So, as much as it kills me (and it does cause me physical pain) I’m going to throw in my two cents on this whole gay marriage thing that is happening in Utah.
If you don’t know, or if you have been living under a rock, on December 20, 2013 U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby ruled that the Utah state ban on gay marriage violated the U.S. Constitution.
If you’re new here (you may be the seventh person to find this) I have already brilliantly written my take on gay marriage before, you can find it here.
I’ll try to keep this fresh.
Our founding fathers were obsessed with the separation of powers. They didn’t want the federal government to grow out of control, and so they set up checks and balances. They did recognize there were certain things the federal government needed to be in charge of: making money, immigration, declaring war, you know…stuff like that. To help ensure the restriction on the growth of the federal government they gave us the 10th amendment. It reads:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
In other words, any issue not specifically mentioned in the Constitution for the federal government to have dominion over (for lack of a better word) is up to the states to decide.
Let me illustrate an example of the federal government overreaching its authority. Let’s say there is a small, random state of roughly 3 million people. The people of the state don’t want to have fluoride added to the water. They don’t care if other states put fluoride in theirs, it just isn’t for them. They vote and add it to their states constitution that they are a “No fluoride in the water” state. Sixty-six percent of the voters come out in favor of this resolution. BUT…there are a few dentists in the state who disagree with the will of the people. “How can the state not want fluoride?” they argue. “There is no evidence that it hurts anyone.” So they sue, and find a federal judge who interprets the “everlasting gobstopper clause” of the US constitution as saying the will of the people is wrong. And so the state district attorney immediately starts pouring fluoride in drinking water.
That is exactly what happened with gay marriage in Utah.
“But Danny,” you whine, “not everyone is Utah voted on that amendment, what about the will of the people who didn’t vote?” This is going to sound super harsh to my butt-hurt liberal friends, but if they didn’t vote, their opinion doesn’t mean squat.
Quick side note: Is it just me, or does “LGBT” sounds too much like a sandwich?
“But Danny,” you whine even louder, “didn’t the Supreme Court knock down DOMA, thus opening the door to this kind of thing?” (DOMA is the “Defense of Marriage Act – signed by Bill Clinton which defined marriage as between a man and a woman). Hmmm….not really. Basically the repeal of DOMA showed that the Supreme Court recognized that defining marriage wasn’t the federal government’s place, that put definition of marriage back to the state.
And later, the same year part of DOMA was repealed, Shelby, the judge from a lower court, said the state couldn’t define it either.
I’ve read quite of bit about gay marriage. I’ve read the arguments for, and I’ve read the arguments against. I’ve even read articles where the writer uses copious amounts of inordinately profuse, abstruse, and perplexing vocabulary. When reading these articles I always think, “Whatever, dude, what-ev-er (or dudette if you are one.)” In my mind very few people get it, on either side of the issue.
It’s sad. There are faces involved. The roughly 1,400 same-sex couples who were married in Utah are in limbo. Are they married or not? These people are being used as pawns. I know my butt-hurt liberal friends are going to howl at that phrase, but it’s true. They are being used as pawns. The district attorney who authorized the county clerks to issue gay marriage license knew this was going to happen.
In my little brain the real issue here isn’t gay marriage. That is just the face of it. The real issue is States’ Rights. Sadly, most people (in this case those in favor of the judges ruling on gay marriage) aren’t looking at the big picture. They either don’t get–or they don’t care–that you can’t pick up one side of a stick. They have an issue and if one activist federal judge can overrule the will of the people, to them, the end justifies the means.
To me that is wrong. Good ends should come about from good means.
Think about it. We live in a representative democracy. Generally speaking if a law is made from the elected legislators we, the people, are accepting of it. Almost all of the most decisive issues in the country are brought about judicially.
Whatever your opinion on gay marriage, for it or against it, it should be the voice of the people who decides. We don’t live in an aristocracy, where the smart people tell the stupid how to live. In the United States, judges don’t have the right, and should stop trying, to invent laws.
LIFEZILLA: Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice…you probably have boobs.
