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Arkansas judge strikes down gay marriage ban

DVSentinel said:
Regardless of any other issues, if someone is supporting a party that suppresses or oppresses individuals rights and promotes inequality cannot claim to be supporting "equality". If there were indeed, true equality, then this issue would not even be an issue. Taxation and benefits should be the same whether married or single, normal or homosexual, regardless of race, creed, religion, etc,etc.

That is the problem with a basically two party system. You cannot choose just the issues you want, you have to view the overall party platform and either support it or vote against it in the whole.
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Well, if we had true 'equality' then Romney and the woman cleaning his pool would pay the same amount of tax - not at the same RATE, but the same dollar amount. That's not how it works. You've done no more than decide on some arbitrary policy choices you desire and declared that they represent 'equality.'

Besides, in the real world, marriage comes with a slew of benefits and obligations. Whether we think marriage SHOULD is a moot point. The question is whether SS couples should have access to these benefits, and obligations, or whether to reserve them for straight couples. The courts have repeatedly ruled straight couples DO have a RIGHT to marry. All the current cases do is find there is no compelling reason to deny these 'rights' to SS couples and therefore overturned bans on SSM.
 
Paleocon said:
Actually while the legislators in question can be voted out over it, an impeachment itself cannot be overturned, and the Senate has the power when impeaching to forbid the individual from holding office again.

It will happen. I live in Arkansas, and we're not going to leave the judge who introduced legal same-sex marriage to the state in office.
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Is it just the result you don't like, or do you think the judge misinterpreted the law. When the SC struck down DOMA, Scalia was certain the result would be many laws against SSM would be struck down. If Scalia was correct, the judge here was simply doing his job and following the law, which, unless a judge is expected to simply make up the law, is required for his position, what he has sworn to do.

It's a bit scary when a judge faces what you predict near certain electoral defeat for doing his job consistent with his oath of office.
 
roguenuke said:
It is not likely to happen. Especially since you seem to be at least one vote short of 2/3rds Republicans in the Senate (assuming however unlikely it is that all the Republicans in this legislature would go along with this call to impeachment), and in all likelihood, not all of those are going to agree with impeaching a judge for ruling on something in a way the people do not agree with, especially given the current public opinion on same sex marriage and the younger view on it, even in Arkansas. That would be political suicide.

Even getting the impeachment started would be difficult since there is just barely a majority of Republicans in the House, and the same thing holds true above, that those who brought an impeachment up would be risking a lot for such an issue.

And I can find polls that say that a good percent of even Arkansas voters support same sex marriage.

Gay Marriage Poll Results for Arkansas

Arkansas attitudes improving on gay equality; state leader speaks up | Arkansas Blog | Arkansas news, politics, opinion, restaurants, music, movies and art

"The bipartisan poll found that 61 percent of Arkansans under age 30 support marriage equality,..."

"The link to fuller poll results shows overall opposition to marriage equality continues in Arkansas. But the number was 55-38, compared with the 75 percent that approved the marriage ban in 2004. "

Just over half of the population of Arkansas supports the marriage ban. That is not a lot. Certainly not a logical amount to risk political suicide for just to impeach a judge who ruled a way the government does not approve of. It would be petty and cowardly for any lawmakers to do this, and would not go over well at all with young voters.

Update: From the Arkansas Speaker of the House, David Carter,

"Trying to impeach a Judge because you don't like his or her decision notwithstanding the subject matter is absurd and goes against hundreds of years of the way our great country has conducted business under our three branches of government. Circuit judges are elected by the people, as are our appellate and state Supreme Court judges. The appellate process needs to run its course. Our forefathers saw the importance of our constitution and system of self-governance. That system has worked well for a long time and make us who we are as a country. I won't support any effort to undermine that."

AR State Senator Talks Impeachment After Judge's Same Sex Ruling - Local News, Weather, Sports, and Community for Central Arkansas
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Isidewith self-selective polls are not scientifically valid.

Was the other poll of eligible voters, registered voters, or regular voters?

WorldWatcher said:
Actually it is the House that impeaches, upon a vote to impeach it is the Senate that tries the impeachment.


LITTLE ROCK, AR -- Speaker of the House Davy Carter has issued a response to the "impeachment chatter" following the ruling which declares the same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional.

