Legal scholar William C. Duncan over at NRO's The Corner blog:
The [Washington] Post story also relays some of the ludicrous claims that the North Carolina amendment would have unintended effects on all unmarried couples. A group of law professors at Campbell University have very effectively refuted such claims in a carefully-documented white paper. I’ve written about similar claims made against other amendments a few years ago in the Florida Coastal Law Review. It’s worth emphasizing that a majority of state marriage amendments also prohibit legal statuses that are just marriage by another name so what North Carolina is doing is hardly unprecedented. Some of these amendments have been on the books for eight years with none of the outcomes North Carolina gay-marriage advocates have predicted.
On the other hand, to understand why the proposed amendment’s drafters felt it necessary to include a prohibition of civil unions, one need only remember that a Ninth Circuit panel cited the fact that California had a marriage amendment and a civil-union statute simultaneously as a reason for invalidating California’s Proposition 8 just months ago.
11 Comments
This is typical. The opposition has no compelling argument against the marriage amendment, so they resort to lies. One of these lies is to rename the amendment, calling it "Amendment One" for the purpose of confusing voters. It will appear on the ballot as "Constitutional Amendment," NOT "Amendment One."
http://www.voteformarriagenc.com/2012/03/primary-ballot-will-list-marriage-amendment-as-constitutional-amendment-not-amendment-one/
I lived in Michigan virtually all of my life, and was there in 2004 when their "marriage amendment" was presented, debated, voted on and passed. The wording of this amendment is:
And back in 2005, people who supported the amendment offered the same assurance as we see here regarding the NC amendment. They offered assurances that the law would only "protect" the term marriage by restricting it to the union of one man and one woman ... they had no intention to take away anybody's rights, just to "protect" the term marriage.
Only problem ... it DID take away rights. In 2007, Michigan's Attorney General used the amendment as the basis to prevent public employers from extending benefits to their employees' same-sex partners, and won.
And that win for the AG was a blow not only to same-sex couples, but to ANY couple in a domestic partnership And there's something important to note here: the law in Michigan takes away the employers' option to offer the benefits at all, whatever the capacity or will of the people footing the bill. It does not matter if every single voter in a city votes that city funds ought to be used to provide health benefits to domestic partners. Their capacity and will to offer benefits is trumped by that little amendment and the subsequent court cases it has spurred.
And whatever you might think of that decision, it isn't one that the voters expected or endorsed. That's something NC voters ought to consider carefully.
I wonder if the law profs at Campbell, a Southern Baptist university, are really all that objective in their analysis. Even so, NOM and other opponents of SSM have claimed all sorts of future consequences of SSM legalization that have yet to come true in the states that have had SSM.
Scrounger -
Whether so-called SS"M" causes damage is irrelevant to whether marriage should be redefined. The issue is a that same-sex couples do not serve the gov't/societal purpose of marriage; that is, to unite mos=ms and das with their offspring.
Notwithstanding that, social changes take time to show their full effects on society. Yeah, a same-sex couple getting "married" won't effect my marriage today; but what it will do to the children of my children (e.g., force them to be taught that homosexual relationships are the same as heterosexual ones). Marriage rates are dropping in countries where so-called SS"M" has been legaiized; that's a big problem creating more illegitimate children becoming burdens to the taxpayers.
@Resist, is procreation the ONLY purpose of civil marriage? Even if is the major one, it is not the exclusive purpose of marriage. Even if my wife and I didn't have kids, our marriage still serves a public purpose. Should she fall ill, I take care of her. Presumably that would save some medical expenses, no? Her employer certainly thinks her having a husband that has her back makes her a better employee (so much so that they pay for my health insurance). This will be more so as we age. Might a SS couple similarly benefit society if they do the same for each other? Also, aren't marriage rates dropping across the US and the whole industrialized world? Both in locations that outlaw SSM, like Alabama and Italy, as well as in places that allow SSM, like Connecticut and Belgium? Haven't marriage rates been dropping since before SSM was legalized anywhere? Might falling marriage rates have more to do with people marrying later in life? Also, what do you mean by 'the same' in your comparison of gay and straight couples? If you mean legally equal, then yes. Do you mean of equal philosophical value? That would be in the eye of the beholder, I suppose.
