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Supreme Court Ruling Supports Same-Sex Marriage
The U.S. Supreme Court issued Friday a landmark decision, ruling that marriage is a Constitutionally protected right to homosexual as well as heterosexual couples. The New York Times notes that last year, by refusing to hear appeals to decisions favoring same-sex marriage in five states, the court "delivered a tacit victory for gay rights, immediately expanding the number of states with same-sex marriage to 24, along with the District of Columbia, up from 19." (In the time since, several more states have expanded marriage to include gay couples.) Reuters expains a bit of the legal and political history of the movement which led to today's decision, and points out some of the countries around the world which have made similar moves already.
Time? No, it is long overdue. Now it is time for incest.
There is no argument for making acceptance of gay marriage mandatory, that would not also apply to making sex between and marriage of parent and (adult) child or between siblings legal. "Troll" my foot — do try to come up with one...
This is hardly news — and some legal professionals have said so. And the fight for Full Marriage Equality is already ongoing. All over.
Oh, and before you say "Think of the (malformed) children of such unions!" — sorry, that's not enough. First of all, they don't have to have children with each other — like gay couples, they can adopt. Second, most of the existing laws banning incest make no difference between actual close blood-relatives "in laws" — it is equally illegal for a step-father to marry his adopted daughter (Woody Allen got away with it, because he never formally adopted his wife's child).
And third, the courts have ruled for years (here is a "1948 decision for example!), that any concerns for the health of the offspring are not sufficient grounds for denying the right to marry.
Within a generation the term "motherfucker" will become a disparaging sign of bigoted microaggression — which is, of course, much worse than the actual bona-fide aggression it manifests in our parochial times.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I am worried about what this will do to domestic partnerships. There are a lot of people under the insurance and other things of their domestic partners. Does this mean forced marriage?
Yeah, it's a pretty radical decision to state that the equal protection clause should actually provide for equal protection under the law.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
So now we have a right out of thin air that has been left to the states in every form since the founding of our country. The majority in this case have clearly decided that 'progress' should sustain and even override the Constitution. Scalia's dissent is very brute force and blunt ...and rings true. Justice Roberts, on the other hand, seems to be confused. He, along with Scalia in this case basically says, the federal government has no say in an institution that it never conceived or created..etc etc and it should be left to the states - but then yesterday in the ACA ruling he basically is part of the majority that there should be a new right out of thin air based on word games. i.e. What does 'state' actually mean, instead of just abiding by what the Constitution says.
The 14th amendment does talk about equality for all but it doesn't express a fundamental right to marry, even for heterosexuals. In other words, since the states have been handing out marriage certificates, it has never had a legal right to do nor a fundamental religious or natural reason to do so but the states chose to do so to help solidify a taxpayer base that was grounded in strong family units - (i.e. families that stay in the state that shop, live, eat and contribute overall to their communities) and the states recognized that a stable family unit was beneficial (whether you agree or question the motives).
What's to stop three people from wanting to marry? I don't mean to be a conspirator but according to the language that I see there is nothing that can stop it. What about four? How in this world now are we supposed to both protect same sex marriage AND protect the freedom of religion and the ability to practice and act upon our beliefs without being sued? I am waiting now for the first lawsuit to appear about a pastor at a church won't marry Jane and Sally because of the pastors firmly held beliefs and the core doctrine and tenants of the church's faith. I see there is language talking about this balance in the ruling - but that's not going to stop people from getting targeted and sued.
This is the beginning of mish mash of lawsuits that the SCOTUS has brought on all of us. If they can make up rights out of thin air then there's nothing stopping them from doing it again...and again..and scalia calls the court egotistical..with an overreaching hubris...
Today and yesterday really and truly make me afraid of our freedoms moving forward.
Your dissent was entertainingly shrill and dubious.
Seriously! Some of the things he said makes me question whether or not he understands how our government works... and the purpose of the supreme court. A quote from his dissenting opinion:
A system of government that makes the people subordinate to a committee of nine unelected lawyers does not deserve to be called a democracy.
I'm all fine with someone disagreeing with how the supreme court works and how our government is set up, even politicians, but a supreme court justice? Seriously? It's his JOB to sit on that panel of nine people and decide the things that are not otherwise decidable. If he had such an issue with it, why did he decide to be a part of it? He seems happy enough to decide things when they go in his favor...
I'm sure there are plenty of other highly qualified folks that would sit on that panel and spend more time deciding and less time complaining about the system when the decision doesn't go the way they want.
All known cultures? No. For example, right here in America, the original Americans -- specifically, the Native Americans of the Great Plains -- had what you would define as homosexual marriage. From http://plainshumanities.unl.ed...:
See also http://www.sinclair.edu/academ... , which notes that those relationships ranged from promiscuity to stable marriages, depending on the tribe. Among the Crow, for example, physiologically-female berdaches generally married women.
So you see, both acceptance of transgendered individuals and homosexual marriage is a long-standing American tradition.
Koans and fables for the software engineer
And some may consider it judicial correction for failing to follow the legislative action taken on July 9, 1868.
Or, some may consider it judicial activism since the majority opinion talks about marriage being about love and commitment, and two people becoming more than they were before, etc. To many, regardless of one's views or same-sex marriage, it seems that the majority opinion went beyond equal protection under the law.
