By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
The inertia against state prohibition of gay marriage continues to rise. United States District Court Judge Barbara Crabb declared Wisconsin’s same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional.
In 2006 Wisconsin voters amended the state constitution outlawing gay marriage in any form. The ACLU filed the lawsuit in February on behalf of eight couples who believe their constitutional rights to due process were violated consequently depriving them of protections married couples enjoy due to their gender.
Court clerks in Madison and Milwaukee immediately afterward opened their doors to register marriage licenses to gay couples beginning at 5:00 PM on the sixth, just over an hour after the court issued its ruling. Many couples welcomed this opportunity immediately, due in part to a belief among some that this might be a limited window of opportunity before a possible halt to the marriages during an appeals process.
Judge Crabb stated in her decision:
This case is not about whether marriages between same-sex couples are consistent or inconsistent with the teachings of a particular religion, whether such marriages are moral or immoral or whether they are something that should be encouraged or discouraged. It is not even about whether the plaintiffs in this case are as capable as opposite-sex couples of maintaining a committed and loving relationship or raising a family together.
Quite simply, this case is about liberty and equality, the two cornerstones of the rights protected by the United States Constitution.
Wisconsin Attorney General J. B. Van Hollen sought an emergency order in federal court to block the weddings, saying the ruling did not necessarily provide a clear path to gay weddings to begin. Van Hollen said confusion and uncertainty had resulted from the judge’s decision and the status quo must be preserved.
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By Darren Smith
Source: Fox News
The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.
The tyranny of the majority is the tragedy of the social-consensus-defined commons.
My wife and I were married, in 1975, by Dr. Robert Pierce, of the First Methodist Church (Chicago Temple), the oldest church in the City of Chicago.
Dr Pierce always met with couples who sought his services for marriage, and, during his counseling of my soon-then-to-be wife and me, i remarked to him to the effect that my intended-wife-to-be and I had “compatible interests and complementary skills.” I find that observation to have been decently accurate and to continue to be decently accurate.
One of my wife’s skills is being rather conventionally neurotypical, my complementary skill is being rather unconventionally autistic.
One of my wife’s childhood skills was being a form of tomboy, one of my childhood skills was being a sissy.
One of my wife’s skills is being conventionally female gendered, one of my skills is being socially-unconventionally transgendered.
In 1950, December, my family was listening to the Jack Benny (aka, Lucky Strike?) radio broadcast one Sunday evening. Don Wilson, the announcer, told the opening joke, about taking a trip to Europe, going to London where a man was a man, to Paris where a woman was a woman, and to Copenhagen where a man was a woman. Christine Jorgensen.
As a transgendered person and as a biologist/bioengineer, I categorically reject the notion that gender is binary. What of people who have two X chromosomes and one Y chromosome, or one X chromosome and two Y chromosomes? What of people whose prenatal brain development does not match their chromosome-determined or assigned-at-birth-by-someone-who-is-ignorant-of-gender-diversity gender label?
Given my lifelong observation to the effect that the rule of law is as though to rule out my right to exist as a human, I have lived all my life within a legal predicament; for I find that the rule of law effectively rules my life itself to be a violation of law.
In the summer of 1989, I completed my gender transition while an inpatient at the University of Chicago Hospital, by being prescribed, by an endocrinologist of national repute, a female hormones. Starting with puberty, I had always experienced the male hormone experience as being somewhat toxic; however, I also recognized that, were I to ever have a good family life, I might need to tolerate male hormone distress until any family I might have was effectively complete.
Because of the immense cruelty I have personally experienced from the rule of law, I decided, while a teenager, to not change my gender label in terms of law; I do not allow the rule of law to define me, nor to I grant the abuses I have personally experienced from the actions of law makers and law enforcers to have actual sovereignty over my life inner life.
So, my wife and I are now legally married in Wisconsin!
I never stop hoping, and working, for authentic justice…
http://www.afer.org/blog/14-supreme-court-cases-marriage-is-a-fundamental-right/
Marriage is A Fundamental Right.
