Cato Institute : FMA "Unnecessary, Anti-Federalist, and Anti-Democratic"

[Shrek]

Normally a right-wing organization but their policy analysis echoes a lot of the sentiments expressed around here lately.

The Federal Marriage Amendment: Unnecessary, Anti-Federalist, and Anti-Democratic

(SNIP)

There are four main arguments against the FMA. First, a constitutional amendment is unnecessary because federal and state laws, combined with the present state of the relevant constitutional doctrines, already make court-ordered nationwide same-sex marriage unlikely for the foreseeable future. An amendment banning same-sex marriage is a solution in search of a problem.

Second, a constitutional amendment defining marriage would be a radical intrusion on the nation's founding commitment to federalism in an area traditionally reserved for state regulation, family law. There has been no showing that federalism has been unworkable in the area of family law.

Third, a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage would be an unprecedented form of amendment, cutting short an ongoing national debate over what privileges and benefits, if any, ought to be conferred on same-sex couples and preventing democratic processes from recognizing more individual rights.

Fourth, the amendment as proposed is constitutional overkill that reaches well beyond the stated concerns of its proponents, foreclosing not just courts but also state legislatures from recognizing same-sex marriages and perhaps other forms of legal support for same-sex relationships. Whatever one thinks of same-sex marriage as a matter of policy, no person who cares about our Constitution and public policy should support this unnecessary, radical, unprecedented, and overly broad departure from the nation's traditions and history.

Complete document at link.

[Finder]

1. More libertarian than right wing. n/t

[bryant69]

2. Yeah - their writing against the Iraq war was quite good

in some cases.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Finder]

10. Most mistakingly think they were for it...

Here was a policy paper they put out prior to the invasion.

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-464es.html

Cato Policy Analysis No. 464 December 17, 2002

Why the United States Should Not
Attack Iraq
by Ivan Eland and Bernard Gourley

Ivan Eland is director of defense policy studies at the Cato Institute. Bernard Gourley is an independent foreign policy analyst.

[MallRat]

3. Call it what it is: A tawdry effort to increase GOP turnout at the polls.

eom

[Selatius]

4. Cato is a right-libertarian outfit, I believe

On social issues, they have much in common with left libertarianism, but on economic issues, they disagree.

If you want an example of somebody who is more right authoritarian, look at George W. Bush. Corporatists are right authoritarian. They favor government intervention and control if it benefits corporations.

[Ian David]

5. So THAT is what Cato did when he got of O.J.'s couch?

I know... I know... different Cato.

[sendero]

6. While I strenuously disagree....

.. with Libertarian economic policy, I will give CATO credit in that they stick to the Libertarian philosophy consistently whether it is PC or not.

[sutz12]

7. How about because it is mean spirited and bigoted? nt

[malaise]

8. Thought you wrote FEMA

same conclusion though.
sp.

[kenny blankenship]

9. They missed one which ought to be important to them (as libertarians)

Never before has the Constitution been amended in order to deny to a certain named class of people any right enjoyed by the majority. (Unless you consider the short-lived Prohibtion Amendment to have been discriminatory against drunks) Amending the Constitution has always been, when the proposed amendment touches on civil rights, a tradition of expanding freedom and equality and lessening arbitrary cruelty and discrimination, never a tradition of inflicting discriminatory rank among citizens and denying rights.

Their third argument comes very close to acknowledging how profoundly undemocratic and unprecedented the FMA would be--but stops short of explaining the full pathology of the FMA, by putting emphasis on how the FMA would curtail an ongoing debate, rather than pointing out that Amendments have never been used for an explicitly discriminatory purpose before.