The GOP should be happy that the supreme court ruled this way. The right's opposition to gay marriage has been one of their biggest obstacles to attracting young voters, but the supreme court has now made sure it's no longer a campaign issue. The more clever candidates on the right will figure out quickly that it's now in their best interest to just shut up about gay marriage and to focus on a part of their platform that's less toxic to young voters.
In their opinion on gay marriage, Roberts issues a dissenting opinion with the following quote:
The internal inconsistencies of the SCOTUS are appalling.
as if someone's religious liberties are being trampled on because they can no longer trample on the actual real liberties of others
religious liberty dimwits: an actual denial of religious liberty by the government would be the government saying you can't go to church
meanwhile, you being unable to decide how other people who are not in your religion live their lives does not mean you have been denied religious liberty
at all, in any way
all the demagogues on the right now whining about religious liberty are either:
1. lying to you and laughing at you to get your support for another agenda
2. proving they are as fucking stupid as you by proving they don't know what the concept means
to believe religious liberty means you have a "right" to deny liberties to others so simply means you don't have a fucking clue what liberty and freedom really means
your "freedom" to oppress others never existed, was never promised by the founding fathers (the establishment clause: separation of state and church pretty much explicitly states that), and has absolutely nothing to do with freedom, except as an example of how fucking stupid people can be in their conception of what actual freedom really is
all that happened today is the government stepped in and *preserved* freedom by denying the "right" of literally oppressive bigots and blind stupid assholes from trampling the freedom and liberty of real americans
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I don't think it is the previous colonial powers if by that you mean Turkey. I think it is more the little jerks calling themselves mullahs and imams that are fearful that the West will finally triumph over Islam via the intertubes which brings in all sorts of radical ideas they cannot stomach.
The interpipes reduce friction. It used to be the mullahs and imams could hide behind Islam and control their societies. Now they can no longer do that and they have unleashed the worst of their kind in Daesh. Daesh has been able to combine Islamic hate for everything not Islamic and Sunni with tribal insecurities of losing the tribes' control of their people.
The muscle behind Daesh is the old Saddam Hussein hacks, at least the Daesh fighters who have run away report this. They run the security apparatus behind Daesh. One doesn't just join Daesh, you have to be vetted by these clowns first.
I don't think Daesh's run is going to be that long. They have the ancient idea that if they scare enough people, they'll be able to impose their will. But with the internet, it is too easy for those who have lost a brother, father, etc. to Daesh to communicate and plot revenge. The same tribal sensitivities they think they are taking advantage of will come back to stab them in the back when they least expect it. If it is one thing the fellows in the mid-east know how to do, it is to carry a grudge for a long, long time.
So, if a majority of say, non-white people voted for a law which said "white folks can now have their property seized", you'd be OK with that? Because it's the will of the people here?
Or are you specifically thinking that the right to pass laws which treat people unequally should entirely be a right reserved for Christians?
What is your specific set of legal criteria in which one group gets to vote on the rights of another? Is it limited purely to sexuality, or will it include race, religion, or gender?
So, the whites could vote to enact slavery again?
You're not arguing for anything other than "it should be my right to vote to deny you a right, but nobody else can do it to me".
If you really think that, then you're missing the whole point. You're not making a principled argument, you're making one based on how special you deem yourself.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
You are completely wrong on the 2000 election. They told the State of Florida that they could not selectively recount the ballots. There was an attempt to recount only in areas that were run by Democrats and therefore through some of the outrageous rules of the recount such as if a ballot counter thought that the Gore chad had been touched by the punching pen when neither chad was punched then the vote was to be counted for Gore. That is Democrat voting; yes, Lyndon Johnson's people fixed the ballot in Texas that got him to the House of Representatives and yes, The Dailey Machine in Chicago fixed the Illinois results that got John Kennedy elected.
The problem with this decision is that the many and several States of the United States are quickly being relegated to only departments of the Federal Government. For you foreigners that comment here please understand that the United States is not as unified governmentally as most of your countries are and the Federal Government is to have limited powers, as delineated in the Constitution of the United States, with all others being given to the States per the 10th amendment of the Constitution . This has crossed the line of that delineation in many, many minds.
All forms of group marriage should be legal as well, as should time limited marriages and any other variants people want to come up with. The governments only legitimate role in marriage is as the enforcer of contracts.
While it had its place in the 18th and 19th century, the Electoral college has long outlived its usefulness. The entire concept of winner-take-all in most states means that only a few key states actually decide our election every time it comes around....until the rules change, that's how the system works whether you like it or not.
I'd like to agree with you, but it depends on the proposed method of election. Given the population distribution and unique division of powers between state and national governments within our nation, I'm not a fan of a direct popular vote for the presidency. I just don't believe it best encapsulates the spirit of our nation. While I would generally support a change over to the Congressional District Method, I am greatly concerned about gerrymandering and its affect on such a proposed alternative solution.
In fact, check out the statistics at the Daily Kos, then do the math. If every state followed the Congressional District Method, Romney would have won the 2012 election...by one electoral vote! Interestingly, Obama would have still won the 2008 election. I wonder what happened between 2008 and 2012 that would have made such a difference...
You seem to be under the impression that there's something morally wrong with possessing drugs.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese