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edwest2
Guest
In a major Detroit newspaper, a columnist wrote an article titled There are No Absolutes. This is the dictatorship of relativism, which means: whatever you do is fine with me as long as nobody gets hurts.
Pope Benedict spoke about people in Europe living as if God does not exist. Whenever people become indifferent to what goes on around them, then anything goes. Indifference is another problem the Pope spoke about.
If there is no clear defense of what is good, true and right, and if that is not taught to the young, then those who want to call good evil and evil good can get away with it.
In the United States, too many Catholics are living like agnostics, this according to a priest on Catholic Radio. They were poisoned, gradually, by a media that has separated sex from love and celebrates perversity and dysfunctional behavior.
Peace,
Ed
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WillieWonka
Guest
I’m sure some columnist did write that. So what? Are you a relativist? if not why not? If you are not a reelativist, why think everyone else is?
How about the US Catholic bishops? Relativists?
All the anti-abortion folks? Relativists?
What makes you say people are indifferent to what goes on around them? There is now a battle royal going on over health care. That is hardly indifference.
If people get away saying somehting you don’t like, it’s only becaue you have failed to answer them. Nothing stops you.
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Bubba_Switzler
Guest
He is obviously thinking about this argument and, at the least, taking it for a test run. Mein Kampf was similarly dismissed until it was too late.
I have yet to meet such a person. If such people exist they are certainliy a tiny and insignificant minority compared with the vast number of people who vote according to Leviticus. So either Boies is an idiot or he is advaning the argument I described.
Hardly. Self preservation easily accounts for the result. They could easily have stuck with their reinvention of marriage; if they could rationalize the first ruling, they could have rationalized repeating it.
No doubt, but even when bluffing they are advancing plausible arguments, not attacking straw men or insignificant constiuencies.
That is not my contention. My contion is that the proponents of “gay marriage” have deliberatly chosen to make a frontal assault on the establishment law based on religious moral views through the political process. Attorneys like Boies seek to eliminate any religious influence on the law, even when it happens through the political process.
See abortion.
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WillieWonka
Guest
Boies cannot test a legal argument in a newspaper coulmn. That’s not where judges operate. But he can test a social argument that cannot be used in court.
You don’t know anyone who thinks god’s law trumps man’s law? Does it?
They could have stuck with their decision that gay marriage could not be prevented under the California Constitution. But when the second appeal arrived, the Constitution had changed. The case revolved, not around religion, but around the difference between a revision and an amendment. Nothing to do with religion, and they left in place a situation favored by the Catholic Church.
Lawyers always advance plausible arguments? Why do you think that? Out of court they will advance whatever works.
OK. So, now all you have to do is show us one case where gay activists have attacked religion in court. Just one.
How do you know the result of a vote is the result of religious influence? How is this determined?
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Prodigal_Son
Guest
The way we’re going in this society, it won’t be long before even *fornicators *demand the right to be married. 
Oh, wait. We want that to happen.
Oh, wait. We want that to happen.
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Bubba_Switzler
Guest
That’s where people read. Just as prosecuters will sometimes try a defendent in the press, so attorneys will sometimes advance legal arguments in the press. You may be shocked to learn that jurists can be swayed by the mob. That is not to say that he was not also fishing for donations or sympathy for the cause. But he advanced a legal argument.
I don’t know any Christians who expect judges to overrule the political process to implement God’s Law. I do know very many Christians who vote their religion and urge others to do likewise.
You are confusing the argument advanced by the plantiff with the issue that the judges were considering. The argument advanced by the plantiff, was more than a sufficient fig leaf for the judges if they had the courage to commit political suicide.
Lawyers think in terms of the law, even outside the courtroom. That is why the article cites law and the constitution.
I’m not familiar with homosexual legal arguments but it is not the least bit uncommon for jurists to justify abortion rights by dismissing the contrary view as religiously motivated. So far this has not been enshrined as a legal principle but clearly that is what Boies is pursuing.
I’m simply conceding the point as I find it credible based on what I’ve seen and read. I don’t think this is in dispute. Nor does it seem to be in dispute that those who have such religious moral views do not expect judges to overturn the political process to implement religiouos law. The dispute is, instead, as to whether judges can overturn religously motivated voters. That is the argument that Boise raised. We shall have to wait and see whether he will present that argument in court is something.
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WillieWonka
Guest
- These cases are not tried before a jury.
- Does god’s law trump man’s law?
- The Prop 8 plaintiff advanced an argument, and the judges rejected it. Plaintiff’s argument and the judges decision addressed the same legal issue.
