Well, now I'm beginning to think you're a moron. That, or your bias is severly clouding your judgement.
Or you're just wrong. I'll tell you what - I'll stop calling you dense, you stop the insults too, and we both avoid suspensions.
You think you're actually saying something by replacing gender with race and you keep repeating it while it doesn't have anything to do with my argument.
It has
everything to do with your argument.
That doesn't even make any sense. Of course your gender is not defined by your racial orientation, that's one of the reasons that having genders as a part of the definition of marriage does not discriminate against any race, just like it doesn't against any sexual orientations.
But the law
used to discriminate against interracial marriage. The 14th Amendment eventually forced the Supreme Court to rule that the wordings and laws that forbade interracial marriage or sex were unconstitutional. The rationale for the arguments against interracial marriage were
exactly the same as the arguments you're using now.
You admit that disallowing interracial marriage was discriminatory, so how do you now claim that disallowing homosexual marriage is
not without special pleading?
Let's use another argument. Say there was a law against inter-religious marriage - only Jews could marry Jews, for instance. Let's make it nice and bad by saying it even has to be of the same denomination for religions as varied as Christianity. The wording of the law say that marriage is a legal union of a man and a woman who must be of the same faith.
Under your logic it can't be discriminatory, because nobody is being blocked from marriage - they simply have to choose a spouse of the same religion.
Isn't this religious discrimination? Would not the 14th Amendment override this law? If so, why does it
not override homosexual marriage?
How about yet another angle. What marriages do we all agree should not be allowed, and more importantly,
what is the legal rationalization against allowing them? We'll use some of the retarded ones NJ might bring up, just to illustrate the point:
quote:
Children below the age of consent cannot be married, to each other or an adult.
The reason is that both parties entering into a contract must be consenting adults. Since children below the age of consent cannot enter
any contract, they cannot be married.
quote:
A man cannot marry his dog, or any other animal.
The reason is that both parties entering into a contract must be consenting adults. Since dogs and other animals cannot give consent, they cannot enter a contract and thus cannot be married.
quote:
A man cannot marry a toaster.
I won't repeat myself again.
Now let's apply this logic to the real points:
quote:
A black man cannot marry a white woman.
This was the law not too many years ago. But because both parties are consenting adults, and letting them enter the marriage contract does not restrict the rights of anyone else (meaning refusing is also a violation of their right to privacy), the law was overturned on Constitutional grounds.
quote:
A man cannot marry a man.
They're both consenting adults, and letting them marry doesn't restrict anyone else's rights...so why can they not enter the marriage contract? The wording of marriage laws is irrelevant if the Constitution overrides it.
The difference is that the law defines marriage as between a man and a women and this is not discriminatory against any group of people like it would be if it refered to race.
Because your gender is not determined by your sexuality, having gender restiction does not discriminate against any particular sexuality.
It's not racial marriage, CS, it's
interracial marriage. Blacks were allowed to marry...other blacks. It's the exact same logic you're using, CS. Being sexually attracted to people of a different race has nothing to do with your gender, so having a racial restriction does not discriminate against any particular race. A gay man is still legally allowed to marry a woman, so he's treated the same, in exactly the same way a black man is still allowed to marry a black woman, and so they're treated the same, too.
Since the prohibition against interracial marriage was abolished as Unconstitutional, and the arguments against gay marriage are exactly the same, the prohibitions against gay marriage are
also Unconstitutional.
It doesn't matter how different they are. The definition of marriage is with respect to gender, not sexual orientation.
It does matter, because defining marriage as a man and a woman is Unconstitutional, exactly the same way that the old law that added "of the same race" was Unconstitutional.
They are not exactly the same though.
How, and in what way? Stating it is so does not make it so. Sexual orientation defines an identifiable group. Race also defines an identifiable group. If prohibiting interracial marriage is Unconstitutional, prohibiting homosexual marriage must
also be Unconstitutional.
I'll quote the Supreme Court from
Loving v. Virginia, where anti-interracial marriage laws were finally deemed Unconstitutional:
quote:
Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.
Now let's change a few words.
quote:
Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the gender classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious gender discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of any gender resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.
Replace "gender" with "sexual orientation" if it makes more sense to you...but you should hopefully be able to see my point.
Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.
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