Alright, I know we went through this over on John's blog in a very energetic and fueled debate, but I just have to post this.
According to MSNBC, President Bush is going to openly support a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, or as he calls it, protecting the "sanctity of marriage".
I was unhappy with the whole situation before, but never really thought anyone would be dumb enough to try to pass this kind of legislation. It's basically political suicide. What I find very interesting, is that there is a (non-scientific) poll in the article, asking whether or not you support legalization of same-sex marriage. Granted, MSNBC is a very liberal media outlet and attracts those types of readers, but the results with nearly 100,000 responses is a statistical dead heat. Most other polls that I have seen show a slight support for some sort of ban on gay-marriages.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you need 2/3 of the states to ratify an amendment to the constitution? I just can't see that may legislatures agreeing this is the best way to go about it. Although, 38 states have supposedly passed laws protecting the sanctity of marriage (which is 76%), I just don't see them all agreeing that amending the constitution is the best way to go about this.
It's becoming increasing evident to me that the American people (as naive as they are), want to see something done to ensure that "homo-sexual" citizens are not treated fairly and given no rights. Do they not realize what kind of flood gate this opens up for eating away at our civil liberties? I guess not, considering it's the same group of people that support the "Patriot Act" (which is another topic for another post). As more and more of the world seems to move into more freedoms for it's people, and more liberal views, we seems to be headed backwards.
And wouldn't an amendment, revoking the equality rights of citizens, be unconstitutional? Or would gays no longer be classified as citizens? Doesn't the constitution provide for equal rights and protection under the law? Slavery was banned for that very reason. Equal means equal, period.
Posted by doug at February 24, 2004 10:54 AMconstitutional amendments are "of the constitution", so they can't be deemed unconstitutional. that' the point of ammendments. there's an ammendment prohibiting alcohol, then another repealing it, isn't there? the updating ammedment undoes the previous. this ammendment undoes civil liberties for a group of people.
it's sickening that the country is so divided on this. just like pressing a little red button and nuking a population, the bigots come out and just pull a lever to vote for an official who can tow such a dispicable line. they are completely detached from the people they're killing or legislating into second-class citizenship.
i'm afraid we're finding that the majority in this country would rather not think rationally for themselves and just beat down the people they don't understand.
Posted by: john at February 25, 2004 09:03 AMTrue that there are amendments for reasons and that they can take away our civil liberties. I just find it heartrenching that no-one has really thought about this in terms of what it does to the gay community. I barely ever hear how this will create a different class of citizen and how it will segregate them from "the normal masses". The opposition is almost always "it's a state issue, not federal".
For the most part, the conservative right has always acted this way though. They would rather not bother learning about something that doesn't directly influence them, but would rather put some sort of ban on it. Take stem cell research, or abortion. These are all very heated topics in our society, and yet, they don't bother to learn about the benefits (or potential benefits), but would rather just put a stop to them and crawl back in their comfortable hole. Society as a whole is changing and people don't want to believe it. They are happy living in their grandparents world, with their grandparents views on how things should be.
Posted by: doug at February 25, 2004 10:07 AM