Absolute Power
By Glen Biegel
The Argumentation of the Supreme Court is wrong and sets a precedent for unlimited Judicial Power:
A Same Sex Committed Domestic Partnerships (SSCDP) is equivalent to marriage in many critical respects.
The marriage amendment prevents SSCDP from becoming a marriage but not from receiving benefits.
These couples would marry if allowed and therefore be eligible for additional benefits if not prevented from doing so by the marriage amendment.
Since the marriage amendment does not address benefits and these couples could be given benefits legislatively or administratively. It is therefore facially discriminatory to pay SSCDP differently than married couples.
Each step is an improper use of judicial authority and lacks any reasonable understanding or recognition of the need for judicial restraint. In brief, the marriage amendment allows our state and city governments to differentiate between married and unmarried people, i.e. to recognize them. If prevents the court from recognizing any other relationship as equivalent to marriage. It prevents the court from ruling that a SSCDP would become married if allowed. This rumination is meaningless due to the constitution. The ruling fails to understand original intent, precedent and ignores legislative intent and enacted legislation to arrive at the ruling they wished.
The Supreme Court Ruling: ACLU vs State of Alaska and Municipality of Anchorage (S-10459), quotes from the text of the ruling:
“This case requires us to determine If it is reasonable to pay public employees who are in committed domestic relationships with same-sex partners less in terms of employee benefits than their coworkers who are married.” Page 3
Many same-sex couples are no doubt just as “truly closely related” and “closely connected” as any married couple, in the sense of providing the same level of love, commitment, and mutual economic and emotional support, as between married couples, and would choose to get married if they were not prohibited by law from doing so. Page 19
There are no references to ‘committed domestic relationships’ or ‘same-sex couples’ in current Alaska Statute. They are constructs exclusively of the Alaska State Courts.
State of Alaska Marriage Amendment states:
Constitution of the State of Alaska, Article 1 Section 25 - Marriage.
To be valid or recognized in this State, a marriage may exist only between one man and one woman.
What is the meaning of ‘recognized in this State’ other than to prevent the citation of a ‘committed domestic relationship with same-sex partners’ in the Supreme Court Case.
Let me illustrate the absurdity of this position with the following unconstitutional law that would be necessary to implement the important revelations of the ruling:
The State of Alaska recognizes same sex partners in committed domestic relationships as being engaged in si-marriage. Si-married couples are recognized as equivalent to married couples in every way except that they shall be called si-married and not married. All rights, benefits and legal status recognized for married couples shall be recognized for si-married couples. All legislation that refers to marriage shall be amended to recognize marriage and si-marriage. All legislation that refers to married couples shall be amended to recognize married and si-married couples. All references in law to spouses or husband and wife shall be amended to recognize si-spouses and si-partners.
Obviously, this legislation would be problematic in regards to the Constitution, but would mirror the ruling.
posted by Don Haase @ 10:48 AM
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