Live data from Hacker News

Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules

nytimes.com

181–190 of 1001 posts

Re: Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules

#181
post #33

Hopefully this whole "issue" will just go away soon...so many more important things that deserve the public's attention. Edit: To clarify, I support marriage equality and believe this is great news that deserves celebrating.

What's more important. Denial of a basic social rite to the 5-10% who are gay, or something like NSA spying that gets tremendous attention on places like HN but only has a material impact on almost nobody?

I would argue that the state of the economy, mass political failure, infrastructure decay, wars in the Middle East, how the US deals with globalization, climate change, and income inequality are more important from a national perspective than both. We (Americans) spend an inordinate amount of time debating religious and social issues (which are ultimately irrelevant for most people involved in the debates) while ignoring huge systemic problems. People should be focusing their attention on real, pressing problems, not opposing social change which has little to do with them. Get out of the way and let progress occur so we can be productive. I think this is what the parent commenter meant.

Re: Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules

#182
post #45

Can we finally stop calling it "gay marriage" and "traditional marriage" and just call it "marriage" now? good job USA I'm glad you are finally catching up to the rest of the developed world.

No, because there is an objective difference. One pairing tends to procreate, the other cannot. The state has an objective interest in facilitating one over the other.

Re: Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules

#183
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet the news reports I've heard on the shooting in Charleston kept mentioning "9 African Americans". No one calls the "white" folks (that would probably be me) "European Americans" or "Caucasian Americans" in the reports. It's just silly.

Isn't that just presumptuous? "All black people trace their immediate ancestry (past 400 or so years) from Africa." Nevermind that black people also come from: Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Thailand, etc.

But when say the victims of a violent crime are all white, the news don't typically say things like 'all five white victims were....' They just say all five victims were...' and whatever dependent clause.

Re: Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules

#184
post #62

If love is about ignoring race,class,gender,age shouldn't it be about ignoring numbers, too? Polygamy is the next hurdle for society. The judges should declare all consenting marriage legal !

Or make all marriages inconsequential.

I wish more people saw it this way. The fact that a government has any say in who can/can't marry and be with in their private lives is absurd. The concept of marriage should be left up to religious entities.

Re: Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules

#185

While this is excellent news for my gay and lesbian friends, I see no progress on polygamy. Which, unlike same-sex marriage, is an institution with deep roots both in America (the Mormons were forced to give up this sacrament as a condition of statehood) and in the majority of world cultures, where it ranges from condoned to celebrated. Without getting unduly personal, let's say that I have a stake in that question b…

>Without getting unduly personal, let's say that I have a stake in that question being resolved. I know several triples living quietly among us; they face the same kind of problems (child custody, hospital visitation, inheritance rights) as same-sex couples faced prior to this decision. I made that argument to a couple of friends - that they were not fighting for equality (which will be fairly easy to set up) but for…

Worth noting that at least one of the triples I referred to is a woman and two men. At least one is a man and two women. I'm being vague here, because bigamy is a felony.

We really have quite a long way to go on this front.

Re: Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules

#186
post #103
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they summarise their arguments themselves. For example "Although the policy arguments for extending marriage to same-sex couples may be compelling, the legal arguments for requiring such an extension are not. The fundamental right to marry does not include a right to make a State change its definition of marriage. And a State’s decision to maintain the meaning of marriage that has persisted in every culture t…

Considering there are plenty of examples of "gay" marriage from thousands of years ago, calling strait marriage traditional seems factually incorrect. Edit: http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/1367/gay_marriagenot...

Traditional for the US.

Re: Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules

#187
post #17

For me and a lot of friends and family, marriage equality. Yay. "It is now clear that the challenged laws burden the liberty of same-sex couples, and it must be further acknowledged that they abridge central precepts of equality . . . Especially against a long history of disapproval of their relationships, this denial to same-sex couples of the right to marry works a grave and continuing harm. The imposition of this…

> opinion also reasserted that people who are really mad about this can continue to be mad and vocal about it, as guaranteed by the First Amendment Was this a question? I don't think I've heard anyone ever say otherwise. I'll add though, that people long have cloaked oppression in religion. People justified (and still justify) slavery, segregation, and oppression of women under the guise of religion, for example. Som…

Kennedy is addressing the idea (myth) that churches would be compelled to perform same-sex marriages or somehow face legal consequences for speaking on the issue.

Re: Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules

#188

While this is excellent news for my gay and lesbian friends, I see no progress on polygamy. Which, unlike same-sex marriage, is an institution with deep roots both in America (the Mormons were forced to give up this sacrament as a condition of statehood) and in the majority of world cultures, where it ranges from condoned to celebrated. Without getting unduly personal, let's say that I have a stake in that question b…

One problem I have with Polygamy is that I have never seen a 1-woman, multi-husband community. Sure, I've seen a few relationships in which this was the case, but when you look at the historic aspects in the US, it seems a very rare thing. That makes me wonder if there is a severe power imbalance in the relationships and what is truly occurring.

It's well known that in some modern US polygamy situations, there is a great deal of abuse of power, both in terms of controlling the wives, as well as controlling and abusing the young men who will not be allowed to have a wife. This further increases the societal costs and leads to more abuse of power, which is not what we need.

edit: I should add: It's a numbers game. Given that on average, there tends to be just slightly more women born than men, what happens with all the extra unmarried men (or women, though this is rarer)?

Re: Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, you should start leading again by cross-species marriage too. It may sound bizarre now but that's how same sex marriage was a 100 years back. Marrying your pets should be legal too.

EDIT: Don't downvote just because you can't wrap your head around it. Their expression of love is a consent and marriage rules and interpretation can change like now. Also, legalize polygamy right now.

I downvoted because you're a troll.

Re: Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules

#190

I've never really given credence to the people that suggested a ruling would be a slippery slope. However, after reading the opinion for myself, I can see how the court's stance on marriage (opposite-sex and same-sex) can now be extended to polygamy and incest. I understand the need to define it as a fundamental right within the context of this ruling, but it seems that some of the wording opens the way for other mar…

Incest - maybe. There's a clear harm involved there (inbreeding depression) that's much more substantive than anything used to argue against gay marriage.

Polygamy - We probably will revisit our stance on polygamy in decades to come. Historically it's been used in a way that's profoundly imbalanced towards women (i.e. almost exclusively polygyny), but it's not hard to imagine a future where that's not the case.

Post reply on HN