Obama Blasts Obama's Evasive Stance On Gay Marriage

pineinthegrass wrote: Anyone know what Romney's position is on this issue today?

No...It's too early in the day... Wait for the 6pm news-cycle....

Was that before or after Romney was going to be "to the left of Ted Kennedy on LGBT issues"?

First off, let's dispense with the notion that anyone has a right to be married. That is an easily dispelled notion. Marriage is a restricted privilege granted to some and barred to others - always has been. Everyone is not treated equally in having access to that privilege, nor should they be.

FredHayek wrote: Well, there used to be sodomy laws....but I have to agree with the OP. Gay marriage isn't a privacy issue, it is a civil rights issue.

It's nothing of the kind - no one has ever had a right to marriage.

PrintSmith wrote: First off, let's dispense with the notion that anyone has a right to be married. That is an easily dispelled notion. Marriage is a restricted privilege granted to some and barred to others - always has been. Everyone is not treated equally in having access to that privilege, nor should they be.

And if you are a redneck conservative, you didn't have a right for a white to marry a black until the '60s...

Tell ya what, Walking Eagle, why don't you go read a little bit about SCOTUS decisions on marriage rights & laws before your oral-diarrhea takes over again:

Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967),[1] was a landmark civil rights case in which the United States Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, declared Virginia's anti-miscegenation statute, the "Racial Integrity Act of 1924", unconstitutional, thereby overturning Pace v. Alabama (1883) and ending all race-based legal restrictions on marriage in the United States.

In that same year, the Unitarian Universalist Association declared that "laws which prohibit, inhibit or hamper marriage or cohabitation between persons because of different races, religions, or national origins should be nullified or repealed."[7] Months before the Supreme Court ruling on Loving v. Virginia the Roman Catholic Church joined the movement, supporting interracial couples in their struggle for recognition of their right to marriage

The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the convictions in a unanimous decision (dated June 12, 1967), dismissing the Commonwealth of Virginia's argument that a law forbidding both white and black persons from marrying persons of another race, and providing identical penalties to white and black violators, could not be construed as racially discriminatory. The court ruled that Virginia's anti-miscegenation statute violated both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In its decision, the court wrote:

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.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia

And, very shortly, I predict that "the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State" is going to be expanded to include the freedom to marry someone of the same sex...

Spare me your bullsh*t "orginial intent" Founding Fathers "rights" vs. "privileges" crap. Yep...So full of crap you can't possibly fly....

LJ,
Some African Americans get very touchy when you equate their civil rights struggles with homosexuals, but I don't agree. It will take longer, but gays are making progress every year, and they face many of the same struggles as blacks have.

I don't care if they do... The struggle is the same, whether some admit it or not.

LadyJazzer wrote:

PrintSmith wrote: First off, let's dispense with the notion that anyone has a right to be married. That is an easily dispelled notion. Marriage is a restricted privilege granted to some and barred to others - always has been. Everyone is not treated equally in having access to that privilege, nor should they be.

And if you are a redneck conservative, you didn't have a right for a white to marry a black until the '60s...

Tell ya what, Walking Eagle, why don't you go read a little bit about SCOTUS decisions on marriage rights & laws before your oral-diarrhea takes over again

The Warren court got it wrong, no surprise there given the large number of decisions it made which had no basis in either law or the Constitution. Other Supreme Courts have said that the federal government has the right to tell individuals how much wheat they can grow to feed their own family - something I reject outright as well.

If marriage was a basic human right, then siblings would be allowed to marry, a child could marry their parent, a man could have as many wives or a woman as many husbands, as they wished. No, marriage, from the dawn of civilization has always been a restricted privilege. Whether or not a restriction is reasonable or not is a different argument, but access to marriage has always been a restricted privilege.

PrintSmith wrote:

FredHayek wrote: Well, there used to be sodomy laws....but I have to agree with the OP. Gay marriage isn't a privacy issue, it is a civil rights issue.

It's nothing of the kind - no one has ever had a right to marriage.

I don't think that has been the case in American history. It is pretty easy to marry, even have a common law relationship.
And sometimes civil rights come to pass, ask African Americans & American Indians if their civil rights have increased.

PrintSmith wrote: The Warren court got it wrong,

You can't possibly imagine how much I don't give a sh*t if you think the "Warren Court got it wrong", Walking Eagle.

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.

You can't possibly imagine how much I don't give a sh*t that you don't give a sh*t if I think the Warren Court got it wrong Shi* For Brains.