Gay Marriage in the Supreme Court

Associated Press via ABCNews: Court Declines to Hear Gay Marriage Case

Critics of the November 2003 ruling by the highest court in Massachusetts argue that it violated the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of a republican form of government in each state. They lost at the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston.

Their attorney, Mathew Staver, said in a Supreme Court filing that the Constitution should "protect the citizens of Massachusetts from their own state supreme court's usurpation of power."

Federal courts, he said, should defend people's right "to live in a republican form of government free from tyranny, whether that comes at the barrel of a gun or by the decree of a court."

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

If I could ask these conservative groups one question - assuming they really care about living under a tyrannical government - I'd ask them this:

Which entity is pursuing the legalized initiation of force (tyranny) against other people:

1. the courts of Massachusetts, which have allowed gay people to marry, or
   
2. you, who want to prevent - ultimately with the threat and use of deadly force - gay people to marry?

It is YOU who want to use the power that comes from the barrel of a gun to forcibly alter the way people conduct their lives. For if clerks and officials decide to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, you would have them face criminal sanction. Granted, it isn't as if your opponents on this measure are much better, given that a whole lot of them want the state-stolen and state-monopolized benefits the empty blessing of an "official" marriage provides. I mean, we're talking about a license to get married, something that should inspire disgust and sound bells of warning in the mind of anyone who respects and upholds liberty.

But in this case, you and your "pro-family" and "pro-marriage" cohorts are the ones advocating the greater tyranny. And let's be clear about this: you often talk about the majorities of Americans who don't want gay people to get married, as if that is some mandate to impose their opinions on others. Where's your defense of freedom of association in the face of this open attempt to have a tyranny of the majority?

Then, of course, there is the curious fact that someone is arguing for the most powerful court in the country to decree the ruling of lesser court invalid...on the grounds that court decrees can be tyrannical and against the republican system of governance.

Statists can sure be confusing sometimes.

Posted by Drizzten at November 29, 2004 11:19 AM