Is There A Constitutional Right To Gay Marriage?

By William Teach December 10, 2012 – 8:42 am

That’s the question the Associated Press asks, as reposted at The Blaze

Gay marriage supporters see 41 reasons to fret over the Supreme Court’s decision to take up the case of California’s ban on same-sex unions.

While nine states allow same-sex partners to marry, or will soon, 41 states do not. Of those, 30 have written gay marriage bans into their state constitutions.

That fact is worrisome to those who firmly believe there is a constitutional right to marry, regardless of sexual orientation, but who also know that the Supreme Court does not often get too far ahead of the country on hot-button social issues.

But, gay marriage advocates are positioning the coming SCOTUS review of the California marriage proposition and DOMA as one which will challenge and outlaw discrimination, much in the way that their decisions on sodomy, interracial marriage, and segregation laws did

The forces that mounted the legal challenge to Proposition 8 have said all along that the right to marry is so fundamental that it should not depend on success at the ballot box or the votes of state legislatures. Washington lawyer Theodore Olson, representing gay Californians who wish to marry, said he will argue that there is a “fundamental constitutional right to marry for all citizens.”

Is there a constitution right to marry? Much like the “separation of church and state”, this appears nowhere within any portion of the Constitution. There is no specific right for gay or straight people to marry.

But, one has to wonder about another part of the Constitution, equal protection under the law, which would also be known as equal treatment under the law. Yet, there are many cases where people are not treated equally under the law. People are taxed at different rates. Certain people who become political appointees are not prosecuted for tax evasion, while other citizens have their bank accounts seized and may do jail time. Women are mostly banned from combat positions in the military. The government ignores some laws at will. It institutes some laws affording certain pressure groups more protections under the law than others (hate crime legislation, for one). Should gays be treated the same under the law as straights who get married? Should gays be denied the same treatment as straights who are afforded the legal protections when it comes to things like visitation rights and property rights?

The problem is is that marriage should be left in the hands of the churches to decide. Yet, government has become involved in the process, requiring a license in order to be married in the eyes of the state. If we are a nation of law, not of men, should the government be required to give a marriage license to all citizens regardless of sexual orientation, but leave it up to the church to decide if it wants to perform a legal marriage ceremony? I’d have to say yes, regardless of any moral opposition I may have (note: I’ve always thought that the government should perform civil ceremonies, due to the equal protection under the law clause).

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

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Fareed Zakaria Wants To End The War On Terrorism To Save Billions

By William Teach December 9, 2012 – 6:32 pm

I know what you’re thinking, because it was most likely what I was thinking when I read the headline. First, that Zakaria is a far left dupe and a terrorist apologist. Second, there are people out there who want to kill Americans. Buuuuuuut, he actually makes a few good points

As we debate whether the two parties can ever come together and get things done, here’s something President Obama could probably do by himself that would be a signal accomplishment of his presidency: End the war on terror. Or, more realistically, start planning and preparing the country for phasing it out.

For 11 years, the United States has been operating under emergency wartime powers granted under the 2001 “Authorization for Use of Military Force.” That is a longer period than the country spent fighting the Civil War, World War I and World War II combined. It grants the president and the federal government extraordinary authorities at home and abroad, effectively suspends civil liberties for anyone the government deems an enemy and keeps us on a permanent war footing in all kinds of ways.

How many times have we complained about the TSA and their infringement on our persons, as well as absurd policies? How about the Central Government voting themselves massive new powers to spy on citizens? What about SOPA, PIPA, the NADA, and others? How about the conservative notion of limited government? Certainly, law enforcement and intelligence should not forget about the fact that terrorists, mostly Islamic ones, do want to harm America and Americans. But, where does it end in terms of massive government?

If you want to know why we’re in such a deep budgetary hole, one large piece of it is that we have spent around $2 trillion on foreign wars in the past decade. Not coincidentally, we have had the largest expansion of the federal government since World War II. The Post’s Dana Priest and William Arkin have described how the U.S. government has built 33 new complexes for the intelligence bureaucracies alone. The Department of Homeland Security employs 230,000 people.