Answer: Recognized federal civil rights law in the United States is grounded in the U.S. Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court. By this standard, marriage has long been established as a civil right.
The operative constitutional text is section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was ratified in 1868. The relevant passages read as follows:
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
The U.S. Supreme Court first applied this standard to marriage in Loving v. Virginia (1967), where it struck down a Virginia law banning interracial marriage. As Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote for the majority:
The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men …
To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.
While the U.S. Supreme Court has not yet ruled on same-sex marriage, it is unlikely that it would overturn the foundational premise that marriage is a civil right. Lower courts, even when relying on disparate state-level constitutional language, have consistently acknowledged the right to marry. Legal arguments for excepting same-sex marriage from the definition of marriage as a civil right have rested, instead, on the argument that the state has a compelling interest in restricting same-sex marriage that justifies limiting the right to marry (an argument that was also used to justify restrictions on interracial marriage), and/or that laws permitting civil unions provide a substantially equivalent standard to marriage that satisfies equal protection standards.
http://civilliberty.about.com/od/gendersexuality/f/Is-Marriage-a-Civil-Right.htm
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Here ya go Paul, that was so easy you could’ve looked it up yourself.
Annie –
Odd that they did not give the same right to women. 😉
SWM, There certainly is a homosexual agenda. The word “agenda” is not an inflammatory word and not personal. Talking about psychological therapy is mean and personal. The personal attacks and taunting of David are unseemly.
nick, I think David made inflammatory remarks when he spoke of an insurrection over the “homosexual agenda”.
I’m fairly certain David didn’t complain when the SCOTUS said Citizens United was Comsitutional, now on this he doesn’t want the courts involved. Oooo surprise!
Annie wrote: “’m fairly certain David didn’t complain when the SCOTUS said Citizens United was Comsitutional, now on this he doesn’t want the courts involved.”
I NEVER said that I did not want the courts to be involved. I am against them violating their Constitutional role by usurping the authority of the legislature.
In my opinion, this Judge has shown herself to be lawless and unconstitutional.
As I said, RTC, these threads turn nasty quickly.
The vote in the 2006 referendum was 59% voted for the amendment banning gay marriage. That’s pretty significant since Madison and Milwaukee tend to dominate votes like this.
What this means for Wisconsin is that gay people in Wisconsin will now enjoy the same Consitutional rights straight people do. About time too. Let’s see what this stupid Governor does.
Annie – I do not remember a Constitutional right to marry. Would you point that out?
” I do not remember a Constitutional right to marry. Would you point that out?”
So the state should get out of the marriage business all together and only offer civil commitment contracts?
Marriage could still be offered by the churches and anyone else who wanted to offer a system of recognition for marriage.
bfm – I think all marriages should be changed to partnership contracts.
‘ I think all marriages should be changed to partnership contracts.’
And here I though I was the only person in the world who thought the state should get out of the marriage business and leave marriage to the religions.
Annie wrote: “What this means for Wisconsin is that gay people in Wisconsin will now enjoy the same Consitutional [sic] rights straight people do.”
No it doesn’t. Gay people married in Wisconsin BEFORE this ruling. They just married someone of the opposite sex. Do you want to know why that was good? Because they married to create a family together, and the children had both of their biological parents in their lives. Here is a website that gives you an idea of how it works when a gay man marries a woman:
http://www.joshweed.com/
Think about what this court decision means for the institution of marriage. Suppose you have two lesbians get married. They decide they want to have children, so one of them gets pregnant by sleeping with a guy she meets at a bar. Maybe both lesbians do this. Maybe they both do it with various guys and eventually have several children by various men. Maybe some of those guys live with them. Maybe some of those guys don’t live with them, but want their rights to their children. The household is missing biological fathers or includes them at a distance. As the kid’s start school, the school wants to know who’s the mommy and who’s the daddy? They consider both females to be the mommy for all the children. The school officials need to know parental authority, so now the lesbians want to change the institution of marriage entirely to include more than just one person to one other person. The concept of marriage just isn’t working for them because the institution is based upon the model of a male and female nuclear family. They want two mommies and three daddies. Now you have another so-called “Constitutional Crisis” where someone’s constitutional rights are being violated by marriage being defined too narrowly to work. Believe me, this gay marriage thing is only the start. No good will come from it for future generations. Nothing but chaos and confusion about sexuality, reproduction, and family rights. Family law will have to be totally rewritten.
