Same-Sex Marriage Amendment, Minnesota's Hoax Referendum

By Roger F. Gay

“An amendment to the Minnesota Constitution is proposed to the people. If the amendment is adopted, a section shall be added to article XIII, to read: Sec. 13. Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Minnesota.”

They just won't stop. The confusion over the same-sex marriage issue is now solidly in place and it will be just as difficult to spread the truth about it as it has been to quash the global warming con. It's a great issue to divide the public and draw emotionally driven people on both sides to the polling booths. It doesn't matter to the political con artists that the proposed referendum is technically, legally, totally irrelevant.

The source of confusion is the pile of misinformation about the cause of the problem and what the problem actually is. The partisan narrative is that same-sex marriage is the product of legislation from the bench. Rogue judges simply woke up one day and decided to change the fundamental nature of a long established institution. The change has been described as allowing same-sex couples to have the same civil rights in marriage as opposite sex couples. Based on this narrative, support of same-sex marriage has even become a derived Libertarian mandate.

If you follow policy development in some detail, you'd probably be immediately suspicious that an “Internet Freedom Bill” is probably designed to impose regulation and restrictions and even extensive taxes on Internet use. If you've read many of my articles, you know that “welfare reform,” heavily marketed as changes to promote (or force) reduction in welfare costs actually caused them to skyrocket, not merely due to increased entitlements, but more so due to increased and unnecessary bureaucracy and cronyism. Political narratives are often designed to manipulate support for the opposite of what is promised or implied.

Same-sex marriage is also a product of that welfare reform. In order to go as far as politicians of the day wanted to go, in economic manipulation and theft, it was necessary to expand the welfare system to completely encompass marriage and family law; an area of law most definitely left Constitutionally to the States and to the People. This new, unconstitutional arrangement was sanctioned by the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in 1993. (P.O.P.S. verses Gardner)

Under federal law, basic Constitutionally derived civil rights vanish. Federal law must fit into the limits of federal authority described in Article I (Section 8) of the Constitution. The federal government was not Constitutionally designed to deal with personal, social issues. The transition of private matters into federal law limits their Constitutional review, against arbitrary government intrusion, to the same level as such issues as taxes, welfare entitlements, and regulation of commerce between the states. They shift from being private and protected as individual rights to en masse public policy that is entirely politically controlled.

Contrary to the partisan narrative, same-sex couples have not been granted the same rights as opposite sex couples had previously. Instead, the rights of traditional marriage were abandoned in favor of arbitrary political control. In fact, the only remaining Constitutional protection is equal treatment. Constitutional review does not consider the detailed logic of a policy, only whether it is uniformly enforced. This sets the stage for a charge of discrimination against same-sex couples. Innate factors are irrelevant. The sole mandate of equal treatment is why so-called “Defense of Marriage” laws or proposed amendments failed to get traction at the federal level. And because such state policy will conflict with federal equal protection, it will fall no matter how it is enacted.

The only referendum that would make sense is one that would remove marriage and family law from federal control and jurisdiction. This would allow marriage to return to its previously established status as a “sacred private institution” with a Constitutional mandate for the greatest protection against arbitrary government intrusion. (What Libertarians and libertarians should support.) Civil rights would be restored and same-sex couples would have then have the opportunity to establish equal traditional marriage rights even if under a different name; such as “civil union”. At present, no one in America has the basic rights of traditional marriage and they would not be restored to anyone by an opposite-sex only policy, even if it could be enforced.