Clinton and Gay Rights

[Spensed]

Not true.

The Full Faith and Credit clause states, "Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records and judicial proceedings of every other state." Marriage has never been held to be covered under the Full Faith and Credit Clause except in so far as particular marriages have been the subject of judicial proceedings in a foreign state. Thus, marriages are not automatically portable under the Full Faith and Credit Clause. Judgments are.

DOMA section 2 says that states do not have to recognize foreign judgments concerning marriages. Thus, DOMA section 2 is susceptible to constitutional challenge.

You left out the part of the Full Faith and Credit Clause, which says, "And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof."

DOMA prescribed, as I originally said, that each individual State be permitted not to recognize same sex marriages and that the Federal Government be prevented from doing so.

Whether DOMA was, or wasn't, constitutionally required or whether it was, or wasn't, open to challenge isn't politically relevant to the fact that it was passed, still remains on the books and was a factor in blocking the Defence of Marriage Constitutional Amendment in 2003 and thereafter.

 

[chuck10x]

Wow, Clinton appoints an AIDS czar and the gay community should be proud?

Gays have AIDS? And blacks like watermelon. And Mexicans are landscapers. And Jews are greedy... blah blah blah.

I'm stunned by your ignorance.
Anyone old enough to remember Reagan's solution?
AIDS kills gays, No more gays, no more AIDS, problem solved.
Bush #1, Got involved because it moved into the straight community.
President Clinton, Tried his damn best, Unfortunately the Christian right wing came into it's power.
You probaly don't remember it as the GAY PLAGUE, Or what happened to people who even looked or sounded gay.
Clinton changed that, He did what he could, as best as he could.
In hindsight it did not look like much, But back then? He WAS tackling the problem.

 

[Spensed]

Precisely. The reason he signed DOMA is that he really does believe in what it says. It was not political expediency.

Yes. I think you're right about this. I was distracted by my rememberance of the flurry of DOMA-like referendums on the 2004 state ballots and forgot about the FMA. Of course, I'm not sure the FMA would have passed anyway. The ERA didn't pass, and I think it probably had greater public support than the FMA.

Clinton's belief that marriage should be between a man and woman may be genuine. He's never retracted it, even after his Presidency. And that belief may have predisposed him to sign DOMA without regard to its political expediency. I just don't see it.

It makes more sense to me that he was trying to get voter support by appearing to protect traditional marriage.

I gather he's never really mentioned DOMA in his writings about his Presidency and presumably he would have touted it at least as a minor achievement, if you're right. But who knows the truth?

It doesn't change the fact that, although I hate DOMA, I understood, perhaps wrongly, why Clinton signed it and that its consequencies weren't bad.

Hopefully, the FMA wouldn't get anywhere with the public, but the argument, that DOMA made it an irrelevant issue, was prevalent each time the FMA failed to get its required congressional majority.

I'm not sure we disagree that much about Clinton's pro-gay record. I'm not arguing that it's as good as it could, or should, have been.

But it is still better than any other President's.

Sad for Hillary that today's news reports suggest she's losing her gays.

 

[construct]

Funny, you left out the part of the Full Faith and Credit Clause, which says, "And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof."

DOMA prescribed, as I originally said, that each individual State be permitted not to recognize same sex marriages and that the Federal Government be prevented from doing so.

Whether DOMA was, or wasn't, constitutionally required or whether it was, or wasn't, open to challenge isn't politically relevant to the fact that it was passed, still remains on the books and was a factor in blocking the Defence of Marriage Constitutional Amendment in 2003 and thereafter.

The passage you quote authorizes Congress to legislate concerning proof of validity of judgments and such like. It really doesn't go to the substantive issue we were discussing, i.e. the portability of marriage. My understanding of your post that I quoted at the beginning of our discussion was that all marriages would be portable under the FFC Clause but for DOMA. The burden of my subsequent posts is that the FFC Clause does not and never did require portability of marriage. That is all.

In my immediately preceeding post I conceded the point about DOMA's political usefulness in opposing the FMA.

 

[seamusnewwest]

So what would have had in place of Don't ask, Don't tell. Being in the military and being gay it did serve its purchase. Now it stop you from the possibility of being discharged, what it did do was stop you from being allowed in if they thought you were gay. It also prevented you from having a harsher punishment if you they found out, and couldn't use "You lied on your admission form."