Congratulations fellow Wisconsinites! David, go ahead and start the insurrection, we’ll be waiting.
RTC, I am ambivalent regarding Gay marriage. I guess that makes me a quasi bigot homophobe? My ambivalence is based on the evolution of this incredible push for gay marriage. Just 20 years or so ago gays celebrated their alternative lifestyle and thought marriage was antithetical to their ethos. But, as gays became more mainstream coming out of the closet, not just the flamboyant gays you see @ Gay Pride parades[I know many gay men and women who abhor those parades], they wanted some stability. I applaud that and was on board quickly w/ civil unions. Wi. has a strong civil union law. The gay marriage push came out of the blue. It is aggressive and mean spirited. “If you don’t support it you’re a bigot and homophobe!” This attitude bothers straights and many gays. I have gay bonafides in my personal life. I’ll list them if you wish. I don’t usually weigh in on these threads because of my ambivalence. They get nasty quickly, much less so since the changing of the guard in January.
So, that’s background on my philosophy. My take on this ruling is, as stated previously, good chance Crabb will be overruled. I forget the %’s on the passage of this amendment in 2006, but I think it was significant. I voted for it. If it were on the ballot today, I would have to think harder, my thoughts have changed a bit. What this means for Wi. is a Federal Judge, out of the mainstream except for the UBER liberal Madison, made a ruling that affects a very diverse state. Attack @ will. I’m not going to battle on this. I know my thoughts are not hateful, homophobic, or bigoted. So, any attacks say everything about the attacker and nothing about me. I cringe when I see David attacked personally. It’s not right.
Nick: What’s you’re take on this ruling and what it means for Wisconsin?
http://host.madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/back-in-the-picture-former-gov-jim-doyle-believes-wisconsin/article_7b884387-c96d-5649-8382-00517785ee3e.html “When Doyle ran for re-election in 2006, he said Republicans put a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage on the ballot specifically to bring out anti-Doyle voters because he opposed such a ban. ” And why should any liberal apologize about Wisconsin’s gay marriage ban?
The personal attacks on David are underway.
Schulte: The S. Ct. chooses cases based on merit, not by lottery or on a first come, first served basis. The Court deals with issues that are important to resolve constitutionally. Popularity doesn’t factor into it.
You do realize this is a legal blog, right?
David: You seem to be the one in confusion here, and I keep telling you this may not be the best forum for you to work those issues out. It almost feels like we’re intruding into you’re therapy session.
RTC – you are just full of argumentum ad hominem attacks today.
Judge Crabb has many rulings overturned. She is a nice, smart woman. I’ve socialized @ parties w/ her. Judge Crabb is as liberal as any person here. She is the darling of the left activists here, particularly the Freedom From Religion folks. Judge Crabb is secular progressive. She makes rulings the left applaud and then is overturned by the much more reasoned 7th Circuit.
Like so many topics discussed here people provide their own facts. People who I know to be intelligent give erroneous facts. So, that makes me question their veracity. Gov. Walker has been excoriated for this gay marriage ban. The Wi. Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage was passed in 2006, when there was a Dem governor[James Doyle]. He was much worse than Walker and left w/ approval ratings in the toilet.
“You are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.” Daniel Patrrick Moynihan
Don’t expect an apology from liberals. They don’t do apologies.
So… no different than other couples.
“How comforting it is to know that the civil concept of the nuclear family is being destroyed by a fad.” David M. No…. Gay couples can marry and provide a two parent family for their children. Now that I am living in a state where gay marriage is legal, I am seeing many gay married couples with children.
SWM – you do realize that married gays are starting to divorce and child custody is a major issue where children are involved. So, they are going from two-parent families to single-parent families, with right of visitation.