Great observation by Bill Duncan on how having a marriage amendment alongside civil unions did not work too well for California at the Ninth Circuit. But, in all honesty, he’s not the first to note this. Even some SSM supporters have expressed concerns that the Prop 8 ruling could be used as a rationale for states to pass on civil unions.
Scrounger - Marriage exists solely because men and women are the way that humans reproduce. But for that fact (e.g., if we reproduced individually instead of couples) there would be no coupling of humans. And that potential for procreation between man and women is why the government recognizes it and encourages it.
Yes, there are other advantages to couples that have come from marriage, but they are not the purpose for marriage; they are, if you will, fringe benefits, but the inure to the benefit of any child that you might have. If your wife falls ill, that means that a child you might have would be at risk of losing its mother. THAT'S what the government cares about: a child's loss of a mother.
Marriage rates are dropping; in so-called SS"M countries, it appears to be related to the legalization of so-called SS"M." IN other countries, it's because of government programs and radical outcry (e.g. from feminists and homosexuals) that discourage marriage, either by funding single-mothers' births or by claiming that mothers do not need fathers (No, they need the government instead, though!).
By "Same," I mean that same-sex couples are different from male-female couples: one set never procreates, the other is the only way humans procreate. This is a hug difference worthy of laws treating different things differently. That's how laws work in this country: we treat different behaviors differently, and sexual relations between male and female is a powerful behavior with huge ramifications. Same-sex couples' "sex" only produces disease, and, frankly, should be re-criminalized in my opinion (but that's for another thread).
scrounger SSM has had effects becuase of more radical gay program in California the homosexals are forcing children to learn about gay in public school In NY a gay is trying to force a bill to teach about gays to kids. The gay agenda is harmful to all. Our wives and daughters will be forced to use the same restrooms and transexuals and next incest marriage. need more proof???
Excuse me, but Prop 8 was invalidated in California because the proponents couldn't make their case. They had absolutely nothing to back up anything and that's because there is no logical, reasonable, sane or compelling argument to not allow gays to have a legal document.
We are now asked to throw out the Traditional holding towards the definition of Marriage in favor of Equal treatment to same gendered couples. Incest does not apply to same gender siblings and as in Loving and Lawrence established, any law against can and must be set aside in the name of Equality for Same Gendered Couples. The whole of the group.
Holding onto Incest as reason, only affirms the Traditional value held to the word Marriage.
A key point is the reason for the DOMA to be enacted, there is no word in the native Hawaiian language for incest. Royal Marriage of close blood is part of their cultural heritage. We the western world told the native population they acted immorally. Do we now bear our hypocrisy to those that house our Pacific Fleet.
That Same Gender Sibling marriage may be unpalatable to society has no more bearing upon equality than laws against interracial marriage or the sodomy laws did, both of which were criminal acts.
Same Gender Marriage is the question at hand. In that gay marriage is passed thru the back door of the court into legislative Same Gender Marriage law is avoidance of Same Gender Sibling Marriage and hypocritical. Through the Double Effect Doctrine hypocrisy is more than sufficient, or rather it demands that a same gender marriage equality ballet issue fail.
"nothing to back up anything and that's because there is no logical, reasonable, sane or compelling argument to not allow gays to have a legal document."
The same argument used to prohibit polygamous marriage. Unions that are detrimental to the resources of the public. Polygamy places an undue burden upon the public trust. Polygamy also follows the issue of choice, equally deserving as same sex, yet outside the bounds of morality. One employed worker whose medical shall cover all spouses shifts the cost of this to each and every citizen. As responsible citizens we do not promote choices that unduly effect our neighbors. Same sex marriage would give the stamp of approval to MSM to which sufficient evidence supports the increase in HIV/AIDS cases among the homosexual group. The LGBT argument claiming marriage would encourage monogamous marriage holds not for opposite sex couples. To extrapolate that same sex marriage is would suffer not the same issue not shown with any historical evidence. To the contrary much evidence is available showing the infidelity of the homosexual.