[DRAFT] Repeal Freedom of Marriage Act

[Archeuland and Baughistan]

Drafting Process

---

Repeal "Freedom of Marriage Act"
Proposed by: Archeuland and Baughistan

Description: THE WORLD ASSEMBLY,

UNDERSTANDING that the Freedom of Marriage Act is designed as a one-size-fits-all policy, forcing all nations within this undoubtedly diverse World Assembly to provide marriages to whomever desires it, and ignoring the ethical, social, and religious laws that many nations adhere to that would prevent them from conscientiously proscribing certain types of marriage;

REALIZING that excluding nations of a non-secular nature would, therefore, be discriminatory and unbecoming of the politically, religiously, and morally diverse World Assembly;

UNDERSTANDING that the separation of civil contract and religious rites is a secular construct, and that hundreds of World Assembly nations are theocratic or nominally religious, and therefore cannot feasibly apply to this designation;

REALIZING that while Freedom of Marriage Act increases personal civil liberties, it prevents the governments of nations from determining, within their own moral and ethical structure, as to what is an appropriate marriage and what is not;

RECOGNIZING that the Freedom of Marriage Act does not represent polygamous marriage as well, and essentially defines marriage as monogamous, which, though many nations agree with this, a significant amount of nations have already pledged support for polygamous marriage;

NOTING that the Resolution seems only to apply to 'inheritance and estate rights', and ignoring other aspects of marriage law, such as tax policy, making it essentially meaningless; once again recalling the diverse economic, cultural, and social structures of the World Assembly nations;

NOTING that the WA has ensured, through the Charter of Civil Rights, that legal discrimination against homosexuals is not possible anyway;

NOTING that many nations do not have the practice of marriage within their social structure in the first place;

FURTHER NOTING that many theocratic and/or religious nations who oppose universal marriage access are forced to comply with these provisions against the moral consciences of their leaders and people;

RESPECTING the diverse moral culture of the World Assembly nations;

FURTHER RESPECTING the freedom and ability of World Assembly nations to define marriage according to their own precepts;

FURTHERMORE STATING that this Resolution shall not be construed as an invasion on personal rights, but rather a determination to entrust marriage not to the individual alone, but to the nations as a whole, who shall, within their own good conscience, determine marriage as they see it, not as the majority-vote of the World Assembly saw it in the Freedom of Marriage Act;

RECALLING the history of the World Assembly's respect for national sovereignty over even the most controversial ideological issues (such as execution of minorities). This in mind;

DECIDING that nations have the authority and reason to determine marriage as they see fit, just as they have been given freedom to determine the legality of slavery and other controversial issues.

HEREBY repeals the Freedom of Marriage Act.

[Separatist Peoples]

"Wow. Illegal for attempting to legislate in a repeal, a category violation, and it reads like one big NatSov argument. I also doubt many in the Assembly want to see the WA allow discrimination against homosexuals."

[The Dark Star Republic]

OOC:

RECALLING the history of the World Assembly's respect for national sovereignty over even the most controversial ideological issues (such as slavery or execution of minorities). This in mind;

What are you talking about? The WA has completely banned slavery.

Couple of legality pointers. First, repeals aren't filed in a category (Human Rights or Moral Decency): they're just repeals.

Second, your repeal text is very likely illegal for concentrating too heavily on National Sovereignty as an argument (whether it actually is illegal is impossible to say; that particular proposal rule is too opaque for players to give you much advice); and for legislating within a repeal with your final line (all a repeal can do is strike out the original resolution, not create any new law). Both are fixable issues.

[Archeuland and Baughistan]

OOC:

RECALLING the history of the World Assembly's respect for national sovereignty over even the most controversial ideological issues (such as slavery or execution of minorities). This in mind;

What are you talking about? The WA has completely banned slavery.

Couple of legality pointers. First, repeals aren't filed in a category (Human Rights or Moral Decency): they're just repeals.

Second, your repeal text is very likely illegal for concentrating too heavily on National Sovereignty as an argument (whether it actually is illegal is impossible to say; that particular proposal rule is too opaque for players to give you much advice); and for legislating within a repeal with your final line (all a repeal can do is strike out the original resolution, not create any new law). Both are fixable issues.

Noted, I will modify, but what do you specifically propose towards making the proposal legal?

[Archeuland and Baughistan]

"Wow. Illegal for attempting to legislate in a repeal, a category violation, and it reads like one big NatSov argument. I also doubt many in the Assembly want to see the WA allow discrimination against homosexuals."

