Ben Shapiro @ Breitbart:
For years, the left has claimed that they want marriage to be a state issue. But now the rubber has met the road on gay marriage, with the Obama administration issuing a request to the Supreme Court to strike down President Clinton’s Defense of Marriage Act, which allowed states not to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli now says that DOMA must be struck down under “the fundamental guarantee of equal protection.”
Of course, that assumes that legislation protecting traditional marriage violates equal protection clauses under the Constitution, an absurd position that suggests that all laws that affect people disproportionately are somehow unconstitutional. Marriage laws are perfectly neutral – men can marry women, not men. That is true for gay men and for straight men. The fact that the law does not have equal impact on straight men and gay men is of no concern under the Constitution. All laws have variant impact on different people. In fact, the Obama administration argues precisely that when they say that Obamacare regulations forcing Catholic businessowners to pay for health insurance covering contraception is not unconstitutional.
Verrilli’s brief continues: DOMA, he says, “denies to tens of thousands of same-sex couples who are legally married under state law an array of important federal benefits that are available to legally married opposite-sex couples.” But state law cannot dictate federal law. This is the logical equivalent of saying that federal marijuana laws are unconstitutional because they deny to tens of thousands of legally prescribed medical marijuana users under state law the benefits of federal Medicare reimbursement.
The gay thing is so different that the usual left-right divide doesn’t really pertain. It was true, after all, that liberals were just as anti-gay as conservatives for decades, until barely a few months ago in fact — and many in the black and Latino lefty community still are. Socialists hate gay folks too, so it’s not like the Right is alone on this. However, many on the Right have realized that the gay thing is different too, and there are many gay Republicans. It has not been through any political leadership that gay folks have achieved anything — it has only been with the constant lawsuits by tax paying Americans that any laws against us were removed — and our going to our families first — and now, many still want our own families to remove us from civil society. Quite amazing, really, how the world is fearful of gay folks yet.
Meanwhile, no hetero had a problem with our denial of freedom of assembly (what, the bar raids weren’t to break up peaceable assemblies? sure they were.) Few said a peep when gay publications and politic tracts were seized and destroyed, or denied entry through the mails. No one said a word while we were incarcerated, subjected to what could be charitably called torture (cold baths, strange diets, electro shock,) or arrested for having a beer with each other. On top of that we are the only people who are required to listen to endless religious prattle about how we should immediately find the Jesus of your choice, in what could be characterized as a demand for forced conversion — pray away the gay indeed. Then, when we say we’re born gay, you call us liars, sick and demented — and, we’re not covered by the Americans With Disabilities Act for being so mentally disordered as to be the subject of endless debate as to our very existence. Meanwhile, no two heteros have the same reason as to why gay folks might exist at all. Figure it out, you’ll feel better.
Meanwhile, DOMA is the strangest law in the land in that it creates no crime, levies no penalties, and denies the reality of gay couples. Denial of reality is not a conservative trait, but, well, by your take, rather liberal. Now that’s odd, eh? And gay people are paying the taxes for the defense of the law against us — so it’s no skin off your back. Though, paying for one’s oppression is not a Conservative or American value, I assure you.
The idea that gay men are free to marry woman is a rather strange idea in that there seems to be absolutely no concern for the woman in these potential sham marriages — and what she could have done to deserve a gay man as a husband. The argument is spurious because it’s also true that hetero men are not allowed to marry a man, just as much as gay men are not — but that part never seems to enter the thought process – -it’s all one way — what gays might do or not – -not what you heteros might.
Still, this society, as every other society on earth — not just America — not just our Constitution — but everywhere, is having to deal with gay folks — for we 5% or so of the world’s population, or, 350,000,000 people, are just rather fed up with the arrant mush on gay stuff that passes for thought. We’re taxpayers, with jobs, and non-violent and not leaving behind the trail of social ills which fine heteros do on a daily basis. We don’t kill our kids either, and in fact, we adopt those heteros won’t care for. Meanwhile, we are called a threat to hetero existence and your marriages for daring to be respected and seek an easier legal regime. So frail must be the hetero constitution that a mere nice word about gay folks renders heteros hopeless.
Meanwhile, there are gay couples – and the government recognizes this — because they seem to have absolutely no problem with collecting taxes from said gay couples who often have to go through astounding legal hoopla to protect property and assets (geez, how conservative,) with LLC, S-Corps, Partnerships and other commercial legal regimes — instead of relying on a formal family law because, while we might be the runt of the American litter – -we sure the hell are part of the family.
But, if you’re going to take gay folks’ money, include us in the laws — but if we are to be forever excluded from laws, with our own special ones denying us the specific use of specific laws (special rights anyone?) and hounded and harassed – -and made to pay for the defense of DOMA — which is galling — then gay folks should get the corresponding discount in taxes, as the perhaps 3/5’s citizen we are apparently proclaimed to be by our own government.
@Jim Hlavac:
Too claim conservatives hate or are anti- gay is simply wrong.
@Mully: I did not mean to imply and did not say that “conservatives” hate gays or are anti-gay, I personally know it’s not true, my father being a Goldwater Republican who taught me well — I said that the gay issue is like no other, and that what are traditionally liberal or conservative causes are unrelated to the gay thing. For if it is true that everyone will join the conservative rational cause — you will wind up with rational conservatives who are gay — and then what? We’re still gay, and the issue is still there, regardless of any other political stance on any issue.
Obama’s willingness to skirt laws makes it irrelevant whether the Sequester goes through or not.
Obama ignores whatever he likes and regulates into ”law” whatever else he likes that won’t pass.