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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.
Its nice to see that there is some social progression being made in a country that has had such rocky times lately. Good luck to all the gay couples that can now be 'equals under the law'.
Bye!
You don't think there's any gay nerds?
First, congrats to all LGBT and to America as a whole.
Second, to Justice Scalia, in Nelson Munt's voice - HAW HAW. Your dissent was entertainingly shrill and dubious.
But I'm already married to my job!
Nerds can be gay too? This is a pretty critical piece of legislature.
I believe it falls under the "stuff that matters" clause. Although I have no doubt Scalia will dissent with that.
Making something out of nothing : MD5 ("") = d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e
A system of government that makes the people to a committee of nine unelected lawyers does not deserve to be called a democracy
Being as he was one of the unelected lawyers who selected our president in 2000, he apparently has no sense of irony.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
It's about damn time.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Legislature would mean from the congress of the people. That isn't this, this is the courts engaging in a judicial decision. Some may consider that judicial activism.
Om, nomnomnom...
This affects me about as much as just about all the other cases decided this year, which is to say not in the least.
Why don't you just say "I really don't care about anyone besides myself" instead of beating around the bush?
Now that we have gay marriage, can we finally get weed legalized?!
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.
And some may consider it judicial correction for failing to follow the legislative action taken on July 9, 1868.
Hardly activism to support the equal protection clause.
A determination of "Water is wet" would be an 8-1 decision by the court with Scalia writing a scathing dissent that forcing the ruling on americans destroys democracy.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
The reality is that for thousands of years and across all known cultures marriage has been defined as a relationship between different sexes.
The reality is that for thousands of years, most known cultures didn't have the word "marriage". They had some other word which may or may not have had precisely the same connotations. Now go forth and read Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe before you climb up on that horse again.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The reality is that for thousands of years and across all known cultures marriage has been defined as a relationship between different sexes. The fact that a majority of a minority culture in the world has chosen to call a cat a dog doesn't make it a dog.
The same reality is that for thousands of years and across all known cultures slavery has been accepted as the normal way of doing things. Are you REALLY going to go for the "heritage and history and tradition" angle?
Their right to be married and your right to be nerdy is the same right. Equality matters to everyone.
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?
Thank you for being so anti-hate. It's unfortunate when people are hateful. Again, thanks for the loving sentiment.
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 it's judicial activism to say that "your discriminatory law is discriminatory and therefore bullshit"?
Because what they've basically said is the religious right doesn't get to define what rights other people have, and that marriage has a civil definition which provides rights and protections which can't be taken away.
So, they can't decide women no longer have the vote. They can't decide black people can be property.
The argument that "we got together and had a vote and you don't get this right" is pretty much garbage.
Honestly, given that everybody is saying "yarg, teh terrorists hate our freedom", to say that it is your religious right to demand someone else doesn't get a right is pure hypocrisy.
If you're going to swap one theocracy for another ... just give up now.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
There is no irony here. None. Florida fucked up its election process to hell and back. The US Constitution provides no mechanism--none--for redoing such an election or extending a presidential election until that state can get its head out of its ass and finish its election.
All they did was decide based on the law when and how to finish the vote tallying and force the state to declare a winner. It was the best decision they could constitutionally make.
You know why you should thank your lucky stars they didn't keep it going until everyone had warm fuzzies? Because then the SCOTUS would have arrogated to itself the power to let a sitting president stay in office beyond his constitutional term or allow a man who is not legally entitled to assume the presidency assume it.
Do you really want to live in a society where the SCOTUS can hold up an election so long that the President has to stay in office illegally or resign and then the VP can assume that office via succession law until the election is all hunky dory to all parties?
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.
Time to un-ask the question - instead: Why do we let the government write these social contracts in the first place? The only roll the government should be to adjudicate the contracts in case of a conflict. People should write their own contracts. And why should being in a private contract give one special rights?
Special rights to special groups is how the government divides the people and enslaves us.
I think anyone that wants to bind themselves with such a contract should be free to. I don't see scrapping the rule of law (this is a state issue at best) as being a good idea. - the ends don't justify the means.
I celebrate freedom - not the end of the rule-of-law.
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.
Time to un-ask the question - instead: Why do we let the government write these social contracts in the first place? The only roll the government should be to adjudicate the contracts in case of a conflict. People should write their own contracts.
