88 wrote:[The word "marriage" can be defined any way a state wants to define it as part of its general police power so long as it does not involve racial classifications, which are prohibited by the post-civil war amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
Yet it took the U.S. Supreme Court more than 100 years thereafter so strike down anti-miscegenation laws as unconstitutional. Ponderous, wouldn't you agree?
Marriage has always been defined as a relationship between one man and one woman.
Not always, or are you forgetting that polygamy was once legal?
The LGBT crowd wants to change the definition of "marriage" to include a new relationship, namely between people of the same sex. That is not an equal protection argument. That is a demand for a new right based on sexual orientation/preference, which has never existed in the common law or in statutes.
Homosexuals are prohibited from entering into the state of marriage based on sexual orientation. That is an equal protection violation, at least prima facie.
So I take it that you are cool with interpreting the 14th Amendment so as to require states to recognize relationships between two brothers, or a father and a son, etc. as "marriage"? There is no procreation issue there. How do you discriminate against incest using your jurisprudence?
You're either being intentionally obtuse here, or you fail to understand my argument.
As you know, the rational basis test (which is the most deferential to state action, and which I've conceded is the proper test here) provides that state action does not constitute an equal protection violation if it is "rationally related to a legitimate state interest." I've also conceded that states have a legitimate interest in protecting marriage.
With respect to same-sex marriage, however, I fail to see how an act which prohibits such marriages is rationally related to that legitimate state interest. And in fact, I don't believe you've ever argued that it is. OTOH, an act which prohibits incestuous marriages, regardless of the gender of the participants involved, likely is rationally related to a legitimate state interest, provided that the prohibition is not so onerous as to be unduly burdensome on the citizens of the state. In the U.S., first cousins seems to be a sort of de facto line of demarcation when it comes to incestuous marriages. As I understand it, virtually every state permits marriages between people who are more distantly related than first cousins, and prohibits marriage between people who are more closely related than first cousins. As between first cousins, some states permit marriage, others do not.
This makes sense in a way. Most of us know who all our first cousins are, as well as anyone related more closely than a first cousin. Beyond first cousins, however, it's at least arguably possible that you might not even know that you're related to someone.
And why weren't you and Jsc810 demanding that President Clinton be impeached for advocating for and signing DOMA and Don't Ask, Don't Tell and other laws at the time?
Now you're just reaching. A few relevant points:
1. First, your history is a little off. Clinton initially proposed a complete abolition of the ban on homosexuals serving in the military (and if you believe that the ban actually prohibited homosexuals from serving in the military in practice, I have a bridge for sale, real cheap). He didn't wimp out with the DADT proposal until his first proposal ran into some opposition. And DADT was considered a step in the right direction, at least at the time.
2. The Constitution authorizes impeachment for "treason, bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors." As I read it, a criminal act is required for impeachment, and not all criminal acts are sufficient. Being on the wrong side of an issue, even the wrong side of history, and/or signing an act later held to be unconstitutional don't get you to the threshold for impeachment. Sorry.
3. Maybe I'm missing something here, but to me retroactive impeachment =
Colossal waste of time. Not a fan, sorry.
As I understand it, the primary sanction following impeachment and conviction is removal from office. The 22nd Amendment already took care of that in Clinton's case awhile ago. I get that you wish he had never been President, but at this point more time has elapsed since he left office than elapsed while he was in office. Let it go.
4. And even if that weren't the case, last I checked there is still a system of checks and balances. Bottom line, Clinton never gets the chance to sign DOMA unless both houses of Congress pass it first. So if you're going to impeach Clinton for signing DOMA, you should also impeach every member of Congress who voted in favor of it. Unlike Bill Clinton, many of those people still hold the same office they held back then.
Are the words in our Constitution so amorphous that they can be understood to mean diametrically opposed things in a span of just 17 years?
It took a little longer than 17 years, but
Brown v. Board of Education held that the words in our Constitution mean the diametric opposite of what the Supreme Court in
Plessy v. Ferguson believed that they did.