Q about getting married in MA

The American political system is, to put it mildly, fucked in the head when it comes to things like "states' rights" because, hello, shouldn't the laws in one part of the country be the same in, oh, say, all the other parts? At least as they pertain to marriage? Full faith and credit, anyone?

Anyway, my understanding is that some states do recognise same-sex marriages in MA while others have specifically passed legislation in order to NOT recognise them. The fact that that can happen in the American system is, as above, ridiculous, crazy, assinine, etc. But yeah, welcome to the patchwork legal system that is supposedly such a wonderful thing.

DOMA is certainly NOT dead--it's completely alive and well. (Thanks, Clinton, you bastard!) One would like to think America the country could get its act together enough to say, "Look, this situation is ridiculous--let's standardise!"

As for Bush being "wise," he's anything but, very specifically to do with the marriage issue, because he is the big champion of the Federal Marriage Amendment which would, nationally, restrict marriage to heterosexuals only. So much for the Republicans' vaunted support of "states' rights."

I keep putting "states' rights" in quotations because I think it's ludicrous that states should have rights that supercede a federal government and, in particular in the US, actually form the basis of some kind of political issue. Either you're one country or you're not one country--you don't get to have it both ways. The fact that the US has no unified Criminal Code is, to me at least, mind-boggling. The fact that states can actually change their constitutions to grant themselves the right to not recognise contracts legally binding in other states (e.g. marriage) is similar mind-blowing. The fact that that ability would be deployed to continue discrimination against non-hetero people? Sadly not as stunning.

 

Joey posted same time as me, making my post pointless. So I just wrote this over it.

 

The thing about civil unions, particularly in the US context, is that they are totally against... what? 40 years of precedent? "Separate but equal" was shot down in the 1960s, for crying out loud! (Brown v. Board of Education)

 

Sorry! :icon_sad:

 

I don't mean to derail, but...

Does this imply that you... approve of the current president?

To what Joey posted, I'm kind of in agreement. I think the United States is rather far behind, compared to the rest of the modern world. I think we, as a country, have evolved to much more than a union of coexisting but separate states, and should embrace that. That's not saying that decentralizing some things is a bad thing, but key issues such as gay marriage shouldn't be able to be overruled by state governments. Taxes and other local government work I can see - who knows best than the local officials? But, on issues that affect all the citizens of the country as a whole, such as same-sex marriage (I suppose rather than all, I should have said "citizens in all states"), that the state governments have no right to overturn a federal legislature.

That being said... that would be rather counterproductive in the state of Massachusetts. Don't get me wrong, I fully support same sex marriage, etc., but I don't believe there should be exceptions to rules, even those that affect me closely. If something is recognized in one state, it should be recognized in all states. But only the Federal government has power to enforce that, not a single state legislature.

I'm not sure if this post is coherent or not. I'll come back and add more later, if this topic continues. I gotta get away from this glowing eyesore that is my computer for now, though.

 

We might have had worse, but not MUCH worse. Buchannan is statistically the worst president in history (also, speculated to be gay due to his relationship with a senator from Mississippi, and lack of female conquests. He had a woman with whom he was presumed to have a relationship with in the public life, but lived with a male senator for many years.) (also, he's credited as the only important political figure from Pennsylvania thoughout history. -_-) Bush is still in the dregs.

 

When I went to Boy’s State and ran for Office I got to meet Governor Baldacci and we talked about gay marriage. I don’t like him anymore. He wants to make civil unions that would protect couples, :eusa_naug but he has too many religious views to allow marriage. It would make his wife worth less...:rolleyes:

 

There have been several historic instances in the past and many instances even today where the rights extended to a person in one State, Commonwealth, etc. is not necessarily extended to the people among the other states. It is the patchwork of laws on a particular issue that will cause the federal government to make a national policy.

The desegregationist pushed for the removal of the "Jim Crow" laws in the southern states. They didn't just sit down and say well maybe our fellow Black colleagues here in the northern states should not be afforded the same rights as us, because that creates an exception to policy in other states.

Gay marriage advocates are not trying to create exceptions to policy, we are asking for equal rights. Be it from local governments, state legislatures, state courts, Congress, or the federal courts, we are looking to be treated as equals to our straight counterparts. There are 1138 federal benefits that are denied to thousands of couples in the United States, merely because the couple is a same-sex couple. It is through the efforts of advocacy, like that in MA, that will create federal policy.

 

Actually no, you're not--that got voted down a few weeks ago. The earliest it could happen now is 2012.

 

Actually, those laws might be on the book (the anti-"sodomy" ones) but they have no legal weight since 2003, when Lawrence v. Texas came out. Thank the gods that one got by the US Supreme Court before that moron appointed the two super-rightwingers. Oh no wait, I forgot: one is supposedly "moderate," where "moderate" means slightly left of Scalia.