Federal Judge Rules Against Same-Sex Couple In Puerto Rico, Dismisses Case

It only mattered because PatriotNews asserted that the US is under majority rule, which is plainly not correct.

 

Strange really that your insist on continuing to show your own stunted intelligence, but of course that is only to be expected, and you are right about one thing .. it is a merry-go-round of stupidity, I'm glad you recognise your own failings.

As to you standing by your every comment, I would expect nothing less from someone who squirms and avoids reality.

 

OK Thanks. I'll check that out

 

Bring something new to the table, and leave the childish ad hominem attacks on the playground. Funny that you continue to claim I squirm and avoid reality, even when you are proven wrong. I didn't notice that I was dueling with a Brit, which explains why you know so little about our form of government, but doesn't explain why any of this is of your concern or business. As I recall, we ran your butts out of America and would thank you to mind your own business.

 

Wrong again. I said that we the people are the ultimate arbiters of the Constitution and thus the laws under which we are subject to. Once again, I don't expect a foreigner to understand how our system of government works. Too bad your education has neglected to teach you critical thinking and logic fallacies, because your use of straw man arguments and other fallacies is pervasive throughout your posts. No wonder your country is so quickly headed down the toilet.

 

You are so wrong. It's almost painful to watch you embarrass yourself like this. On the other hand , I'm kind of enjoying it. You're not very good at this debate thing, are you? You just keep making inane assertions that you can't actually support and try to mask your inadequacy by disparaging others. You speak of logical fallacies but fail to see that everything that you say is in fact a logical fallacy.

 

No requirement to bring something new to the table as what is already there is more than enough to put people who discriminate firmly into the history books, who no doubt will be looked upon with the same distaste as all the others of the same ilk.

Problem is that this Brit obviously knows more about your form of government than you do .. it must really nark you to have someone from another country teaching you about yours.

As far as I am aware this forum is open to any person from any country, or have they changed the rules. your obvious attempt to try and wriggle away from your own inadequacies is noted.

and you think this means anything to me

 

It is exactly what you said, as can easily be shown from your own comments -

Post #54 - "The laws and the government are servants to the people, not the other way around. The people decide which laws they are willing to live under. They should not be imposed upon the people either by a tyrannical executive or judicial fiat. "

So attempting to change your original comment is nothing more than dishonesty .. however I had already concluded that you are not an honest debater and all you are doing now is confirming that.

The highlighted item is obviously false. In order for the people to decide which laws they are willing to live under the USA would have to be a true democracy .. it isn't and the people do not decide. There is no avenue for the people to change the constitution via a majority opinion, and even if there were that majority opinion cannot declare lawful something that is unconstitutional.

now I have had my fun with you, time to return to the OP.

 

I stand by my statement above. Here, I'll say it again: The people decide which laws they are willing to live under. They should not be imposed upon the people either by a tyrannical executive or judicial fiat. I am not trying to change my statement, I am not dodging or squirming. I said what I said, and I meant it. I don't know how to make it more clear to you that I stand by my statement. How can I be dishonest, when I stand by my original statement?

We don't have a king. The people make laws by electing the lawmakers who represent what we want. If we don't like the laws they make, then we vote them out and vote in new people. If we want to change the Constitution we can through the amendment processes. We've done it 27 times. I know that will be difficult for you to understand.

You don't know what form of government we have. As I've pointed out, we are a constitutional republic, not a democracy. First you claimed we are a democracy, then you said we are not a true democracy, so it is you that is changing what you said, not me.

I suggest you also read the Declaration of Independence.

You are the one who is being dishonest by stating that I am changing my original comment when I have done no such thing.

 

My great great great great great grandfather left England, came to America, sent as an emissary by the King to win over colonists to the side of the crown. Within a few years he was a captain in the South Carolina militia. You have no idea about our country, but you do know how to be condescending. If you want to talk down to someone, at least get your facts straight first. You obviously don't understand what a constitutional republic is or how it works. You still live under a modified quasi constitutional monarchy which basically means you still live in serfdom. Your government rules over you. Here, we rule over them. You only have rights that they give to you. Our rights are given to us by God.

