You know I gotta be honest, when I did my previous blog about how its time to party like its 1865 I wasnt expecting that to become a regular thing......but then there is Lindsey Graham. So now I'm stuck combining that with my dumbest excuse of the week. You see when he was asked about his opposition to gay marriage and specifically the 2 up coming supreme court cases about it he said this:
“Is it possible for three people to genuinely love each other and want to share their lives together? Is it OK to have three people marry each other?”
Just real quickly, yea I would assume it is. I mean with a world population of 7 billion the odds against you finding the ONE and only person for you are rather high. Therefore it must be possible to fall for multiple people or we would all be single. And some people are greedy enough to not be satisfied with just one and take as many as they can, and dont leave any for the rest of us (not that I'm single and bitter or anything). Or they are gluttons for punishment and enjoy getting in trouble for missing multiple anniversary's a year.
But anyways when it was pointed that the question was about gay marriage and not polygamous marriage Graham tried again, this time he said:
"Can — can I suggest this? Slavery was outlawed by a Constitutional amendment. Go watch “Lincoln,” a great movie. The people decided. The question for us is who should decide these things? Should it be a handful of judges or should it be the people themselves? And I come out on the side of the people themselves. Different people will look at it differently. But slavery was outlawed by a Constitutional amendment. If you want to propose a Constitutional amendment legalizing same-sex marriage and it passes, that’s the law of the land."
Now with all due respect to Senator Graham, he kinda left something out. And I admit as things go it's kind a minor details and given that Graham is from South Carolina I can understand why its a detail he doesnt want to admit to. But for the rest of us that minor detail is called the CIVIL WAR.
Now I admit I havnt seen Lincoln yet (I know I know....dont worry I'm mailing my history degree back anyways) but I would assume it kinda mentions the Civil War. Which means Graham fails at watching movies. Just saying,
But anyways heres the thing about the 13th amendment (and the 14th and 15th), without the civil war, it probably wouldn't have passed. See when the southern states (led I should point out by Graham's South Carolina) left and then lost the civil war, we didnt let them back in until they ratified it.
Thats not exactly "the people decided" as much as it is "we have a gun to your head now say you agree".
There are a couple of other differences as well. See the Constitution as written had a few sections that had been written directly about slaves, just without using the word like the 3/5th clause ("Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.") making slaves 3/5th's of a person, and the slave trade clause designed to protect the same ("The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.") kinda required a constitutional amendment to change.
Marriage on the other hand, doesn't show up directly or indirectly anywhere in the document. So we can just change marriage on a court case, no Constitutional problems at all. And honestly Lindsey Graham should know that.
See you remember his first comment about how polygamous marriage isnt allowed? well as it turns out that wasnt always the case. See in 1862 a guy named Lincoln....who I think has a movie out that made Lindsey Graham into some kind of expert on him, signed a law called the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act, which was basically an act of congress that outlawed polygamous marriage. Which was upheld by the Supreme Court in Reynolds v. United States in a 9-0 decision.
Now under Lindsey Graham's logic we need to "let the people decide" and pass a Constitutional Amendment before we can outlaw Polygamy.
Nor is that the only thing thats gonna have to go up for popular vote. See there was another case that the supreme court decided as well, Loving v. Virginia. Now that case was about interracial marriage, specifically could your marriage be invalidated by any given state simply because of your spouses race. And the supreme court said, no the states cant do that and anyone can marry anyone they want regardless of race.
But under the Lindsey Graham rule that "the people" (which somehow only means state legislators) should decided everything having to do with marriage, I guess that one's out too.
Which is bad news for any interracial couple living in the south......but hey them's the breaks, Lindsey Graham wants to be a bigoted old man so you gotta take it and like it.
On the upside I now have a question for every single white woman reading this:
Will you marry me?
Like all of you, at once. No look its fine, and if the cops show up, we'll just tell them Lindsey Graham said it was OK.
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