LadyJazzer wrote: It won't take long for SCOTUS to figure out that the rights of one group of people should not be put to a popular vote by a majority of the people of a state. The 14th Amendment wasn't ambiguous. If black civil rights had been put to a popular vote, we'd still have slavery...and the GOP would have their dream of cheaper labor...
It will take even less time for SCOTUS to figure out that equal protection of the law isn't being abridged. Every legal protection accessible to those that are married are available to homosexual couples who are not married. Marriage from a governmental perspective is a civil contract, something that is readily available to homosexual couples without changing a single thing.
So it is your understanding that homosexual couples can file joint tax returns, receive the other partner's social security benefits, obtain insurance benefits through their partner's insurance policy, etc., just as married heterosexual couples may? I don't think so.
Gee, that would have been like telling the Lovings that they had every legal protection available--as long as one of them could either switch to white, (or black) so that they wouldn't be a bi-racial couple. Only the bigots could come up with such an answer. Since there are over 1500 separate legal and tax advantages that are available to married couples, that are not available to gay marriage partners as a result of DOMA, we KNOW that's a lie.
Gee - guess what's different here. In one of them, a man and a woman were denied equal protection of the laws. The law said that marriage is the union between a man and a woman and they were denied the equal protection of that law. If the plaintiffs in the suit had both been men, or both been women, that wouldn't have been, and still isn't in the majority of the States, the case. Loving v Virginia struck down miscegenation laws - that is the limit of the court's decision in that case.
Something the Dog Said wrote: So according to you, Congress does not have the power to define marriage, yet DOMA did just that.
No, what DOMA did was clarify what the Congress intended in its use of those words for the purposes of clarifying who the laws they wrote were intended to apply to. A State redefining for itself what marriage is should not have any bearing on what the word means when used in federal legislation and given the history of using judicial "interpretation" to justify legislating from the bench, Congress clarified what their use of those words was intended to mean to prevent the judiciary from assigning a definition of their own.
DOMA isn't unconstitutional. One has never had the right to marry whomever they choose - marriage has always been, and continues to be, a restricted privilege as opposed to a right. One has never, for example, had the right to marry their sibling, or their first cousin, or their parent or their grandparent - which is why marriage has always been, and continues to be, a restricted privilege and not a basic human right.
Many, including the current administration, believe that DOMA is unconstitutional, just as you and others allege that the Healthcare Reform Act is unconstitutional.
"Remember to always be yourself. Unless you can be batman. Then always be batman." Unknown
Something the Dog Said wrote: So according to you, Congress does not have the power to define marriage, yet DOMA did just that.
No, what DOMA did was clarify what the Congress intended in its use of those words for the purposes of clarifying who the laws they wrote were intended to apply to. A State redefining for itself what marriage is should not have any bearing on what the word means when used in federal legislation and given the history of using judicial "interpretation" to justify legislating from the bench, Congress clarified what their use of those words was intended to mean to prevent the judiciary from assigning a definition of their own.
As well as allow the states to deny equal protection and to deny other states contracts under the full faith and credit clause.
"Remember to always be yourself. Unless you can be batman. Then always be batman." Unknown
If I believed that DOMA was an attempt by the United States to exceed its delegated powers and define what a marriage is or isn't, I would agree with the administration that it was unconstitutional. When one reads the clear language of the law itself, however, it is readily apparent that this is not the case. It isn't an attempt to define who may or may not be married, which would be unconstitutional, it is simply a clarification of legislative intent to avoid any potential misinterpretation of that intent should the historic, traditional and commonly understood definition of those words come into question as a result of the legislative actions of one or more States. Congress knew to whom the were referring when they wrote the laws, they wanted to make certain that the courts were clear on it as well. Now, whether or not it is constitutional to deny to a homosexual domestic partner the benefits that a spouse would be entitled to under federal law might certainly be a relevant question that needs to be examined, but that would be a challenge to the Social Security Act itself, not DOMA. Section 3 or DOMA simply explains the definition intended by Congress when it acted - which was not in any way in question at the time, but might be subject to being questioned in the future if they had not clarified their intent with the passage of DOMA.
:rofl :thumbsup: 
lol 
