WH bails on DOMA

[TE999]

First DADT hits the canvas, then DOMA's going down. Did you just hear another domino fall?

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/feb/23/obama-administration-ends-its-defense-doma/

Naturally there's the usual apocalyptic pronouncements from DOMA's supporters, but that's to be expected. Another step taken towards equality.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Yea, team!

 

[amicus]

The pronouncement by the Obama administration is problematic from a Constitutional perspective. Although it is supposed to be the Courts that decide the Consitutionality of a law, Obama unilaterally proclaimed it unconstitutional and will cease enforcing the law as it exists.

This is another example of this administration side-stepping legal procedures through Executive fiat and by-passing Congress and the Courts.

A very, very dangerous precedent.

Amicus

 

[lloyd_5]

DOMA was never the right vehicle. We've been looking at the equality issue for ages through the wrong end of the telescope - as have most western democracies.

The early religious texts conflated the religious sacrament of marriage (or Jewish, Muslim, etc equivalents) with the legal and constitutional issues of property rights, next of kin and inheritance, pre-nups and all the paraphenalia of civic society.

Can we not come at this from the opposite side?

Leave marriage as a ritual that religions interpret in their own peculiar ways and institute a single, universal civil contract that all would-be couples - GLBT, heterero, and others - must all go through to legalize their rights to be regarded as a couple under the constitution.

Priests, rabbis and immams could marry believers but not have a legal function.

All the love and commitment should be expressed in a civil ceremony that levels the playing field for everybody - even if you commit to your partner in a hot-air balloon or underwater off the Florida Keys.

Even the word 'marry' has a negative context as it means 'giving someone into the ownership of another' and surely that is not what we want?

Civil Contract seems a bit unromantic. How about 'Contract of Commitment/Partnership'?

 

[Tio_Narratore]

The pronouncement by the Obama administration is problematic from a Constitutional perspective. Although it is supposed to be the Courts that decide the Consitutionality of a law, Obama unilaterally proclaimed it unconstitutional and will cease enforcing the law as it exists.

This is another example of this administration side-stepping legal procedures through Executive fiat and by-passing Congress and the Courts.

A very, very dangerous precedent.

Amicus

A precedent? Oh, That's right, Dubya, the great "decider" always worked through Congress and the Constitution and never side-stepped legal procedures.

And I'll grant you, if you raise it, Amicus, that Georgie wasn't the first to do it.

 

[stephen55]

President Obama has said that he feels DOMA is unconstitutional. Maybe he's right. Maybe he's wrong. It is, after all, the Supreme Court that is charged with defining and interpreting just what is and what isn't unconstitutional.

Seeing as how everyone and anyone in the US is entitled to speak out on matters of law and the Constitution, I don't see Obama's stance as problematic at all. It's hardly a precedent as the Executive Branch has a long and noble tradition of moving to make changes in the status quo. Just because President X signs a bill into law doesn't mean that President Y is (and should be) powerless to change or reverse it.

To call this a very dangerous precedent is to at best spurious and at worst, disingenuous. It is neither precedent nor dangerous.

 

[Stella_Omega]

DOMA was never the right vehicle. We've been looking at the equality issue for ages through the wrong end of the telescope - as have most western democracies.

The early religious texts conflated the religious sacrament of marriage (or Jewish, Muslim, etc equivalents) with the legal and constitutional issues of property rights, next of kin and inheritance, pre-nups and all the paraphenalia of civic society.

Can we not come at this from the opposite side?

Leave marriage as a ritual that religions interpret in their own peculiar ways and institute a single, universal civil contract that all would-be couples - GLBT, heterero, and others - must all go through to legalize their rights to be regarded as a couple under the constitution.

Priests, rabbis and immams could marry believers but not have a legal function.

All the love and commitment should be expressed in a civil ceremony that levels the playing field for everybody - even if you commit to your partner in a hot-air balloon or underwater off the Florida Keys.

Even the word 'marry' has a negative context as it means 'giving someone into the ownership of another' and surely that is not what we want?

Civil Contract seems a bit unromantic. How about 'Contract of Commitment/Partnership'?

In fact, churches can perform same-sex marriage ceremonies if they want-- they wont be legally recognised, but the couple will be married in the eyes of whichever god they feel appropriate. There still has to be a government approved signed contract, and every marrying priest is authorised to administrate that paper for het marriages.