- Lawyers are not limited in their thought process. Why do you think they are? Who else is so limited?
- I acknowledge you cannot cite a single case where religion has been an issue.
- I acknowledge you are not familiar with homosexual pleadings in gay rights cases. Yet you insist you can tell us how they will argue in court.
- What abortion rights case has been tried before a jury? Where? When? Abortion rights cases are not criminal cases. They revolve around constittional law.
- Just tell us how we know the outcome of an election has been determined by religious influence. Under your contention, judges need to know this so they can overturn the election result. How do they determine it?
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Bubba_Switzler
Guest
In the case of CA, supreme court judges are up for reelection and a bunch of them got thrown out a while back after some creative judicial legislating around the death penalty.
That’s much too vacuous a question to be answered.
The “argument” that the judges would lose their jobs was not advanced in any court papers but it hung like a sword of damocles over the judges heads.
Lawyers, like everyone else, tend to do what they do best, to think in familiar terms.
I am not familiar enough with case law to provide citations. But I have certianly heard Supreme Court justices making such arguments.
No, I have simply exposed the legal argument put forward in the article and warned others about the dangers that argument poses not just on the issue of gay marraige but much more generally.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurist
Judges don’t “need to know” any such thing. They are free to use their imagination as they please. If Boise’s legal principle were to become settled case law then the question could be resolved in any number of ways including reviewing the campaign arguments put forward or even more simply by inventing a “right” the abridgement of which must be justified on non-religious grounds.
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WillieWonka
Guest
- I acknowledge Ca SC justices are elected. And I repeat - these cases are not before juries.
- I acknowledge you do not know if god’s law trumps man’s law.
- There is no question of the Porp 8 plaintiff argument. There is no question of the judgement on that argument. The plaintiff (gays) lost. There is no question about religion as an issue in the case. It wasn’t.
- Lawyers do most of their work out of the courtroom and they do it best when they don’t even have to go to court.
- What Supreme Court justice has said votes influenced by religion must be thrown out? Who? When? Where? Where did you hear it? From whom?
- I acknowledge you are not familiar with homosexual arguments in court.
- I acknowledge you think newspapr columns are court pleadings.
- I acknowledge you do not know of any gay rights cases where religion was the issue.
- What is the point of your citing the Jurist entry from Wikipedia? It doesn’t change the fact that these cases are not before juries.
- If judges don’t need to know which elections were influenced by religion, then how do they know which elections to invalidate?
- Boies ideas are settled law. It starts in the First Amendment.
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Bubba_Switzler
Guest
Boies put together a new argument: that religious-based moral views are unconstitutional. Whether or not he decides to present this argument in court we will have to wait and see.
Bois argument is not new but it is not settled law either.
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WillieWonka
Guest
Note what Boies actually says:
"*There are those who sincerely believe that homosexuality is **inconsistent **with their religion – and the First Amendment guarantees their freedom of belief. However, the same First Amendment, as well as the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses, preclude the **enshrinement of their religious-based disapproval *in state law."
Religion does not have a veto over our law. The fact that a practice is inconsistent with religion is not grounds to outlaw the practice. He is correct, and that is settled law, and has been settled law for a long time. There may be other grounds to outlaw it, but the fact that it is inconsistent with religion is nt one of those grounds.
The notion that someone can demonstate a practice to be inconsistent with religion has never been grounds to outlaw it. There is nothing new about that.
Do you contend inconsistency with religion is grounds to outlaw a practice in the US?
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Drawmack
Guest
I think that the posters are attempting to extend this argument to state that votes based on religious ethic are not valid votes. That is not a valid point and is not what the author of the piece was saying.
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Bubba_Switzler
Guest
I appreciate your returning to the substantive questions.
Who exactly is claiming that religion has a veto over our law? The question that is being debated is whether religion can form law. Boies is claiming that it cannot without violating the “First Amendment, as well as the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses”.
This is quite obviously not true (yet). Boies certainly wants to make it true, and there are many jurists (legal professionals, not members of the jury) who argue similarly, which was the point of my OP, but it is not yet settled law.
It happens all the time. And, in fact, if we understand “religion” to be broadly beliefs taken on faith then it is inevitable.
Through the political process, yes. Through the judicial process, it is the religion of the judge (in the broad sense above) that counts.
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WillieWonka
Guest
The quote from Boies does not deal with religion forming law. He says nothing about that. He says practices cannot be outlawed because they are **inconsistent **with religion. That is established law. Perhaps you are concerned with religion forming law, but Boies’ quote isn’t.
