Saturday, May 24, 2008

Jesse Ventura weighs in on Gay Marriage.



Ventura sums the argument up perfectly, "Love is bigger than government. Who the Hell are we, as a government, to tell people who you can fall in love with? I think it‘s absurd the fact that it‘s even being debated."

As Ventura points out, civil rights have nothing to do with the wishes of the majority, as if that were the case the US might still have slavery.

Glenn Greenwald perfectly covered this very point yesterday:

Central to our system of government is the premise that there are laws which even the largest majorities are prohibited from enacting because such laws violate the constitutional rights of minorities. Thus, the percentage of people who support the law in question, and how lengthy and painstaking the process was that led to the law's enactment, is totally irrelevant in assessing the propriety of a court decision striking down that law on constitutional grounds.

Contrary to Wittes' extremely confused argument, a court striking down a law supported by large majorities is not antithetical to our system of government. Such a judicial act is central to our system of government. That's because, strictly speaking, the U.S. is not a "democracy" as much as it a "constitutional republic," precisely because constitutional guarantees trump democratic majorities. This is all just seventh-grade civics, something that the Brookings scholar and those condemning the California court's decision on similar grounds seem to have forgotten.
Pat Robertson also gets taken apart later on in this clip regarding McCain's decision to chase Hagee's endorsement.

3 comments:

Queers United said...

i love jesse
http://www.queersunited.blogspot.com

daveawayfromhome said...

Have been involved in a running battle about gay marriage on another blog. Seriously, the prejudices and fear of some folks really makes me nuts.

Kel said...

Dave, I followed the link. These people are foul. As you rightly point out, they must be motivated by fear, nothing else would explain such irrational hatred.