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Denying gay rights is simply wrong Date published: 7/7/2010
Gays have rights
There can be no doubt that Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli doesn't like gay or lesbian people and will use his own convoluted thinking to argue away his bigotry. He said the following in response to a question by a high school student at a recent Boys State event at Liberty University: "Frankly, the category of sexual orientation would never have been contemplated by the people who wrote and voted for and passed the 14th Amendment." That may be true, but fortunately the Supreme Court disagrees. In Romer v. Evans in 1996, they stated, "If the constitutional conception of 'equal protection of the laws' means anything, it must at the very least mean that a bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot constitute a legitimate governmental interest." In other words, gays have 14th Amendment rights, and Mr. Cuccinelli should enforce those rights as attorney general, whether he believes people 140 years ago would or would not have "contemplated" them. I went to see Mr. Cuccinelli's political adviser speak at Germanna Community College in April, and he dismissed this question also, saying he doesn't know constitutional law. Mr. Cuccinelli doesn't know it either. He is an embarrassment to this commonwealth. Why GOP leaders still think it's to their advantage to disparage gays is beyond me. My partner and I just want to live our lives, and why people want to deny us basic rights is ethnocentrism to the extreme. If people want to know why Virginia is thought of as a backward state, just look at what its attorney general says. Discrimination based on sexual orientation is wrong. Patrick Victor Fredericksburg
any pole you smoke can and will be used against you in a court of flaw. but you do have the right to remain silent. butt i doubt you will. dont you want to get a gun and shoot me now?
The point is that you said those marriages were allowed because of the will of the people. If it was because of that we would not have had interracial marriage until twenty years after the last states repealed those laws. Sure it's like comparing apples to oranges. But that's not the argument. Many court decisions are based on the 14th amend. concerning equality of rights that have nothing to do with race. I believe this one should be based on equality also.
and I seem to remember at that time the majority of states (u said 16 still had anti-miscegenation) allowed interracial marriage. It seems that the system worked. I have many relatives still around from that time period, and there was a great deal of support for interracial marriage. Maybe it's because I don't have relatives and family from the south. The people supported inter-racial marriage. Comparing inter-racial marriage to gay marriage, apples to oranges, what's the point? The populace has no say?
Your comment @ July 8, 2:42 pm states "Sure, there were a few states that lagged behind, but the majority of the populace wanted to overturn anti-miscegenation laws." Acceptance of interracial marriage did even reach the 50% range among the population until sometime in the 1980's. 14 states didn?t repeal their laws until after the 1948 ruling in California of Perez v. Sharp, a further 16 didn?t until after Loving v. Virginia in 1967.
in their 50's? Should that be illegal because they won't procreate? As Senor and Kristen point out, there are reasons to marry other than procreation. Shouldn't gays and lesbians be allowed to take responsibility for their relaitonships if they so choose? Why deny a gay couple the same rights as a non-procreating straight couple? Our Founders were influenced by the Enlightenment, not the bible. They were still men of their time and the majority were of Christian influence, w/out fundmentalism.
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