What? Are you saying that the constitution even mentions heterosexuality?
Oh come on, it is how it has always been inteprteted and certainly how the FF's intepreted the idea of marriage.
The tradition argument is meaningless. America has hundreds of cultures within its own borders now, all with different traditions. There are already thousands of churches that can and do marry gay people, the only difference is whether or not the state chooses to acknowledge that marriage with the social benefits. The marriage itself already exists.
Firstly America still has firstly an Anglo-Saxon culture with others only on top. Secondly none of those cultures accept gay marriage and thirdly that we are talking about the law as much as anything else and that certainly has intepreted it in tradition and precendent as heterosexual to try and suggest anything else is silly, tradition is very meaningful here, as always.
If my tax dollars are dolling out benefits to married people (which I already think is wrong, for the record), then I want guarantees that the alotted benefits are given out in a non-discriminatory fashion.
We're not American, that ain't our problem.
If straight people are getting my tax dollars, then I want the gays to get them too. None of this elitist, traditional, la-dee-da hoopla about the constitution which has no basis.
I want the the rule of law in my land not to give way to arbitrary power so libs don't feel people are being discriminated against but maybe I'm just way out there.
The existence of a tradition and the existence of rights are two different things. I'm talking about the law. You are talking about some fantastical interpretation of who has the "right" to marry according to tradition.
No we're talking about written constitutions, unless they are intepreted strictly and originally they become mere guidelines and disolve.
But anyway I don't have much time for completely abstract rights. i'm no complete subjectivist or nihilist, I recognise men have some sort of natural rights, a very Christian concept, but these are intepreted historically, according to convention. To talk of natural rights outside society, history, tradition is nonsense.
To quote Burke.
If civil society be the offspring of convention, that convention must be its law. That convention must limit and modify all the descriptions of constitution which are formed under it. Every sort of legislative, judicial, or executory power are its creatures. They can have no being in any other state of things; and how can any man claim under the conventions of civil society rights which do not so much as suppose its existence — rights which are absolutely repugnant to it?.......Government is not made in virtue of natural rights, which may and do exist in total independence of it, and exist in much greater clearness and in a much greater degree of abstract perfection; but their abstract perfection is their practical defect.
Anyone can get married right now... gay people can and do get married regardless if they receive benefits or not. The only thing this debate is central to is which married people get access to the social benefits of government. For that, you must defer to state constitutions, none of which mention that marriage is between a man and a woman.
So? They have laws that were made for and have always been intepreted for marriage between men and women. To randomly redefine this is to undermine the rule of law and to give in to arbitrary power just because you fancy the ends of you dubious means.
That is, until state legislations created a new right for heterosexuals that didn't exist before.
Legislatures are a whole different argument.
It's not judical activism to acknowledge a negative... in this case, that the Iowa state constitution makes no mention of which sexual orientation has the explicit right to marry.
It is called precedent. When interpreting what constitutions mean you need to take account of the original meaning and precedent. That is the larger part of tradition in this meaning.
That amendment must be added, thereby creating a new right or a positive affirmation. That is judical activism.
Ignoring the inaccuracy of the rest of your argument it is worth pointing out that the judiciary does not add amend
the constitution. That would need the legislature.
