOMA comes from, you went off about how marriage was a legal right not something that derives from nature. So then I gave you that Loving quote in which the USSC seems to be saying that marriage is a fundamental right that belongs to the individual and bases this at least in part because our very existence and survival depend on it (the USSC's words, not mine). So it seems to me, the USSC finds these marital rights accrue from our need to survive as a species. But I could be wrong. And so could all the other legal scholars who think that way.
That is so what.
Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
So noted. I think love between two people is a wonderful thing.
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However, wonderful it may be, it is not something that entitles one to marry any person simply because they love that person. For instance if the person is your adult child. You don't get to marry them. Even if you say you will not try to have children together.
Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
I have read Locke. I don't question his importance as a philopher. And yet, if you make legal arguments now based on Locke's conception of natural rights, you should be laughed at. Because legitimacy in our system of government comes from our constitution and laws, not from Locke's writings.
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Ty, that is not what I said and you are either drunk already and have forgotten what I said that started all this, or you are just saying stupid things because you lost the argument and now want to annoy me.
This all started by me posting an FYI about where it was the DOMA got its defintion of marriage from. It is from an 1885 USSC polygamy case and the USSC defined it as one man and one woman. Then you started in with marriage is a legal right not a right of nature. And I talked about how marriage is considered by USSC precedent to be a fundamental right, and the constitutional basis for fundamental rights is derived from Locke's theories of natural rights (whether you think this is funny or not is irrelevant). And I quoted the USSC in Loving, which certainly seems to support the idea that the fundamentality of the right of marriage springs from it's role in our very existence and survival (the USSC's words, not mine).
The USSC's fundamental rights case law is replete with natural rights type arguments. Go read a few of those cases and it should become clear to you quickly. Unless you are already drunk.
