If the ‘straight people’ fear the ‘gay problem’ these riots are simply giving them ammo to strike you with.

Only to the gay leftists who need a reason to feel inferior.

The rest of us are too busy being who we are to worry about whether or not our relationship is called a marriage.

Also, leftist Erik, please explain why, if marriage is a “civil right” that cannot be denied to anyone, why the Supreme Court has not only found that it does not apply to other people whose sexual behaviors make them a minority, but specifically does not apply to gay marriage (Baker v. Nelson).

“The republican principle… does not require an unqualified complaisance to every sudden breeze of passion, or to every transient impulse…” – Federalist #71

In other words, don’t look for things in the Constitution that are not there.

And my personal favorite from Mr. Hamilton:

“The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true in fact. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right.”

Remember that last line come another election year.

Regards,
Peter H.

Nowere in the Constitution are you guaranteed a specific “right to privacy.

You know, I’ve heard this line more than once, usually given as an example of judicial activism gone awry, but it’s always bothered me as a myopic view of personal liberty. It just dawned on me why this bothered me: you’re taking a fear expressed by the Anti-Federalists and using it as an argument in your favor. No doubt they had good reason based on experience to fear what could develop in this country if the government wasn’t explicitly restricted from interfering with enumerated rights. However, the concern expressed by Alexander Hamilton of the dangers in this is exactly what I see wrong in the continual use of this line:

I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and in the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers which are not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colourable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why for instance, should it be said, that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretence for claiming that power. They might urge with a semblance of reason, that the constitution ought not to be charged with the absurdity of providing against the abuse of an authority, which was not given, and that the provision against restraining the liberty of the press afforded a clear implication, that a power to prescribe proper regulations concerning it, was intended to be vested in the national government. This may serve as a specimen of the numerous handles which would be given to the doctrine of constructive powers, by the indulgence of an injudicious zeal for bills of rights… Federalist Papers No. 84)

This view may not be practical but it has been shown to be quite prescient.

Speaking of which, the erroneous interpretation of the Ninth Amendment is coming back to haunt us now. Nowere in the Constitution are you guaranteed a specific “right to privacy.”

As for Erik, he should go back and read Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissenting opinion for true jurisprudence. But then again, Erik seems like the type of person who would stick fingers in his ears and shut his eyes just to make you go away.

Regards,
Peter H.

Racial segregation laws are statutory creations and in clear violation of the 14th Amendment.

“Clear”? Surely you jest, Dan. Such is easy to say now decades after a liberal Supreme Court came out with the Brown decision. You have been saying all along that it never occurred to the original framers of the CA Constitution that the same-sex marriage was included under the equal protection clauses, yet this “strict constructionism” you tout out is noticeably absent when it comes to segregation and the 14th Amendment. A complete mixing of the races, including intermarriage or even occurrences where blacks might be in authority over whites, was not at all thought to be included in the 14th Amendment. Well, except for a few “radical” Republicans at that time and even many of them with daughters would have balked at intermarriage. Yet you ignore this history because it isn’t useful to your argument now. Why is that? The fact of the matter is that segregation wasn’t seen as violating the 14th Amendment until the Brown decision, something even the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist may have agreed with:

Rehnquist’s memo unambiguously stated that “Plessy vs. Ferguson was right and should be reaffirmed.” It acknowledged that this “is an unpopular and unhumanitarian position for which I have been excoriated by ‘liberal’ colleagues.” But in its key passage, it insisted that “one hundred and fifty years of attempts on the part of this court to protect minority rights of any kind — whether those of business, slaveholders, or Jehovah’s Witnesses — have all met the same fate. One by one the cases establishing such rights have been sloughed off, and crept silently to rest. If the present court is unable to profit by this example, it must be prepared to see its work fade in time, too, as embodying only the sentiments of a transient majority of nine men.”

Rehnquist went on: “To the argument … that a majority may not deprive a minority of its constitutional right, the answer must be made that while this is sound in theory, in the long run it is the majority who will determine what the constitutional rights of the minority are.”

Rehnquist’s memo concluded that the court should uphold segregation and refuse to protect “special claims” merely “because its members individually are ‘liberals’ and dislike segregation.”

There is no doubt that Rehnquist wrote this memo. But was he speaking for himself?

Testifying before the Senate in 1971, the year he was nominated to the court, Rehnquist said the memo “was prepared by me at Justice Jackson’s request; it was intended as a rough draft of a statement of his views … rather than as a statement of my views.”

The understanding about segregation and the 14th Amendment is summed up in the Plessy decision, using reasoning VERY similiar to what we see today in the current matter:

We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff’s argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it. The argument necessarily assumes that if, as has been more than once the case, and is not unlikely to be so again, the colored race should become the dominant power in the state legislature, and should enact a law in precisely similar terms, it would thereby relegate the white race to an inferior position. We imagine that the white race, at least, would not acquiesce in this assumption. The argument also assumes that social prejudices may be overcome by legislation, and that equal rights cannot be secured to the negro except by an enforced commingling of the two races. We cannot accept this proposition. If the two races are to meet upon terms of social equality, it must be the result of natural affinities, a mutual appreciation of each other’s merits, and a voluntary consent of individuals. As was said by the court of appeals of New York in People v. Gallagher, 93 N. Y. 438, 448: ‘This end can neither be accomplished nor promoted by laws which conflict with the general sentiment of the community upon whom they are designed to operate. When the government, therefore, has secured to each of its citizens equal rights before the law, and equal opportunities for improvement and progress, it has accomplished the end for which it was organized, and performed all of the functions respecting social advantages with which it is endowed.’ Legislation is powerless to eradicate racial instincts, or to abolish distinctions based upon physical differences, and the attempt to do so can only result in accentuating the difficulties of the present situation. If the civil and political rights of both races be equal, one cannot be inferior to the other civilly or politically. If one race be inferior to the other socially, the constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane.

