Slashdot Mirror
Supreme Court Overturns Defense of Marriage Act
12 U.S. states have adopted same-sex marriage over the past decade, and many other states have adopted legislation specifically intended to prevent same-sex marriages from being performed or recognized within their borders. The landscape has just changed on that front, though: the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which barred federal recognition of same-sex marriages, has been ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court; here's the ruling itself. From the NBC News version of the story:
"The decision was 5-4, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy.
“'DOMA instructs all federal officials, and indeed all persons with whom same-sex couples interact, including their own children, that their marriage is less worthy than the marriages of others,' the ruling said. 'The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and to injure those whom the State, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity.'"
One major area this affects is tax law; that's one of the salient points in U.S. v. Windsor, the case that drove the court's conclusion. There's more on the story at many major news outlets, and at law-centric sources like SCOTUSblog. The Boston Globe is also live blogging various reactions.
Update: 06/26 16:58 GMT by T : In a separate decision, the court disappointed supporters of California's Proposition 8, a law passed by voter initiative, under which "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." The court ruled that the private parties which had taken up the Prop 8 banner did not have standing to do so; as the story says, "The 5-4 decision avoids, for now, a sweeping conclusion on whether same-sex marriage is a constitutional "equal protection" right that would apply to all states."
Update: 06/26 16:58 GMT by T : In a separate decision, the court disappointed supporters of California's Proposition 8, a law passed by voter initiative, under which "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." The court ruled that the private parties which had taken up the Prop 8 banner did not have standing to do so; as the story says, "The 5-4 decision avoids, for now, a sweeping conclusion on whether same-sex marriage is a constitutional "equal protection" right that would apply to all states."
Will the republicans finally pull the jesus buttplug out of their ass and start being conservatives and start getting rid of all the inheritance bullshit they've built up over the years to protect their vision of what a family is supposed to be?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
At this point, anyone who doubts that Fox News is putting extremely heavy spin and lies into their "news" is just not paying attention. It's an entertainment network, not a news network.
I don't get it. How is saying that this was a victory for gay marriage some sort of twisting the news? It _is_ a victory for gay marriage. That's what the whole thing was about. In fact it sounds like they gave you more info, because what does "DOMA ruled unconstitutional" mean to most people?
A twist would've been FOX saying that the ruling hurts traditional family values. Or that we are all going to die.
If 2 or 3 or 10 consenting adults wish to share their lives, so be it. Beyond the emotional component of marriage, which the government can add no value, the rest should fall under contract law.
Ideally, that's what would happen. But we all know that the states selectively decide this: drivers' licenses are accepted, but firearm permits usually are not. This is especially amusing when you consider that politicians constantly remind us that driving is a privilege, while it's understood by most that keeping and bearing arms is a right (though what this means is subject to whim^H^H^H^H interpretation).
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I believe there is more to it than that.
I for one want the government out of marriage. Let the churches deal with "marriage"
Now having said that. If 2 gay people want to live together and have the same rights that current married couples get, I dont see why that should not be allowed. I also think that if 2 people simply live together they should get the same rights, "love" should never be the deciding factor when it comes to giving tax breaks to people or even worse tax money to people.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Again we see that the Courts are saying that citizen groups do not have standing to support laws placed on the books by their elected officials. Much as Obama refused to defend DOMA, the CA AG and Governor decided not to defend a duly passed statue. This is beyond the pale. IF you don't like a law, get it changed through the process outlined in the Federal and most State Constitutions. This imperial head of state nonsense must end. For the record, I have no objection to the outcome, I just feel there is too much wrong with the way these outcomes are coming about these days. You have no moral standing to complain about FISA, the NSA or the Patriot Act if you defend the way the executive branch in CA and the US acted and the manner SCOTUS came to this ruling.
Rights are given by the government. If marriage gives you extra rights, then the government says what those are.
Rights are given by the government? You need to take a civics class.
Rights are given by the government.
Somebody seems unfamiliar with the basis of the government of the USA. Something about people being endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights. If I remember correctly, the government is not my creator.
Your view on rights is not compatible with the United States.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Rights are PROTECTED by the government, not GIVEN by the government.
It would be straightforward to have "marriage" be separate from "legally joined in the eyes of the state"
Horse shit. You can get married at city hall without involving a church; there is no reason to involve a 'church' at all. Atheists get married all the time, and don't require the blessing of a church. You can get married by a justice of the peace or a ship's captain without ever once invoking god.
There's marriage as a religious institution, and marriage as a legally recognized civil institution. This decision is ruling on the civil aspects of marriage.
The civil institution of marriage confers legal rights to people, and this was basically about denying those same rights to another group of people.
If marriage only affected religious aspects of your life, it would be one thing. But it affects taxes, property rights, and all sorts of things which have nothing whatsoever to do with a church.
