He’s on the record as being against gay marriage. And just this week he vetoed a bill that would let gay domestic partners make funeral arrangements for their deceased loved one. But now Rhode Island Gov. Don Carcieri says he’s willing to “consider” an “everything but marriage” domestic partnership law? Color us confused.
Carcieri has, rightfully so, been taking heat from gay rights groups. But at least he’s willing to talk with them. Yesterday he met privately with Queer Action of Rhode Island, who called him a “bigot” after the veto, where he told activists a DP bill is “maybe … something we should consider.” He added: “I don’t know enough, yet. All I am saying is I understand the circumstances. I understand the difficulties [of gay couples]. … Let’s see if we can find a way to solve that without discreet [pieces] of legislation every time something comes up. I just don’t think that is the right way to deal with it.”
The sit-down had been in the works for a few weeks, after Carcieri agreed to keynote a Massachusetts Family Institute event and said this about marriage: “It is a not civil right. I get aggravated when it is portrayed that way. Marriage is a license by the state. It is about a state’s responsibility, which is the reason why states don’t allow a lot of types of marriages. … It’s abundantly clear to me that we have a tremendous problem. [Families are] the single most important public policy issue today and yet it is not talked about. We are failing our children.”
Evidently, he gets “aggravated” when people call him a bigot, too.
How about we take this to the next level?
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Peter
He says “I don’t know enough yet.” Gosh , Guess he should have studied the issue BEFORE he vetoed the bill on Gays being able to bury their dead partners.
But then many “religious” politicians should do some checking up on things before they just follow some rules that “their religion” claims to be the law.
Real law of this land (The Constitution) may indicate something else.
1EqualityUSA
As long as one group of families have benefits and other “unpopular” families are denied benefits, inequality exists and bigots vote to keep it that way. To veto a person’s ability to plan a funeral for their family member is cold-hearted.
terrwill
Wasn’t Haloween a few weeks ago?? Another hateful, bigoted, rightwing-nutbag zealot, lunatic, talking skeleton……….
Cam
Meh, he’s doing exactly what the Mormons are doing. They took some heat, so they just supported a bill that was going to pass anyway, that said people can’t be denied housing because they are gay. Now the next time they reach out and attack gays they will point to that one thing to try to claim they aren’t a bigoted organization. They tried to do the same thing when they denied blacks full membership in their church up until around 1980.
This governor has taken a page right out of their playbook. Pretend that you are supporting something small and insignificant and maybe people will get off your back for the huge bigoted things you’ve done and plan on doing in the future.
Brian
Lies? Yes, Catholic lies.
Robert, NYC
Bigots, all of whom have a limited capacity to intellectualize anything obviously can’t distinguish between religious and civil marriage. The two are totally different vehicles. Civil marriage does NOT make any reference to procreation as a factor either. State governments get directly involved with marriage, a claim they reject, when they issue secular marriages licenses for both civil and religious marriages. I’m all for abolishing the latter and allowing cults to issue their own. Bigots such as Carcieri would have less of an argument if that were the case. He’s right though on one thing, marriage is NOT a right, there is NO mention of it in the constitution or any amendment, except of course DOMA, further proof that government does indeed get involved in marriage in a big way.
Peter Henry
I am a visitor to this site and I agree that EVERYONE should have the SAME civil rights. Period. So let’s give back all those special “hate crime”-type rights and end affirmative action and the we will all be equal. You say you want to be equal then let’s get together and END all “special” rights arrangements and then we will all have the SAME civil rights. Just a thought. Thank you.
cgd
7, Peter Henry, hate crime laws do apply to everyone. Look at the FBI Hate Crime Statistics for 2007 for example.
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2007/table_01.htm
You’ll see anti-white, anti-Protestant, and anti-heterosexual hate crimes listed there, along with the far greater number of anti-black, anti-Jewish, and anti-gay hate crimes.
Also, keep in mind that you don’t even have to be the person the criminal thinks he or she is targeting. You can be straight and get gay-bashed.
Steve
#7, Peter Henry,
Most gay people I know would be very glad to have the same civil rights and legal protections as everyone else.
Repeal DOMA, and repeal state-level prohibitions on marriage, and let them be married. In every state, there are more than 1000 “rights” that married couple have, but that are denied to couples who cannot be married.
Repeal DADT, which denies Federal employment to gay people.
Pass ENDA, which simply requires that gay people should be treated the same as others, with regard to employment opportunity.
Then, amend the Civil Rights Act to add sexual orientation to the list of protected classes.
Even after all of that is done, there will still be a few hundred Federal and state-level laws and policies that specifically discriminate against gay people.
And, even after all that is done, there will still be lots of people who will choose to discriminate.
People who do not intend to commit crimes against gay people should not object to the Mathew Shepard hate crimes act. Your objection to such laws says much more about you, than it does about the actual state of the law.
Steve
I get aggravated when people who should know better say that,
“[Marriage] is a not civil right” and ,”Marriage is a license by the state.”