Erik likes to forget the Constitution is a negative document by construction. It limits the Government. Then again, this makes him like too many people wh live under that government.

Studying the framers of the federal constitution or any one of the amendments and I’m sure you’ll find a lot of people who didn’t even question the gender basis of marriage; it wouldn’t even occur to them to include same-sex couples in its protections.

I’m going to let Justice Anthony Kennedy speak to that. From the majority decision in Lawrence v. Texas:

Had those who drew and ratified the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth Amendment or the Fourteenth Amendment known the components of liberty in its manifold possibilities, they might have been more specific. They did not presume to have this insight. They knew times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress. As the Constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom.

Discrimination, under the guise of tradition, is not a justifiable argument for its continuance.

When homosexual conduct is made criminal by the law of the State, that declaration in and of itself is an invitation to subject homosexual persons to discrimination both in the public and in the private spheres.

Again, the reasoning of the court is very similar to Brown. They are looking at the psychology of the law and how it violates equal protection guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.

And someday, when these bans do go before the high court, you can see a justice lifting this passage from that decision, as well.

It should be noted, however, that there is no longstanding history in this country of laws directed at homosexual conduct as a distinct matter.

Same script, different cast.

Can you now a constitutional provision designed to open marriage up to same-sex couples? Studying the framers of the federal constitution or any one of the amendments and I’m sure you’ll find a lot of people who didn’t even question the gender basis of marriage; it wouldn’t even occur to them to include same-sex couples in its protections.

But, they made no effort to bar state recognition of such unions, leaving it, as they left all matters not settled in the constitution, up to the legislatures of the various states.

Brown v. Board determined there was not an equal application in the public sphere regarding separate institutions. And there was a quantifiable difference to support as much in the schooling: funding, teaching staff, length of transport (i.e., busing of students), and more.

You’ve obviously never actually read the Brown decision, Lansing Quaker. Because that was not the basis of the decision. The court held:

We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other “tangible” factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does.

The court implicitly says in Brown that it did NOT matter if the facilities and all tangible aspects are equal or made equal.

So what was the finding of the court?

“Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law; for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school system.” 10

Whatever may have been the extent of psychological knowledge at the time of Plessy v. Ferguson, this finding is amply supported by modern authority.

Thus, the court held in Brown that it was the psychology behind separate but equal, regardless if the the facilities could be made equal, that violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

Now tell me the psychology behind the bans on marriage for same sex couples has no effect on their standing in society. Really, wanna argue that?

And Dan, the court also says public schooling is a “right.” In speaking of education, the court held:

Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.

See that? The court held in Brown that public schooling was a RIGHT. In that sentence, the court gives the basic definition of a civil right. A civil right is any opportunity, benefit or privilege the government extends to its citizens. Marriage, like public schooling, is a civil right.

Whoah, Erik! You really need educate yourself on rights.

I base my definition of “civil rights” on case law. I think if you’re going to base it on anything, that’s a pretty sturdy foundation to go with.

If you hold a protest and nobody notices, did it really happen?

I hope at the very least all 12 participants get written up. (Assuming, that is, that they actually have jobs to call in “gay” to in the first place.)

declaring December 10 a “Day Without a Gay” when people “call in gay” to work.

Wasn’t that the plot of a John Stamos TV movie that came out last year?

“Instead of introspection and self-criticism, however, the sore losers who opposed Prop. 8 have responded with threats, fists, and blacklists.”

Yeah, but look who we’re talking about. Liberals never look at themselves to figure out what they did wrong. It’s always everybody else’s fault when they fail.

Brown v. Board argued that separate is not quite equal, regardless of “Separate, but Equal” legislation.

With regard to Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships (like California) separate is very much equal. You have the same rights to the extent of State law as any other married couple in your State. There is no quantifiable deficiency. The argument is only over terminology.

But as far as State law is concerned, separate is very much equal. This is how it differentiates from Brown v. Board.

With Stonewall (I guess, in this instance, “1.0″), gay bars were raided by cops and people were arrested just for being gay. And we all know the atrocities committed under Jim Crow during the Civil Rights era.

Prop 8 is nothing of the sort. The same benefits afforded under a “gay marriage” license were afforded under registering as a “Domestic Partner” in California.

This argument, to me, insults the legacy of both Stonewall and the Civil Rights movement. While I believe gay rights are civil rights, the equivocation that “marriage” (and calling it as such) is a “civil right” is absolutely a conocted ivory tower fantasy.

Two questions: Does this accurately describe the intensity of built-up and now running-over frustrations? And even if it the phrase has merit, then perhaps is Stonewall “1.0″ worth calling into question?