You have not attempted to "educate" me or debunk what I'm saying. I'm not saying tradition and law are same thing, simply that law like most things in gov't requires the use of some convetions including how the words are intepreted..
The rules are in the laws themselves. There is no law to tell judges how to interpret law. They go to law school and have careers that last decades which gives them the wisdom to interpret the wording. If you don't like the way they do things, then that can't be helped.
We aren't talking about that. We are talking means not ends, I wish liberals could remember to separate the two.
Starting to dish out the partisan remarks are we... I see your true colours are about to show.
not really and you mean social. There are concrete ways in which these traditions manifest themselves such as how words are interpreted.
This sentence is essentially meaningless drivel when it comes to deciding what the bill of rights means. If the words are not there, then there is nothing to manifest.
Nope, if the branches are allowed to take over the roles of over branches it is detrimental to the rule of law and separation of powers even if other branches allow it/do little, or can do little, to fight it. America and other nations are awash with judicial activism and arbitrary power because of that reasoning.
Prove, beyond your specious opinion, that the supreme court of Iowa went beyond its legal capacity in this matter. I'll spare you the time, you can't. It sounds like you simply can't accept that the supreme court has these powers. Good thing you don't live in the U.S. then.
Umm we can go on what they say they meant and what precedent and tradition tells us.
Rinse, lather, repeat.
Ie they have to decide whether liberal social policy conflicts with the rule of law and if it does then the rule of law should be abandoned.
The Constitution cannot be abandoned.
Again you're not getting this. Phrases and words have different interpretations and even change meanings. If we want the rule of law, if we want the laws to stay the same for everyone and not to be changed by the judicary whenever they feel like it, including at the behest of the executive, then we certainly need to retain the original or traditional meaning of terms and phrases until such time as the legislature decides a change is needed.
No, I get it perfectly. What you don't seem to get is that they didn't change the law, they upheld the law. They upheld the fact that two people can get married, period. That is what the Iowa constitution says. Accept it, and move on.
Whois saying this? I'm simply saying wording usually needs interpreting and the original and traditional interpretation must hold for constitutions, the rule of law and the speration of powers not to suffer greatly.
It's not the fault of modern times that the authors of the constitutions didn't forsee gay marriage. The wording of the constitution permits gay couples to get married. Again, I'm sorry you can't accept that according to your traditional values, but it is what it is, unless the legislature or a public referendum overrides it.
The supreme court embarked on judicial activism, it went beyond its alloted branch and made law, that is the sphere of legsilature.
Again, please cite a document which demonstrates the duties of the supreme court and prove that the court went beyond its powers. I would really like to see this claim in writing.
Oh, and the legislature still has the right to intervene, as I've said a million times now. That's why there are three branches of government.
So when marriage was talked about in it, if it is, then it meant between a man and woman. For a judge to change this is for them to remake the law or constitution.
Again, no judge changed the wording of the constitution. This is an error that you continue to make.
In fact, every single state supreme court case in the United States regarding state constitutions and gay marriage has been upheld in this identical regard, unless those cases were pre-empted by public votes to amend the constitutions with heterosexual marriage clauses. You clearly don't understand the way the documents are interpreted.
"Marriage is between two people."
It doesn't take a genius to interpret that. I don't care what your traditional spin on things is... that is the wording and that is how every court, when challenged with gay marriage, has seen it. That's why the religious right has been active in amending state constitutions the nation over, because if they don't then there is no legal wording to support their discrimination.
If the wording is not there, then the law does not exist. Period. You can dance around historical interpretations and traditionalism all you want, but that is not the way the law works. The document must say it or there is no justification to deny it. Period. This is LAW 101.
Woman's suffrage came through an amendment I believe.
Cite this?
You mean how they bloody well like. Well hello tyranny and arbitrary power, you know there is nothing saying this must be used for only liberal social causes if it had slipped your mind.
Now you've truly lost this debate. Your own partisan bias is preventing you from seeing the role that the judges serve as one of the three branches in balancing power.
Bottom line:Words and phrases can have many interpretations, if the original/traditional one is not retained by the judiciary, unless the legsilature changes it, then every time they change it they are effectively changing the constitution.
If I am to assume that your claim that there are "many interpretations" is correct, then why should the judges be obligated to defer to the traditional one? Just because you say so, and if they don't then gosh darn they are activists?
Why is tradition best in this case?
Once again... the constitution was not changed, its wording was simply acknowledged.
This is what you don't seem to understand or at least ignore because your liberal agenda. This goes erodes the rule of law which is reliant of laws being interpreted consistently and arbitrarily, it undermines the constitution turning it into guidelines for any judge to try and fit their agenda into and undermines the seperation of powers by giving the judiciary legsilative powers.
What I read from this is...
Interpreting it "consistently" = interpreting it in a way that supports tradition
Interpreting it inconsistently and tyrannically = "liberal activism" a.k.a something you don't agree with.
Wow.
But most importantluy it increases the risk of executive tryanny because the executive has a lot of power over the judiciary and if they work in concert using this form of arbitrary power the risk of them underming the entire framework of a free constitution greatly increases
This is a lot of bull, considering there is still the legislature and a public referendum as fallbacks. There are so many checks and balances of power in the United States, it's a wonder that anything gets passed in the first place. But because of that, you know that the final decision is usually the most appropriate one for the time.
Then each time that is done the constitution is rewritten in that area.
Please provide evidence that the constitution was "rewritten" in this decision. I don't want to hear you make claims about it being "effectively" rewritten because that is a load of crap. I want to see hard evidence that these judges added amendments.
You are admitting my point.
Non-sense.
Equality is often vague. An equal right to own property could be interpreted as anyone can equally own property if they buy it according to laws equal for all individuals or it can be interpreted as saying all people should own an equal amount of property.
:lol:
We're not talking about property, but marriage. In this case the written law did not specify gender, simply two people... added to this was the equal protection clause. Given that homosexuals are a protected social class in the United States, they are afforded equal protection. This is why the ruling was fair.
Seriously did you not proof-read what you wrote. You say don't have legsilative power and then say they form the law.
What I meant was that the supreme court does not take the place of the legislature if the legislature decides to weigh in on a matter. The way you are talking, you'd swear that the judges are the be all and end all of law. They aren't. They make intermediary rulings on issues and give the other branches of power an opportunity to form a view.
I agree, though that wording must be interpreted the same unless the legsilature intervenes or the constitution is remade by the judiciary.
There is no rule or law which says a constitution must be interpreted according to traditional values. That is your number one flawed assumption in this debate.
I agree, tradition and precedent are vital in this.
Why?
And I'll say it was unconstitutional and an example of the arbitrary power of judicial activism.
Rinse, lather, repeat.
You confusing the role I give to tradition here. It is simply to interpret what words and phrases in the law and constitution mean. These must stay constant unless the legsilature wants to change them.
I trust the ability of experts who have been in law their whole lives to interpret it more than I do your opinion that traditionalism is the be all and end all of what law means.
It undermines the rule of law because it means that they can be aribtrarily redefined.
No, it means the law itself was loosely defined in the first place.
as they have been in this case.
Wrong.
The judiciary needs to uphold the constantcy of the law, including the all important interpretation.
The law, in this case, was upheld consistently. You're just in denial about it. It's becoming quite entertaining, actually.