Republican presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann is trying to have her cake and eat it too where it concerns a Federal Marriage Amendment and states' rights.
During an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, Wallace asked Bachmann to clarify her support for a constitutional amendment prohibiting same sex marriage. He played a clip from the GOP presidential debate in New Hampshire earlier this month in which she stated, "I do support a constitutional amendment on marriage between a man and a woman, but I would not be going into the states to overturn their state law." (1)
Of course, this is the same interview in which Wallace asked Bachmann if she was a flake, a question for which he later apologized. (2) Nevertheless, it is a shame Wallace even entertained the idea to ask Bachmann such a question because in so doing it overshadowed some otherwise reasonable questions he put to her. Wallace's transgression against Bachmann also has the effect of obscuring her responses from receiving the proper scrutiny it deserves. With this mind, let's consider this exchange between Wallace and Bachmann after he played the clip from the New Hampshire debate:
WALLACE: That's why I'm confused. If you support state rights, why you also support a constitutional amendment which would prevent any state from recognizing same-sex marriage?
BACHMANN: Well, because that's entirely consistent, that states have, under the 10th Amendment, the right to pass any law they like. Also, federal officials at the federal level have the right to also put forth a constitutional amendment. (3)
With all due respect to Bachmann, her answer is unsatisfactory. The 10th amendment reads: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." (4)
There are only two reasons to support a Federal Marriage Amendment. First, a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as between a man and a woman would prevent any state which has not already enacted a law recognizing same sex marriage from doing so. Second, said constitutional amendment would declare null and void the same sex marriage laws currently on the books in six states as well as in the District of Columbia. Thus the same sex marriage bill which was passed over the weekend in New York would be deemed unconstitutional. Bachmann's suggestion that her support for a constitutional amendment wouldn't involve going into the states and overturning their law is utter nonsense. It is precisely the intent and the effect of a Federal Marriage Amendment.
Let us remember that President George W. Bush's public support for a Federal Marriage Amendment in February 2004 was due in large part because of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Council's decision to legalize same sex marriage in the Bay State. (5) Yet it is worth noting that Bush was prepared to include language which would not preclude states from enacting civil unions. But President Bush never tried to tell anyone that he supported both a Federal Marriage Amendment while supporting the right of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to legalize same sex marriage. If Bush had been successful in getting Congress and two thirds of the states to agree then not only would the judicial action in Massachusetts have been declared null and void but New York Governor Andrew Cuomo would not have been able to sign same sex marriage legislation into law either. Thus, contrary to Bachmann's assertion, the states could not pass any law they like.
Of course, President Bush would not marshal his political capital in support of a Federal Marriage Amendment. He had more pressing priorities at hand namely in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, none of this would prevent more than two dozen states from passing constitutional amendments prohibiting same sex marriage. The states are more than adequately equipped to determine whether or not they wish to enact same sex marriage. But Bachmann doesn't see it that way:
WALLACE: My point is this, do you want to say it's a state issue and that states should be able to decide? Or would like to see a constitutional amendment so that it's banned everywhere?
BACHMANN: It is — it is both. It is a state issue and it's a federal issue. It's important for your viewers to know that federal law will trump state law on this issue.
Michele Bachmann can't have it both ways. Marriage is not both a state and a federal issue. Marriage hasn't been under the purview of the federal government for nearly 225 years and it shouldn't start now. She cannot simultaneously support a Federal Marriage Amendment while supporting the right of New York to pass a law enacting same sex marriage. Either Bachmann supports the 10th Amendment or she does not.
In the event Bachmann is elected President, it is possible that she will recognize the impracticality of a Federal Marriage Amendment and wisely attend to more urgent matters. But the fact that Bachmann wishes to involve the federal government in a part of our lives where it has no business ought to be cause for concern for those amongst us who believe in limited government.
(1) http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1106/13/se.02.html
(2) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/27/chris-wallace-apologizes-bachmann_n_885057.html
(4) http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html
What conservatives will soon discover about Bachmann is that she doesn’t really see the contradiction in her positions at all. She says she supports states’ rights and the 10th Amendment because she wants Tea Partiers to know she’s on their side. And she supports a constitutional amendment against gay marriage that would override state laws in this area because she wants Tea Partiers to know she’s on their side. Classic doublethink, or in this case, non-think. And this is the person currently inspiring the Right. Like I keep saying, today’s conservatives are intellectually undernourished. They know neither history nor doctrine. They can hold contradictory opinions because they are real Americans, which means to them that they get to make up all their ideas as they go along, and the more fervor with which they embrace their ideas, the more success they think they’ll have. And–what we liberals now have to admit–they’re correct!
I don’t see the problem. You say that she doesn’t know that an amendment would render a state law null and void, yet you print her statement saying federal law would trump state law.
It is also not contradictory to say that it is both a federal and state issue as the outcome affects both any given state as well as the nation. I might be confusing her exact position with that of another candidate, but I believe her intention on the federal level is provide for those states not wishing to honor the depraved pro-homosexual licensing from other states.