Yes that is exactly what is happening here. The government is no longer allowed to step in and stop two people from signing a marriage contract based on their sex.
If "get the government out of the business of regulating contracts" is your goal then you should be celebrating today's ruling.
See, the thing about the religious right is that they firmly believe that God punishes them for your sins. So it's absolutely critical to them that you follow their personal beliefs...
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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
the comments about this on the foxnews site are just crazy. the postings are exploding with rage... its kinda scary.
No, they should expand constitutional rights, like the right to drugs. Reagan was wrong. Drugs are a civil rights issue. The government used to think drugs was a constitutional amendment issue. The court should bring them back to that position. How did they slip out of that one again?
Explain the continued ban on polygamous marriage.
From Fish v. Oregon: "There's nothing in the constitution guaranteeing that water is wet. Therefore, any determination by this body that it is wet is nothing more than hand-waving gobbledy-gook."
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
From the decision:
"They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right." - Justice Kennedy
How do you know you're not projecting? Homosexuals existed in the Founding Fathers' times, in their circles of friends. The writers of the constitution understood that times change and that compromises such as the sanctioning of slavery would eventually be corrected. That they didn't mention homosexual rights as protected does not mean they didn't expect future generations to include homosexuality as a protected right.
I think a thing that matters to everyone (yes, even straight people) matters to nerds.
Here's why this is a big deal for everyone: because excluding people from getting married based on sexual orientation means that the Government, at its own discretion, can create arbitrary groups that it can discriminate against based on any number of grounds, for any reason, so long as enough people or deep enough pockets can lobby for it.
For the Supreme Court to come out and say something is a constitutional right and therefore protected under the law for all people is their way of saying that all individuals deserve an equal amount of dignity. And if something was once denied a person based on social mores, it can be corrected.
This has far-reaching implications, not just for homosexuals, but for the population as a whole.
I'm straight, and I'm breathing a sigh of relief over this.
Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.
Time to un-ask the question - instead: Why do we let the government write these social contracts in the first place? The only roll the government should be to adjudicate the contracts in case of a conflict. People should write their own contracts. And why should being in a private contract give one special rights?
Well, contracts exist only between the parties, right? They're not binding on anyone else. For example, if I sign a contract with my buddy buying your car for a dollar, you don't have to turn it over to me, just because I have a contract, right?
So, let's say you replace the marriage contract between two parties and the state and just have private contracts... Well, what requires a hospital to let you visit someone you signed a contract with in the ICU? What requires the IRS to let you two file taxes together? What requires the prosecution not to call them as a witness to your conduct? What requires the INS to let them come into the country, merely because they signed a contract with you? What requires a veteran's cemetery to let you be buried together if only one of you is a veteran? What prevents the state from taxing you on property when they die? Etc., etc. There are literally over a thousand rights and privileges that attach with marriage and are binding on third parties who never signed any contract.
Why? Because it's valuable to society. Having two people look out for each other drastically reduces expenses.
Prop 8 was of the people, as are all the constitutional amendments passed in many states explicitly defining what marriage is or isn't. Isn't that independence of the people? Who is it that's against independence now?
The 14th Amendment reads in part, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
Note that the only two descriptors of people are "persons" and "citizens." It doesn't talk about white, black, native, asian, gay, straight, or anything else. The only thing that counts is "citizen." So even if your state passed an amendment to its constitution that said black people couldn't drive on Sunday, it would be unconstitutional. This is the same reason the court invalidated laws prohibiting inter-racial marriages in Loving v. Virginia in 1968, a point which seems to have been lost on Justice Thomas.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
How is that any different? We've moved away from biological reproduction and/or religion as a basis for the definition of marriage, so surely any combination must now be accepted, right? Single people shouldn't be left out, told they can't have what others have. Polys as well.
The interesting thing here is that the LGBT crowd now joins traditionalists as being the new majority on this issue and will continue to discriminate against singles and polys just as was done to LGBT for so long. The new minority group doesn't have sufficient numbers to make enough noise for anyone to think they matter and everyone turns a blind eye. Sound familiar?
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.
How is that any different?
How is "more than 2" different from "2"? Are you sure Slashdot is at your speed?
We've moved away from biological reproduction and/or religion as a basis for the definition of marriage, so surely any combination must now be accepted, right? Single people shouldn't be left out, told they can't have what others have. Polys as well.
