July 22, 2004

So if the Supreme Court says one thing...and congress another...

According to this story on foxnews, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,126623,00.html, the House is trying to pass a bill that will strip courts of their ability to recognize and enforce the laws of another state.  Example: A Gay Couple (A) gets married in Massachusetts (B) and moves to Florida (C) where they try to have their marriage recognized by their new state (A+B+C=freaked out Republicans).  With this new law, courts will not have the ability to order the recognition of the union if it was sanctioned elsewhere.  Hmmmm....last time I checked, there was something called "Separation of Powers."  If the Republicans keep trying to act like they want to rewrite the Constitution, maybe they should just cut the bull and just announce that they want to do just that.

2 comments:

MosBen said...

Now listen, while I am a law student, I'm far from the smartest of the best law student ever and I'm nowhere near a legal expert. What I can't understand though, and it would help if I read the actual language of the bill, is how this doesn't violate the Full Faith & Credit Clause from Article 4 of the Constitution whereby all states must "full faith and credit...to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state". Furthermore, maybe I've forgotten something really important from my Constitutional Law class, but where there's a federal law in question, like say the D.O.M.A., I'm pretty sure the federal courts have jurisdiction no matter what. I just can't understand any way in which this proposal ISN'T unconstitution.

Noumena said...

You're forgetting that Ann Coulter, Antonin Scalia, and fellow travellers are the only true constitutional scholars -- all you liberal lawyers have this perverse idea that the Constitution is a living document (meaning it can only be reinterpreted by Coulter, Scalia, &c.)

So this bill won't be unconstitutional because the Republican party says so.