Transcripts

Scalia and Feds Control Over Marriage is Wrong

todayDecember 11, 2012 8

Background

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – You might notice in the movies these days they say, “By the power vested in me by the State of Louisiana, I now pronounce you man and wife.”  What do you mean by the power vested to you by the state?  Marriage is a sacrament.  Latin sacramentum, gift, gift from God.  It is a religious bond consecrated in the eyes of God.  It is a vow made before a representative of God on earth, you know him as a priest, and a man and a woman, voluntarily choosing to enter into that compact that is made before the eyes of God.  It is a religious ceremony.  This is where you and your young people should hire me to be your spokesman and you should go along with me on this.  You should just butt the hell out of the term marriage. Check out the rest in today’s transcript…

 

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

AG:  Mike, you mentioned Justice Roberts really quick.  I wanted to get your thoughts on something that Justice Scalia, who’s out doing a bunch of different forums right now, and he was just at Princeton and taking questions from the audience.  A student asked him about gay marriage coming to SCOTUS and how they’re going to rule on it in two different cases.  As he was describing the Constitution, he made the comment that, “It isn’t a living document.  It’s dead, dead, dead, dead.”  Quoting from a story here on Huffington:

[reading]

Scalia said that people who see the Constitution as changing often argue they are taking the more flexible approach.  But their true goal is to set policy permanently.  “My Constitution is a very flexible one,” he said.  “There’s nothing in there about abortion.  It’s up to the citizens…The same with the death penalty.”  Scalia said that interpreting laws requires adherence to the words used and to their meanings at the time they were written.

[end reading]

AG:  Just to get your thoughts on —

Mike:  Scalia said this?

AG:  Yes.

Mike:  [laughing] He’s contravening and contradicting things that he said himself.  What is he, a schizophrenic now?

AG:  The genesis of this is he didn’t make the correlation between murder and gay marriage but some people have linked the two.  He’s talking the morals of it and whether you can legislate morality.  And if you can’t legislate gay marriage, how could you legislate murder?  It raised kind of a firestorm in the auditorium where the talk was taking place and led to his discussion on the U.S. Constitution.

[reading]

Speaking at Princeton University, Scalia was asked by a gay student why he equates laws banning sodomy with those barring bestiality and murder. “I don’t think it’s necessary, but I think it’s effective,” Scalia said.

[end reading]

Mike:  This is a really good question.  You’re asking a question and that student was asking the question assuming that the high court actually has authority, vested authority over these things.  He’s delivering an answer over what his view of his vested authority is, which is a far cry from the authority that was actually granted in the nebulous and not well-defined and flawed Article III of the Constitution.

AG:  The very end of this article, he talks about how if there’s stuff not in the Constitution, yet he’s still — my interpretation of it is, Scalia says, “My Constitution is a very flexible one.  There’s nothing in there about abortion.  It’s up to the citizens…The same with the death penalty.”  Does that mean it should then go to the Supreme Court in these instances, if it’s not in the Constitution?  That’s where I’m confused.

Mike:  No, you’ve got that backwards.  That means that the court doesn’t have authority if it’s not in.  This is what the amendment process is for.  If you have something you desperately want to do and you say as an entire country we want to foist this on the head of all 50 states and 314 million people, that’s when you have to go and propose an amendment and have it ratified.  No, the court cannot make its own arbitrary and unilateral decisions on anything.  If you read Article III, it’s so poorly constructed.  It is a miracle that we have few people left that even believe in their heart of hearts, being honest men and women, that there is a true form of blind justice that is equal and available to all people under the law with what Article III has done to the law and to jurisprudence over the last two and a quarter centuries.

If you read Article III, it’s not very long, not very well defined, and it was the article that most of the framers of the Constitution thought posed the least amount of threat.  This is why the Constitution is a flawed document.  They never envisioned, as my buddy Andy McCarthy calls it, a juristocracy.  The great book by Raoul Berger, which I encourage all of you to read, Government by Judiciary, they never considered this.  Patrick Henry and George Mason thought it was a threat.  That’s another reason why they opposed ratification without amendments.  Jefferson viewed the federal judiciary as a threat.  The question about the extent of the supremes, what it is that they can and cannot do, is one that should have been settled 220-some-odd years ago.  Unfortunately, it was not and we are left with this quagmire of law that is fiat, meaning at will.

