So if one of the most compelling arguments for the FMA is to prevent judges in Massachusetts from legislating what happens in New York, where does this fit in?
A state judge on Friday barred the mayor of a college town from performing more same-sex marriages for a month, saying Jason West was ignoring his oath of office.
State Supreme Court Justice Vincent Bradley issued a temporary restraining order against the 26-year-old New Paltz mayor at the request of the Florida-based Liberty Council, which acted on behalf of a local resident.
Emphasis mine.
Edward, didn’t you know? “States rights” only applies when it’s something conservatives want. When it’s something they’re against, hooray for “activist judges”!
Weak. That “compelling argument” was the explicit and achieved goal of DOMA, which passed with a Democratic President’s signature eight years ago. The FMA keeps either Mass Judges or Beacon Hill from allowing or requiring the conferring of marital status on same-sex couples even in Mass. That a Florida-based national advocacy group played a role in a Mass case is neither here nor there.
Advocates for same-sex marriage have cause for complaint about both, but nonsequiturs like this just muddy the dialogue.
That a Florida-based national advocacy group played a role in a Mass case is neither here nor there.
Without pulling a “Thorley,” on ya Meaux, I need to point out it was a New York case, not a Mass case, but my point is that the States will not be deciding this on their own, even if that was a goal of the Conservative voices who thought the Federal DOMA was a good idea. The ideologues on both sides will cross state borders to wage this…the “let the states decide” cry is a fantasy.
Edward Winkleman wrote:
Well let’s see, we have a New York Judge upholding the statutory law of New York State in a case between a New York mayor (Jason West) and a trustee of the same city (Robert Hebel). Looks like we have two New Yorkers appearing in a New York court over a question of New York law.
So what’s your point? Did you misread the article and think that the Liberty Counsel was actually a party to the lawsuit rather than just providing New York-licensed attorneys to help file the petition? Or did you misread it and think that this somehow even had an effect on the laws of another State much less “legislating what happens” in another State?
Simply put Edward, judges are empowered to enforce the law as compared to legislate them.
I agree with Thorley again (I think that’s twice now). It wouldn’t bother me if the San Francisco-based EFF provided counseling to a complainant (is that a word?) in Washington for some Washington law relevant to their domain. I would mind if they tried to convince people in the state of Washington to vote some particular way (see: the Oregon’s Citizens Alliance), which is I think what state’s rights is about.
Simply put Edward, judges are empowered to enforce the law as compared to legislate them.
Huh what? The courts have no enforcement powers. Remember Andrew Jackson’s comment on the issue?
Sure Edward… of course with that precedent neither the ACLU nor the NAACP (or a host of other organizations) could act as council outside thier home state.
The value of federalism as a principle of political science is primarily functional; it was contained historically within the larger principle of limited government, which itself was contained within the larger principle of Liberty.
Conceiving of and implementing the federalist principle required the kind of practical creative genius that was so astoundingly ubiquitous in the Founding generation. (It is noteworthy that another political theorist of genius, J-J Rousseau, arrived at some very similar conclusions about the necessity of decentralization in a large republic ,a href=”http://www.ucl.ac.uk/history/courses/europe1/weeks/poland.htm>only a few years before America achieve her independence.) But it is hardly a great puzzle that the principle, being largely functional, cannot stand if subjected to critique about its effects of a higher order. Thus is makes sense that federalism could not stand against slavery, or against segregation, no matter how fine a principle of political science it is.
Therefore I find charges of hypocrisy on the question of federalism to be feeble rhetorical devices. Of course federalism must yield to higher principle — it is not strictly a principle unto itself.
To be specific, if the principle at stake here is the maintenance of the idea of chastity, and its institutional manifestation marriage, in American society, and its legal manifestation the State, then while federalism can still be useful, for compromise and so forth, it is not an ultimate goal.
Oops! That Rousseau link is here.
To be specific, if the principle at stake here is the maintenance of the idea of chastity, and its institutional manifestation marriage, in American society, and its legal manifestation the State, then while federalism can still be useful, for compromise and so forth, it is not an ultimate goal.
Paul, so basically you’ve come round to being in favor of marriage? Last comment I read from you here was pretty much anti-marriage, as I recall.