LGBT Equality in Schooling Act (Failed)

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This was in response to the whole hiflygate thing. If we think that that act was unconstitutional, as many people do, then I think we're justified in doing this.

Having said that, I'm not too concerned with the method of implementation, so if polnut or someone else were to propose an amendment focusing on the power of the purse, as long as it worked, I'd be fine with that.

I'm offering an amendment

Slot: 11 (PPT Discretion - PPT Administered)

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Has anyone ever, in the history of the world, said this?

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Something I keep on banging on about is the senate has the constitutional power to pass literally anything. Given the way the constitution is worded, what is and is not allowed is subject almost entirely to the whim of the supreme court, because a strong argument can be made for almost any bill that it is justified by the extravagantly long and incredibly expansive list of powers given to the senate.

There's explicitly unconstitutional and there's implicitly unconstitutional, and there are very few things that fall into the the first category (a death penalty, an ex post facto law, that type of thing) and hifly's bill does not. So, what I'm saying is while I personally believe that bill to have been unconstitutional, it's not an utterly slam dunk case that it is, so we should have some form of insurance.

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Yeah. You could also make an argument that the bill is justified by this:

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I think it's possible to make completely logical and watertight cases both for and against the bill being constitutional, and which one the supreme court chooses is just a random cases. Which is a deeper problem with our constitution.

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TNF's amendment is unfriendly.

For one thing, polygamy was not legalised by the federal government affecting every region, so the two aren't comparable.

To answer maxwell, the mideast bill was not explicitly unconstitutional in the way that something like somewhere introducing the death penalty would be. So there is a chance that the supreme court could declare something like it constitutional so it makes sense to have this as a backup.

As for Simfan's rambling response:

Indeed. I am committed to an education system that teaches our children to respect all people despite whatever differences we may have, and if I might paraphrase Dr. King here, to judge people on the contributions of their talents, the intentions of their conscience, and the content of their character.

I too like kittens and oppose the torture of babies.

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The rights of regions are not limitless. If they do something morally wrong, the senate has the duty to intervene. This is one such case.

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I think everyone in the senate is glad Nix is back. Unless you simply wanted to satisfy your enormous ego I'm not sure why you felt the need to quote yourself saying that.

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As for Simfan's rambling response:

Indeed. I am committed to an education system that teaches our children to respect all people despite whatever differences we may have, and if I might paraphrase Dr. King here, to judge people on the contributions of their talents, the intentions of their conscience, and the content of their character.

I too like kittens and oppose the torture of babies.

This was unexpected. I'm not sure how you'd call that "rambling"- if you want to see a "rambling response" of mine I'd hazard this is more what you're looking for.

It wasn't rambling in the sense that it was an enormous wall of text, more that it took you 136 words to say what could have been done in twenty.

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The rights of regions are not limitless. If they do something morally wrong, the senate has the duty to intervene. This is one such case.[/quote]

Indeed, and nor are the powers of the senate. The Senate has a duty insofar as the Constitution permits it. I'm not at all convinced that this is something that the Senate has the power to do, and beyond that, the bill is imprecisely written.[/quote]

The powers of the senate are basically unlimited apart from these:

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The seventh clause allows the senate to compel the regions to do things if they violate the rights of the people or the senate, and those rights are so badly worded that they permit almost anything.

If you want to tighten up the language though, I'd be more than happy to take on board your input.

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I think everyone in the senate is glad Nix is back. Unless you simply wanted to satisfy your enormous ego I'm not sure why you felt the need to quote yourself saying that.[/quote]

Again, this sort of talk is unexpected. Senator Nix- forgive me if I wasn't supposed to disclose this- informed us regional governors of this bill so that we might be aware of it and have the chance to comment. I'm grateful he did that.
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Oh, I have no problem with Nix involving regional governors, in fact it was a laudable action.

I was, on the other hand, baffled by your decision to quote yourself endorsing Nix more than a year ago, as if anyone was interested that you'd done this. Maybe it wasn't the intention, but the last paragraph came across as bigging yourself, rather than Nix, up.

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Unfriendly.

And Nay

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TNF'S unfriendly amendment.

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Nay.

Gay marriage is legal in every region which just isn't true for group marriage.

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Because we haven't finished with it yet?

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Aye