New Amendment on Same-Sex Marriage: Constitutional or Not?

         

            Dated all the way back to the 1700s, same-sex marriage has been a major controversy in society. In recent news, President Barack Obama made a public statement saying that he supported gay marriage. Is this his true belief? This quote from CNN states, “I had hesitated on gay marriage, in part, because I thought civil unions would be sufficient, I was sensitive to the fact that — for a lot of people — that the word marriage is something that provokes very powerful traditions and religious beliefs.” Based on his previous opinions, what made him become such a strong advocate for equal marriage rights? It could have been the actions of North Carolina and their extreme efforts to permanently ban gay marriage. They created an amendment that prohibits same-sex marriage even though there was already a state law restricting it.

            On the contrary, the beliefs of Mitt Romney lead him to strongly support the new amendment that North Carolina has created. Stated in the Huffington Post, Romney believes that marriage should be between only one man and one woman. He relates this back to his religious beliefs by saying, “There is no greater force for good in the nation than Christian conscience in action.” Obama doesn’t necessarily disagree with this statement but when he thinks of including his religious ideals in his decisions as President he takes into account the “values like loving our neighbors, being our brother’s and sister’s keeper and dignity for all,” stated by Obama’s religious outreach spokesman Reverend Derrick Harkins.

            I believe that same-sex couples should have the choice of marriage because as stated in amendment one of the United States Constitution, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble.” When North Carolina passed this amendment, it clearly demotes the equality of the men and women who have a partner of the same sex. In this changing society, gays should have the right to be able to live the same lives as any other American.

Budgets Gone Overboard

The money spent by the candidates during the election course is not only really interesting to me but I find that how much money is spent is a warning sign of how dangerous each of the candidate would be to the Presidency. It’s obviously impossible for the candidates to not spend money because of transportation and other necessary elements to running a campaign. However, when a candidate spends more money than necessary, it makes you wonder how well they would handle money during their 4 years of Presidency.
Newt Gingrich is a perfect representation of the danger I am trying to emphasize. Gingrich stated April 9, 2012 that his campaign is now more than 4.5 million dollars in debt (B). He even asked former Presidential candidate Rick Santorum to help pay off his campaigner debt. The mere fact that he is asking a fellow opponent should be the leading factor of potential danger he would be if he were elected Presidency.
As most people know, Mitt Romney is a big money spender in this election, however he handles the way he spends his money very well. Even though what I’m about is a kind of a contradiction to what I stated in the first paragraph, but if he has the ability to spend a lot of money, AND stay out of debt is an example of how well he could potentially maintain his budget and spending if he was to be elected President. He was even able to spend the money donors had given to help former candidate Tim Pawlenty pay off the $435,000 he owed to consultants and his staffers (A).

 

Resources:

(A): http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-03-30/romney-pawlenty-campaign-debts/54147698/1
(B): http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/08/newt-gingrich-campaign-debt_n_1410784.html