GLBT outrage at Edwards misplaced...

[ddeclue]

Much misplaced outrage in the GLBT community has been expressed towards John Edwards over the following commentary from the Sojourners' religious forum over the following comment:



"EDWARDS: Well, first of all, I think what the governor did and what New Hampshire's done is a great example for the rest of the country. Not only civil unions, but all the partnership benefits, including, Senator Clinton talked about getting rid of this "don't ask/don't tell" policy.

I don't think the federal government has a role in telling either states or religious institutions, churches, what marriages they can bless and can't bless. I think the state of New Hampshire ought to be able to make that decision for itself, like every other state in the country. I think every church ought to be able to make that decision for itself.

And I think it's very important that we stand up against intolerance and against discrimination.

But I want to add one thing on something that Governor Richardson sad, because it's been a tone of everything that's been discussed here today. The place that I differ with Senator Biden, Senator Clinton, and I guess, to some extent, Senator Obama, and I agree with Governor Richardson -- it is the job of the president of the United States not to legislate but to lead."



I don't see Edwards saying he's against gay marriage in this quote so I'm quite puzzled by the outrage here. He just said that he's FOR civil union and for getting rid of don't ask/don't tell.

Some have said that the gov't must enforce separation of church and state by forcing religions to accept gay marriage. Yet, I don't see how the Federal gov't can "enforce" the separation of church and state by forcing religious organizations to marry gays. That sounds like the opposite of a "separation" to me to force an established religion to marry people in violation of their established doctrine - any more than the gov't should force Catholics to accept divorce or Jews or Muslims to consume pork.

The notion that the Federal gov't won't or can't tell the states what to do might be a violation of the spirit of the 14th amendment which says states can't abridge rights of a citizen that are granted at a Federal level but then the 14th amendment does NOT extend to discrimination based on sexual orientation and I don't know how you can get an equivalent anti discrimination amendment past the requisite 38 state legislatures given that there are still plenty of backwards states in this country where they will oppose such a Federal constitutional amendment.

Therefore, I think the best that can be done legislatively speaking at the Federal level is to let states do their own thing as Edwards is describing with the more progressive states liberalizing gay marriage rights while the backwards states will likely restrict it in a situation similar to that of abortion rights.

The consequence will be gay marriages will take place in certain states that will then eventually be forced to be recognized by the other "non-gay" marriage states when married gay couples relocate to those "non-gay" marriage states under the "Full Faith and Credit" clause of the Constitution (Article IV Sections 1 and 2).

There is already a good precedent for this.

This situation has a strong Constitutional precedent in Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967) a case that made it to the U.S. Supreme Court in which a mixed race black white couple went to the District of Columbia where such marriages where legal to Virginia where anti-miscegenation statutes prohibited black/white intermarriage.

The Supreme Court ruled this law unconstitutional but they DID cite the 14th Amendment rather than the full faith and credit clause as their primary movitivation - they did also say that marriage is one of the basic civil rights of man.

(http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/loving.html )

The main thing that will happen by following the Edwards approach of letting the states take the lead on this issue however is that by legitimizing gay marriage in the progressive states, the people of the backwards states will eventually come to also realize that it really isn't "the end of Western Civilization" after all that they were promised would occur by the R/W religious zealots and they too will eventually come to accept it just as they have come to (more or less) accept inter-racial and inter-faith marriages in the past.

Doug D.
Orlando, FL

[beyurslf]

1. The Fed Gov't has to recognize Civil Unions as marriages also.

Many benefits are directly tied to marriage in federal law.

[ddeclue]

2. OK....I didn't hear Edwards oppose this...did you?

I heard him support abolition of discrimination based on sexual orientation which I presume applies to such benefits.

[Connie_Corleone]

3. The beginning of his comments were:

O'BRIEN: But I will -- so I'll just ask it again, maybe more pointedly. Do you think homosexuals have the right to be married?

EDWARDS: No. Not personally. Now you're asking about me personally. But I think there's a difference between my belief system and what the responsibilities of the president of the United States are. It is the reason we have separation of church and state. And there are very good people, including some people that I'm very close to me, my daughter who is sitting in the front row here tonight, feels very differently about this issue. And I have huge respect for those who have a different view about this.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/04/us/politics/04text-dems.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

(I think your quote is from the debate on Sunday. The Sojourners forum was Monday.)

[ddeclue]

4. And how is that different than people who personally oppose abortion?

but vow not to allow that to affect their governing as a political figure?

Oh and one correction on my original post:

For instance universal public education. Marriage, like education, has long been treated as primarily the province of the states, and not a Federal issue. Federal judges do not marry people as far as I know for instance, like state justices of the peace.

I'm going to correct myself here and say that on the 14th Amendment, that I was mistaken - it does not limit itself to issues of race or color as I had mistakenly remembered, therefore the 14th Amendment protection ought to apply to sexual orientation but I don't know if the courts will or will not recognize that with respect to marriage in a direct manner given the existing state of debate over whether such a thing as "gay marriage" exists in the law.

The Federal "DOMA" or Defense Of Marriage Act (a ridiculous name) sought to create an exclusion for marriage from the Full Faith and Credit provision of the Constitution but DOMA itself may be unconstitutional based on the Loving case which granted that marriage was a "basic civil right of man" (presumably under our reserved rights as "We the People" under the 9th and 10th Amendments) in conjunction with the 14th Amendment protection against state abridgement of civil rights.

This correction made, the path however to establishing this right of gay marriage still does not seem to be to force it directly upon the states in the manner of the 14th amendment for the simple reason that the political will does not currently exist to allow such a Constitutional amendment to pass 38 state legislatures.