No, marriage is about property and inheritance rights. It's irrelevant for singles, and it's different for polys since you would need some sort of proportional probate system. Draft that law, and then you can have polygamy. Until then, not yours.
You might want to read some history.
The states have a poor record on the subject of minority rights. Such as slavery. And segregation. And so forth.
You need to read about Westboro Baptist Church. They've already proven the you are wrong. And they did it at the Supreme Court.
Actually, it was legal for him to suck a dick in all 50 states before this, now he it is legal for him to marry that dick as well. Also, some people like to suck dick and get their dick's sucked. Insults should be grounded in things that no one likes to do, like eating the still warm entrails of an Ebola infected skunk while getting a colonoscopy from your daughter. Rule 34 probably negates this observation.
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.
Ummm. No.
Regardless of whether the State -should- be involved in marriage....it already -IS-.
Specifically there are certain legal statuses and protections as well as financial benefits granted to married couples.
As long as those benefits are granted one class of married couples (heterosexuals) they must be granted to -ALL- married couples, and to not do so is an explicitly clear violation of the 14th Amendment.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
You are as obsessed with the number two as traditionalists were with the words man and woman. Can't you see that?
Marriage is not exclusively about property and inheritance. I can sign a property deed along with someone I'm not married to and I can do the same in my will for inheritance. Man and woman, only two, it's the same type of argument.
"Draft that law, and then you can have polygamy. Until then, not yours."
Exactly what the LGBT crowd was always told until the courts said no. How does it feel to be on the other side?
Would be 7-2. Thomas just goes along with whatever Scalia wants.
It seems unlikely that there are any gay nerds. Nerds are a fraction of the general population. Gay people are an even smaller fraction of the general population. This would make the existence gay nerds seem highly unlikely.
Similarly, the odds that in the vastness of space, an asteroid could just happen to strike our moon seems so incredibly remote that one could safely conclude that there are no craters on the moon.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Banning slavery would have mortified a large segment of the people who wrote it too.
Good thing intelligent people can remember that the Founder's were fallible men, and they knew it too, which is why they gave us a living document able to change with society.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Anti sodomy laws were already struck down as unconstitutional in Lawrence vs Texas.
Though several states or municipalities voted to keep them on the books, they are unenforceable due to the ruling.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Exactly this. Let's say we allowed the gay marriage bans which are primarily based on "Christian values" (as expressed by some Christians). What's to stop those same people from saying "the only legal marriage is a Christian marriage"? So if you want to get married in the Jewish tradition, or Muslim, or even without any clergy but just a Justice of the Peace, that's not valid. After all, if you're not accepting Jesus (where Jesus = their particular interpretation of Jesus) then your marriage isn't approved. You can't legislate based on "my holy book says X is wrong so X should be illegal for everyone whether or not other people follow my holy book."
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
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 are as obsessed with the number two as traditionalists were with the words man and woman. Can't you see that?
Nope. If you change "husband and wife" to "spouse and spouse" in existing statutes, nothing else changes. Taxes are still the same, marital privilege is still the same, immigration is still the same, etc. In fact, if any existing statute treated husbands and wives differently, it would already be unconstitutional due to discrimination on gender.
But, if you change, "spouse and spouse" to "a group of spouses", then how do you change "upon death of a spouse, the remaining spouse shall inherit 100% of communal property before probate"? As in, you die, and your three widows each inherit 100%? That's 300%. Where do you get two more identical houses?
Or what about medical proxy? You go into a coma, your first spouse says 'pull the plug', your second spouse says 'keep him alive at all costs'. Does the doctor get to decide? Because they can't. Under existing law, no matter what decision they make, the other spouse sues and wins.
In both cases - and in many others - the laws have to change. That's not true for gay marriage, where literally nothing but the label on a line on a form changes.
Marriage is not exclusively about property and inheritance. I can sign a property deed along with someone I'm not married to and I can do the same in my will for inheritance. Man and woman, only two, it's the same type of argument.
You've got it backwards - property and inheritance are not exclusively about marriage. That's why you can also sell deeds and leave things to your children. But yes, marriage is about property and inheritance, which is why when you're married, not only do you not need a will to leave things to your spouse, any such will is irrelevant because you won't even go to a probate court.
"Draft that law, and then you can have polygamy. Until then, not yours."
Exactly what the LGBT crowd was always told until the courts said no.
