The Same Only different

"If you believe abortion is murder, then by all means you should fight it.  We all should do what we think is right, right?  But in this case it would behoove you to admit that you are making up all these clinic safety rules to fight abortion, and not that you are concerned that people entering the facility might trip over the welcome mat."

First of all, I didn't pass this law. I never even heard about it until you told me. It's possible that, when you say "you", you mean it in the plural sense, as in "youse guys", in which case it's still wrong. I am not presently a card carrying member of any political party. I vote Republican because I disagree with their agenda less than I disagree with the Democrat's agenda. I had no part in setting either of these agendas, I just pick the one I dislike least and vote for the guys who at least pretend to support it. I also had not heard of any abortion clinics closing until you told me. I don't follow the news nearly as closely as you do, so I can't possible know about everything that is featured in it. One reason I like talking to you is that you do indeed know more about some subjects than I do. I am interested in your perspective on things because most of the people I know don't have one. I'm not complaining, I chose this life style and I'm basically happy with it, but it's nice to hear something from the outside world once in awhile. Of course we disagree a lot, but what fun is it talking to someone who agrees with everything you say? You might as well talk to yourself, which I still do, but not nearly as much as I used to before we started communicating.

The reason I brought this abortion thing up was because I noticed a similarity between the way it was passed and the way they are passing this gay marriage thing. Some states had already legalized it, some states had not, and some states had decidedly voted against it. Right in the middle of this, along comes the court and mandates that all the states have to allow it whether they want to or not. You keep referring to these court decisions as "the law of the land". Well, when I went to school, the courts weren't supposed to initiate legislation. The can interpret the law, they can overturn a law if it conflicts with the constitution, but they aren't supposed to make new laws out of nothing like the Federal Reserve makes money out of nothing. The "right" to abortion did not exist on the federal level until the Supreme Court created it. There was reference to "the right of privacy", which is kind of in the constitution, although not in those exact words. The constitution also mentions the "right to life", stating that no one can be deprived of it "without due process of law". The court weaseled around this by declaring than an unborn baby is not alive, which is kind of true in a medical sense. A doctor would say that an unborn fetus is "viable", which means that it has the potential of life, but is not technically alive at the present time. Be that as it may, the Supreme court is not the last word on any law. If they overturn a law, all the legislature has to do is pass another law with slightly different wording, and the process starts all over again. A controversial issue like abortion may never be finally resolved to the point where nobody is interested in pursuing it any further.

The gay marriage issue is the same only different. What's different about it is that all the states have traditionally recognized the marriages performed in another state, even if the other state had different laws about marriage than they did. There is something in the constitution which seems to require them to do this, but it has a loophole or two in it, which is probably why the proponents of gay marriage have not used it as their primary argument. The idea that two people of the same gender could marry each other is a fairly recent development that the Founding Fathers could not reasonably have anticipated, therefore the court will be breaking new ground here. Like the abortion issue, though, some states have already signed on to this and some have not, so it may be that the only place to resolve this is at the federal level. Whatever the feds do, it's not likely that everybody will be pleased with it, so this thing might go on and on forever. Too bad we won't be around to see what twists and turns the issue will take over the next century or so. It took fourscore and seven years to abolish slavery, and another hundred years to fully emancipate the former slaves, and some people still aren't happy with the way that one came out.