Well, there are quite a few other reasons for our deep budgetary hole, but that’s a damned good point about the expansion of government, which conservatives did complain about during the Bush years. And once a federal bureaucracy is entrenched, it’s almost impossible to do away with. Then you have to pay them all the expensive benefits and pensions. They unionize. So, maybe it’s time to ramp the war down.

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Posted in Musings, War On Terrorism | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach December 9, 2012 – 1:00 pm

…is an evil puppy causing the planet to boil, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Jawa Report, with a post on how Muslims celebrated “Islamophobia awareness month”

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Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup

By William Teach December 9, 2012 – 10:35 am

Patriotic Pinup

Happy Sunday! Another great day to be an American. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping….is that a fox in my backyard? Again? Oh, well. Cute little (possibly rabid) bugger. This pinup is by Edward D’Anconna, with a wee bit of help.

What is happening in Ye Old Blogosphere? The Fine 15

  1. Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler tells us how the finances of the People’s Republik Of Brokeifornia are doing
  2. Bookwork Room says the problem is the voters, not the candidates
  3. Fausta discusses Mayan apocalypse tourism
  4. Fire Andrea Mitchell wants to ban cars
  5. Gateway Pundit wonders what the recent Israel-Hamas war was really about
  6. Michelle Malkin has Reid vs Reid
  7. Primordial Slack discusses the GOP and Big Tents
  8. Proof Positive catches Obama celebrating Apollo 17
  9. Raised On Hoecakes discusses the Twilight Santa zone
  10. Theodore’s World mentions all the ObamaCare taxes hitting next month
  11. The Daley Gator discusses Offenditus
  12. The Hayride features the race to mediocrity
  13. The Jawa Report wonders about the occupation of Kurdistan
  14. The Lonely Conservative provides a handy welfare spending chart
  15. And last, but not least, The People’s Cube provides the evolution of rage

As always, the full set of pinups can be seen in the Patriotic Pinup category, or over at my Gallery page. While we are on pinups, since it is that time of year, have you gotten your “Pinups for Vets” calendar yet? And don’t forget to check out what I declare to be our War on Women Rule 5 and linky luv posts

Anyone else have a link or hotty-fest going on? Let me know so I can add you to the list. (BTW, since someone asked, the reason I leave links for the previous week up (or you might see a *) is because they are place holders for later in the day or for next weeks. Easier than rewriting all the time. Also, the listing order has to do with how they are added over time, not how good a post is. I just copy and paste from the previous week, then edit. If you see one of the *’s, go ahead and check out the blog anyhow, see if there is an update. I cannot update with my Android during the day.

The posts do take a long time, so, if you want to send me your links for Rule 5 babeage or links, use ye olde email in the header bar (remove the NOSPAM part). Preferably, create the html link so I can copy and paste how you want it to read.

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COP18 Hotcoldwetdry Talks Pretty Much End In Failure

By William Teach December 9, 2012 – 9:30 am

Except for those who enjoyed their government funded working vacation, of course. They had a great time…..well, eating, since no alcohol is allowed in the Muslim nation of Qatar. As for the talks themselves, really, when you hold them in the world’s 3rd highest “Carbon polluting” nation, it’s no wonder they failed. (Reuters) gives it the old college try in trying to rescue the outcome

Almost 200 nations extended a weakened United Nations plan for combating global warming until 2020 on Saturday with a modest set of measures that would do nothing to halt rising world greenhouse gas emissions.

Many countries and environmentalists said the deal at the end of marathon two-week U.N. talks in OPEC-member Qatar would fail to slow rising temperatures or avert more floods, droughts, heatwaves and rising sea levels. (hey, look, hotcoldwetdry!)

Environment ministers extended until 2020 the Kyoto Protocol, which obliges about 35 industrialised nations to cut their greenhouse gas emissions until the end of 2012. That keeps the pact alive as the sole legally binding climate plan.

Problem is, only 37 countries of 194 actually signed on to the extension of Kyoto. Many others offer a non-binding “declaration of intent.” Canada, New Zealand, Russia, and even Japan, the nation for which the original protocol was conceived, opted out. For those who committed, that only covers 15% of mankind’s CO2 output.

They did agree to steal raise around $100 billion dollars in aid for developing nations, but there is no framework nor is there any binding commitment to do so.