"While Archeuland and Baughistan is new to the Assembly, sir, we took that into consideration when our ambassadorial council submitted the proposal. We emphasize the diverse nature of nations within our assembly, and think it best that on an issue as controversial as this, it ought best be left to nations to decide. OF course, this is a matter of national civil rights as well, all things considered. Meaning - if a nation were part of a greater confederation, for instance, it would be obliged the overarching right to enact gay marriage even if it were forbidden by the regional/confederal authorities. Do not we have provisions for freedom of movement as well? That noted, if that is indeed the case, those that wish not to live in a theocratic or religious country that opposes SSM could indeed move to a more tolerant nation should they desire."

[Separatist Peoples]

"Finding a technical argument within the resolution or the resolutions effects to merit a repeal."

[The Dark Star Republic]

OOC: Strike the final line. In fact, strike the entire final section ("Hereby enacts...") and just change it to a boilerplate: "Hereby repeals Resolution Freedom of Marriage Act" or similar.

On the NatSov-only problem, it's more difficult to advise because we can't necessarily anticipate how moderators will rule, but you need to include more arguments that directly criticise the original resolution rather than making a plea to national sovereignty. Some suggestions might be:

• the resolution doesn't recognise polygamous marriage
• the resolution's definition of marriage only seems to apply to "estate and inheritance" rights, and not other aspects of marriage law such as tax policy, making it pretty meaningless
• the WA has ensured, through The Charter of Civil Rights, that legal discrimination against homosexuals is not possible anyway

[West Angola]

(a) This resolution completely repeals, and does not in any way illegally attempt to amend, the Freedom of Marriage Act.

Regardless of the above clause, this:

(b) This resolution shall act as an official World Assembly declaration of respect for sovereign nations to define marriage as they see fit.

I believe, would still be construed as legislating within a repeal, as it reads like a blocker.

[Archeuland and Baughistan]

OOC: Strike the final line. In fact, strike the entire final section ("Hereby enacts...") and just change it to a boilerplate: "Hereby repeals Resolution Freedom of Marriage Act" or similar.

On the NatSov-only problem, it's more difficult to advise because we can't necessarily anticipate how moderators will rule, but you need to include more arguments that directly criticise the original resolution rather than making a plea to national sovereignty. Some suggestions might be:

• the resolution doesn't recognise polygamous marriage
• the resolution's definition of marriage only seems to apply to "estate and inheritance" rights, and not other aspects of marriage law such as tax policy, making it pretty meaningless
• the WA has ensured, through The Charter of Civil Rights, that legal discrimination against homosexuals is not possible anyway

OOC: Thank you very much, I'm going to add all that in right now.

[Archeuland and Baughistan]

OOC: Strike the final line. In fact, strike the entire final section ("Hereby enacts...") and just change it to a boilerplate: "Hereby repeals Resolution Freedom of Marriage Act" or similar.

On the NatSov-only problem, it's more difficult to advise because we can't necessarily anticipate how moderators will rule, but you need to include more arguments that directly criticise the original resolution rather than making a plea to national sovereignty. Some suggestions might be:

• the resolution doesn't recognise polygamous marriage
• the resolution's definition of marriage only seems to apply to "estate and inheritance" rights, and not other aspects of marriage law such as tax policy, making it pretty meaningless
• the WA has ensured, through The Charter of Civil Rights, that legal discrimination against homosexuals is not possible anyway

OOC: Would you mind reviewing the draft again now? I've taken your suggestions into account. Now I'm going o work on the other bits (like the character limit, which is 3000 I believe?).

[Archeuland and Baughistan]

OOC: It appears to be 3131 characters according to a calculator I just used.

[The Dark Star Republic]

OOC: FYI, the character limit is 3500, +/- a few depending on formatting.

I want to be clear: I'm just a player. I can't give you an official sanction on whether your repeal is legal or not. In my opinion, it's likely that it is still too focused on national sovereignty, but this is one of the rules - unlike the legislating in a repeal one, which is usually pretty clear and which you seem to have resolved :) - that relies to a great extent on mod discretion. Repeals of this particular resolution frequently get dinged on this violation so there's a fair amount of precedent.

And the thing is, it's kind of pointless to devote so much of the argument to national sovereignty anyway. Politically, you would expect sovereigntists to vote for a repeal of this resolution (though "Modern NatSovs" have some unusual predilections) anyway. The people you need to convince are those in the middle, and the best way to do to that is to technically critique the original resolution rather than droning on and on and on about sovereignty and national rights and such.

