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Marriage amendment unnecessary, says Sullivan
Andrew Sullivan uncovers a 1903 Supreme Court case which held that the Full Faith and Credit clause did not require that a decree of divorce granted in one state should be respected and made operative against the public policy of another state. For the indefatigable Sullivan, this is proof positive that no state may use the clause to impose its beliefs and policies on another in the area of marriage, including homosexual marriage. He concludes that the Family and Marriage Act (which is aimed at getting around the Full Faith and Credit clause by preventing the imposition of gay marriage on one state by another) is unnecessary from the point of view of the homosexual marriage opponents themselves. He writes: “The whole premise of the Federal Marriage Amendment—that the Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution mandates that marriage in one state be applicable in every other state—is a lie. But they keep on telling it.” Yeah, Mr. Sullivan, because (1) the people on your side have been saying all along that they intend to do everything in their power to use the FFC clause for exactly that purpose; and (2) given the ever-shifting quality of constitutional interpretations, the only way to be sure that the clause can’t be used for that purpose is through a Constitutional amendment.
Since we’re talking about full faith and credit, note Sullivan’s unwillingness to grant good faith to the people on the other side. For him, serious opponents of homosexual marriage—i.e., people who support the FMA—are by definition acting in bad faith; and the only way they can demonstrate their “good faith” is by surrendering their best remaining weapon against the nationalization of homosexual marriage. Another example of the depth of Sullivan’s “conservatism.”
Comments
Sockdolager! “[It} is a lie, But they keep on telling it.” Who’s the ‘they’? Mr. Sullivan goes on to say, “Actually, divorces might in some circumstances be held to be binding across state borders. But marriages? Never.” But the quote he gave wasn’t about a State determining the validity a marriage, per se, it concerned the validity of a divorce. Since the divorce was held not to be valid, then OF COURSE that meant the second marriage was invalid. That’s usually how it works. Well, details, details… Now I’m not sure for instatnce how a mixed-race couple in a State where miscegenation was illegal would have fared if they tried to marry in a State where it was permitted and then returned home, (though I can make an educated guess.) But no matter, we know exactly how the homosexual lobby intends to use the FFC, (since, as you point out, they’ve TOLD us.) Mr. Sullivan is a very strange man. He seems to have no conception of objective reality when it interferes with advancing his perversion. Posted by: Joel LeFevre on October 14, 2003 9:17 PMI think the First Things editors captured this whole thing nicely in one pithy sentence: “The question before us is how the Constitution will be amended: by judicial fiat or by ‘We the People of the United States’ employing the means established by the Constitution.” http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0310/editorial.html Posted by: Paul Cella on October 15, 2003 8:29 AMSo Sullivan found a 1903 precedent that supports his claim that we have nothing to worry about. Big deal. I’d be more interested if he found a *2003* Supreme Court decision that held that the 1903 decision was still good law. I’m not holdinhg my breath. In fact, I strongly suspect that if the question were to come up today, the Supremes would overturn their 1903 holding. After all, within the last generation, they have held that the filing fee for a divorce petition must be waived in the case of an indigent petitioners, on the ground that (I kid you not) putting financial obstacles against the indigent’s divorce would keep him from remarrying, and thus would interfere with the fundamental right of marriage. If the 1903 situation came before the Supremes today, I could easily see them saying that any failure to give a trophy wife the full panoply of rights the first wife used to have (including the right to serve as executor of the intestate man’s estate) would be an interference with his right to marry (meaning, as often as he wants and with whomever he wants). It would be a short step from there for the Supremes to rule that failure to allow same-sex “marriages” denies homosexuals the fundamental right of marriage. (Of course, for those of us who believe that same-sex marriage is an oxymoron, such a ruling would sound like the People’s Front of Judaea in “Monty Python’s Life of Brian,” when they decided they would fight for men’s right to have babies.) Posted by: Seamus on October 15, 2003 3:18 PM |