Britain was a big force in pushing the extension and binding themselves to hosing their economy even more with “green” targets and spending billions. Um, yeah

More snow is expected to fall in the south east (of Britain) from Monday as bitterly cold north-easterly winds continue to bring temperatures as low as 14F (-10C), icy roads and freezing fog.

My bad, I forgot that now cold weather is caused by heat trapping gases.

Fortunately for climate partiers, this means that there will be more United Nations meetings in luxuries vacations spots in future years, where they can talk to their hearts content about reducing Other People’s carbon footprints before jumping back in their fossil fueled airplanes. For COP19, it will be in an Eastern Europe nation, to be decided by whomever provides the best party atmosphere, and which will be amusing as hell, since Eastern Europe has had 4 straight miserable winters, with very cold temps and lots of winter weather.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

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Posted in Climahypocrites, Collapsing Science, Global Warming, UN | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

Soak The Blue State’s Fiscal Plan

By William Teach December 8, 2012 – 4:19 pm

Jim Geraghty provides a great plan so that Blue states pay their “fair share”. The article comes from a newsletter from Jim, which arrives in email, but is similar to what Jim posted on the 5th (via Doug Ross)

Hmm. Joel Kotkin of Forbes lays out how the tax hikes envisioned by Obama and congressional Democrats will hit blue states hardest.

From this, the GOP could conceivably propose a “tax Blue America” plan:

  • Keep the tax rate on capital gains the same.
  • Raise income taxes on the top income bracket for 2013, those making $398,350 and up (single filers, married joint filers, or head of household).
  • Means-test, or eliminate entirely, the mortgage-interest deduction (which benefits taxpayers in areas with the highest real-estate values and mortgages — i.e., Hawaii, D.C., New York, California, and Connecticut).
  • Means-test or eliminate entirely the federal deduction of state and local taxes, which is disproportionately utilized by those in high-tax blue states: “In 2005, taxpayers in California and New York together made up 20 percent of those claiming the deduction and accounted for 30 percent of its value. Itemizers in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and California claimed on average over $12,000 per household.”

The economic damage from these tax hikes would be bad, but the effect would hit hardest in the Northeast, the West Coast, Hawaii, and Washington, D.C.; high earners in those places would find yet another incentive to move to red states with lower real-estate prices, lower state and local taxes, and lower costs of living.

You want to stick it to so many of the morons who voted to continue with horrid economic (and other) policies of Obama? Here you go.

Read: Soak The Blue State’s Fiscal Plan »

Posted in Politics, Taxation | 4 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach December 8, 2012 – 1:00 pm

…is an evil burger which comes from a planet killing cow, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Public Secrets, with a post on how President Narcissist celebrated Pearl Harbor day

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Just A Camel Laughing While Being Tickled

By William Teach December 8, 2012 – 11:08 am

Read: Just A Camel Laughing While Being Tickled »

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Bummer: New Science Shows Greenland Ice Loss Much Less Than Warmists Computer Models Show

By William Teach December 8, 2012 – 8:53 am

One of the foundation talking points from Disciples of Gore is that Greenland’s ice will melt and all of mankind will die (which is an interesting talking point of hysteria since Warmists also want the human population of Earth to be vastly reduced). Warmists always refuse to remember and talk about Vikings having settled Greenland and become an agrarian society during the warm period that preceded the Little Ice Age. But, you know, science

(The Register) A new analysis of data from dedicated satellites shows that one of the main factors predicted to drive rising sea levels in future has been seriously overestimated, with major implications for climate talks currently underway in Doha.

Using that new method, the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE), we find

According to a Princeton statement highlighting the new research:

While overall ice loss on Greenland consistently increased between 2003 and 2010, Harig and Simons found that it was in fact very patchy from region to region.

In addition, the enhanced detail of where and how much ice melted allowed the researchers to estimate that the annual acceleration in ice loss is much lower than previous research has suggested, roughly increasing by 8 billion tons every year. Previous estimates were as high as 30 billion tons more per year.

Wait, Warmists were exaggerating? They’d never do that, right? Or was it that they were just making it up as they went along?