And what law would the LGBT crowd need to write? None, as noted above. Literally nothing changes in existing laws when there are two spouses, regardless of their genders. Not one single law is different. If you don't believe me, then go find one that has to be changed. I'll wait.
How does it feel to be on the other side?
The side of law and logic? Feels great, just as it always has.
Now burn a Confederate flag to celebrate and let's move on.
Please ... no flag-burning of any kind. It's just needlessly aggressive, even if it is protected speech.
Just take the Confederate flag off public flagpoles and put it in a museum, where it belongs. Individuals can still display it, but I won't be calling any of them my friends.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
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.
As noted in another reply to GP, marriage places obligations on people outside of the contract. The government enforces those obligations too, even though the INS, DoJ, IRS, VA, etc., haven't signed any contracts with married couples. So, the government's role in marriage goes beyond merely enforcing contracts.
"That's not true for gay marriage, where literally nothing but the label on a line on a form changes."
Nothing but a label.
"The side of law and logic?"
So.. you supported the Defense of Marriage act? Because that was law. Right?
What you're basically saying is that convenience is more important than civil rights. Gay marriage was "easy" to do, so it gets implemented. Poly or single is not, therefore they get nothing, and it's okay to continue discriminating against them.
Taxes? You file as a group, just like a couple does. Inheritance? You divide the assets, same as when the last parent dies and the estate is divided equally or as laid out in the will. Children? Again, as laid out in the will or the court decides based on whatever criteria they wish to use, or ideally the surviving adults come to agreement.
Step back and really think about your comments. You are the new traditionalist. You really are. You're reaching for justification to continue denying something to a smaller portion of the population.
Drugs are a civil rights issue, an unalienable self-evident right. The court should rule that Congress cannot take away my freedom to do drugs.
So, they can't decide women no longer have the vote. They can't decide black people can be property.
That's true because of the 13th and 19th amendments, respectively. Those rights were not due to court rulings (which went the other way).
That's an important distinction between the above two cases and SSM. Ostensibly the objection to this ruling is that the right did not come from the legislative process. Although I'm sure opponents would be equally pissed if SSM were legalized by a legislative process, I do think the gripe has some merit. SSM was legalized by one vote out of nine. It can be undone by the same amount. Other rights won through the supreme court (such as abortion and even the right to use contraception -- Griswold v. Connecticut) can also be undone if the supreme court membership changes. The same is not true for a constitutional amendment -- which is how many other major rights were endowed.
Is it a good or bad thing that the legislative process got bypassed? I don't know. I'd much rather see this type of thing handled by the legislature. However, I'm pragmatic. I think that we see lots of end runs around the legislative branch because the constitution is so darn inflexible with so many hurdles to pass legislation and constitutional amendments. That inflexibility was well intended, but if the constitution were just a little more flexible, I think we'd see the government work much more smoothly.
I know I won't marry anyone soon. My wife won't let me.
Go on, citizen, stamp the vote card. R or D, your choice.
So, in order to address this concern, they crafted a specific amendment--the ninth--which says "hey look, this isn't an exhaustive list!"
And then everyone decides to ignore it and keep using the exact argument it was designed to address. Your argument.
If they can make up rights out of thin air
THEN THE COUNTRY WILL BE A MUCH BETTER PLACE. The right to privacy (ANY privacy, other than a physical search of papers) isn't in the constitution, either. I think the right for the government to keeps its nose out of my chromosomes and out of my crotch is also a pretty obvious, fundamental right. The ability to "make up" rights doesn't give the SCOTUS unlimited power; it only gives them the ability to limit the power of government, which is an ability that many people on both the right and the left greatly value.
and scalia calls the court egotistical..with an overreaching hubris...
Scalia is a hypocritical hyperreligious twat. Hubris is the quality exhibited by lawmakers (and their supporters) who think that the state should have the power to examine the chromosomes/genitals of its citizens in order to decide what rights they are entitled to.
That's a big stretch for that clause... but then, the US government should have zero business with marriage in the first place.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
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
If it took a constitutional amendment to prohibit alcohol, how can they prohibit cannabis without one?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
If 2 people want to get married, they have every right to be as miserable as every other married couple.
So, let's say you replace the marriage contract between two parties and the state and just have private contracts... Well, what requires a hospital to let you visit someone you signed a contract with in the ICU? What requires the IRS to let you two file taxes together? What requires the prosecution not to call them as a witness to your conduct? What requires the INS to let them come into the country, merely because they signed a contract with you? What requires a veteran's cemetery to let you be buried together if only one of you is a veteran? What prevents the state from taxing you on property when they die? Etc., etc. There are literally over a thousand rights and privileges that attach with marriage and are binding on third parties who never signed any contract.
