by Bill Waxler
TTuesday, September 10, 1996; Mark that date on your calendar as the date Congress took a quantum leap toward tyranny. They have extended the despotic arms of government to the most hallowed of all places, the bedroom. By a vote of 85-14, the Senate voted to pass the Defense of Marriage Act (DMA), allowing states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages considered valid in other states. To further demonstrate their total lack of comprehension of the Constitution and principles of liberty employed when the United States was founded, the Senate voted 50-49 to reject the discrimination bill, which would have forbid employers from using sexual orientation as a basis for hiring, firing, promotion or compensation. On September 21, 1996, our two-faced president Clinton signed it into law.
The heretics of liberty and freedom were not confined to the Republican Party members of the Senate, (Republicans say they want less Government invasion of our lives), though it should be noted that not a single Republican traitor voted against the repressive Defense of Marriage Act.
It is now a ticking bomb, full of legal death for the United States and her Constitution. It will go off when the first state recognizes same sex unions. This could happen very soon in Hawaii [Editor's Note: This has happened in Hawaii]. If it is then upheld by the courts, the DMA could produce fallout that the simple-minded, egomaniac legislators were too busy being stupid to see.
The Act is in direct opposition to the “Full Faith and Credit” clause in the Constitution. The clause guarantees reciprocity with regard to public acts, records, or judicial proceedings of any of the other States. This is why a Las Vegas wedding is viewed as valid in all 49 other States. The DMA “pierces the Veil”, and could conceivably undermine the “Full Faith and Credit” clause in totality. If this were to happen, you may be married or divorced in one State, and it may not have to be recognized or honored in the others. Probate cases could be contingent on which state you or a family member dies to determine whether your property will be bequeathed to your family as stated in the terms of a will. The cost of sorting this out and defending the legal system against the clever abuses of unscrupulous attorneys will be staggering.
Marriage is a contract between two citizens. It is highly questionable if the federal government has the authority to interfere with any contract between its citizens. The right for them to do so is not enumerated in the Constitution. Under the protection of the tenth Amendment, the federal government may not assume powers not delegated to it by the Constitution and according to article nine of the US Constitution: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” This cut and dry language tells us the contract of marriage or the dissolution thereof, is off limits to the monsters in Washington DC.
What were they thinking when they wrote this one? Taylor Flynn of the ACLU observes: “Congress knew this legislation was unconstitutional but they chose to make it a political issue. They basically used gays as a sacrifice to win support at the polls." She points out that the Defense of Marriage Act is blatantly un-Constitutional and it denies an individuals right to equal protection under the law. There is a litany of Supreme Court rulings to support this claim.
The measure violates the equal protection clause, because it singles out a particular class of people and makes them inferior to the others in society. It deprives certain individuals “Life and Liberty” in very real terms. Imagine if a gay citizen were in a near fatal accident and there was no spouse or other family member to consent to medical treatment. Their loving mate is on hand and left powerless to act on behalf of his or her loved one because they are denied the privileges given under a marriage contract. The victim could be denied life-saving treatment or be unwillingly hooked up to life support equipment with nobody to speak on their behalf.
However, the right-wing gay bashers justify the act by claiming to have the support of their constituency. They say; “The people want it.” This argument demonstrates how effective our tax dollars actually are at teaching Americans the principals of self-government. The message that you have a right to freedom and to devote yourself to the pursuit of happiness, unmolested by government or other individuals with dissimilar views as your own, has not been learned by our representatives or their outspoken constituents. The will of the majority and of the people should always prevail, unless that will is fundamentally flawed. How can the Constitution protect us against a passionate majority whose misguided notions violate its principles? Of this, Thomas Jefferson wrote:
“It is still certain that though Constitutions may be violated in moments of passion or delusion, yet they furnish a text to which those who are watchful may again rally and recall the people; they fix, too, for the people the principals of their political creed.” Those people whose political creed is in complete disrepair have another argument, (…a more sane and sober one at that) to defend their views. This is the argument of original intent. This is simply that the Founders meant to protect true rights, like one man with one woman in marriage, from "phony" rights like same-sex marriage, bigamy or even abortion. That the intent was then and forever to remain the same, regardless of changing beliefs. The bad liberties, were never meant to be included in the God-given rights of Americans.
While this is a more substantial argument, it is still wrong. In pondering the argument of those with the broken creed and the Constitutionality of same sex marriage, I turn again to the Apostle of freedom, Thomas Jefferson. Would the humble and enlightened man who authored our Declaration of Independence support the right to same sex marriage? Yes, he would indeed. Firstly, rights do not come from God. You will not find God anywhere in the Constitution, nor will you find it used in the context of Christianity in our Declaration of Independence. Jefferson used the word inalienable to describe our rights. This simply means that they are not given by one individual to another (look it up if you don’t believe me), but rather, they exist in nature much in the same way as gravity does. Jefferson believed the “natural law” to be independent from any outside authority, and that, “No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him;” and that “It is not only vain but wicked for a legislator to frame laws in opposition to the laws of nature.” In the law of nature, all liberties are included and the laws we draw should remain subordinate to this. This is the accurate original intent to leave the reader no doubt that Jefferson felt the government had no authority as to our sexual practices, he stated; “The error seems not sufficiently eradicated that the operations of the mind, as well as the acts of the body, are subject to the coercion of laws.” How apropos.
Does the fact that the specific intent of some of our founders was not to protect “queer marriages," mean these unions could never be recognized? The broken, vain, wicked traitors with whom we argue will say yes. They mean to say, that our generation is bound by the intent of our founders and that our founders intended that faggots shouldn’t marry. Jefferson speaks to the contrary; “Let us follow no such examples nor weakly believe that one generation is not as capable as another in taking care of itself and ordering its own affairs…A generation may bind itself as long as its majority continues in life; when that has disappeared, another majority in its place, holds all the rights and powers their predecessors once held, and may change their laws and institutions to suit themselves… I know laws must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind.” So as long as they are not in violation of natural law, we may make any changes we deem necessary.
Their argument is completely without merit. The issue goes way beyond whether people of the same sex should marry. It involves whether those blinded by religion and drunk with power will succeed at destroying the foundation of the system that, if implemented as it was designed, will accommodate anyone who practices his or her beliefs as an individual. For those who are willing to explore it, you will find there exists in our Constitution and our rights as Americans, the freedom to marry as many people of either sex we choose and it is not any of the Government's goddamned business if we do. These pathetic despots need to learn that gays are not inherently pedophiles and that values like honesty, integrity, honor, courage and principles are not related to whether a person is attracted to, and marries, a member of the same sex.
There may be many of you who are saying that this sort of thing would be bad for children. Are kids in single parent families better off than those in a home where two loving parents, though they be the same sex, are present? Are all of the straight marriages producing healthy well-rounded children?
So what are we to do while these Constitutional assassins go marauding about the Congress, stuffing their pockets with PAC money, so they can take away more of our hard-earned money to repress more of our rights? We hold true to our principles and remain tolerant, even of open enemies of the state. I know that I would lay down my life to defend their right to believe and act as they choose, as long as they leave me and my friends alone. I would not count on them for the same respect. It is time for straight Americans to stand up for the rights and freedoms of all Americans. Let's redress the issue as we are allowed under law, and let's vote these traitors out of office!
People of America! It is now time to rise up and assert ourselves as Americans, willing to endure the difficulties of becoming servants of the public trust, defenders of our sacred freedoms and unwilling to tolerate any violation of our principals as guardians of the rights that all individuals posses.
It would also help if those broken, vain, wicked traitors who wrote and ratified this act would soon become maggot food.
