It's true. We're identical to people who are married, which means we can't be.
Don't most states have a marriage law that says something like, "If you really tried to get married honestly, you really are married. Even if the Justice of the Peace was actually an actor hired by MTV."
Remember when "words mean things" was part of the plain-spoken right wing's litany of first principles? Rush Limbaugh came back to that one in the 90s a bunch.
3: I think actually Limbaugh was saying, "words: mean things".
Anyway, I'm guessing that this is the kind of thing that is far more likely to be used by some guy who doesn't want to pay alimony than to achieve a step toward social equality.
In practice, statutes are interpreted so as not to be absolutely ridiculous. This doesn't save every bit of bad phrasing, but something like this a court wouldn't blink at doing what the legislature meant, not what it said. (Where this gets screwy is in laws complicated enough that 'what the legislature meant' is unknown or ambiguous. I mentioned a paper I wrote in law school here once on a provision of the Taft-Hartley Act that was written so badly as to be literally meaningless, and has taken on a life of its own having an effect with nothing at all to do with what Congress actually meant to address.)
I dreamed I saw teo in drag riding a foldie along the Hudson River.
And how do you know what the legislature meant? Huh???
You can't step in the same river once.
10: One two three rivers, the same one, not two, one two-inch step.
I dreamed I saw teo in drag riding a foldie along the Hudson River.
Which means he's now technically married to you in Texas.
6: I agree the statute is likely to be interpreted as you mean, but this doesn't seem to me like a typical case of "statutes are interpreted so as not to be absolutely ridiculous". Banning marriage isn't an absurd or meaningless result, or something the legislature couldn't conceivably have intended. I mean, getting states outside of the marriage business altogether, and having it be purely a religious ceremony, is an idea that's been floated by a number of people as a response to the gay marriage debate--the very debate to which they were admittedly reacting! And while I agree that's not likely what the Texas legislature intended to do here, it is after all what the language plainly says.
You could strike "likely" in the first sentence of 17, and replace it with "certainly". The rest of the comment stands.
Yeah, the standard rule is that you determine legislative intent from the plain meaning of the words. Only if they are ambiguous do you worry about finding extrinsic evidence of intent.
17, 19: Your 'certainly' covers it, I think -- where a court knows exactly what the legislature meant to do, they'll read the law that way if there's any possible way to do it, including a non-literal reading, even if a literal reading is possible.
20: That's the standard rule, but do you honestly have any doubt about what a court would do with this?
And how do you know what the legislature meant? Huh???
In this instance, the ambiguity was raised by opponents of the law at the time, and the law's supporters said that it was not intended to cover "traditional" marriage.
22: What if one of the judges got married after 2005 and wants out without going through the expense of a divorce? The judge could set a precedent.
24: Actually, I could imagine a pro-gay-marriage judge enforcing the law literally to make a point, but I couldn't imagine it not getting overturned on appeal.
getting states outside of the marriage business altogether, and having it be purely a religious ceremony, is an idea that's been floated by a number of people as a response to the gay marriage debate
Floated on this very blog, in fact.
25: The ruling just has to stand long enough that Lurleen thinks his honor is a free agent.
the law's supporters said
All of them??
And besides, surely you know it's not uncommon for politicians to say publicly they're intending for a law to do one thing while privately they have other goals.
That's why you don't try to guess what they meant, you read the text of the bill they passed.
[/Scalia]
I'm thinking of a short story to take in for workshopping:
The Honorable Rufus D. Cletus thought he found true love. Until he saw Lurleen at the Tast-i-Freeze. But if he divorced Brooke, he'd have trouble getting votes from the Baptists and he'd never been able keep-up with Lurleen's love of bass fishing if he had to pay alimony.
nd he'd never been able keep-up with Lurleen's love of bass fishing
So that's what the kids are calling it these days
I really meant for my first comment on this thread to be:
Heebie and Jammies: still living in sin.
Well, if you call that living.
The ruling just has to stand long enough that Lurleen85 thinks his honor is a free agent
32: Such a ruling might turn out to be a jackpot for those Mormon splinter sect dudes in West Texas charged with bigamy.
33: Maybe I'll add that in and turn it into a movie script. I'll call it "Stupid Texas is 10-0, not that I'm bitter."
22: Sure, I am pretty confident you are right. Although, the legislature could probably retroactively amend, right? That would be a lot cleaner than "Well, yes, we have this exceedingly well-established principle of construction, but let's ignore it this time because, c'mon...."