 

As there is no enumerated right to be Heterosexual either. Sexuality is seen as a liberty as it had been for millennia.

Rights retained by the people before and after the signing of the US Constitution. Marriage rights or right to one's sexuality do not need the US Constitution to exist.

The Constitution only affirms those rights. The rights have always existed. Dig through the Constitution and find me the an enumerated right to self-defense and marriage.

 

Millennia?



If has always been a right, why did it take 220 years to notice that is was a right?

 

I guess there is no hope of you actually commenting on my analysis of heightened scrutiny and how it will result in gays winning the right to marry. I understand. You are either unwilling or unable to devote that many brain cells to the topic, or it's just to painful to face the truth. Too bad.

To review, whether by way of the 14th amendment, or by being elevated to a suspect class who has suffered significant and historic discrimination, laws banning same sex marriage will become subject to heightened or strict scrutiny. Do you understand what that means? It means that for discriminatory laws such as the bans on same sex marriage to survive, the states will have to demonstrate that there is a compelling government interest in having these laws. They wont be able to do so. No one has been able to do so. They will fall and it will be over. Do you get that? Maybe you can come up with a compelling government interest? How about just a rational basis ? Do you even know what that is?

 

Because societies advance. There is something called the evolving standards of human decency. To be sure not all individuals in that society evolve. Case in point: YOU. But we as a people do in fact learn and change.

 

Why does the right only seem to have so much frivolity in legal venues; our supreme law of the land is more supreme than any commandments of even Religion.

Our Founding Fathers said so, in Article 6.

 

You are dishonest because you tried to change your original statement, as anyone can see, when it was pointed out to you and proven that what you advocate for is NOT how your form of government works.

Neither do we have a king, though that has no relevance what so ever.

That is not what you advocated, for once read what you have written - "The people decide which laws they are willing to live under." - you do not decide what laws you live under, at best you can decide who to place in power and then you can hope they will advocated the laws you want to live under. The people have no direct influence on law making.

The people of the US have NEVER changed the constitution via majority vote, there is no avenue for the people to do this, in fact your founders explicitly steered away from this avenue. Read Article 5 of the Constitution and show me anywhere in that-that it states that the constitution can be amended via a public vote. You the people have not changed the constitution 27 times.

I obviously know better than you do, you seem to think that the people can simple vote for a change and it will be added .. even the representatives who can vote to change the constitution cannot do so unless it passes the legislature .. put simply no change can be made that is unconstitutional, there have been a number of items struck down due to their unconstitutional nature REGARDLESS of what the public opinion is.

what I actually said was that the USA is not a TRUE democracy, which is what you are saying it is, or is your memory so bad you cannot even remember what you write, here let me remind you again - "The people decide which laws they are willing to live under." that statement is plainly a load of crap.

I claimed, a provided evidence, to the fact that the United States is a federal republic and a constitutional representative democracy.

The "federal" part is one of three basic types of organization of power — unitary, confederal, and federal. Most nations are unitary in nature (local government with a powerful national government). There are no confederacies that I know of at this time (the U.S., under the Articles of Confederation was one; Germany and Switzerland have also had confederate systems in the past). Federal systems are common among large nations where several levels of government are needed. Australia, Canada, and Brazil are federal as well. Federations do not always work, such as in the case of the United Arab Republic.

The "republic" implies that we have a strong head of state (the President) and elected officials representing the people.

The "constitutional" part means that you have a constitution, which is pretty obvious. Finally, the "representative democracy" part means that the people elect representatives to take care of legislative matters. Originally, the only part of the government that fit this description was the House of Representatives. Today, the Senate does, too, and in current practice, so does the Electoral College.

The mere fact that a nation has a constitution, is a federation, or is a republic, does not imply that minorities are fairly treated. It is the content of that constitution, and the values of that federation and/or republic that protects the rights of minorities.

