Friday, May 16, 2008

MOMMY WHAT ARE PRINCE AND REX DOING?

MOMMY WHAT ARE PRINCE AND REX DOING? With the news of the California Supreme Court’s decision yesterday to recognize the civil rights of same sex couples to marry in that state has come some local discussion of how we can reverse the shameful denial of that right embedded in the Hawai`i Constitution and State law.

Today Larry Geller at the pre-eminent Disappeared News brings up the fact that it was actually the Legislature that enacted the ban whereas the Constitutional amendment passed by bigoted religious zealots led by now State Senator Mike Gabbard merely enabled the legelature to do it.

Geller says “given today's decision in California, shouldn't we begin to re-think our own discrimination and whether it is time to undo it? No ConCon is needed, just a great big campaign to convince our legislators to do the right thing.”

And in an extensive essay on the issue “In the Line of Fire”, an occasional, anonymous, self-described “attorney” who blogs at MauiTalk - which, though a bit windy, is always a good read- goes further in wanting the states to get out of the business of marrying people altogether as many have advocated, questioning the state’s interest in validating the so-called institution.

Both contain information that people may or may not know but the biggest secret is one that no one, from Wolf Blitzer to Katy Couric, is talking about is that none of the states that claim to “ban same sex marriage” actually do so- and they can’t do it.

The laws on the books in the various states actually ban that individual state from marrying people of the same gender. But while that act is banned, the state of being married in the state is not stated.

In other words anyone married in California- or Massachusetts, the other state that marries people of the same gender- is married no matter which state they are in.

And the U.S. Constitution insures that no state can ban the state of being married to someone who was married in another state.

Article IX says:

Section 1. Full faith and credit shall be given in each state
to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state. And
the Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner in which such acts,
records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.
Section 2.
The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of
citizens in the several states.

Pretty damn clear. That’s why proponents of a ban have tried to gin up support for a US Constitutional amendment- they’ve seen Sect IX and know what it would take to overturn it.

No one who was married in Las Vegas has ever been told their marriage isn’t valid in another state no matter what the other state’s laws for getting married are. Watch any old movie and you’ll see people in the east going to marry in Maryland- or Marryland as many called it- because there were no blood tests or waiting periods like there were and still are in some states... like Massachusetts. And why mixed race couples went north to exercise their rights.

In California all you need is ID, two human beings and the fee and once you get the license you allowed to BE married in every state even though you actually GOT married in California.

It would be nice if our State woke up and shed it’s image as a bunch of backward religious nuts, our bluest of the blue states reputation notwithstanding. But for anyone in Hawai`i who wants to marry someone when Hawai`i says “can not”, guess what? Can.

And there ain’t thing-one the Church Lady can do about it.

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McGRUFF’S MARAUDERS: Did the headline writer for today’s local paper really “not know” when writing the one that said “Green harvest benefits Salvation Army’s kitchen”?

Maybe it’s for the medical patients who are seeking a toke or two of salvation. Maybe that’s what Brando saw in the “Mission Doll”. We’ve heard they’ve got a great drug program.

So go down and get your pakalolo brownies and marijuana marinara before Chief Perry finds out. Maybe he and his newly armed-to-the-teeth force were too busy to notice what with the apparent SWAT team that took over Black Pot Beach Park in Hanalei yesterday to make sure those evil terrorist fishermen couldn’t keep their fishing gear and suicide-bombs in an old Matson container that had been there for many years. Glad to hear that our cops could take some time out from giving dog-off-the-leash tickets for a few hours to take care of such insidious criminal enterprises.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's more complicated than that. The Full Faith and Credit Clause, like all things constitutional, is not absolute. Federal courts have often declined to force states to give effect to the laws of another state when those laws contradict the state's public policy. Thus, for instance, first cousins legally married in one state are not necessarily recognized as married in another state that prevents such marriages on public policy grounds.

I'm not saying consanguinity is analogous to gay marriage. I'm merely pointing out that the full faith and credit doctrine isn't as absolute as you might initially imagine.

Anonymous said...

Moreover, there have been times when marriages in one state have been ignored or worse in others. The interracial couple that were the plaintiffs in Loving v. Virginia were married in DC and then arrested and convicted back home in VA of breaking the law against blacks and whites marrying.

They had to leave the state or do time until the case wound it's way up to the Supreme Court in 1967 where they finally flushed those anti-miscegenation laws off the books of roughly 15-17 states.

We're in for a similar battle when some gay couple challenges the DOMA act (from Wikipedia):

"The law has two effects.

1. No state (or other political subdivision within the United States) need treat a relationship between persons of the same sex as a marriage, even if the relationship is considered a marriage in another state.
2. The Federal Government may not treat same-sex relationships as marriages for any purpose, even if concluded or recognized by one of the states."

The power of pseudo-christianity is strong in this country.

The current make up of our Supreme Court is more likely to make a Plessy v Ferguson (separate but equal, 1896) than a Brown v Board (bullshit to Plessy, 1954). Maybe Bush's Opus Dei conservatives will fool me, but I doubt it.