Issues #5 Marriage as a Right and Privilege...

Yes, the assumption would be right, this post is about, ultimately gay marriage, or Marriage Equality, if you prefer. This has been a hot topic for many years, and a favorite of Republicans as a wedge issue to use GLBT people as scapegoats to scare people into voting for them.

However, lately things have seemed to have come to a tipping point, with the narrow passage of Proposition 8, along with decisions in many other states, some postive for equality, other negative, it seems 2009 is going to be the year when equality will take center stage. 2008 was just run up to this.

I was frankly appalled at the passage of Proposition 8, I can never understand why people would vote to strip a basic civil right such as marriage from an entire segment of the population. I've heard the arguments, through the years, both for and against, and the ones that make the least amount of sense are the ones against Marriage Equality.

The religious arguments in particular make no sense to me, particularly when coming from Christians, for I read the Bible, and as far as I can tell, marriage in the Bible is not necessarily between one man and one woman. Indeed, in the Bible, it seems to be between one man, as many wives as he can afford, concubines, and if that isn't enough, if his wife or wives can't conceive, then any servants he can have sex with, for procreation purposes, of course. *sarcasm*

Even if Christians accept the concept that Gay sex is a sin, they must also think screwing the maid is also a sin, yet the bible condones one act, but not the other. Why is that?

Frankly, the above is a non-issue, in this country, we have separation of Church and State, and Marriage, for all the claims of it being sacred, or a sacrament, is not exclusively either. Marriage was, and always will be a property contract between people. The nature of said contract has changed throughout history, many times, in many different cultures, including our own.

Whether it was a contract where one family sold their daughter to the groom of another family, in a form of slavery, or it was two(or more) people "shacking up" by moving in together(common law marriage), and hell, even Same Sex Marriages have precedent in history within some Native American tribes and some ancient cultures in the Old World.

Ultimately the arguments against Same Sex marriage have been rife with logical inconsistencies, outright bigotry, and just plain old ignorance of history.

But, that's neither here nor there, the subject at hand is whether marriage is a civil right or not, and frankly it is, as the Supreme Court wrote in Loving v. Virginia in 1967: "Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival...."

So what does this mean exactly, well basically that entering into a marriage contract is a right, the contract itself comes with numerous benefits and privileges that the government bestows on couples who enter into this arrangement, benefits that unmarried couples do not have. At the same time, the contract also comes with contractual obligations that the couple must abide by, or else the marriage may be dissolved. What I'm talking about, of course, is divorce.

So, how would this apply to same sex couples? Well, it could be a matter of interpretation, however, a reading of the 14th amendment might help. Specifically Section 1:

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Emphasis is entirely mine, but I think this is rather clear cut, once the courts get a hold of it. GLBT citizens of the United States are having their privileges abridged by the states through laws and amendments like Proposition 8. This, in addition to the courts precedence of declaring marriage a civil right seems to me that it will be inevitable that Marriage Equality will come before the Supreme Court, sooner or later, and they will have to, yet again, like in all civil rights cases, "legislate from the bench".

Until this time comes, however, people who are fair minded and fight for justice must not sit on our hands and wait for this time to come. Right now the battle is being fought state by state, in legislatures, courthouses, and the ballot box, and the pressure must not be let up. The only thing I can think of that truly positive about this, even with setbacks like Proposition 8 is that history is on the side of justice. Plessy v. Ferguson was a setback as well, so hope shouldn't be lost.

Labor Rights and the Employee Free Choice Act

It may seem odd that a self proclaimed Socialist would wait this long to reflect on labor rights, and, to be frank, it is. Then again, I'm somewhat scatterbrained as is, my mind will wander on its own, and, when I feel like it, I write down my thoughts.

I wanted to comment on the Employee Free Choice Act, right now there are four versions of the bill, mostly this is a scheduling thing with the Library of Congress website. More information can be found at the AFL-CIO website. The law in question is a good first step, and let us hope it passes the Senate. If you look at the AFL-CIO website I linked to, you can find out if your Representative is against working people or for them.

I think the law is a good first step in restoring labor rights and union representation in this country because it levels the playing field a bit between employers and employees. It increases the penalties against employers for employee discrimination and intimidation, it also allows for easier certification of Union in the workplace, and for help in mediation on behalf of Unions.

This is one of those items that makes me glad that the Democrats won back Congress last year, and hopefully, increase their majority in 2008 and win the Presidency. This is but one step in the correct direction to protect American workers against abuse.

Supreme court upholds Partial Birth Abortion ban...

So I read this link here, and, to my surprise, the Supreme Court, all medical experts, I'm sure(sarcasm), decided in their infinite wisdom that banning a needed medical procedure is Constitutional. Now, I could go on and on about how WRONG this decision is, the first thing that comes to mind is that the law in question ISN'T needed. All "Partial Birth Abortions" are done to save the life or health of the Mother. Apparently, Republicans value the lives of fetuses more than Women. Not to mention that Partial Birth Abortion is a POLITICAL term, not a medical term, for the procedures used.

To be frank about it, the Supreme court, at least 5 of the justices, are dumbasses. In my personal opinion, there should be NO laws outside of safety or compensatory laws, regarding ANY medical procedure. All this moralistic claptrap is just a thinly veiled attempt to control women's lives, and ultimately, the lives off everybody.

The truth is that this ban was and is an additional risk to women who end up having the most tragic things happen in their lives, their fetuses end up being non-viable, and/or pose a risk to the mother that she cannot carry to term. There has NEVER been one case of a perfectly normal and viable fetus being aborted in the 3rd term when the mother is capable of safely delivering it. This simply doesn't happen.