Note that a democracy, in the true sense of the word, does not protect the minority — majority rules.

so you attempt to misrepresent me is noted and only adds further to your dishonest nature.

Oh for God sake, the DOI is not a legal document and is a list of colonial grievances against King George III, and by asserting certain natural and legal rights, including a right of revolution, and although the DOI is cited in cases as a historical reference it has no legal standing nor can it be cited as legal precedence.

I have clearly demonstrated you have done so numerous times.

 

Great good for you .. no relevance what so ever to the debate though.

Obviously more than you do and that is the bone of your contention that some "Johnny Foreign" knows more about the subject than you do.

Every one of my facts is correct, I have even provided sources to show this . .you on the other hand just keep bleating the same old crap.

Oh I do, more so than you considering the fact that you stated on this very topic that the people decide which laws they will live under, THAT is not a constitutional republic, that is a TRUE democracy.

What a load of bull(*)(*)(*)(*). I suggest you actually lean about your own form of government before trying to erroneously describe another countries. The United Kingdom is a unitary democracy governed within the framework of a constitutional monarchy.

Just as yours does over you.

You simply do not, as far as I am aware the people of the USA cannot force an election, neither can they remove a standing government.

There is nothing in your constitution that states that your rights are given to you by God, in fact God is not mentioned at all.. if you actually took the time to read it that is.

Even the DOI does not mention God, it states 'Creator' and creator can mean many things to many people.

 

The more that I think about the role of Baker v. Nelson in this case from Puerto Rico, the more ridiculously inappropriate it seems. To be sure the blame lies with both the first circuit appeals court for invoking Baker in their DOMA ruling two years ago, as well as with Judge Juan Perez-Gimenez for seizing on that as an excuse to uphold Puerto Rico’s ban on same sex marriage saying that his hands were tied. However, his opinion also contained a heavy dose of appeals to tradition and slippery slope predictions.

Now the role of the first circuit court:

In their opinion they stated:

“

The fact is that they did go on to declare section 3 of DOMA invalid without finding that there is a constitutional right to same sex marriage. Subsequently SCOTUS also did so. However, SCOTUS did it without invoking Baker. In addition, the 2nd circuit also invalidated DOMA without mentioning Baker.

One has to wonder why the first circuit found it necessary to do so. Perhaps they were not thinking ahead, expecting to actually get a same sex marriage case, as it appears they now will. Or perhaps they were thinking in fact ahead. But given the liberal bent of this court, and the fact that all other jurisdictions in the circuit that have same sex marriage, that seems unlikely. It should not be hard to take back what was previously said in that it happened before Windsor (See below). It should be interesting to watch.

Now lets look at what Judge Juan Perez-Gimenez did with that:

From his opinion ( pg. 12)

While this judge seized on the first circuit’s ruling, it’s quite likely that if he not had that ammunition, he would have still used Baker citing the SCOTUS decision. Keep in mind that the first circuit opinion was prior to Windsor, but since that time almost all federal rulings has discounted Baker as a binding precedent. There is considerable legal reasoning that Baker is in fact no longer controlling as we will see below.

So where do we go from here? It probably depends a lot on what the appeals court-and if it goes further SCOTUS want the outcome to be. As I previously stated, the first circuit is known as a liberal court and all of the other 4 jurisdictions in that circuit have legal same sex marriage, although not by federal court action. As for SCOTUS, their recent actions in declining to hear cases from the 4th, 7th and 10th circuit’s speaks volumes. In that same week, they refused to stay an order of the 9th circuit. The result of these actions, or inactions was to allow same sex marriage to proceed in an additional 16 States (3 are fighting it but they will not prevail) for a total of 35 states, up from 19, in just one week. Surely they understand the implications of this and the difficulty there would be in going back now.

As for Baker, I believe that the first circuit can and will find a way around it. And if it gets to SCOTUS, they will not have to find a way around it. They can just overturn it. Why? Let’s ask some professors…

Then there is this to consider

So those who are gloating over the Puerto Rico decision might not want to pop the Champaign just yet.

