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Originally Posted by willravel
What the article (see page 1) is about is changing the letter of state law in that it contradicts the constitution. Usually when a state law butts heads with the constitution....what happens? You have told us you have a history with law, what do you think happens when the constituion (all men [people] are created equal) butts head with state law (those queers can't marry!)?
Either the constitution is wrong, or the state law is wrong (or people can try to bastardise the constitution by saying that "all men created equal" doesn't apply to gays marriage rights). The only question that we should be asking ourselves is does "all men created equal" mean that gays should be allowed to marry (whether society is ready or not)? It's up to the judges.
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The thing is that what you call the "bastardization" of the Constitution is in fact NOT a bastardization of the Constitution at all, since the interpretation of the Constitutionality of the issue we're talking about has been in place all along. Marriage has traditionally not been seen as a Federal issue at all, and rights not specifically granted to the Federal Government in the Constitution are retained by the States or the People. Now if SCOTUS ruled that same sex marriages were indeed Constitutionally protected (barring a Constitutional Amendment on the issue), that would be a different matter, but that's not what has happened. What happened was that a judge in a State trial court ruled one way, but that certainly doesn't settle the issue. Look, for example, at the procedural history of U.S. v. Miller, (1939). In that case, the trial judge held that the NFA 1934 was an unconstitutional infringement of the Second Amendment. SCOTUS disagreed, and the law still stands to this day, although it's currently under attack in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in U.S. v. Stewart on ICC grounds.
The majority of American people are NOT ready for same-sex marriage to become the law of the land; the 2004 state referendums prove this fairly conclusively. Even in Oregon, a pretty strongly "Blue State", a same sex marriage ban was approved with 57% of the vote. IF (and that's a HUGE "if", considering the makeup of the court right now) SCOTUS were to rule that same-sex marriages must be allowed, there'd be a Constitutional Amendment passed and ratified in RECORD time. There may be one passed even before SCOTUS gets a chance to rule on it.
I'm reminded of the old T-shirt slogan which states "If we cannot reform it, we will abolish it." If this issue continues to be pushed while so many Americans oppose it, that's EXACTLY what will happen. And once the Constitution has been amended, the odds of it being repealed are slim at best (it's only happened once since the Constitution went into effect). In twenty years, the situation may be different, but right now, considering the level of popular approval out there on this issue, it's a complete loser of an issue for no reason other than the backlash.