Instead the most likely approach to be effective still seems to be to allow gay marriage in progressive states where it can pass the state legislature and then to use the Loving decision and the Full Faith and Credit clause to challenge other state prohibitions and the DOMA Act.

Doug D.
Orlando, FL

[MonkeyFunk]

5. Here's the short version

O'BRIEN: But I will -- so I'll just ask it again, maybe more pointedly. Do you think homosexuals have the right to be married?

EDWARDS: No. Not personally.



He didn't say he personally believes gay people have such a right, but doesn't want to force it on others. He said he does NOT believe gay people have that right.

[ddeclue]

7. PERSONALLY.... again how is this different than the abortion stance

of many politicians who oppose it PERSONALLY but will not act on it OFFICIALLY because they recognize the difference between their personal belief and public policy.

Geez...let's just make everything ridiculously black and white like Republicans do....

Doug D.

[MonkeyFunk]

8. because

they believe, personally, that women have the RIGHT to abortion, even if they're against it for themselves.

[Colobo]

9. If you personally think women don't have a right to have an abortion

then it means you are not pro-choice. One thing to say that PERSONALLY you don't agree with abortion, and another thing is to say you personally don't think someone has the right to have one.

Apples and oranges.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[AZBlue]

13. It is different because of the word "right"

At first I was about to post a reply similar to yours - until I re-read the question, not the answer. The question was about rights. He does not believe they should have the right to marry. That's different from saying he personally doesn't believe they should marry but does believe they should have the right to do so.

For example: I don't believe in abortion (in most cases). This is because of my personal history and that is a very simplistic summation of a view that's actually very complicated, but there it is. However....I believe wholheartedly in the right to have an abortion and will (and have) marched on DC to support that right. I will take to the streets again if (when) that right is ever in jeopardy. Again, it's about the right to have an abortion or to marry, not my personal belief on the matter.

Now, given what I know about Edwards, perhaps that's what he meant to say and misunderstood the point of the question - but if that's the case, he needs to clarify that ASAP.

[bling bling]

14. Hmmmm. I hadn't noticed that either until just now.

I agree the word "right" does make a difference. I had also been using the abortion issue to help organize my thoughts on the gay-marriage issue. I'll give the politicians a pass if they feel they need to distance themselves by saying they personally don't agree or what not. I more or less gave the Dems a pass for making Reid the Senate leader even though he's anti-choice because I figured the point was so it would help us cross bridges.

But back to gay marriage saying that people don't have a "right" to do something is a little more concerning. I agree that there should be some clarification here.

[MonkeyFunk]

15. Yes

I don't know why the OP can't see that.

[JerseygirlCT]

17. And I find that really troubling.

The difference with the abortion example is that someone who doesn't believe in abortion but is staunchly pro-choice makes that personal abortion decision for themselves only. It affects one person, and says nothing about anyone else's rights.

This says "I don't think gays ought to be able to marry, but trust me, I won't do anything about it".

That's very different, IMO. It's flat-out discrimination.

[noamnety]

6. yes

and the church comment was disingenuous. That comment needs to be dropped from his speeches.

Nobody forces churches to marry anyone now, as it is. I view that comment from him as inflammatory, designed to scare people into thinking someone is trying to mandate what marriages churches perform.

We need an Equal Rights Amendment for women.

And we need a ruling from the supreme court stating that if Mr. X can enter into a marriage contract with Ms. Y, then it is discriminatory for the government to prevent Ms. X from entering into exactly that same marriage contract with that same Ms. Y.

It's a freaking contract. It shouldn't require states to each individually decide whether people can be prevented from entering into contractual relationships with people based on gender.

[ddeclue]

10. It's not HIS comment...he's just reponding to the R/W myth...

geez... let's just make some unwarranted assumptions about Edwards attitude on this issue why don't we??... You and I agree on the COURT ruling. It's the way to reach the goal. Get married in a state where gay marriage is legal, move to a state where it's not and then challenge DOMA and the state law on the basis of Loving, the 14th Amendment, the 9th/10th Amendments, and the Full Faith and Credit clause.

Doug D.

[noamnety]

12. If he's responding to the R/W myth

then I would like to see him respond to it directly.

I don't think the federal government has a role in telling either states or religious institutions, churches, what marriages they can bless and can't bless. I think the state of New Hampshire ought to be able to make that decision for itself, like every other state in the country. I think every church ought to be able to make that decision for itself.

That has an awkward intermingling of the two issues - as if there was ever a question of or danger of anyone saying the federal govt. should tell churches who they "can or can't" bless.

Many problems with this.

First, right NOW, the states say who the churches "can't" bless. If churches are to decide for themselves who they can marry, regardless of state law, that's one hell of a rewrite of the law.

Or, maybe he means states SHOULD be able to tell a church who they can't marry - which is the current situation, but contradicts his other statement.

He needs to learn to say directly: Neither federal nor state laws require churches to perform marriages that they don't approve of. Whatever changes happen to the law will not affect that fact.

The way it's tied together now reminds me of 911 and Iraq. "I'm not saying there's a connection ... I'm just using them consistently in the same sentence next to each other - as if there's a connection. But if you examine my words real closely, you'll see I didn't actually say it." THAT's why I call it disingenuous.

And of course, there is the MAJOR problem that he's saying states should have the right to discriminate against gay people. So, I'm not down with that. There's a mile wide gap between "states ought to be able to decide for themselves" and "people ought to be able to decide for themselves."

[Catfight]

16. Well then "lead" people to tolerance and equality, dipshit. nt

[StudentsMustUniteNow]

18. How about "leading" people to create a new economy

An economy that supports workers' rights?

Enough of these freeper wedge issues.