The following is the direct quote from Carter:

"Trying to impeach a Judge because you don't like his or her decision notwithstanding the subject matter is absurd and goes against hundreds of years of the way our great country has conducted business under our three branches of government. Circuit judges are elected by the people, as are our appellate and state Supreme Court judges. The appellate process needs to run its course. Our forefathers saw the importance of our constitution and system of self-governance. That system has worked well for a long time and make us who we are as a country. I won't support any effort to undermine that."​


AR State Senator Talks Impeachment After Judge's Same Sex Ruling - Local News, Weather, Sports, and Community for Central Arkansas
http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/assembly/Summary/ArkansasConstitution1874.pdf


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I'm aware of that.

JasperL said:
Is it just the result you don't like, or do you think the judge misinterpreted the law. When the SC struck down DOMA, Scalia was certain the result would be many laws against SSM would be struck down. If Scalia was correct, the judge here was simply doing his job and following the law, which, unless a judge is expected to simply make up the law, is required for his position, what he has sworn to do.

It's a bit scary when a judge faces what you predict near certain electoral defeat for doing his job consistent with his oath of office.
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Both.
 
Paleocon said:
Both.
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Just in general, or was there some specific part of his opinion that misstated the law and the precedent his position requires him to follow? For example, him not agreeing with the majority of the SC doesn't give him the authority to dismiss binding precedent.
 
JasperL said:
Just in general, or was there some specific part of his opinion that misstated the law and the precedent his position requires him to follow? For example, him not agreeing with the majority of the SC doesn't give him the authority to dismiss binding precedent.
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Which SCOTUS ruling requires him to overturn the gay marriage ban?
 
Paleocon said:
Which SCOTUS ruling requires him to overturn the gay marriage ban?
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Several, including Loving v Virginia in connection with Lawrence v Texas and Windsor, to name a few that can be used as evidence that marriage is a right and that equal protection of the laws is not being upheld when marriage is restricted on the basis of sex/gender due to the fact that, so far, no one has shown a legitimate state interest in making such a restriction.
 
roguenuke said:
Several, including Loving v Virginia in connection with Lawrence v Texas and Windsor, to name a few that can be used as evidence that marriage is a right and that equal protection of the laws is not being upheld when marriage is restricted on the basis of sex/gender due to the fact that, so far, no one has shown a legitimate state interest in making such a restriction.
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Which SCOTUS ruling requires him to overturn the gay marriage ban?
 
Paleocon said:
Which SCOTUS ruling requires him to overturn the gay marriage ban?
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I was asking. You said the judge didn't apply the law correctly, and I was curious what part of his opinion you felt didn't reflect current law.

Remember, I'm not the one who is all in favor of this guy getting unelected (perhaps impeached?) because they didn't like the RESULT. If the guy misapplied the law, what did he get wrong?
 
Paleocon said:
Which SCOTUS ruling requires him to overturn the gay marriage ban?
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I already gave them. You simply don't want to accept them.

Judges use their judgements on cases and interpret the laws and even past rulings. If they were required to base every single ruling on past cases and decisions to the letter, then they would be pointless and we would never have had many unjust laws overturned because courts in the past made a different interpretation of the law.
 
roguenuke said:
I already gave them. You simply don't want to accept them.

Judges use their judgements on cases and interpret the laws and even past rulings. If they were required to base every single ruling on past cases and decisions to the letter, then they would be pointless and we would never have had many unjust laws overturned because courts in the past made a different interpretation of the law.
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They don't require him to.
 
Paleocon said:
They don't require him to.
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They allow him to. And his oath to the US Constitution requires him to follow his judgement on whether something violates the Constitution or not. If he believes that a law violates the US Constitution, then it is his responsibility under that oath to rule as such.
 
WorldWatcher said:
#1 Excuse me, you said "No one is being penalized by non-recognition of gay marriage.", the Windsor case expressly disproves that claim in that Windsor would have been subject to over $350,000 in taxes specifically because their marriage wasn't recognized. States also have income taxes, pension benefits, empployer health insurance, the concept of "assumed parentage" on the birth of a child***, seemless (untaxed) transfer of property between spouses, "family" rates for spouses [in terms of home, auto, life, health, etc. insurance], recognition of the family relationship of a spouse in various legal matters including wrongful death, State tuition calculations for instate post-high school schools, equitable distribution of property in case of a divorce, default medical decision power as the default next-of-kin in the case of an accident and lacking a Medical Power of Attorney, etc., etc.

#2 DOMA did nothing to interfere with State tax law, it was based on Federal tax law.

#3 How could DOMA be passed to undermine the laws of the States, in 1996 when it was passed there were no States with Same-sex Civil Marriage.

#4 Article 1 Section 4 (Full Faith and Credit Clause) expressly grants Congress the power to determine the effect of public acts between the States (of which Civil Marriage is a public act) and the 16th Amendment allows the Federal government to lay and collect taxes on income. Section 2 of DOMA (which still stands BTW) falls under Article I Section 4 and Federal Tax law falls under the 16th Amendment (which impacted Section 3, the part found unconstitutional).



