North Carolina yesterday became the 30th state to ban same-sex marriage. Early results showed the amendment to its Constitution passing overwhelmingly by as much as 61 percent. The popularity of the amendment and key position of North Carolina in the upcoming presidential election appears to have prompted the White House to cancel an event in the state. President Obama cancelled a scheduled trip to North Carolina on the day of the vote. While Obama opposed the amendment last year, this week the White House was ridiculed by the media over the President’s refusal to support gay marriage and his insistence that his views were still “evolving” on the subject. The cancellation was widely viewed as an effort to avoid renewed questions over Obama’s refusal to take a clear stand on the civil rights question.
There was a huge turnout on Tuesday in North Carolina — attributed to the draw of the referendum. The proposed amendment states that “marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this state.”
North Carolina is viewed as a key target with Virginia for both campaigns. The vote reflects the division in the state with more liberal urban areas opposing the amendment while more conservative rural areas supporting it.
Just for the record, I have long advocated that the solution to this debate is to get rid of “marriage” licenses in favor of a universal civil union standard — which is closer to the function of the state recording of such unions. I believe that marriage should be left to individual faiths and institutions as a religious-based concept. The role of the state is to record a civil commitment of two individuals to live as one couple. The current debate — including the demand for retroactive termination of marriages — shows how the term marriage continues to inject religiosity into what is a civil contract between citizens.
Notably, the last time North Carolina amended its Constitution on marriage was in 1875 when it banned interracial marriage. That ban only ended in 1971.
Source: CNN
Where’s the so called mainstream media request for GOP nominee Romney “to take a clear stand on the civil rights question?”
“And people who post here are eager to vote for this man come November even though their favorite professor and founder of this blog clearly won’t be.”
Karl,
And your point is? Are you so enmeshed in your “party line” thinking that you thing those of us who write here are required to adhere to Jonathan Turley’s
“part line”. If so, by now you should know Professor Turley better and understand that he is a man who believes what he says and doesn’t require adherence to his beliefs as a standard of loyalty. He is far too much a real person, who doesn’t take himself seriously, while at the same time taking his ideals/beliefs very seriously. As for the fact that some of us regulars here will vote for Obama I would imagine that JT has no problem with that, nor does it diminish us in his esteem.
Now you on the other hand have shown a certain rigidity in your statements that brought me back many decades. You seem to be following a rigid set of beliefs that prevent you from dealing with any issue on its merits, but judging it from the perspective of whether or not it is consistent with your philosophical belief system. That feeling has stuck with me since you have been commenting here. Finally today I clicked on your avatar to get some background. What I got was “iskraagent”. Googling it I came to numerous comments made on Marxist websites and this definition of “Iskra Agent”:
“Iskra Agents:
professional revolutionaries who in 1901–1903 rallied around the Leninist newspaper Iskra. These agents of the editorial board were directly associated with the board and were its local representatives and the bearers of its ideas and slogans. The Iskra agents devoted themselves full time to the struggle for the creation of a Russian Marxist party, and were the nucleus of the party.”
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Iskra+Agents
It all comes clear to me as to what my senses about your comments were. Now please understand that I was raised on the Army/McCarthy hearings and that both my parents were radicals, as I still am today. However, where I differentiate myself from Marxists is that while I see economic tyranny of the people to be a symptom of human dysfunction, I see “isms” as the con game played on people by the egotists/narcissists/sociopaths, who prey upon people with “authoritarian” minds, in their “will to power”. Thus to me, Capitalism, Marxism, Religion and all the other “Isms” are merely tools to deceive people into following some crazed leader, by representing that the “Ism” will save them. Given your political bent though it is clear to me why you are bemused that us Turley regulars don’t always agree with him. Ideology limits options in my opinion.
Now on this specific issue, I totally agree with Professor Turley’s point of view.
Leave marriage to the religious ceremonies and use “Civil Unions” as society’s means of recognizing the life partnerships of individuals. In my own extended family there are two instances of gay married couples, whose unions
are blessings. Were I gay and a member of a faith that didn’t recognize the right of same sex couples to be married religiously, I’d reexamine my need to follow that faith.
I heard a lot of churches got involved in this one. It’s time they started cracking down on them and actually taking away their tax-exempt status… But that’ll never happen.
DREAMS!
Frankly,
There are probably better equipped biblical scholars out there, but I think the bible speaks of divorce and how to obtain one…..
As long as we are going to use the bible to set the law lets get busy – a constitutional amendment against shellfish! One against wearing cloths of more than one type of fiber. Stoning for any woman not a virgin on her wedding night! Stoning for adulterers (BTW – since divorce is not recognized all subsequent marriages are adultery). OH, and one that will make a lot of people very happy – SLAVERY IS BACK BABY!
Plural marriage is OK though as long as it is one man & many women.
This legislation is actually void because it usurps the IX Amendment. But our government no longer cares to follow our great Constitution, because we have continuously granted them the power to do so. Wake up America and stop thinking that you are this “all knowing” representative of God. That is what is called arrogant and just because you believe you are one of God’s children, you can properly interpreted his will.
