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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.
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?!
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 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?
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.
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
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.
Explain the continued ban on polygamous marriage.
From the decision:
"They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right." - Justice Kennedy
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.
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.
Would be 7-2. Thomas just goes along with whatever Scalia wants.
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.
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.
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?
If they [rights] do not come from God, then they are simply a social construct...
This is where you are wrong. There are formulations of rights which are neither mere social constructs nor based on religion—which is, in the end, just another variety of social construct. My preference is the one based on the legal concept of estoppel, which can be summarized as the logical principle that one cannot rely on incompatible claims within the same argument. For example, one cannot consistently argue that one has the right to act in a certain way toward others while simultaneously claiming that those affected lack the right to reciprocate. Either everyone has the right or no one does. If the right exists then the first party infringed on it and deserves the punishment; if not, then neither the original action nor the response infringes on anyone's rights.
In this case there is the additional complication that "the right to marry" is really referring to a number of different aspects of the law, not simply the right to hold a marriage ceremony and consider oneself married but also power of attorney, visitation rights, joint taxation, common ownership of property, etc. However, the gender of the two parties is irrelevant to all of these legal considerations; there is no reason whatsoever that the law should permit e.g. visitation rights to a couple composed of a male and a female, but deny them to a couple composed of two males or two females.
If certain individuals of a religious persuasion wish to consider homosexuality a sin, fine. They don't have to practice it themselves, or even associate with those who do. But there is certainly nothing in the Bible which would require anyone to deny that the relationship exists, or to refuse such couples equal rights under the law. This ruling is about the law, not religion.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
And again, I reiterate what I said earlier. Where do rights come from?
You're missing the whole point of what the founding fathers and the US constitution was attempting to create.
These inalienable rights "come from" nowhere. They exist innately and the constitution was written largely to express this, and to prevent laws from being created which would stifle or try to remove them. The social construct aspect applies insofar as to how to balance things when the desires or actions of one person impact the rights of another person. They certainly don't come from a god.
Even the creation of the Bill of Rights (first 10 amendments to the Constitution) was criticized by several high-profile people of the time because they were concerned that it would be interpreted as a "list of rights", and if a specific right wasn't in that list, then the People didn't have that right. A concession was the Ninth Amendment:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
One of the dissenters of the Bill of Rights was Hamilton, who said, among other things:
It has been several times truly remarked, that bills of rights are in their origin, stipulations between kings and their subjects, abridgments of prerogative in favor of privilege, reservations of rights not surrendered to the prince. [...] Here, in strictness, the people surrender nothing, and as they retain every thing, they have no need of particular reservations.
One of the biggest differences between the newly created United States versus other old-world countries was this very thing. The recognition that all people have innate and inalienable rights, not bestowed by society or god or privilege or bloodline, but simply because they are a living, thinking human being.
High ideals, perhaps, and we slipped badly sometimes (slavery probably being the biggest), but every time I see people say things "gay marriage isn't listed in the Constitution" I cringe because they have such a fundamental misunderstanding of the country they live in.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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I'm an asexual nerd. Where are equal rights for unmarried people?