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*** This means that the spouses in a Civil Marriage are the legal parents upon of the birth of a child something recognized in all 50 States for different sex couples. A marriage different sex couple in California has a child, they are both legally the parents at the time of birth. They travel to Virginia, they are still both the legal parents. However for a legally marriage same-sex couple, the law doesn't function the same. Virginia passed a State Constitutional amendment barring not only Civil Marriage but any legal actions that attempt to recreate the benefits of Civil Marriage. A different-sex couple are married, they have a child, they are both the legal parents. If that couple were to visit Virginia, the non-biological parent would no longer have legal parent status as the basis of that parentage is a legal marriage that Virginia considers invalid.



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It is fairly obvious that it was meant to undermine state laws. At the time there were fears that states could begin recognizing gay marriage, specifically Hawaii, and this was a way of undermining any such decision by the states. Saying that a marriage legal in the state is not recognized by the federal government undermines the state's exercise of its rights to determine legal marriage, the determination of legal marriage being the domain of the states. The federal government was discriminating against legal marriages for no reason other than to show disapproval of decisions that are the sole domain of the states.

As far as not getting benefits, that is not a penalty. Paying taxes that others who are not married would pay is not a penalty. They are not being penalized for being gay. Lack of recognition is not a penalty.
 
Demon of Light said:
As far as not getting benefits, that is not a penalty. Paying taxes that others who are not married would pay is not a penalty. They are not being penalized for being gay. Lack of recognition is not a penalty.
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Being denied access to Civil Marriage, that translates into being denied benefits and tax relief on an equal footing with other equally situated couples, ya that's a penalty.


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roguenuke said:
They allow him to. And his oath to the US Constitution requires him to follow his judgement on whether something violates the Constitution or not. If he believes that a law violates the US Constitution, then it is his responsibility under that oath to rule as such.
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And the legislature, by impeachment, and the people, by election, are permitted to remove him from office.

Deuce said:
So read the judgment and tell us which part is incorrect.
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The part where he declared the marriage amendment unconstitutional.
 
Paleocon said:
And the legislature, by impeachment, and the people, by election, are permitted to remove him from office.

The part where he declared the marriage amendment unconstitutional.
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The people can remove anyone they wish by election. That is pretty much the point of an election.

The legislature has already said that most of them do not support impeaching a judge for making a ruling that some do not agree with. He didn't do anything against the laws or ethics of a judge.

The only talk of impeachment has come from some of the less reputable representatives.
 
roguenuke said:
The people can remove anyone they wish by election. That is pretty much the point of an election.

The legislature has already said that most of them do not support impeaching a judge for making a ruling that some do not agree with. He didn't do anything against the laws or ethics of a judge.

The only talk of impeachment has come from some of the less reputable representatives.
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Exactly.

Aside from this, what makes them less reputable?
 
Paleocon said:
And the legislature, by impeachment, and the people, by election, are permitted to remove him from office.



The part where he declared the marriage amendment unconstitutional.
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That's not a rebuttal of his legal reasoning. But hey, if that's all you have, that's all you have. :shrug:
 
Everyone remember this decision is being appealed.
 
I think it was Indiana where activist judges voted to allow gay marriage and in the next election most were voted out of office by the people.
 
Navy Pride said:
Everyone remember this decision is being appealed.
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Everyone should also remember that not a single judge has ruled in favor of same sex marriage bans since Windsor. Even in the reddest of the red states.
 
Navy Pride said:
I think it was Indiana where activist judges voted to allow gay marriage and in the next election most were voted out of office by the people.
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And the last one wasn't when he came up for reelection in 2012. He was reelected. It proves it was a knee jerk reaction during a time when same sex marriage was less supported than it is now.
 
Paleocon said:
One of those quotes was from Jesus.

And did you really not get the joke in the last comment?



The impeachment process is not subject to judicial review.

In any case, he's up for reelection later this year. He will lose.
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sorry I have difficulty telling when people are serious online
 
roguenuke said:
And the last one wasn't when he came up for reelection in 2012. He was reelected. It proves it was a knee jerk reaction during a time when same sex marriage was less supported than it is now.
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The people of Indiana voted overwhelmingly to not change the definition of marriage.
 
Deuce said:
Everyone should also remember that not a single judge has ruled in favor of same sex marriage bans since Windsor. Even in the reddest of the red states.
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To you lefties the vote that the people of the state means nothing and that is the scary part
 
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