Hey, you're back! I didn't realize he accused me of rewriting history until I saw your post. Too bad. I did research it. In fact, I am a historian, and we do have standards, even for bar room forums. Would have been good to see something equally well researched to support the other point of view from the poster. Note the nice respectful and thoughtful tone of the more recent dialogue. There's room for difference of opinion in what I described, and I have an interpretation, but that doesn't negate the accuracy of the facts I presented. Look on the internet, you'll see commentators all over the place on this issue, but most modern historians agree that there is a positive Bill Clinton legacy when it comes to gay rights (and AIDS). No historian would say that he was anti-gay, but no historian would resort to speculative attribution of motives and beliefs without evidence. I certainly did not.

 

[Spensed]

The passage you quote authorizes Congress to legislate concerning proof of validity of judgments and such like. It really doesn't go to the substantive issue we were discussing, i.e. the portability of marriage. My understanding of your post that I quoted at the beginning of our discussion was that all marriages would be portable under the FFC Clause but for DOMA. The burden of my subsequent posts is that the FFC Clause does not and never did require portability of marriage. That is all.

In my immediately preceeding post I conceded the point about DOMA's political usefulness in opposing the FMA.

I understand what you're saying.

But the passage I quoted seems relevant to the portability of marriage depending on how you interpret it.

Even if marriage wasn't portable before or without DOMA, can DOMA remove all doubt as to that legislatively or is DOMA superfluous and/or unconstitutional on the issue? I don't think that's been adjudicated?

My point is that, for all political and practical purposes, DOMA set the position in stone until it gets changed or stuck down and that its consequencies, as part of Bill Clinton's legacy, weren't all bad.

Your assessment is much more critical of him. Hence, you're predisposed to see DOMA as something that he didn't need but reached for to slap gays in face.

I still don't understand what his reasons for doing that would have been. But, be that as it may.

 

[Lostlover]

That is possibly the most insulting post I've ever seen on this forum. How dare you?

I have chastised you repeatedly on this forum for your childish name calling and repeated ageist remarks. I've questioned your so-called "support" of issues and you've never once responded or verified your commitment or sacrifice for that "support".

I stopped bothering to comment on your posts some weeks ago because you clearly haven't the moral fibre or the maturity to rationalize your own juvenile comments.

But I can't help but comment now.

I am lucky young enough that I was not touched directly by AIDS, but I have many friends who were. Can you imagine watching your friends become sick and die, watching your partner or lover become sick, covered in lesions, unable to eat, unable to clean himself, become emaciated and eventually die, in your arms, or alone in a hospital? Not just one friend. Not two. But many.

Now imagine that, on top of this horror, the public has turned against you. People are demonstrating outside your partner's hospital, asking to have you taken away, quarantined. You leave the hospital to go home and collect clean pajamas for your lover, and demonstrators throw eggs at you, jeer at you, tell you you're an AIDS carrying homo.

Medical insurance fails to recognize your illness, or fails to cover you because you didn't disclose you were gay. The hospital denies you visiting rights to your lover near the end because you're "not family".

These are not fairy tales. This happened. People experienced these things. And they stood up and demanded change, they went to court, fought officials, cut through red tape. They made real sacrifices so that you and I can live the more comfortable, more accepted lives we live today. People rallied and demonstrated to have research into treatments.

It's easy to lean back with the knowledge we have today and sneer at the people of yesterday. But people fought hard for that knowledge, demanded change from our governments, pushed and rallied for visibility and acceptance.

"But don't connect me liking dick with me having AIDS."

????

Grow up. You're gay. You are in the highest risk category of HIV infection, even if you use protection. More gay people contract HIV and AIDS in your country than any other group.

Many wonderful people died before AIDS was understood. Many more fought and suffered to push the public messages of protection and safety that you and I take for granted because we grew up with them.

Your dismissive, uninformed post is an insult to the people on this forum who survived a terrible, horrific era in gay history, and to those who enabled the knowledge that you now possess in order to live happily and healthily. Your insensitivity knows no bounds.

These are your experiences. They're not mine. Today people, all people, get AIDS. Not just gays. It isn't a gay disease anymore. Maybe in the 80's but not now.

Your generation might be resigned to getting AIDS and living with it.

But I am not. I don't think many young people are.

In America, we have morons under the cloak of religion practiced bigoted speech and hate against gays linking them to AIDS. You co-signing on the gays/AIDS link just backs their nonsense.

How dare you!

For the Clintonites, I REJECT and DENOUNCE all associations of gays and AIDS.

 

[Lostlover]

I don't see that anyone's saying you have AIDS.

But your liking dick has an obvious connection with the possibility of your having AIDS, if you don't play safe.

So it's foolish to be in denial about the connection.