In any case, I think you assume that the exact wording she may have in mind for a Constitutional Amendment would definitely overturn the wishes of those states now corrupted. I don’t know if that must be the case.
What’s clear at this point is that with every state that follows New York to the dark side, more people of conscience will be at risk, as these states insist upon how moral people must deal with the immoral. Indeed, this wouldn’t even be an issue, and shouldn’t be, if it weren’t for the moral spinelessness of otherwise good people.
A hostile take-over of civil society: The government of Quebec wants to outlaw the belief that heterosexuality is normal.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/2009/dec/09121508
So you think it’s really important for people to have the right to condemn gays openly? And what need does that conduct serve anyway? Why isn’t this just a desire to insult other people with impunity?
I am very leery of opening up the amendment process under any circumstances in this day of rampant socialism and lack of Constitutional education. I think marriage is a state issue if it has to be under the purview of the government at all. The only reason we have any argument for government defining marriage is to secure legislative largess or legal protections that shouldn’t exist in the first place.
You can legislate a certain degree of civility but not morality. It’s grievous to me that gay marriage is an issue because I really believe it’s a symptom of complete societal decay. I am not willing, however, to subordinate the principle of limited government to accommodate my morality.
I would argue the issue from the point of removing all government incentives to marriage. If two gays wanted to get married in a ceremony before some tree spirit, that’s fine but no tax breaks or special privileges for anyone including the military or government employees. I would use this point to segue into a flat tax proposal tying together social and financial principles. This tack would winnow the gay marriage purists from the benefit seekers forcing them to admit that free goodies not the noble fight for equal rights is really driving their train.
Gestell:
The ACLU tells me it is free speech.
IMHO I think that all people should have the same ‘rights’. This is why I’ve advocated for the state to get out of the marriage business altogether. Marriage was a religious condition long before any government involvement.
The state should definitely be in the civil union business, but not marriage. Civil unions provide all the legal protections hetero couples enjoy and gay couples should expect. That is how I believe things should be. If a couple wants to commit to a monogamous relationship, go to the courthouse and apply for a civil union. If you want to call it a marriage; then take that previously paid for civil union certificate to your pastor. Oh, so gays can’t go to a pastor and get him to overturn over 2,000 years of Christian teaching; how sad for them. There is no person, nor group of people, that can reasonably demand that a central condition of Christian, Jewish, and for that matter, Islamic teaching be overturned in order to make a minority group ‘feel’ better about themselves.
Gays obfuscate this issue by wailing that they are being denied ‘equality’. Horsefeathers! They don’t want ‘equality’ because civil unions already provide them equal standing in the eyes of the state. What gays truly want humanity cannot give them. They desire absolution.
I can appreciate their position. Something, that to them, feels so correct cannot, in their mind, be so wrong. However; I cannot condemn them nor can I forgive them. Redemption and condemnation is reserved for our Lord and Savior alone. After this ‘mortal coil’ ends they will face Judgment. I cannot say how that interview will go, although I’m fairly certain that the ‘opinion’ of a mere mortal, or a majority of mortals, is going to carry much weight with Jesus, Yahweh, or Allah. Gays want to walk hand-in-hand down the street and play house that’s fine with me. They want to go to church on Sunday and worship in the pews with the rest of us; that’s OK too. Demand that I re-write the precepts of my faith to supply them with succor; that’s not going to happen.
Now that we’ve put that to bed (ouch!); let’s get to this Congresswoman Bachmann interview. I am an avid supporter of the Tenth Amendment and believe it has not been exercised often enough by the states. The longer the states decide not to tell the federal government to ‘butt out’ the more difficult it becomes.
However; I respectfully disagree with Aaron’s analysis. If the administration in charge of the federal government wants to float a Constitutional Amendment defining marriage; that administration has the right to do so. What they cannot demand is that it be ensconced as the law-of-the-land. Congress did pass the DOMA, but it is not a constitutional amendment. The amendment process is available to the sitting administration.
As for the states exercising their right to make law regarding what constitutes a marriage, the Tenth amendment gives the states that right. Marriage (presently) is certainly a ‘states rights’ issue and should be decided as such under the Tenth Amendment. This is the proper arena where the abortion battle should be fought as well. States make these laws and the people vote with their feet. They move to the states that most closely represent the philosophy they desire to live under.
There are few one-size-fits-all issues. National defense, border security, negotiating treaties and trade pacts, is about the extent of it. That’s why the Constitution originally limited federal government to these issues. The balance is for the true laboratories of democracy, the states, to decide.
If the states want to pass law regarding a definition of marriage they have that right. If Michele Bachmann wins the Presidency and wants her administration to initiate a Constitutional Amendment defining marriage, she has that right as well. I don’t see the conflict.
