States to EPA ... clean up your act!

I guess that's why Obama's so well-funded? Liberals are well-endowed?

Sheeesh.

 

It took 4,008 posts, but you finally got something right.

 

The problem with your arument is that what you're referring, these societal rule changes, often run in the face of the Constitution. What's happening here is a completely different kettle of fish. This is a federal agency, funded by taxpayer dollars, not doing what it's supposed to do.

The same way the federal government tries to hold states accountable should apply in reverse.

 

I still think states rights should be applicable in social issues and, I know this will get spun into a "we're a country for the rights of the minority" thing and that's your opinion. Fine. But we've lost self-governance at many lower levels, where the power of the people seems irrelevant to the people because someone up there is going to tell us what we want whether we want it or not. In some places, things are embraced differently. There's nothing wrong with respecting the general feeling and attitude of the community.

 

Won't argue what you're saying, but I would point out that states rights should NEVER overrule the Constitution, which is more to your earlier point than this one. I don't care how much a state's citizenry wants a law in place, the Constitution reigns supreme over that.

 

I don't think the constitution, which speaks of general liberty, has specifics on marriage. So that determination can and should be made by the states.

 

Full faith and credit involves the federal government in making sure that contracts -- like marriage -- honored in one state are honored in the other 49.
And the Constitution speaks of both general liberty and of specific rights.

 

Which is why the feds should decree "civil unions" as the basic definition of such. That does not prohibit the states from determining their own contracts.

 

What is the problem with simply allowing civil marriage to inlcude gay people, while letting the churches do what they will, which will include fighting among themselves? Why the fig-leaf -- sorry -- of civil unions?

 

Because legally, civil unions would cover both straight and gay relationships.

 

Is your argument with the use of the word "marriage," even in the secular context?
If it is, I don't understand the problem. I truly don't.

 

The term "civil union" does not work. It has already been demonstrated in NJ. Insurance companies are pulling a fast one and saying that they won't insure the partner because it isn't a "marriage."

Marriage is now and always was a secular term. Just because the religious try to hijack it for a bullshit cause does not mean it has changed.