"Your honor, we submit that strict construction is totally gay."
35: This was a constitutional amendment, so I think a binding revision would have to go through referendum.
Although, the legislature could probably retroactively amend, right?
You know, if there's one thing completely absent from our legal system that I'd like to introduce, it'd be some means for the highest court in a state (or the Supreme Court, for Congress) to compel a legislature to clean stuff like this up. There is messy and incomprehensible stuff in statutes all over the place that courts whistle as they skate by, because there's no compulsory mechanism for getting them fixed.
I want there to be a Writ of You Must Make A Decision -- where the court issues an order saying "We can't read this statute. Possibilities for what it means are X and Y. If you mean X, it should be language in this form; Y, language in this form. Pass an amendment to this law clearing it up by next month, and then we'll enforce that."
This won't happen, of course. It's one of my weird little fantasies like abolishing the states.
It's one of my weird little fantasies like abolishing the states.
I think I'm in a commonwealth.
I think I'm in the billiards room with a candlestick.
You know, some day I will notice the low-hanging fruit in my own damn comments before clicking "post."
38: There should be some way that you can hold the drafting of a bill to a specific legislator or legislators. That way, you could at least mock somebody specific over bad drafting.
41: HOW DO YOU EXPECT TO PLAY BILLIARDS WITH A CANDLESTICK?
Speaking of referenda, the last time I voted there was an amazingly inane local ballot item: another item had been passed earlier, and a court had invalidated it for some reason, but it was still on the books, so they needed us to vote again to repeal the inoperative language.
45: That seems relatively useful, and not much extra cost if there was already an election. Doesn't most court-invalidated law just hang out where it was, waiting for someone who missed that court case to trip over it?
47: My friends who already hate the referendum/proposition system on the grounds that we pay representatives to do this work would probably be a little peeved at having to vote to clean up inoperative language that the system had churned out. I'm thinking they'd rather see some other orderly process.
I'm going to adopt LB's fantasy in 38, only with more dancing boys feeding me samosas and grapes.
I'll adopt Megan's fantasy and add beer and kittens.
But not fed to me by the shirtless dancing hunks.
What if I don't want to eat kittens?
You're only as slow as your last pwning.
A lady is only as slow as the gentleman she pwns.
I want a man with a spwn hand.
50: So what are you planning to do with that beer*?
*You call that beer?
Dammit, you all have me pissed off at Martha Wong all over again. At any rate, when the issue came up last time around, a Attorney General Opinion (written by a Republican Attorney General) suggested that the ambiguity of the language wouldn't be an issue. Specifically, "the Texas Supreme Court has explained that, in determining the meaning of a constitutional amendment, courts must be guided by the Legislature's intent. See Beck v. Beck, 841 SW 2d 745, 748 (Tex. 1991). Intent, in turn, is discerned from the "language of the amendment, its legislative history, its purpose and the circumstances of its enactment." He goes on to mutter something about judicial activism.
I do note, though, that the person who brought up the issue again is running for Texas Attorney General, and she certainly has a different opinion than Greg Abbott does on the state of the law in Texas.
I call it the Silver Bullet, and if you don't like it, you must be a werewolf.
He don't pwn you, like I pwn you.
"Most parents would never dream of spending a weekend torturing kittens for fun with their families, but hooking a sea kitten through the mouth and dragging her through the water is the same as hooking a kitten through the mouth and dragging her behind your car," Byrne says.
See Beck v. Beck, 841 SW 2d 745
You know you're Becks style when you start citing double.
Have you heard my new hit, "If U Sea Kittens"?
I see the franchise has expanded from apostropher to apostrophestina. Can apostrophekitten be far behind?
Can apostrophekitten be far behind?
Right behind, hooked in the mouth and being dragged through the thread.
Da doo pwn pwn pwn, da doo pwn pwn.
Speaking of referenda, the last time I voted there was an amazingly inane local ballot item: another item had been passed earlier, and a court had invalidated it for some reason, but it was still on the books, so they needed us to vote again to repeal the inoperative language.
It gets so confusing when voters don't know which option maintains the status quo.
Like all those times in the 90s and 00s that Alabama tried to legalize interracial marriage.
46: My heart on my sleeve, and ribbons in my hair.
Rings on your fingers and bells on your toes?
And a dirndl cut down to the top of the rose.
You really have dirndl fever, Moby. NTTAWWT, I suppose.
71: Hey! Sanctity of off-blog tattoos, Moby!