[Grays Harbor]

In your draft you state that nations are free to determine if they have slavery or not. Try again, Resolution 23 says otherwise.

As for the rest of the draft we see no compelling reason to repeal.

[Archeuland and Baughistan]

OOC: FYI, the character limit is 3500, +/- a few depending on formatting.

I want to be clear: I'm just a player. I can't give you an official sanction on whether your repeal is legal or not. In my opinion, it's likely that it is still too focused on national sovereignty, but this is one of the rules - unlike the legislating in a repeal one, which is usually pretty clear and which you seem to have resolved - that relies to a great extent on mod discretion. Repeals of this particular resolution frequently get dinged on this violation so there's a fair amount of precedent.

And the thing is, it's kind of pointless to devote so much of the argument to national sovereignty anyway. Politically, you would expect sovereigntists to vote for a repeal of this resolution (though "Modern NatSovs" have some unusual predilections) anyway. The people you need to convince are those in the middle, and the best way to do to that is to technically critique the original resolution rather than droning on and on and on about sovereignty and national rights and such.

OOC: I'm assuming there are other portions of the repeal that you think should go as well. Which ones do you propose?

[Archeuland and Baughistan]

In your draft you state that nations are free to determine if they have slavery or not. Try again, Resolution 23 says otherwise.

As for the rest of the draft we see no compelling reason to repeal.

Yes, I know, I updated it a few minutes ago when I found out about it.

[Lumeau]

I just wanted to pop in and say this has no hope of passing. FoMA passed 56-44 six years ago, and I strongly suspect support for it now is even higher.

While I don't see how marriage rights are an international issue, same-sex marriages aren't exactly prohibiting the religious members of more conservative member-states from participating in traditional, heterosexual marriages. FoMA places restrictions on the state, not on conservative religious individuals, and as such we see no reason to repeal the Act.

Opposed.

[Divitaen]

I resent the attempt at making this some form of national sovereignty issue. The fact is that sovereignty ends were basic human rights begin. I don't want to be part of an organization that legitimises and condones discrimination and state-sponsored relegation of homosexuals to second-class citizenry. Locking them out of the long-term committment of marriage is an abomination and I certainly hope this Act does not pass.

[Hirota]

Is there an app out there that generates NatSov sulking repeals? Cos this one appears to have been ran through it five or six dozen times.

Take out all the NatSov nonsense, and you've got one argument about some nations cannot apply the laws (spoiler alert: they can and they do), some reasonable arguments given to you about polygamous marriage and estate law ruined by yet more bleating about NatSov, some legislation in a repeal, and not much else.

At least it didn't fall foul of spellcheck.

[The Dark Star Republic]

OOC: The resistance to repealing FoMA is a little disappointing. But I also think it demonstrates how coming on strong with the NatSov/religious morality line is really not tactically sound.

Also, I forgot another redundancy: the WA has already prevented discrimination in (intercountry) adoption (Child Welfare in Adoption), so that's another buttress against anti-gay legal discrimination that will be in place even if this is repealed.

[Bananaistan]

I would approach any repeal attempt with an open mind and assess it each on its own merits, even a repeal of something like FOMA, which I see as fundamentally sound. Unfortunately there is nothing argued here that would change my opinion. If someone came up with a serious flaw I would fully support it.

[Archeuland and Baughistan]

"I should have expected this from the beginning," commented the Archeuland ambassador. "It's clear that there is no respect for Christian values in this assembly..."

[Defwa]

"I should have expected this from the beginning," commented the Archeuland ambassador. "It's clear that there is no respect for Christian values in this assembly..."

Angela takes the podium with an MP3 player.
"I present you with the sound of all the people that care."

She presses play and the assembly enjoys two minutes and thirty four seconds of silence.

[The Arctic Kingdom]

LOLnope

[Archeuland and Baughistan]

"I should have expected this from the beginning," commented the Archeuland ambassador. "It's clear that there is no respect for Christian values in this assembly..."

Angela takes the podium with an MP3 player.
"I present you with the sound of all the people that care."

She presses play and the assembly enjoys two minutes and thirty four seconds of silence.

"An obvious attack on Christianity by WA pontiffs," murmured the ambassador.

[SuperFruitland]

The FruitLandian ambassador stands up. "A repeal of civil rights, when based upon a religious motive, is not acceptable for all nations that do not happen to be theistic."