Whether I like dick or pussy or whatever doesn't mean I have AIDS. Everyone needs to "play" safe. That includes heterosexuals, not just homosexuals.

That's my points.

And Asians are nerdy. And blacks can dance. And Mexican men are cheaters. blah blah blah

 

[Lostlover]

I'm stunned by your ignorance.
Anyone old enough to remember Reagan's solution?
AIDS kills gays, No more gays, no more AIDS, problem solved.
Bush #1, Got involved because it moved into the straight community.
President Clinton, Tried his damn best, Unfortunately the Christian right wing came into it's power.
You probaly don't remember it as the GAY PLAGUE, Or what happened to people who even looked or sounded gay.
Clinton changed that, He did what he could, as best as he could.
In hindsight it did not look like much, But back then? He WAS tackling the problem.

Reagan was president when I was in diapers.

Reagan didn't even know his name the last few years of his life. I don't give a sh!t what he thinks of me liking dick.

 

[construct]

I understand what you're saying.

But the passage I quoted seems relevant to the portability of marriage depending on how you interpret it.

Even if marriage wasn't portable before or without DOMA, can DOMA remove all doubt as to that legislatively or is DOMA superfluous and/or unconstitutional on the issue? I don't think that's been adjudicated?

My point is that, for all political and practical purposes, DOMA set the position in stone until it gets changed or stuck down and that its consequencies, as part of Bill Clinton's legacy, weren't all bad.

Your assessment is much more critical of him. Hence, you're predisposed to see DOMA as something that he didn't need but reached for to slap gays in face.

I still don't understand what his reasons for doing that would have been. But, be that as it may.

Actually, my assessment of Pres. Clinton on gay issues is fairly positive. I take into account his Supreme Court nominations, his staff appointments and other factors not mentioned in the original post. In fact, I believe that our community got so used to being pleased with him that when he made compromises we tended to overreact. Those compromises then became just about all we talk about--DADT (blah, blah, blah), DOMA (blah, blah, blah). Frankly, I get a little tired of the complaints, too. I believe you were right that our assessments of Clinton are really very close indeed.

As for whether DOMA is unconstitutional or superfluous on the issue of portability--There may be a Florida appellate level decision declaring DOMA constitutional. I'm not certain. If there is, I believe it is wrong to the extent DOMA purports to declare judgments to be non-portable for the reasons I outlined above. Section 2 of DOMA is otherwise constitutional but superfluous. Section 3 of DOMA is arguably constitutional but bad. (Section 1 of DOMA merely states the popular name of the bill.)

 

[chuck10x]

Reagan was president when I was in diapers.

Reagan didn't even know his name the last few years of his life. I don't give a sh!t what he thinks of me liking dick.

Please accept my apology,
I just thought that your being more highly educated, You would understand what the gay community had to endure under Reagan in regards to AIDS.
President Clinton tried, We have had slow gains in Rights, but they were gains, not losses.
You may not give a sh!t, BUT, Others do.
P.S. I didn't ask what Reagan thought about your dick.

 

[Spensed]

Actually, my assessment of Pres. Clinton on gay issues is fairly positive. I take into account his Supreme Court nominations, his staff appointments and other factors not mentioned in the original post. In fact, I believe that our community got so used to being pleased with him that when he made compromises we tended to overreact. Those compromises then became just about all we talk about--DADT (blah, blah, blah), DOMA (blah, blah, blah). Frankly, I get a little tired of the complaints, too. I believe you were right that our assessments of Clinton are really very close indeed.

As for whether DOMA is unconstitutional or superfluous on the issue of portability--There may be a Florida appellate level decision declaring DOMA constitutional. I'm not certain. If there is, I believe it is wrong to the extent DOMA purports to declare judgments to be non-portable for the reasons I outlined above. Section 2 of DOMA is otherwise constitutional but superfluous. Section 3 of DOMA is arguably constitutional but bad. (Section 1 of DOMA merely states the popular name of the bill.)

OK. Happy to defer to your greater Constituational knowledge.

 

[Spensed]

Whether I like dick or pussy or whatever doesn't mean I have AIDS. Everyone needs to "play" safe. That includes heterosexuals, not just homosexuals.

That's my points.

And Asians are nerdy. And blacks can dance. And Mexican men are cheaters. blah blah blah

It doesn't sound as thought your command of English is that good.

To repeat, no one's saying you have AIDS.

But, the risk of exposure to AIDS is higher for gay guys than for straights.

And it's foolish to pretend that associating gay men with AIDS is just another meaningless stereotype.