In other words the possible acceleration in ice losses is barely perceptible: it may not really be happening at all. Similar results were seen not long ago in GRACE data for central Asian mountain glaciers, another suggested source for sea-level rises.

But, just in case it is happening, Warmists really need to make their lives “carbon neutral”. Act like it’s a crisis. More from the study

At current melt rates, the Greenland ice sheet would take about 13,000 years to melt completely, which would result in a global sea-level rise of more than 21 feet (6.5 meters).

Everybody pani……oh. Anyhow, Warmists should immediately cut their fossil fuel usage in half. Bike to work. Walk. No, I don’t care if it’s 30 miles. We’re talking about saving Gaia.

Read: Bummer: New Science Shows Greenland Ice Loss Much Less Than Warmists Computer Models Show »

Posted in Collapsing Science, Global Warming | 4 Comments | Trackback URL

Liberals Really Upset That Obama’s Considering *GULP* Enforcing Federal Drug Laws

By William Teach December 8, 2012 – 8:28 am

As I’ve written multiple times, I really couldn’t care less one way or the other about marijuana: I don’t smoke it, have no plans to smoke it, and, really, it is a much less dangerous drug than alcohol. I’d prefer they not smoke it in public, a contact high is not in my daily plans. But, it is a federally controlled Schedule I drug, meaning it is illegal to use, possess, and or sell, and has no medical benefits. Alas, liberals are really put out that Obama is considering actually enforcing pesky federal law. Here’s Excitable Andrew Sullivan

Mr President, Don’t Even Think About It

What he’s thinking about doing is going after those who use pot in Washington and Colorado, which made the drug legal per a referendum this November, as well as suing those states.

Well, since they’re asking: if they decide to treat the law-abiding citizens of Colorado and Washington as dangerous felons; if they decide to allocate their precious law enforcement powers to persecuting and arresting people for following a state law that they have themselves just passed by clear majorities; if they decide that opposing a near majority of Americans in continuing to prosecute the drug war on marijuana, even when the core of their own supporters want an end to Prohibition, and even when that Prohibition makes no sense … then we will give them hell.

Except, under federal law, they aren’t law abiding citizens. And Obama and his DOJ stooges take an oath to uphold the laws of this land (not that they haven’t already broken that covenant multiple times). It’s funny, though, what really gets liberals upset. Not adding $7 trillion to the debt in under 4 years. Not rampant high unemployment and record numbers of people dropping out of the jobs market in despair. Not record numbers of people stuck on food stamps. No, they’re enraged by enforcing federal law on drug use.

But the main reason the president should instruct the Justice Department that this is not an area for discretionary prosecution is that choosing to focus on pot-prohibition in states that have legalized it defies reason. One of my core arguments for Obama has long been his adoption of what I consider pretty reasonable, if always debatable, policies. He is not an extremist, proposing laws and regulations that are designed to make a cultural point or wage a cultural war; he’s a pragmatist, trying to fix existing problems.

It defies reason because……it defies reason. Has Andy been smoking? It’s not discretionary prosecution: it’s following the law as laid out.

The Plum Lines’ Greg Sargent is on board with Sully (he does realize that the Washington Post drug tests, right?)

Now, on the one hand, it’s admittedly hard for liberals to argue that the federal government doesn’t have the legal authority to do this. But on the merits, there’s an argument to be made that pursuing this course of action would undermine one of Obama’s own long-held moral positions.

See, there’s a bit of a problem: The Law trumps Obama’s “long held moral positions”. But, then, our nation has already moved past that “we’re a nation of laws not a nation of men” notion long ago.

Washington Monthly

This last suggestion ain’t happening any time soon, but Sullivan is speaking for a lot of angry people here. If the administration can agree not to make enforcement of other bad laws—like the Defense of Marriage Act—a prosecutorial priority, it can do exactly the same thing with pot.

Isn’t kind of hard to get angry when stoned? Hungry, yes. Lethargic, yes. Angry. Dude, pass the bong.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

Read: Liberals Really Upset That Obama’s Considering *GULP* Enforcing Federal Drug Laws »

Posted in Barking Moonbats, Barry Obama, Liberal World | 1 Comment | Trackback URL
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