If this is the only thing that legal "marriage" is all about, then why restrict it in the ways we restrict it? Why can't a sister and a brother get all of these benefits, if they wanted? Why can't they have access to all of these wonderful legal benefits of "marriage"? Even if they don't have an incestuous relationship, but just are otherwise unmarried and love each other (even not "in that way")?
Oh, that's right... marriage is actually about something else. That "something" is really hard to define, and conservatives and liberals seem to disagree on exactly what it is, which leads to the gay marriage dispute.
The question I take away from GP's point, though is -- why can't you just have a bundled contract that grants all those rights? Why couldn't two sisters sign up for it together, instead of just an unrelated man and woman, or (as of today in the U.S.) two unrelated lesbians? Or how about three unrelated lesbians or a group of three gay guys or whatever -- couldn't they be eligible for most of those bundled contract rights?
If we're really going to divorce (no pun intended) the word "marriage" from its traditional definition, it's fine by me. But if it's mostly about the legal contract rights, we should have actual contracts that any group of consenting adults can sign onto. Perhaps we should group some of the rights separately, since a lot of marriage law once had to do with dependency (of the wife, in previous generations, as well as the kids) and how to handle children and estates. In an era of DINKs and no-fault divorce and now gay marriages, most of those centuries of accumulated archaic marriage law should be deprecated or rewritten.
Perhaps you can sign up for the "dependency" package of contract rights only when you can prove it -- thus a four-some of polyamorists only get tax benefits if they can prove dependency according to the laws we already have. If you want to sign up for the "procreation" package, then all the marital rights involving children apply. We can have the "cohabitation package" and the "estate-planning" package, etc.
And while we're at it, it's probably high time to institute a "temporary" version of many of these packages, with built-in prenuptial safeguards for unwitting spouses. You want to get married "till death do us part"? Fine -- sign up for the "permanency package," but it's harder to get out, and fault usually must be determined, with dire legal and financial consequences. You just want to get married "for as long as we both give a crap," then the "temporary" package is just for you -- let's be more honest about it, but also let's protect you from your own idiocy and build-in a reasonable pre-nup.
Oh, and the relationship between the "temporary" contract bundle and the "procreation" bundle is complex -- basically, you want to have kids, you should be able to commit to dealing with them until they reach maturity.
If it's really about contract law -- this is what is SHOULD look like. Instead, we have a mess of a contradictory set of wacky laws involving old assumptions about marriage structure, child-rearing, wife dependency, etc., along with a mishmash of sometimes arbitrary restrictions having to do with gay marriage (until today?), polygamy, incest, etc. If free association and self-determination are what everything is about, should we make the appropriate types of contract bundles available to any consenting adults who want them?
And why should they discriminate against me being single? Granting protection to married couples only makes sense if those protections make it easier for procreation. Same-sex couples cannot procreate, so they should be granted no protections. If same-sex couples are being given those protections, I should be legally allowed to marry myself and have them too.
When asked to comment on today's Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage, God said, "The US is going to pay for this once the caliphate, I mean...Jesus comes back to straighten things out. It's like, what were they thinking giving human rights to corporations? What's that? This is about same sex marriage? Nah, I don't give a fuck. Peoples is peoples. Good for them."
Zeus could not be reached for comment, since he had transformed himself into a bull in order to have sex with Europa without his wife Hera finding out.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I'm a gay nerd.
I would argue further.
Marriage is now the domain of NON-STATE/FEDERAL entities, and let it exist as such, since there are obviously various definitions of it coming into existence.
Wanna get married? Fine, do it.
Your Church/social club/culture believes in marriage between (insert some definition of marriage here)? Fine, go ahead.
Want the state to grant tax rights, parental rights, etc? Nope, sorry, fill out the form establishing these things if you want them. If you want to marry your (insert definition of partner/s here), then fill out the appropriate paperwork for them to visit you in the hospital, whatever: file it, you're good to go.
The issue is not so much that everyone wants their thing. It's that everyone wants their things and wants the state to back them up on it and for everyone to pat them on the back and agree with them.
Would this kill the concept of marriage? almost certainly, over time.
