Desperate Houseflies: The Magazine

Feel free to pull out your trusty fly swatter and comment on what is posted here, realizing that this odd collection of writers may prove as difficult to kill as houseflies and are presumably just as pesky. “Desperate Houseflies” is a magazine that intends to publish weekly articles on subjects such as politics, literature, history, sports, photography, religion, and no telling what else. We’ll see what happens.

Monday, November 06, 2006

And Speaking of Amendments ...

I had no idea until today that Virginia has a truly frightening, draconian one on the ballot tomorrow. What is the world coming to?

14 Comments:

Blogger Michael Lasley said...

Any idea if this ammendment will pass? I don't know enough about the legal stuffs involved, but it is interesting to see a "conservative" judge writing an editorial against it. Says a lot about the ammendment.

9:29 AM  
Blogger Sandi said...

I don't know whether it will pass, I haven't seen any polls. But most such things do because the clueless rubes in the backwoods (sorry to be a cultural elite, but seriously) are so easily conned. It's really unfortunate, because things like this will further polarize the country by making certain states too inhospitable legally for anyone who's not white picket fence material to live there.

10:53 AM  
Blogger Sandi said...

I think that frightening and draconian are the appropriate words, Joe, yes. Limiting domestic violence laws to married couples? That's extreme no matter what side of the gay marriage debate one is on.

10:54 AM  
Blogger Sandi said...

The only poll that I could find in a quick search online, taken on October 25, indicated 37% certain to vote for, 28% certain to vote against, and 35% undecided. This was by Survey USA (not a polling company I'm familiar with).

11:11 AM  
Blogger Michael Lasley said...

Admittedly, this is the first thing I've read about this ammendment, but I don't think I'd call its proponents clueless backwoods rubes.

11:23 AM  
Blogger juvenal_urbino said...

I think the words I would use to describe the amendment might be "cynical" and "mean-spirited." From what I can tell, based on that one article, there's absolutely no need for the amendment from the standpoint of preventing gay marriage. Virginia already has laws on the books to prevent that.

The only purpose in this amendment is to give those who oppose gay marriage another opportunity to say just how much they hate it, and, more importantly, to get an issue on the ballot that will push conservative voters' buttons and bring them to the polls, where they presumably will also vote for the Republican candidates with whom this amendment shares the ballot. It's a "get out the vote" effort.

11:47 AM  
Blogger Terry Austin said...

Clueless rubes almost rhymes with Rubik's Cube.

2:13 PM  
Blogger juvenal_urbino said...

Or "Lula's boobs."

2:18 PM  
Blogger Al Sturgeon said...

Or Shoeless Goobs.

2:23 PM  
Blogger Michael Lasley said...

The potential consequences in no punishment for domestic abusers is a big deal. I really don't have any idea how prevalent domestic abuse is, so I'm not sure how often this would be an issue.

I think I asked this a couple of weeks ago when JU posted about something in South Dakota and suing judges, but could the state S.C. overrule this ammendment, if they so desired? I really should do my homework on constitutions and whathaveyou.

3:00 PM  
Blogger juvenal_urbino said...

I don't see how, Mikey. The state constitution is what the state SC would go by, and since this is an amendment to that constitution, the court would have no constitutional grounds for overturning it (provided there were no irregularities in its passage).

One could bring up the possibility of an unconstitutional constitutional amendment, but I doubt it'd go far.

4:15 PM  
Blogger Michael Lasley said...

Good question, Joe. I don't know. One would think that would be the case. But since domestic abuse occurs on private property...I don't know. Maybe the laws governing this are different than punching someone in public. (I'm serious about that, even though it sounds silly.)

5:34 PM  
Blogger juvenal_urbino said...

That's a good question. Anybody know? Sandi?

Regardless of the answer, ballot measures like this one -- i.e., measures that have a primarily political purpose and haven't been well thought out as law -- tend to have a lot of unintended consequences. I'd bet money this one will, too.

6:26 PM  
Blogger Sandi said...

The article I linked to gave a longer list of potential consequences of the amendment, including invalidating contracts between unmarried couples, wills, and the like. I'm not a criminal lawyer, so I'm not sure of the answer regarding domestic abuse versus assault, but I assume that the domestic abuse law carried with it additional protections, procedures (i.e., restraining orders), methods of proof, etc. that the regular assault law doesn't.

When I use the phrase "clueless rubes," what I mean is that I believe people are being snookered into voting for something that they have no idea about. A lot of people probably don't know the context (i.e., the already-existing laws against gay marriage) or the potential consequences. And I'm sure that's just fine with the amendment's proponents. If people know the truth, they would be less likely to vote for the thing. Some folks will do so anyway, as JU points out. But there are a lot of people with moderate impulses who, if they knew the whole story, would be turned off by how extreme this is.

6:55 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

Locations of visitors to this page