However, what the law does say is that, if a fetus doesn't have a brain, but is on the mother's life support, so to speak, she is FORCED to carry it to term, regardless of the risks to herself. The head of the fetus can fill with fluid and expand, increasing the risk of the mother developing severe problems during labor, and she could end up, in BEST case scenarios, being handicapped for life, not to mention emotionally damaged.

This type of shit REALLY pisses me off, because laws like this address problems that DON'T EXIST AT ALL!!!!! Oh, and I don't care for the "graphic" depictions of the various procedures, that should not be a factor for anyone, open heart surgery is nasty itself, most people would throw up just because of the smell and the amount of blood involved, but guess what, its saves a life.

The fact of the matter is that most pregnancies fail, the key here is that most fail within the first 2 months of pregnancy, its called a Miscarriage, if you are Christian, this is God's way of having an abortion. Sometimes, though, the woman's body doesn't implement this self-defense mechanism in time, and fetuses that aren't viable then continue to develop past the point where they can be miscarried. In some cases, they are still "alive" in the Terry Schavio sense, without brains, and such, other cases, they actually die and decompose within the Mother. This can be exceedingly dangerous, blood poisoning isn't unheard of in cases like this.

The point is that these women, and their doctors, should be free from bad laws like this so that they are free to make decisions that are best for their own health. For if they can't even make that decision for themselves, how can anyone call this country free?

Issues #2: The Right to Vote.

This may come as a surprise to many Americans, but we don't as Americans, have a right to vote. The Constitution of the United States has several Amendments that restricted how states can restrict the right to vote, but there is no explicit right that is stated anywhere in the Constitution. You can read the Constitution right here.

Voting is a right that the States give to their own citizens, rather than a federal right. To give a comparison, all American citizens have the right to free speech because of a combination of the First Amendment and because of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment. In this case, the 14th Amendment restricted the power of states to limit free speech, the First Amendment, originally, only applied to the Federal Government, hence why Congress is mentioned by name.

Next let's look at the 15th Amendment, which says this:

Amendment XV

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Notice the wording of the first section, it doesn't give an explicit right to vote to citizens of the United States, rather it restricts the power of states from denying that right on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Now, there are two other Amendments we are going to look at, the 19th Amendment, and the 26th Amendment. Both of which share the same wording as the 15th Amendment, and therefore neither one guarantees a federal right to vote to anyone, but restricts states from denying the vote to women or those that are 18 years old or older.

So what does this mean? The question can be complicated, first we have to examine Citizenship within the United States, first, there are two basic levels of citizenship, Federal and State, all citizens of the States are citizens of the Federal government, but not all State Citizens are Citizens of all States, does that make sense? Let's put it this way, I'm a Citizens of Missouri and a Citizen of the United States, however, I am NOT a citizen of let's say Illinois, I don't live there, and therefore the rights that may be extended to citizens of Illinois do not extend to me.

The Federal Constitution is not a restrictive document, the 10th amendment states that any power NOT mentioned in the Constitution or its Amendments are instead enumerated in the states. When the country was founded, after the Articles of Confederation were replaced by the Constitution, less than half of white males could vote, the reason was that most did not own property, and hence didn't qualify. This was, and still is, Constitutional, however, over time, the states themselves extended the franchise to include, at least, all white males over 21 years old.

Over the years, as the country expanded, laws in various states have expanded the franchise to other people, for example, before the 19th Amendment was passed, many western states extended the franchise to women, and many other states lowered the voting age before the passage of the 26th Amendment.

States have this power, but, at the same time, just because one state gave its citizens these types of rights, before the passage of these Amendments, doesn't mean that when a citizens moves away from that state, they retain that right. A modern day example would be with convicted felons, many states take away the right to vote, permanently, from convicted felons, while others do not. A felon in states that don't restrict the right to vote in this way may lose that right if they move to a state with these laws.

Now here is something that's somewhat of a gray area, Federal law. There are many Federal laws that further restrict how the states can restrict the right to vote, mostly as a response to the Civil Rights Movement. They include not having unreasonable tests to restrict the right to vote, like literacy tests, counting beans in a jar, and other Jim Crow type of laws. They also extend the non-discrimination started by the 15th Amendment by including National Origin in as a protected class of citizens.

These laws are enforced onto the states basically by saying the Federal Government will restrict funding for certain projects, like Highways, if the laws aren't enforced by the states. The states themselves will then enact the laws as state laws, to keep the funding. This isn't Unconstitutional because the States aren't guaranteed help by the Federal Government in the Constitution except for defense.

So what does this mean for the average citizen? Well, its perfectly Constitutional for states to restrict voting rights to only landowners, like many used to do in the past, or they could restrict it based on annual income, height, weight, criminal record, and pretty much any other reason OTHER than Race, Color, National Origin, Sex, or Age. Will any state actually do this? I doubt it, but that isn't the point, the point is that they could do this, not that they actually will.

In any case, this is a problem that should be resolved because of the potential for future abuse, and to alleviate concerns of botched elections. A simple solution was proposed by the Honorable Congressman from Illinois' Second District, Jesse L. Jackson Jr. A Constitutional Amendment giving an explicit right to vote for all citizens of the United States. He has a website up that illustrates this further, you can find it here. He also illustrates many of the problems of NOT having the right to vote in the United States, much better than I.