I've got to hang with Theaetetus here. I'm all for poly marriages, but existing inheritance, tax, insurance, etc. laws don't handle more than two people well. Gay marriage doesn't run up against any existing law except the one that says "no gay marriage". You don't have to change anything else when you say, "You know all those laws about a man and woman being married? Yeah, they apply to two dudes or two chicks, too." To include polys you have to redefine how inheritance is divided, how taxes are paid, who's eligible for insurance, etc. etc.
There also need to be new laws for situations that just can't occur in a two-person marriage. For example, what happens when one person wants out of a poly group? With a two-person marriage, a divorce necessarily means the end of a marriage. With a poly group one person leaving is not necessarily the end. What about when one person is unwillingly pushed out of a poly group? Or if the group fissures into two or more sub-groups? What happens if a child of someone in the group turns 18, should they be allowed to marry into the group? Does it make a difference if the child is adopted and not the biological offspring of any existing group member? If members can be added and removed, what are the implications of a continuous marriage that can outlive all of its individual members?
The laws could be changed to make poly unions work. The laws should be changed to make poly unions work. It's just that there are a lot of things that need to be examined for that to happen. It's not just a case of going from "two people of opposite sex" to "any two people". It's a serious qualitative change that will require qualitative changes to the law. Personally I'd love to see a serious proposal to change the laws in question and allow poly marriage. I think we could borrow from laws governing corporations to put something solid together. But I'm not a lawyer. I'll let someone else do the work. I'll vote for the result, to be sure, but I'm not going to kid myself that it's just a matter of adding "or more" between the words "two" and "people".
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
It's also not a fundamental right, as polygamy is not part of the traditions
You've got to be fucking kidding. How does being "part of the traditions" have any relevance to something being a fundamental right? Most fundamental rights that we enjoy these days were never traditional, starting with pretty much all women's rights.
Says the one not knowing history. Ever herd of greek men mariage in ancient greece ? Or in China ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Gee it is not as if a ready to grasp encyclopedia *with* reference you can check, was not available.
Ohhh look at that snippet
This is your "never was a gay mariage". Sure christian ordered them killed and forbid that. Hurhur.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
The courts when presented with a dispute have rendered a decision. Not giving a decision would have been just as much a form of judicial activism. Remember that judical activism is what happens when the courts disagree with you, and judicial wisdom is what happens when they agree with you.
Hardly, since it just upheld equal rights for all. That gay couples can enter into a legal contract, i.e, marriage. Until now they were denied that simply because they wanted to marry the same sex. That was clearly unconstitutional.
Then the court should have simply stated that marriage, in the eyes of the law is a legal contract that same sex couples were denied from entering into. This is a violation of the 14th amendment.
But they didn't. Instead the SCOTUS said that there is a new right called dignity and that marriage is about love and mutual respect and support of the family, yada, yadad. While I do not necessarily disagree with those sentiments, love et al is not what the court was asked to address as it is not protected under the 14th amendment.
My point being, the court, in its majority opinion, should have dealt with matters of law, not sociology.
Amazingly, Thomas actually went against Scalia this week on the Texas Confederate license plate case.
Because a) polygamous marriages are usually an excuse for some guy to build a harem, or there is often some kind of brainwashing or mistreatment going on; and b) there would be a huge legal mess about ownership of property and rights over children and so forth.
But if someone wants to start trying to push it through the courts they can go ahead.
You don't think there's any gay nerds?
The conservative media take on the Supreme Court is that it has become "technocratic."
Meaning it has become aligned with the dominant forces of the 21st Century economy. Hollywood in entertainment, Silicon Valley in tech, Amazon in retailing, and so on.
Conservatives need such an explanation for why the wheels have fallen off their little red wagon.
After a momentous week, same-sex couples can now marry in all 50 states, the Confederate flag's historic hold on the political institutions of the Deep South is fraying by the hour and Obamacare, after defying another attempt to dismantle it, is now reaffirmed as the law of the land.
The week that changed the nation
I'm an asexual nerd. Where are equal rights for unmarried people?
Sure, I can get down with that, as long as you are willing to give up all the government benefits of being married.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
you mean the civil unions none of the states were willing to give?
When you cant win, ad hominem.
It actually is not a new right. This right has long standing in the law. You are also forgetting that the constitution does not enumerate all of the rights, just the ones felt to be most important at the time.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Haven't Gay's suffered enough?