In my opinion and many others, the Inalienable Right to Contract for the purposes of any reason, as long as it doesn’t harm others is the second most important right next to the right of Self-ownership, self governing or to do with your body as you see fit. So many people want to control the lives of others and it sets a bad precedent. If government can control your lives in one matter, it lieves it open for government to control our lives in other matters, until we wake up one day with more laws on the books than anyone cares to count. Does this sound familiar to any country you know? Yea, almost all of them. A right is a inalienable right people. You are not supposed to be able to take them away, even with majority rule. You must not believe in or trust God because you obviously do not trust God to punish those who you beleive are siners. Christians and other religious secs are often their own worst enemies and can’t see the forest for the trees. When you persecute others, how do you think they are going to react? People want to try to emulate Gods laws and place them into mans thinking that it will make the world a better place. If you’ve noticed, for 4,000 years, it hasn’t and that is because many condone the usurpation of individual inalienable rights. The primary intent that our great nation was founded on, we continue to ignore. Shame on the North Carolinians for not protecting the sanctity of indivudal rights. Thats is pure ignorance and we should kick them out of the Union.
I mostly agree with Mike Sallese above, except I would add that it is time to put the Romney button on the lapel of the photo of the author of the blog at the upper right of the page. I believe in keeping churches out of everything and government out of relationships between two people–except maybe who are not standing their ground getting ready to shoot each other. The problem comes when two people live together and perhaps need to share in their co tenents pension benefit or other entitlement which is clearly available to a different gender married couple (DGMC).
Romney stinks on every issue so please dont judge our President Obama on this dumb little act of the RepubliCons of North Carolina. This barking dog lives in North Carolina and knows who the rednecks are. Did you know for example that a candidate for office in the Republican primary does not put his party name or symbol on his campaign literature or yard signs? They are a creepy lot. One can figure out the RepubliCons by the short messages on their yard signs like : passionate conservative or states rights. Then we know which yards to poop in.
Or where to howl at night.
BarkinDog aint no RepubliCon
Well Mr. Turley, you have succeeded in blaming President Obama for the failure of a favorable ruling in favor of same sex marriage. AGAIN. http://wp.me/p6sYP-cGe Nearly your entire 1st paragraph is devoted to your point. I follow you for the legal aspects of your posting but I am unclear of the legal precedent you have used to formulate your opinion. Is it the president should shove the law down the throats of the NC population?
“This is the essence of retrograde, reactionary politics and there’s a long history of these “sovereign” states exercising their “rights” to deny minorities their freedom at the hands of the very people who use the word like a weapon when it comes to having to pay an extra five cents in taxes. There’s not a thing new about this.”
“This is why we have to depend upon the United States Supreme Court to enforce the fundamental American value that we protect the constitutional rights and liberties of minorities against the prejudices of the majority. Unfortunately, the Roberts Court is hardly likely to be the one to do it. But that’s how it’s going to have to happen, at least in order to extend the rights enjoyed by straight Americans to our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters all across America.” The problem with “states’ rights” Part 745, North Carolina edition
by digby
OS
“…The only reasons given by the minister was to quote the Bible and emphasize that government must be Bible-based.”
Thank you for saving me some typing. This is precisely at the heart of the issue and is thus closer to Sharia than to Constitutional law.
Retro …
The law now will get include civil unions…..ie shacking up protection for the man and woman…… OK…. Now we know where they stand…..
The Bible makes for a poor Constitution.
The last time North Carolina amended its Constitution on marriage, it was to ban marriage between whites and blacks.
How did that work out for you, NC?
I’d hazard a guess that the folks who oppose same-sex marriages would also oppose same-sex civil unions.
I saw two guys from NC being interviewed Monday. One was the gay mayor of a city in NC, the other was a minister. The mayor presented a logical, well thought out argument, advocating a ‘no’ vote on the amendment. The only reasons given by the minister was to quote the Bible and emphasize that government must be Bible-based. I can just see how far that will go in Federal Court. Those folks have not yet got the memo that the USA was created as a secular form of government, accommodating to a diverse population.
[…Obama’s refusal to take a clear stand on the civil rights question.]
The only thing Obama does take a clear stand on as far as civil rights is that nobody on the planet really has any since his administration can pick out anybodies name and become their judge & jury — executing them without a trial.
He enriches the 1% by letting them charge the bloated Pentagon $400 per gallon for every drop of fuel used in an endless war against some of the poorest people on earth, $2 billion per week squandered while people at home are suffering from the criminal turpitude perpetrated by his biggest campaign donors, namely, crooked bankers & corrupt wall street swindlers that he and the previous torturer in the white house) bailed out with what turned to be the single largest transference of wealth from the 99% to the 1% in human history.
He enriches war profiteers and environmental despoilers like BP while going out of his way to make sure absolutely no corporate or governmental entity that truly hurts the American people will ever get prosecuted by the Attorney General who instead is busy dreaming up new ways to defend the fascistic undermining of Constitutional jurisprudence and civil liberties to the point where not a single human being on the planet is protected anymore by the Great Writ of Habeas Corpus which civilization recognized the primacy of over 800 years ago.
And people who post here are eager to vote for this man come November even though their favorite professor and founder of this blog clearly won’t be.
I agree.with JT. The argument that marriage is sacred tells me that it’s a matter for churches, not the government. Let the churches establish whatever rules they like around the sacred institution, while the government simply enforces the secular, contractual elements of the union.
#religionpoisonseverything