Scalia does make an interesting point.  I don’t know if you’ve read this.

[reading]

“It isn’t a living document. It’s dead, dead, dead, dead.” He said that people who see the Constitution as changing often argue they are taking the more flexible approach.  But their true goal is to set policy permanently.  “My Constitution is a very flexible one,” he said.  “There’s nothing in there about abortion.  It’s up to the citizens…The same with the death penalty.”

[end reading]

Mike:  Those two statements, that’s amazing from the guy that is the author of the case that he wrote the majority opinion on that basically said the people of California could not make legal medicinal marijuana, and that Mrs. Raich had a constitutional duty to suffer pain.

AG:  I thought this article was interesting.  Of course, the news from late last week in terms of the Supreme Court seeing two gay marriage cases, then yesterday we had Glenn Beck kind of take a stance.  His quote was, “The question is not whether gay people should be married or not.  The question is why is the government involved in our marriage?”

Mike:  You mean Glenn Beck took the Mike Church Show position?  Thanks.

AG:  That’s there.

Mike:  We’ve only been advocating that for what, three and a half, four years?  Please continue.

AG:  The evolution of this stance politically and where it goes in the future, but I wonder could the Supreme Court — if a portion of conservatives are moving towards “why is the government involved in marriage to begin with” and the public sentiment sees that as a way to bring marriage back locally, back to the churches, what role does the Supreme Court have?  Could they theoretically be like, “Yeah, good question.  Why is the government involved in marriage to begin with?”  Do they have any jurisdiction?

Mike:  That’s a Clintonian question.  [mocking Clinton] “That depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is.”  When you say government, you have to be specific.

AG:  The question would be: If the evolution of the conservative thought going forward is let’s get the federal government out of marriage, as you’ve said, as Glenn Beck is now saying, as there are a number of different conservative commentators as well as people on the left saying let’s get the federal government out of marriage, what are the steps?  Is the Supreme Court involved?  Is it strictly a congressional legislative act?  What would the steps be to return marriage strictly to churches?

Mike:  You have 50 state legislatures that are going to have to butt out, too.  You might notice in the movies these days they say, “By the power vested in me by the State of Louisiana, I now pronounce you man and wife.”  What do you mean by the power vested to you by the state?  Marriage is a sacrament.  Latin sacramentum, gift, gift from God.  It is a religious bond consecrated in the eyes of God.  It is a vow made before a representative of God on earth, you know him as a priest, and a man and a woman, voluntarily choosing to enter into that compact that is made before the eyes of God.  It is a religious ceremony.  This is where you and your young people should hire me to be your spokesman and you should go along with me on this.  You should just butt the hell out of the term marriage.  If you don’t want to go before God and you don’t want to avow it in a church, fine, don’t do it.  I have no problem with it.  When you go to a justice of the peace or any other secular institution to do it and that would include homosexuals, it’s not a marriage, it is a union.  It is a civil union made legal by the laws of a state, not the laws of God.  There’s a difference.

If we could just compromise, I will concede to every single one of you, or to anyone who cares to listen, the civil union.  I’ll concede it.  I will happily give that ground up.  If you go to the state, you can have a civil union with anyone you want to.  If they consent, they want to form a civil bond recognized by the State of Louisiana, Maryland, Maine, whatever, fine.  Leave the word and the term marriage out of it.  You don’t own it.  It doesn’t belong to you.  It has always been something that has been administered by the clergy, by the church under the guidance and benediction or blessing of God.  Leave marriage out of it.  The state does not have to consecrate it, recognize it, nothing.  That is the compromise we ought to be working towards.  That way you could keep most of this out of the legislatures.

I don’t know this, but perhaps the pursuit of the homosexual, same-sex marriage (SSM), pursuit of marriage to compel through the churches may be an acknowledgement from homosexuals that they do not desire making partnerships with the government.  They’d rather steamroll a church into doing it, force them to do it and have to live under the law of the church than they would under the law of Governor Jindal or Governor Perry.