We call that legal, federally recognised contract a "marriage."

 

[Pure]

Doma

i agree with lloyd, above.

i think Obama simply saw 'the handwriting on the wall.' the DOMA approach would/will likely fail, on civil liberties grounds, similarly to DADT.

again, as far as civil unions, the states will likely fall in line, there being no good argument that a 'marriage like' civil union should be unavailable to non-heterosexual pairings.

if there were to be a secular, governmental 'preference', for heterosexual marriage, it would, in the present state of things (interpretations of the 14th amendment), likely require a constitutional amendment.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

i agree with lloyd, above.

i think Obama simply saw 'the handwriting on the wall.' the DOMA approach would/will likely fail, on civil liberties grounds, similarly to DADT.

again, as far as civil unions, the states will likely fall in line, there being no good argument that a 'marriage like' civil union should be unavailable to non-heterosexual pairings.

if there were to be a secular, governmental 'preference', for heterosexual marriage, it would, in the present state of things (interpretations of the 14th amendment), likely require a constitutional amendment.

Something that is not going to happen.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

The federal government has no business sticking it's nose in the institution of marriage, period.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

The precedent stix. One fine day a President will come along and poke your ox in the ass, and you wont like it. Suppose the next President takes a look at the 14th Amendment, studies how it was cobbled together, concludes that the whole business was blatant BS, and lets the niggaz know that theyre not really citizens...it all seems to have been unconstitutional you see.

 

[Stella_Omega]

The federal government has no business sticking it's nose in the institution of marriage, period.

Marriage should not be a states right, in my opinion. It should be federal, exclusively.

 

[3113]

Naturally there's the usual apocalyptic pronouncements from DOMA's supporters

Indeed. When two people of the same sex can legally be married, what else can you expect but this?



How will the U.S. of A. ever survive this?

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Or you just might get Jay Keasling, who is working to make the US energy independent, reduce greenhouse gases to a minimum and revitalize the MidWest. And of course we can't have that! And yes, he's gay and has two adopted sons. So, what have you done for the world?

 

[Black13]

Marriage is useless. The military's senseless. What do gay people want with America's Worst Institutions?

 

[Stella_Omega]

Marriage is useless. The military's senseless. What do gay people want with America's Worst Institutions?

Well, this queer woman understands how you feel, but hey-- if you don't want to get married, don't. If you don't want to join the military, don't.

You can totally opt out, and then-- change your mind if you meet the right woman, or a just and legal war happens.

 

[estragon]

Executive nullification is a dangerous precedent. Explain to me the difference between Mr. Obama electing not to enforce a Federal statute, duly enacted, and Orval Faubus standing at the doors of a schoolhouse in Arkansas, defying the Supreme Court. If Mr Obama disagrees with the law, let him get Congress to change or repeal it. There is a reason for separation of powers--do you really trust any government? Or any elected official? Or any appointed official?

 

[amicus]

