[lit-ideas] Re: States' Rights, Islamism, and the Cordoban Mosque

  • From: "Veronica Caley" <molleo1@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2010 11:59:13 -0400

Thanks for the clarification.  I knew this too.  But I am thinking that this 
continual battle between state and federal law is ultimately going to end 
badly.  As you point out, it has done so before.  My solution to this marriage 
issue is to just stop regulating it at all, except for laws re property and 
children.  That is, property rights issues and no marriage between people 
deemed to be children. Say, under sixteen or so.  And then, let clergy marry or 
not marry people as their religion dictates.  Some clergy are already marrying 
gay couples.  Just make it legal for purposes of divorce, property and child 
welfare and benefits.  One can get married by a justice of the peace, a ship 
captain, a judge, and no clergy are even needed by many people.  If I were a 
religious leader, that's what I would worry about.

Veronica Caley
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: John McCreery 
  To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Saturday, August 14, 2010 11:21 AM
  Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: States' Rights, Islamism, and the Cordoban Mosque





  On Sat, Aug 14, 2010 at 10:54 AM, Veronica Caley <molleo1@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


    It seems to me that there is an issue that Lawrence brings up that is worth 
thinking about.  Namely, why let people vote and then over rule their vote? 


   The vote was conducted under California law. The overruling was decided 
under Federal law, in this case the equal protection clause of the 
Constitution. Federal law was held to supersede California law. The 
Constitutional issue, which may go to the Supreme Court, concerns states' 
rights, the issue over which the Civil War was fought. One side will argue that 
it is the states' prerogative to regulate marriage within their borders. The 
other will argue that this prerogative is limited by the Constitutional 
guarantee of equality under the law. I favor the latter, seeing in the judge's 
decision a clear example of what the authors of the Constitution had in mind 
when they separated the legislative and judicial branches of government and 
added the Bill of Rights to ensure that majority rule would not always apply, 
to protect the rights of minorities.


  John

  -- 
  John McCreery
  The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
  Tel. +81-45-314-9324
  jlm@xxxxxxxxxxxx
  http://www.wordworks.jp/

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