End Mike Church Show Transcript

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  1. Paul on December 14, 2012

    Right On Brother Mike. I agree wholeheartedly. Marriage is a religious institution not a state one. Let me have my beliefs and others can have their civil unions; it’s a contract issued by the government.

  2. starfury1 on December 12, 2012

    How do you “fix” the gay marriage problem without trampling the first amendment? You dont redefine marriage. Marriage in the eyes of the law and the eyes of the church are two completely different things. States shouldnt be in the Marriage business, and make no mistake its a business, how much does a marriage license cost these days?

    State shouldnt be in the marriage business at all, if SCOTUS really wanted to upend the states on this they would declare that marriage laws of the states are unconstitutional and send it back to all 50 states to fix. Because if you send it to the states saying that not allowing gays to marry is unconstitutional because of equal rights, you will kill the first amendment guarantee of an individuals right to freely exercise their religion. what happens when a gay couple goes to their church says we want to be married in the church and the pastor preist rabbi, etc says no…. its not in our tenants, can they then sue the church? And what then? what happens when a particularly liberal court says to a baptist preacher you dont have the right to excercise a bigoted form of religion? you have to marry them into your church that is the law… SCOTUS has spoken?

    Now granted (as it is mentioned today) gays have the same equal rights to marry as the laws in their states have granted this is no imagined 14th amendment issue(because we all know the 14th amendment doesnt equate to the left wing idealism of equal rights under the law(any law)) but lets say it does, gays have the same rights to marry under the law as straights they can marry a member of the opposite sex, just like a straight man or woman can. there is no inequality here. they have the same options. if this goes down that course please tell me how the court could use the 14th amendment to say that there is an inequality here(even if thats what the 14th amendment does)

    To give real reform here it needs to be done in a republican (small r) manner, the states need to change their laws as California did, now we get into the prop 8 problem. the legislature had spoken made it legal, the legislature had previously spoken giving the ability for the people to vote directly on propositions (hoping that the people would vote the way they want or they would have never given the people that power) it back fired obviously, how does the court get around the 9amendment issues that prop 8 guarantees? they cant. the people have spoken. in a loud voice. if the court then nullifies the peoples choice we may as well just burn the consitituion because if they can overturn a direct change to a states constitution by the people. Whats the point of self rule anymore? might as well become an Federal Empire and put Madison on the one dollar bill.

    If the courts deem that marriage laws are unconstitutional because of equal rights, then all states marriage laws should be deemed invalid and the states need to redo them. not ruled upon that says that states are required to give equal rights by changing the definition of marriage by court decree, thats just as absurd as the Defense of Marriage act by congress which locks in a definition of marriage by decree of congress.

    The only constitutional fix to this if they deem that marriage is unconstitutional under the 14th amendment (even though its not) is to send back too the states (all of them) that they need to redo the marriage laws to include provisions for gay americans, which is fine, but they have to do it in a way that doesnt infringe upon the first amendment rights of the clergy to not have to give up on basic tenants of their religions and be able to freely exercise their relegion and the only way to do that is to nullify all marriage in the land. and send it back to the states collectively. with instructions that state that any new marriage legislation must protect the clergy from reprisals if their tenants are violated.

    The real inequality here isnt how the states decide to allow the people to have unions between themselves, but how the federal government and the several states give loopholes in tax code between them, and how the law allows for the inequal treatment of insurance. this is the part that should truly be addressed, we should be treated as individuals in the tax code, and insurance purposes. not as corperations between each other. a married person has certain rights over that of an unmarried person. those rights should be nullified there should be no difference in my tax code and that of a married person. i dont care who you have sex with nor do i care who you marry, but our tax rate shouldnt be decided upon any decsions of matrimony or civil unions you have decided to be a part of.

    This is how to fix this problem on a federal level. that doesnt trample on the rights of states, the people and the clergy on who should marry and why. fix the real problem not the symptoms of the problem. big R republicans and democrats want you to think the issue is right to be in love, they want to continue loopholes that shouldnt be in tax code. so they want to solidify those loopholes by giving them to more people, and get us so arguing in what the real problem is, and continue their lock on the loop holes. shoving the real problems under the rug.


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