 

I think I just addressed the compelling government interest in banning gays from marrying here:
http://www.politicalforum.com/showthread.php?t=379526&page=10&p=1064401655#post1064401655

The bigotry of the left is exposed when they portray faith in God as socially outdated. Decency doesn't come at the expense of others. The left constantly repeats the mantra, "your rights end where it intrudes on the rights of others", yet trample on the right to religious freedom under the guise of human decency.

You have no concept of brevity. Must you nit pick every sentence? If you want to talk about the Constitution, start a new thread. I've tried to get back to the topic of this thread, but you keep beating a dead horse. I'm not going to be baited into the same strawman arguments over and over. If you'd like to debate about it, start a new thread, and I'll follow you there. Out of consideration for the OP, get back on topic or quit. Quit with the insults as well, I've not reported them yet, but your constant ad hominem attacks grow tiresome.

 

Are you serious??!! It's apparent that you don't have a clue as to what a compelling government interest is.

 

I've read through all this legal back and forth and try to understand the complexity of the laws and rulings that you posted here. What I haven't seen is a court ruling that basically says, the Constitution gives gays the right to same sex marriage in plain and simple English. Am I wrong? Instead they try to worm around it under some hidden right under the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause. The 14th Amendment was never intended to give homosexuals the right to same sex marriage. If it was, how come gays didn't get married the day after it's adoption?

Seems to me what you need to do is pass an amendment to the Constitution. We should propose one that bans gay marriage, and another which supports it. See which one wins.

 

There have been numerous rulings that state that a ban on same sex marriage is unconstitutional. That is the same as saying that there is a constitutional right to it. I would show you but it would be a waist of my time. I don't think that you're that interested. I showed you how SCOTUS could find that bans on marriage are unconstitutional even without using the 14th amendment (not that I agree with you that it doesn't apply) but you had nothing intelligent to say about that. And I'm still waiting to hear from you on the compelling government interest that you claim to have. How come gays didn't get married when the 14th was passed.? Dhhh maybe because there were laws against it that were not challenged at the time??? Your suggestion that we pass an amendment to allow SSM is ridiculous! It's not necessary.

 

I think that the case has been made many times over. It was ruled on by the SCOTUS 40 years ago:

It would be a waste of your time because in the end, judges shouldn't take it upon themselves to thwart the will of the people and distort and destroy the laws and the Constitution through judicial activism. This is not how our three branches of government is supposed to work.

an Amendment to allow SSM is ridiculous and would never pass because a majority of the people are against it. But this one might:

http://citizeninitiatives.org/Traditional_Marriage_Amendment.htm

 

Are you serious? 40 years ago? 40 years ago, most people could not contemplate a day when gays people could marry. Loving established the principle that state marriage laws-that the states ability to regulate marriage is not absolute and it is still used today in that regard. As far as Baker goes, I wrote on it extensively and provided evidence that suggest that it is not longer relevant. Did you bother to read any of it. Much has happened since then, and especially since Windsor.

You're still bloviating about how judges should not thwart the will of the people seemingly in denial of how our Federal Republic works. You're also in denial about what the will of the people actually. And, no that does not mean that the people should vote on it. That is not how we deal with civil rights. The only thing that I don't know if you're really that ignorant, or just pretending to not get it.

For the record, you have not come up with a compelling government interest that would withstand strict scrutiny TODAY. Hell there is nothing that can even survive a rational basis review. You do understand what that is, right?

 

You come to these conclusions based on your own twisted ideologically colored prism of reality. None if it is based in critical thinking and logic. It is all dictated by emotions and what you believe is justice. All at the expense of society and the fabric which holds it together. This is a divisive wedge issue designed solely to bring about conflict and damage to our way of life. There are alternatives and compromises for which gays can get the benefits they seek, but are unwilling to not because they want satisfaction, but because they want to destroy their perceived enemies.

It's not my compelling government interest that needs to withstand strict scrutiny of today, but the compelling government interest which has not changed and does stand the test of time. It is not my invention, and I am not require to invent new reasons why we should maintain long accepted norms and values.