I believe that Aaron’s objection may more lie within an old (relatively speaking) debate held before during the 2010 election. In October of 2010 I wrote a piece entitled “I’ve Had About All I Can Stand Of This Stuff” the subject of which was Christine O’Donnell. The gist of this article was that we (the collective ‘we’) wanted something other than the usual smooth talking, photogenic, career politicians that are so adept at speaking out of both sides of their mouths. Then we get exactly what we wished for and we immediately begin to criticize them as inarticulate, or uninformed, or lacking gravitas. I said it then and I’ll say it again. This is not Burger King. You don’t get it your way. You take the candidate and reject or support him/her as he/she is presented. This is what primaries are for. But don’t beg for something different and then when you get it lament the fact that it is different.
As for offering an amendment to the constitution; I don’t fear that process. I would definitely be concerned if an administration were to call for a Constitutional Convention though. One amendment at a time is, IMHO, the conservative path to follow. I would fear that a Constitutional Convention would be taken over by NGO’s, union administrators, and other ‘social justice’ groups. The amount of havoc they would wreak would be horrifying. Imagine constitutional amendments to living wages, rights to housing, food and healthcare regardless of the ability to pay. The purposeful elevation of indolence to virtue and profit to be encoded as a crime with ‘approved’ amounts of wealth being decided by social justice freaks.
Francisco d’Anconia warned us of such things in his treatise “Is Money the Root of all Evil?” in 1957 and anyone not thoroughly familiar with his dissertation on the subject should pick up their copy of Atlas Shrugged and re-read it.
Bill:
I agree with much of what you said, but your idea has been preempted by gays taking their demands to the courts, and we know why they did that. It’s a lot easier to find one judge to overturn an institution that has been around since the dawn of time than to convince a majority of voters. Now that it has been elevated to the federal level, the only way for a majority to prevail is a constitutional amendment.
I understand. I also understand that this is the ‘new’ method for imposing the tyranny of the minority on the American population. All any progressive special interest group has to do is find a sympathetic judge willing to legislate from the bench and you can magically avoid this messy business of actually defending your position, having to convince people of the merits of your case, or having to depend on the outcome of a pesky referendum vote. God forbid those conservative Neanderthals should have an opportunity to express their views. It’s just so much tidier to drag people who disagree with you forcibly to your viewpoint than to actually convert people to your cause through logical persuasion.
“Changing the law of marriage changes the law for everyone, and puts incentives into place that may affect the behavior of everyone. Redefining marriage is a radical social experiment.
Previous generations of social experimenters have caused unimaginable misery for millions of people. Particular people advocated the policies that led to today’s 50% divorce rate and 40% out of wedlock childbearing rate. None of these people has ever been held accountable.”
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/the_essential_public_purpose_of_marriage
sedonaman,
I understand your point, but I’m not advocating changing the law here. I’m advocating that government get out of the marriage business. There are states that have already recognized same-sex unions; New York is just the latest. While they are ordering the reprinted certificates because they now have to say ‘Person A’ and ‘Person B’ instead of ‘Man’ and ‘Woman’ they alter the title of the document from ‘Marriage Certificate’ to ‘Civil Union Certificate’ as well.
This changes nothing in the eyes of the law or the courts. Paternity is still paternity, support is still support, inheritance is still inheritance. Partners will still be allowed to receive benefits of insurance, property, and face the liabilities of debts created during the contract. Nothing in the eyes of the courts changes with the exception that now the parties petitioning for judgment could be hetero or gay.
Then you carry your ‘Civil Union Certificate’ to your parish pastor and say; “My wife and I have been granted a civil union by the state. We want to further cement our relationship in the eyes of God through the sacrament of Marriage.” The only difference here that I can see is that when Adam & Steve walk into the pastor’s house behind us demanding a ‘marriage’ as well; the pastor just shakes his head sadly, chuckles softly, and shows them to the door.
Bill:
There is more to this issue than meets the eye. This presentation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7AwGxqjPWg is at a Catholic conference, but the presenter does not make a religious argument against same-sex “marriage”. It is about 59 min long, but worth the time. You can start watching at the 8-minute point and still get it all. Here are her salient points:
What is marriage? What is the essential public purpose of marriage? Marriage is “something”, and we are about to change what that “something” is. Marriage will be redefined as the union of any two persons. There will be a new law of marriage that everyone will have to abide by.
Same-sex marriage undermines these key principles of law:
– Kids are entitled to a relationship with both their parents.
– Mothers and fathers are not interchangeable.
– Biology is the primary way that we define parenthood.
– The state recognizes parentage, but does not assign it or control it.
With same-sex marriage, what will happen as a result of undermining the above principles?
– Marriage will become the kind of thing that detaches children from at least one of their parents.
– Fathers will be systematically marginalized from their families.
– Triple parenting will be unstoppable.
– The expansion of the state power will be breath-taking in its scope. The state will decide who are the parents.
Notice in her presentation that, although she doesn’t mention it, reality must necessarily be changed to fit “progressive” ideology.