So, no, as long as there are rights granted to people on the basis of being married, this is not an issue for the churches. Marriage has long since ceased to be a purely religious institution, and that's what this ruling is addressing.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I also think that if 2 people simply live together they should get the same rights, "love" should never be the deciding factor when it comes to giving tax breaks to people or even worse tax money to people.
Of course, there are plenty of people who are married that aren't in love. I mean, how many May-December romances are actually about love, rather than the May half of the couple getting a ton of cash by the time they're 40 while the December half gets some sex and nursing in their old age? And there are also plenty of couples that are married and remain together solely to prevent the kids from living through a divorce. And in some subcultures in the US there are still arranged marriages. And there are some college friends of mine who weren't in love at all but were legally married because they could get better financial aid that way.
I agree with your basic premise though. What the government should be doing is providing a way to designate any other person as legally a part of your family, for medical decision-making, inheritance, etc, without any assumptions about what the nature of that relationship actually is. For example, my grandmother lived with a long-time friend of hers for about 20 years, and to the best of my knowledge weren't lovers, but that friendship was at least as important to them as their marriages had been.
I am officially gone from
Enumerated - but not granted. Its much akin to how a map lists and acknowledges places, but it doesn't create them.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Because just 50 years ago your black butt would have been shot just for looking at a white woman and most states wouldn't have allowed you to marry her because of the skin tone?
I have an easy way i use to tell if a law smells bigoted, replace the group named in the law with black or Jew and if it sounds like something out of the 1930s? Well then its probably just good old fashioned bigotry.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Harm to society shouldn't trump freedom. If it did, then tobacco, alcohol, gambling, high fructose corn syrup & reality TV would all be banned.
That God doesn't give a shit about my right to file a joint tax return has no bearing on the fact that the United States government doesn't grant rights to the citizenry. That's an inherently un-American way of looking at rights, and while it's an entirely reasonable (that is, internally consistent) worldview to espouse, it's sad to see it expressed by an American. This country was wrested from England's grip at the cost of many lives over this very issue, and I feel that we have failed in our duty to honor these men's sacrifice every time I hear an uneducated American spouting off about the rights they are given by the government. I cite the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence as my reference.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
As an immigrant who came to the US under a K-1 fiance visa, DOMA has always seemed to me to be one of the very worst pieces of active Federal legislation.
Gay citizens have never been able to sponsor their partners for immigration as my now wife did for me. If she happened to be a guy, we would probably be in a different country right now, even though I came here so she could take her dream job. Make no mistake, DOMA was designed to keep gays out of the country. It should never have been made law, and it should have been repealed long ago. It will be a shameful part in the history of the United States.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
What I would like to see is a complete redefinition of what the government recognizes as a civil marriage, by removing the marriage part. Why can't I as a single guy, get the same advantages as a married couple with my roommates on our taxes & other social benefits? Or on the other end, what about those who are in a relationship with more than 1 person(ie polygamy)? Let me define my "family" as I see fit, and leave the government out of it entirely. Because as it stands, even after today, it's not fair.
This must be one of the most misunderstood aspects of rights and the declaration of independence. The authors of the declaration of independence were not ambiguous about what they meant:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
1) There exist certain rights.
2) Their existence is self evident. It is self evident that you are born alive, you are born with the ability to choose, and you are born with the ability to decide the purpose of your choices. The government may become destructive to the ends, but all humans have these "rights" by virtue of our existence. All of these capabilities apply to anyone who is alive and sentient unless they are being purposely interfered with, and they are not necessarily exhaustive.
3) These rights are endows "by our creator". If you are not theist then they are endowed by virtue of your existence; if you were a protestant in 1776 then they were endowed by the grace of God.
4) They are unalienable. Why would we go to war to fight to regain something that is unalienable? We didn't. We fought to obtain government rights for the purpose of stopping the government from interfering with these "self evident" rights.
As others mention, life liberty and property were not rights believed granted by the government. However, other rights are secured in order to prevent the government from interfering with the self evident rights. Your freedom of speech, your right to bear arms, even the nature of the US Constitution as a whitelist of powers for the Federal Government as made explicit by the 9th amendment are not the unalienable "self evident" rights that the declaration was referring to. These are rights that were alienated, required a lot of debate in order to find evidence justifying their existence, and must be fought for to be retained.
A thousand times NO. The word "Marriage" is NOT owned by any religious group. It was first and foremost a civil term. It was incorporated into a religious ceremony until the 1500's in Christian circles. Marriage was known in the bible but largely considered a private matter that didn't involve the church. Why should a civil union surrender to the demands of a religion that is usurping the word Marriage?
