Haters Sad. Don’t Understand Government.

Jim Minnery does not like the way the government works. No he doesn’t.

Local purveyor of gay and uterine control, Jim Minnery of the Alaska Family Council, has taken to the emails again to vent his sadness and outrage about how the government works.

“Like a good soldier, Alaska District Court Judge Tim Burgess, fell right in line with the rest of the activist courts across the country and ruled yesterday that Article 1 Section 25 of our State Constitution defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman was unconstitutional.”

That’s right. That George W. Bush appointee, Tim Burgess, is a gay activist… just like every single other court that ruled restrictions placed on the gender of those getting married is unconstitutional. Every single doggone one. Activists ALL!

Does Minnery stop for a moment to wonder why it’s all the courts and judges who are the activists, and he is not? No, he does not stop to wonder about that because…. JESUS.

It’s not you Jim, it’s everyone else.

“Apparently, Burgess agrees with one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs suing the State who said that marriage is a ‘changing institution.’ Changing exactly into what is the most frightening aspect of this ruling. Under what logical rationale would the Courts now deny other ‘evolving’ forms of marriage ? Three wives for one husband ? Marrying your aunt or niece or brother ? Group marriage involving any number of couples and individuals with various sexual orientations? Once you eliminate sexual complementarity from the marriage equation, is there any reason to keep other cornerstones we’ve all taken for granted for generations including exclusivity, permanence and monogamy?”

Where will it end? Minnery had the good sense to stop short of the “children and animals” argument, but you know his fingers were twitching… And he didn’t say three husbands for one wife, because … well, that would just be silly. Once something changes, it all goes to hell. I mean once slavery was abolished, who ELSE wanted freedom and rights? Horses and cows! And once you give women the right to vote, you may as well give it to toddlers or dead people, or let people vote as many times as they want!  As soon as the government didn’t stop you from marrying someone of a different race, God woke up and just started smiting stuff. Remember?

And don’t forget that lifetime monogamous marriage for everybody, like we have now, will crumble.

“Ultimately, marriage laws have never been about validating romantic relationships. You don’t need a marriage license to be emotionally involved with another person. The purpose of marriage is to ensure the right of children to a relationship with their mother and father. That, in turn, encourages stability and responsibility between mom, dad, and children so that the family endures through time. The government has been in the marriage business because the sexual act that unites a man and a woman also creates new life, and the government needs to make sure that that new life is reared to maturity responsibly and in the best possible environment. The rights of children to have a mom and dad should always trump the rights of individuals to have their emotional relationships affirmed.”

So, listen up all of you who can’t have children, don’t want children, have had a vasectomy or tubal ligation, if you have reached menopause, or have ED –  you have no business being married. The tax breaks and legal rights that go along with marriage are not for you. But feel free to fornicate out of wedlock to your heart’s content. You have Mr. Minnery’s blessing. Also, if you are in an abusive relationship, or desperately unhappy, or suffering in some awful way in your marriage and you want out, remember you MUST stay together for the children because the government says so, and this is way more important than your silly emotional wellbeing.

“Governor Parnell, in a prepared statement, said he would “defend our constitution” and that he would appeal the Burgess decision. When that might end up at the U.S. Supreme Court is anyone’s guess but there can be no doubt that this was a subversion of the democratic process. Who is the true owner of our state constitution ? Is it the people of Alaska or unelected men and women who happen to wear black robes? If it’s the latter, then the idea that we live in a representative democracy is nothing more than wishful thinking.”

Somewhere out there, whoever taught Jim Minnery’s civics and government class just shuddered, and wasn’t sure why. Since he was obviously a-snooze, or sick that day, let’s review how this goes.

First of all, the United States relies on representative democracy, but is in fact a Constitutional Republic. So it’s a little more complicated than majority rule. Basically in this case what it means is that you can’t vote on a right. If people voted to take your right to bear arms away, it wouldn’t be legal under the Constitution. If they voted to take your vote away, it wouldn’t be legal under the Constitution. And if they voted to take away your freedom of religion… you get the idea. So, no matter what people voted, they can’t take away someone’s right to get legally married. The federal court has spoken on this based on Equal Protection AND Due Process, both in the Constitution.

And there is nothing that Alaska, or any state, can do to change this.

Come with me.

I point a bony finger toward a bullet-proof, temperature-controlled case in the National Archives in Washington D.C., wherein can be found a faded but still legible document called The Constitution of the United States. Please note Article Six, Clause 2, also known as The Supremacy Clause. Please pay attention this time, Mr. Minnery. Eyes front. Spit out the gum. Thank you.

When they were making the country, they used the Constitution to establish the rules. And one of these rules, says the Constitution, is that federal statutes are”the supreme law of the land”.

adjective

1. (of authority or an office, or someone holding it) superior to all others.
“a unified force with a supreme commander”
synonyms: highest-ranking, chief, head, top, foremost, principal, superior, premier, first, prime, greatest, dominant, predominant, predominate.

noun

1. a rich cream sauce.

While, no doubt, Mr. Minnery would prefer a rich cream sauce at the moment, sadly what this means for him is that federal laws are the highest (supreme) laws in the United States legal system. And it means that state judges must follow federal law when a conflict arises between it, and a state law, or the state constitution of any state. Even Alaska.

And everyone agreed to this, and signed their name right at the bottom of the Constitution. See? And every state that joined the country after that time had to agree that it would follow the rules. Are you tracking?

Just for good measure, let’s hear  from those bad boys of the Constitution Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison, who wrote (with John Jay) these things called The Federalist Papers. These three were big fans of the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers tell us all the reasons the Constitution was (and still is) a good idea:

In Federalist No. 33, Alexander Hamilton argues that the Supremacy Clause is simply an assurance that the government’s powers can be properly executed, saying that a law itself implies supremacy, and without supremacy it would amount to nothing.

In Federalist No. 44, James Madison similarly defends the Supremacy Clause as vital to the functioning of the nation. He noted that state legislatures were invested with all powers not specifically defined in the constitution, but also said that having the federal government subservient to various state constitutions would be an inversion of the principles of government, concluding that if supremacy were not established “it would have seen the authority of the whole society everywhere subordinate to the authority of the parts; it would have seen a monster, in which the head was under the direction of the members”.

In other words, Jim, if you’re going to have a government, you have to have rules for it to work. And everyone has to agree on the basic, supreme rules, otherwise it’s total chaos and the whole legal system will fall apart. You can’t have states trumping the federal government, or it just doesn’t work. Let me put this in terms you might understand. It would be like the apostles saying to Jesus, “I don’t want to love my brother like myself. Screw that guy,” and then getting all stompy and bent out of shape, and sending out ridiculous ignorant emails to all their friends when they were told it doesn’t work that way.

“Despite our disappointment with the Burgess ruling, Christ is still on the throne.”

And until such time as another group of people gets together in Philadelphia to shred the Constitution and decide we ought to have a theocracy, you’re just not going to get your way on this one. But I note that you include a link there at the end so people can donate money to your cloud yelling. I’m sure Jesus would totally do that.

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