Again, I said what the government's roles are. I never said it was fulfilling those roles. Do you see the difference? Or is your teen brain to inflexible to see the truth. What it should do (its roles) and what it is doing are two different things.

And bo_sux Godwin's the thread.

Actually, bo, there is a big difference. Hitler only cared for citizens who met a certain set of physical and political criteria. I don't give a fuck what color or creed you are. If you are a US Citizen, the US government's roles to you are as I stated (so Hitler should have been protecting the Jews, not persecuting, enslaving, and murdering them).

Of course I see the difference. If I didn't see the difference, I wouldn't have just pointed out the difference a couple of posts ago.

And I don't know what Godwin-ing the thread is. If you mean I dropped a little hyperbole on you, yeah, I did. Boo fuckin hoo.

Godwin's Law. Google it.

Okay?

Did you Google it? If so, then you know writing "Hitler, meet Draug. Draug, meet Hitler. " Godwin'd the thread.

I was not saying that to insult you, as "Godwin's Law" (a complete misnomer, might I say) suggests. I was saying it because your philosophy is the same one that got Hitler into power. Do you see the difference? Or is your old moldy brain too inflexible to see the truth?

You metaphorically compared my philosophy to Hitler's. Comparison made. Theard Godwin'd.

But now you are just trolling cause you don't want to admit the truth.

Offering up the notion that civil rights don't apply to foreigners is Hitler-esque. That's the only truth I see.

Why is Godwin's law a misnomer, bo_sox?

Also, how on earth is saying that a government is for the protection of its citizens the one that got Hitler into power?

Incidentally, Draug, the "separate but equal" analysis has only been applied to race, not sexual orientation. That may seem like a small point, but if you know modern Constitutional law, it's not in the least. There are a certain very few categories that receive "strict scrutiny" under the fourteenth amendment in modern jurisprudence. They are race, national origin, religion, and alienage. Sexual orientation is not a so-called "suspect classification," or at least, has never been held to be.

If it were not for this limitation to a few categories, then it would be unconstitutional to provide (for example) separate restrooms for men and women in public buildings. However, it is not, because "separate but equal" does not apply to gender.

So, your citing this in your analysis all the time is unjustified.

I don't believe it is unjustified. Gender has a clear reason it must be separate but equal. But marriage does not.

That said, it is irrelavent so long as all the rights given to married couples by states and the federal government aren't also given to civil unions and civil unions aren't available to all who would seek them. Right now, newither situation is true. There are states without civil unions and tghere are states with civil unions who don't give the full rights of marriage to the union. And the federal government just got it's ass handed to it by SCOTUS on this issue recently.

" I don't believe it is unjustified. Gender has a clear reason it must be separate but equal. But marriage does not."

It is unjustified precisely because the Supreme Court has never held that sexual orientation is a suspect classification, which, in the labyrinthine world of modern Constitutional law, is the only thing that could make "separate but equal" analysis relevant to gay marriage. Your say-so, for example, does not suffice.

"And the federal government just got it's ass handed to it by SCOTUS on this issue recently. "

True. Unfortunately it was written by Justice Kennedy, which means nobody is quite sure what the rationale was or how it generalizes to other situations.

Regardless of "sepearet but equal", the law still should require that civil unions carry *all* the same protections under law that marriages do and that *all* couples should have access to a minimum of a civil union that is equal in every way to a marriage. This simply hasn't happened and won't unless the federal government gets its head out of its collective ass and says "fair si fair, all states must recognize a civil union between tow conesting adults and that civil union must rgant all the rights and privileges granted to a married heterosexual couple."

At least he didn't rule the other way.

Semck, there are international human rights laws. It doesn't matter if you care about foreigners or not, every single person around the world is promised the rights listed under the UDHR. That's how it is.

It's late (1:30 AM here) and I am typo-ing a lot so sorry for all the typos above.

@ Draugnar

So, marriage should be a federally guaranteed right because the 14th Amendment vaguely provides for equal protection under the law (which is problematic for your argument in itself, because doesn't everyone have a right to a heterosexual marriage? Whether or not they take advantage of that right should not be of anyone else's concern), but on other threads in the past you have argued that states can infringe on the 2nd Amendment as much as they want.

I see a contradiction here.

America: Where you can marry someone of the same gender but you can't own a machine gun without jumping through all kinds of hoops. #fucklogic

Logic doesn't exist here, Gun.

@ Draugnar continued

To clarify, I was pointing out fiscal/social conservatives as hypocrites and fiscal conservatives/social libertarians as non-hypocrites (depending on how you define "fiscal conservative"). I don't agree with fiscal conservatism as in coddling corporations and bowing to their every demand, but I do agree with fiscal conservatism as in spending within our means.

@ bo_sox48

Nope. We've had a logic shortage for quite some time.

@bo_sox,

UDHR isn't a binding law in the US. Sorry.

(It also says nothing about gay marriage).

@Draug,

Marriage is a definitional issue. I am not aware of any argument you can give for why equal protection suggests that gay people must have access to marriage rights that would not also say the same for polygamists.

Article 2 of the UDHR states "Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status."

Seems to me that "or other status" would include sexual orientation. So the UDHR applies to gay rights.

Article 7 then says: "All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law."

So, marriage is a legal institution (obviously or there wouldn't be this bruhaha) yet some states are allowed to violate the UDHR by not allowing gay marriage or even civil unions or by setting up civil unions so they don't have *all* the same protections as marriages.

Draug,

When the UDHR was written, marriage was *defined* as an institution between a man and a woman, though (look in an old dictionary from the time), so no interpretation of those words could have lent support to same-sex marriage.

Anyway, as I mentioned before, UDHR is not binding in the US anyway.

(This definitional issue is why you can't really win with this argument. As long as marriage is defined -- which it always has been -- to being between a man and a woman, then no "equal protection" argument can work in saying it also has to be granted to two men or two women. You're not arguing for equal rights, you're arguing for redefinition of a word. And if you insist that equal protection means the word must be redefined for the needs of other people, then it must also be redefined for polygamists to be not only two people).

@semck - It was adopted by the UN with the US voting in favor of it. Do it is binding to the US as we did say "yeah" way back in 1948.

Draug,

"@semck - It was adopted by the UN with the US voting in favor of it. Do it is binding to the US as we did say "yeah" way back in 1948."

No it's not. It can be used for rhetorical purposes, but there is no court you can go into and sue either a person or the government in and cite the UDHR. A binding law is one that can be enforced in a court. This one cannot (just like the Declaration of Independence cannot).

@semck - I did say they were entitled to equal protection under the law. If you don't want to call it marriage, then civil union works provided the civil union includes *all* the rights and priviledges given to a married couple. What is so hard about that. Only a bigot would wish to deny someone else the same rights and privileges he gets to enjoy.

And Draug, I hope you don't think it would be a good thing if binding law COULD be made in the US just by the vote of our ambassidor somewhere, without even a vote by either house of Congress.

Draug,

"I did say they were entitled to equal protection under the law. If you don't want to call it marriage, then civil union works provided the civil union includes *all* the rights and priviledges given to a married couple. What is so hard about that. Only a bigot would wish to deny someone else the same rights and privileges he gets to enjoy. "

Then why not give the same rights to polygamists? Are you a bigot?