Can you tell us where inconsistency with religion has been grounds for outlawing a practice? What practice? What religion?
Can you tell us where judges have decided cases based on their own religion?
The Framers of the Constitution did not take religion to be “beliefs based on faith.” They viewed it as organized worship of god. That’s how the word is taken in the Constitutional sense. That is the sense in which it was written into the Constitution. It was a reaction to the absolute mess Catholics and Protestants made of Europe in the 1600’s.
I acknowledge there is a movement for living Constitution, where past words can be redefined to fit current political agendas. Boies is not doing that. However, some Christians are. They favor expanding religion to include secularism, capitalism, communism, law, anarchism, homosexual lifestyle, environmentalism, making money, entertainment, etc. The notion that religion is “beliefs based on faith” rests on the living Constitution movement.
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Bubba_Switzler
Guest
Laws are established to prohibit certain practices. The review of laws in the judiciary is a secondary matter. Most commonly laws are established by legislatures but occassionally by voters through a proposition as with Prop 8. Boies is arguing that Prop 8 is unconstitutional because it is an imposition of religiously based moral values. He is petitioning the federal courts to overturn a law on that basis.
Every single law relies, ultimately, on religion in the sense of beliefs and values taken on faith. Start with the DoI: “We hold these truths to be self evident…”
Every time a judge makes a ruling he is relying, at least in part, on his own beliefs many of which he cannot rationally justify.
The question that Boies and like minded jurists pose is whether we should handicap partiuclar religious beliefs, i.e. Christian.
The framers most definitely had “freedom of conscience” in the most general sense in mind. Many of the framers were deists.
But you are correct that the First Amendment was very particular in its meaning in prohibiting the “establishment of religion”. It did not mean, to them, that the law should be sanitized of religious values. That is Boies’ (and others) invention.
If the debate was whether or not the First Amendment prohibits the establishment of secularism then you might have a point. Certainly there are those who make that argument, though I am unaware of anyone citing the First Amendment in that way in a court brief.
But as the debate is whether or not the law should be sanitized of religious influence your point is irrelevant.
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WillieWonka
Guest
In the quote you provided Boies does not say anything is an imposition of religious values. he says inconsistency with religion is not grounds to outlaw behavior. Perhaps you have some other quote from Boies?
If every single law relies on religion, then just tell us about one case where inconsistency with religion has been grounds to outlaw behavior.
If everytime a judge has made a ruling he relies on hispersonal beliefs, then just tell us about one case where he has based that ruling on his persona religion.
Religion was indeed handicapped by the Frst Amendment. The historical norm was that religion had a seat at the table of government. I agree it is handicapped.
What is your point about freedom of conscience?
The Framers did not prohibit things held to be consistent with religion. That consistency may be widely shared. But they did prohibit using consistency with religion as grounds to prohibit behavior. That is long established law.
Neither I nor Boeis contends the law should be sanitized of anything consistent with religion. But we both argue inconsistency with religion is not grounds for prohibiting behavior. Consistency or inconsistency with religion is unacceptable grounds for any legal action. Remembrer, religion has been handicapped by the First Amendment.
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Bubba_Switzler
Guest
That is the money quote but the context is an argument against Prop 8. His claim is that Prop 8 imposes a religiously based prohibition of “gay marraige”. I do not deny that supporters of Prop 8 were motivated specifically by Chrisitian religious beliefs (though perhaps some had other justifications).
Murder.
Abortion rights. (Some judges believe that a woman has a right to choose what she does with her body. That is a matter of personal faith.)
That it was protected by the First Amendment by original intent, not later invention as you implied.
Voters use consistency/inconsistency with religion to decide how to vote all the time in the narrowest sense of “religion”. What is new is the idea that judges can second guess voters and prohibit certain religion-based values in favor of others.
Gay marriage is inconsistent with Christianity and that is the reason that Prop 8 won the support that it did. This disturbs Boeis and his kind. He thinks it is grounds for overturning that provision of the CA constitution.
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Drawmack
Guest
That is not based on religious beliefs it is based on the legal fact that no person has the right to infringe upon the rights of another person. Killing someone infringes on their rights.
Incorrect, read Roe v. Wade. The ruling is based on the state not having the right to impinge on a woman’s right to privacy by knowing the reasons for her seeking any given medical procedure.
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Bubba_Switzler
Guest
So, tell me, why do you believe that “no person has the right to infringe upon the rights of another person”? It’s not as if it is unnatural.
So, tell me, why do you believe that the state does not have “the right to impinge on a woman’s right to privacy”?
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