Marriage plainly is a right. The Supreme Court has held, several times, that the right to marry the person of your choice is a fundamental human right guaranteed by the equal-protection and due-process clauses of the Constitution.
If you read the history, you will discover that every state started requiring marriage licenses shortly after the civil war. Before that, any two people could just start living together and calling themselves married. In most places, marriages were registered so that the estate could be settled after one of them died, but no “license” was needed. A couple only needed to find a preacher or a justice of the peace — and preachers didn’t need to be licensed, either.
In every state, the purpose of the marriage license statute was explicitly to prevent inter-racial marriages. The license requirements were later changed to forbid also marriages between close relatives. And, very recently (starting in the 1970’s) to forbid marriages between persons of the same sex.
Basically, marriage license laws were written by white supremacists, for the explicit purpose of enforcing racial discrimination.
The nation really should abandon marriage license laws. Instead, we should return to a system of marriage registration, in which any two single people may “register” their marriage. Some sort of registration is needed, mainly for the purposes of settling estates, but also for other matters of property and relationship law. But any attempt to regulate which couples may marry is just a vestige of white supremacist discrimination.
1EqualityUSA
Dear Steve, I agree, however, “originalists” on the Supreme Court have a different view of American life and we need to make ourselves aware of this as soon as possible:
Justice Scalia, CFIF MARCH 14TH, 2005
http://www.cfif.org/htdocs/fre…..speech.htm
“I am one of a small number of judges, small number of anybody — judges, professors, lawyers — who are known as originalists. Our manner of interpreting the Constitution is to begin with the text, and to give that text the meaning that it bore when it was adopted by the people. I’m not a “strict constructionist,” despite the introduction. I don’t like the term “strict construction.” I do not think the Constitution, or any text should be interpreted either strictly or sloppily; it should be interpreted reasonably. Many of my interpretations do not deserve the description “strict.” I do believe, however, that you give the text the meaning it had when it was adopted.”
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“Oh, one other example about how not just the judges and scholars believed in originalism, but even the American people. Consider the 19th Amendment, which is the amendment that gave women the vote. It was adopted by the American people in 1920. Why did we adopt a constitutional amendment for that purpose? The Equal Protection Clause existed in 1920; it was adopted right after the Civil War. And you know that if the issue of the franchise for women came up today, we would not have to have a constitutional amendment. Someone would come to the Supreme Court and say, “Your Honors, in a democracy, what could be a greater denial of equal protection than denial of the franchise?” And the Court would say, “Yes! Even though it never meant it before, the Equal Protection Clause means that women have to have the vote.” But that’s not how the American people thought in 1920. In 1920, they looked at the Equal Protection Clause and said, “What does it mean?” Well, it clearly doesn’t mean that you can’t discriminate in the franchise — not only on the basis of sex, but on the basis of property ownership, on the basis of literacy. None of that is unconstitutional. And therefore, since it wasn’t unconstitutional, and we wanted it to be, we did things the good old fashioned way and adopted an amendment.”
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Scalia continued: http://www.cfif.org/htdocs/fre…..speech.htm
“What substantive due process is is quite simple — the Constitution has a Due Process Clause, which says that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. Now, what does this guarantee? Does it guarantee life, liberty or property? No, indeed! All three can be taken away. You can be fined, you can be incarcerated, you can even be executed, but not without due process of law. It’s a procedural guarantee. But the Court said, and this goes way back, in the 1920s at least, in fact the first case to do it was Dred Scott. But it became more popular in the 1920s. The Court said there are some liberties that are so important, that no process will suffice to take them away. Hence, substantive due process.
Now, what liberties are they? The Court will tell you. Be patient. When the doctrine of substantive due process was initially announced, it was limited in this way, the Court said it embraces only those liberties that are fundamental to a democratic society and rooted in the traditions of the American people.
Then we come to step three. Step three: that limitation is eliminated. Within the last 20 years, we have found to be covered by due process the right to abortion, which was so little rooted in the traditions of the American people that it was criminal for 200 years; the right to homosexual sodomy, which was so little rooted in the traditions of the American people that it was criminal for 200 years. So it is literally true, and I don’t think this is an exaggeration, that the Court has essentially liberated itself from the text of the Constitution, from the text and even from the traditions of the American people. It is up to the Court to say what is covered by substantive due process.
Steve
Scalia and Thomas have both made it abundantly clear, in their written opinions, that they have prejudged the question of equal rights for homosexuals. I expect they will be asked to recuse themselves from any such case that comes before the Court, including any cases involving same-sex marriage.
Barney Frank issued a clear warning on precisely that issue, shortly after the opinion you quoted. Mr. Frank is very clear that Scalia should not participate in any case involving rights of homosexuals, precisely because he has already announced his decision. Thomas joined those opinions, and so is equally prejudiced.
If either Scalia or Thomas fails to recuse from such a case, I would not be surprised to see a bill of impeachment.
1EqualityUSA
Steve, Would their opinion weigh in as to whether or not to allow our case to be heard at all?