Bell Curve The Law Talking Guy Raised by Republicans U.S. West
Well, he's kind of had it in for me ever since I accidentally ran over his dog. Actually, replace "accidentally" with "repeatedly," and replace "dog" with "son."

Monday, June 05, 2006

A great question

It's been brought up on several other blogs, but worth mentioning again:

Bush says courts shouldn't be permitted to decide who can marry who. That's exactly what happened in Loving v. Virginia, and the public was NOT happy about it. So, rather than pull some cute argument about how blacks aren't like gays, Bush needs to tell us directly - if the courts aren't empowered to decide who can marry whom, then is the Loving v. VA decision wrong since an activist court overruled the will of the people?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yep, this issue is such a transparent attempt at pandering to the Christian Fundamentalist vote that it must even look lame to them.

Of course the problem with comparing Loving v. Virginia to the current debate about equal protection for homosexuals under the law is that today's "Christian" homophobes were yesterday's "Christian" racists. It's the same constituency. It's all about rural, white, mostly Southern, lower middle class voters who are insecure about their place in the world.

This is the issue Bush shouts about so no one will investigate what happened in Cheney's meeting with Enron et al. 

// posted by Raised By Republicans

Anonymous said...

A Whole-hearted AMEN, RBR! 

// posted by USWest

Dr. Strangelove said...

I no longer expect consistency from either political party... and from George W. Bush least of all.

But I imagine a consistent conservative response would be that the result of Loving v. Virginia was desirable, but the means (a court decision) was not. They would argue that the Warren Court overstepped its authority (again) and that the policy change should have been done by the legislature... maybe even by Constitutional amendment.

"The exclusion of same-sex couples from the benefits and responsibilities of marriage... represented a harsh if oblique statement by the law that same-sex couples are outsiders, and that their need for affirmation and protection of their intimate relations as human beings is somehow less than that of heterosexuals couples. It signifies that their capacity for love, commitment and accepting responsibility is by definition less worthy of regard than that of heterosexual couples."
-South African Constitutional Court, in an opinion Legalizing Gay Marriage

Anonymous said...

What Republicans think and say about "Loving" depends on whether they think they are "among friends" or not. When Republicans are in a room alone, they'd make jokes about "all the problems we have today" ala Trent Lott's comments about Strom Thurmond.

I suspect that a shockingly high percentage of Republican voters would prefer to see Loving v Virginia reversed. 

// posted by Raised By Republicans

Anonymous said...

Anything over 0% would be shockingly high. 

// posted by Bell Curve

Anonymous said...

I'd bet cash money that we're talking about double digit percentages here.  

// posted by Raised By Republicans