Executive nullification is a dangerous precedent. Explain to me the difference between Mr. Obama electing not to enforce a Federal statute, duly enacted, and Orval Faubus standing at the doors of a schoolhouse in Arkansas, defying the Supreme Court. If Mr Obama disagrees with the law, let him get Congress to change or repeal it. There is a reason for separation of powers--do you really trust any government? Or any elected official? Or any appointed official?[/QUOTE]

~~~

Good points...I would add that 31 States, if memory serves, VOTED to confirm that marriage is defined as between a man and a woman, which is why some want to subvert State's Rights, the power of the people to vote, and look to Executive fiat or Supreme Court rulings that over-ride the will of the people.

If you idiots keep it up you are going to foment a revolution and you will have no homosexual rights at all as the silent and moral majority will speak.

Amicus

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Executive nullification is a dangerous precedent. Explain to me the difference between Mr. Obama electing not to enforce a Federal statute, duly enacted, and Orval Faubus standing at the doors of a schoolhouse in Arkansas, defying the Supreme Court. If Mr Obama disagrees with the law, let him get Congress to change or repeal it. There is a reason for separation of powers--do you really trust any government? Or any elected official? Or any appointed official?

The difference is quite clear. Faubus was given a court order to do something and defied it. That is essentially rebellion and gets the troops sent in. The Prez isn't defying an order. Lower court decisions have been made that DOMA is unconstitutional and he has simply told the AJ's office to not defend it. That's an executive call, just like Jerry and the Governator refusing to defend Prop 8. It's called Separation of Powers

 

[lloyd_5]

Thanks Stella and Pure.

Perhaps I didn't explain myself properly.

As the only guarantor of respect, rights and legal acceptance of partnerships, the state is supreme. Why the heck do we kowtow to a bunch of pointy-headed religionists who claim to have a god-given right to decide which couplings can be approved. We fall into their trap.

Marriage is an old-fashioned ideal wrapped up in centuries of quasi-magic. Leave it to the mystics.

We need a new contract,legitimized under the constitution, that recognizes and celebrates the public vows that couples offer to each other. We have a law for divorce that goes against the grain of all religion - so why not?

 

[voluptuary_manque]

And with public opinion shifting towards acceptance of gay marriage, the GOP is short of--shrugging it off with the exception of certain deluded fundies!

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Marriage should not be a states right, in my opinion. It should be federal, exclusively.

Why?

Those powers not specifically given to the Federal Government fall to the States and the People.

The institution of marriage is an arrangement between two people, a private contract if you will, not between those people and the Federal Government. I actually don't think State or local governments should be involved except to issue a the requisite license - they only do that to collect a fee(tax) - and to enforce the contract entered into by both parties via the courts.

As far as the state is concerned it shouldn't matter what sex the two people are that agree to the contract of marriage. Even if that contract is just that a contract or a religious ceremony.

 

[1sickbastard]

Executive nullification is a dangerous precedent. Explain to me the difference between Mr. Obama electing not to enforce a Federal statute, duly enacted, and Orval Faubus standing at the doors of a schoolhouse in Arkansas, defying the Supreme Court. If Mr Obama disagrees with the law, let him get Congress to change or repeal it. There is a reason for separation of powers--do you really trust any government? Or any elected official? Or any appointed official?

No of course I don't, which is one of many reasons I don't see it wise for said gov't to be involving itself in the personal affairs of consenting adults.

My only deal with mariage is that there needs to be a legal obligation to cover the eventuallity of divorce as a matter of business contracts disolving and sort of fiscal union. (And to look insure parents are looking after the best interests of their children, should a divorce occur)

 

[3113]

Why?

I think Stella is saying that if it's "State" then the States can decide who is and is not married according to majority vote as they did with Prop. 8. Also, Federal means that such decisions apply to all the U.S., not to one state or another. So if the U.S. decides interracial marriage is okay, then no state can say, "We don't agree," and opt out. It's tiring when what should be a right for all is only a right for some even though all live in the same country and should have the same rights no matter which part of that country they live in (witness segregated schools in part of the U.S. but not the other. Why were people's rights allowed to be denied in some parts but not others? Federal makes sure everyone's rights are respected everywhere--in theory.)

You are correct, however, that marriage should be a private contract with no government involvement. However, such private contracts do tend to involve the government (Federal and State) unlike other private contracts when you end up with arguments over children, estate inheritance, medical decisions, etc. Because these often relate to state and federal laws.

It has been useful, so far, to have a one-contract-fits-all slip of paper, easily gotten and signed, as compared to working out all the details with a lawyer for each individual couple as some do with pre-nups. The one-contract issued by state governments indicates all the contractual rights of those married, like one spouse inheriting all if the other dies, or deciding what medical treatments an unconscious spouse gets, or the right to make decisions about the children.

What you propose makes marriage expensive and complicated--if it's going to be like any other private contract. And it gets especially messy as children are involved and children have their own rights under state laws (i.e., they're people not property and can end up wards of the state if not treated right. So how are they part of private contract? At what point are their signatures required on it?)

I'm not saying that you're wrong that marriage is and should be a private contract and no one's business but those involved, but I doubt that it's going to become that given the ease of the current marriage license in cheaply and easily creating such a contract. Even the notary (the one performing the "ceremony") is usually cheaper and easier to find than the usual notary for most contracts.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Oh lord, yes! The last thing we want is for marriage to get even more complicated than it is in France where young heterosexual couples are applying for the same sort of civil union that gay couples have. And why? Because it's just so much easier than marriage!