I see where the gay marriage ban in California will be overturned because the found that the people didnt have the right to appeal to a lower court. Why did the people do this? Because the AG refused to appeal because he didn't like the gay marriage ban. So what kind of precedent does this set? If the officials of the state don't appeal a ruling then the citizens are pretty much screwed? What kind of crap is that?
true but on the flip side of the coin. when "civil unions rights" were offered in some places to homosexuals, that wasnt "good enough" for them, even though it gave them the exact same rights just under a different word. So its not just the religious who have an issue here.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
The President has a sworn duty to defend the constitution. If the President believes a law in unconstitutional he is required to NOT defend it.
well yes and no. im saying strip the term "marriage" for the legal world and replace it with "civil union" for ALL gay or straight. Leave the word marriage to the churches. or other groups. in other words, make "civil union" the legal definition of marriage as far as the government is concerned. than everyone should be happy. If people still are not happy with that, that just tells me there ar eother motives behind them.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
The Bible says nothing of the sort. The Bible says your wife's servant should sire you an heir if your wife can't. If you wanted to defend a definition of marriage that says one man + one woman, the Bible is that last book I'd use.
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
Wrong. They are inalienable. When the government takes them away, they are overstepping their bounds, and becoming authoritarian despots.
That's how it works in Enlightenment philosophy (almost theology, really) at least, which is the basis of our country's law, and Nature's God.
Read up, bro.
Marriage has about as much to do with christianity as toilet paper does to taking a shit. People were shitting long before it's invent and won't stop when it goes out of style.
If you really want to make concessions we should abolish all marriages and get the church out of the institution entirely.
I got here through a series of tubes
There are natural rights, and civil rights, and political rights and social rights. Some depend on the existence of a state, or on a particular social order.
but, I suppose that you have a particular view of things that you would like to be part of the indoctrination known as "civics class."
I hate the word "rights"...
Where do they come from? They aren't natural, since in a wild state (no government, or enforcement of these rights) they wouldn't exist. Some of them didn't exist throughout much of human history, or only existed selectively to certain populations. I don't accept a concept of a creator, deist or otherwise, so they can't spring from that. Evolution and nature doesn't give a shit about us, or our rights, so it didn't come from there. This leaves one place where they could have come from; us.
Rights are a social construct, they only exist because we believe in them, and take action to enforce them. Rights are very much magic. One could argue that our constitution created said rights via social construct. The act of saying "these are your rights" and people believing it, made them so. If we all decided marriage or access to healthcare was a right, it would be tomorrow. I we all decided that freedom of speech or religion wasn't a right, it wouldn't be.
Also, if they are inalienable, and universal, then why do they only apply to American citizens, and only some sets of them, still, and only in circumstances not deemed special (terrorism)? Why shouldn't an illegal immigrant have the same rights as me, or a foreign national in another country when acted upon by US powers?
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
The Constitution grants the government powers, not rights. Only people have rights. Governments are created by people who grant the government certain limited, well-defined powers over those rights, powers specifically listed, and no others.
The battle over the Bill of Rights was between two factions, one of whom feared the very act of listing some would make future politicians claim those were the only rights. The other faction feared that without it, future politicians would claim those rights, so transparently obvious to the Founding Fathers, did not actually exist.
Sadly, both factions were correct. Modern politicians on both sides claim the right exists if it supports their goals, and claim it doesn't if it gets in the way of their power grabs or pandering.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I disagree with DOMA, and support same sex marriage, but this Supreme Court decision boggles me. "Marriage" from a civil standpoint carries various civil benefits (taxes, etc). The federal government is well within their rights to define it. It has nothing to do with "equal protection". Unless a white male can use "equal protection" to strike down affirmative action laws. Or allow felons to demand voting rights. Or declaring income taxes unconstitutional because everyone doesn't pay the same amount. "Equal protection" is being seriously misconstrued in this case. DOMA may have been shitty legislation, but it was constitutional.
No, they really just want the civil union. One of the biggest complaints is hospitals with "family only" ICU policies, where your mother or spouse can sit with you and hold your hand while you lay dying, but your gay partner would have to wait in the other room. The property laws do simplify things greatly. If trusts weren't nearly outlawed because they were so heavily abused for tax evasion, it wouldn't be so hard to have a joint trust and merge funds that way, but it's hard to merge finances in the way a marriage does. The tax benefits of marriage (the "tax penalty") is just a bonus, because many would still get married if they were in the penalty group, rather than benefit group.
It's not about the money, it's about being able to make the binding commitment to the relationship, and side-stepping the rules that benefit spouses (hospital visits for one, or another is gay partners that lived together for 20+ years and got "married" illegally a number of times are still "not family" when it comes to medical decisions or inheritance, more than one will has been invalidated because a "real" family member objected to a share left to an "illegal" partner, and more than one dying person was recussitated or not against their wishes because the doctors aren't legally allowed to take into account their partner's view of their wishes, when in conflict with another family member's).
Learn to love Alaska