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Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules

nytimes.com

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

#581

Post by eropple »

kefka wrote: post #527
eropple wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What should happen is the government should stop defining marriage of any form (leave that to religion or personal tradition), and simply define all these rights under civil union (or a similar phrase with no significant religious/cultural attachment). Sure. And that was not in the cards. What you want is not on the table and likely never will be. But expanding the rights of people because of basic fairness is a st…

> Asking gay people to wait for a unicorn is bullshit. Please don't be That Guy. Ideological purity is so often the enemy of making the world better. But, why not? I'm a male. And I'm bisexual and polyamorus. I understand, and accept if a family wants to have 3 adults. Or 4 adults. I'm even OK if children are raised in that atmosphere. Right now, there are rules and restrictions on polygamy (which is a subset of poly…

> I understand, and accept if a family wants to have 3 adults. Or 4 adults. I'm even OK if children are raised in that atmosphere.

I'm with you here. But expecting same-sex couples to suffer for poly folks is not copacetic. The cat's out of the bag, and the line will continue to move. And that's a good thing.

> Doing as the GP said would have these archaic rules also overturned.

Doing as the GGP said would have nothing be done, in hopes that something was eventually done. Politics is the art of the possible. Don't pass up victories that are on the table.

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

#582

Post by lettergram »

curiousgeorgio wrote: post #451

Well, I know I'm probably a minority in saying this, but I'm disappointed - not because I don't think everyone should have access to the government rights attached to marriage, but because it seems our country doesn't actually want to fix problems at the root. What is the root problem? People on both sides of the debate agree (if given the option) that the government probably never should have messed with marriage, a…

I actually was somewhat angry that this didn't happen, the supreme court has the right to alter laws in the way mentioned.

Certainly, specific aspects of the rights/laws protected under marriage would need to change. Case in point, visitation rights for children. However, that could be altered more simply by creating visitation rights "emotionally invested parties" or something (which also would have worked for the gay or straight communities).

The fact is, all legalizing gay marriage does at a national level is reduce states rights. Yes, there is an emotional argument, that gay couples should be recognized, and I agree they should. However, there were many means to that end, and they chose one that appeased the masses, but perhaps was "less correct," in the sense that it is probably wrong for the government to interfere with any sort of bond between people in private.

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

#583

Post by notahacker »

andreyf wrote: post #406
hackuser wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can anybody counter Scalia, and say why the issue of gay marriage couldn't wait to be resolved by the states? Why is this class of license inequity different than other classes, where the states' right to license something is not resolved by SCOTUS? Certainly with all the imagined legal expertise on HN, someone will answer. I have no expertise, but here's a shot at least from a moral point of view and based on some…

Legally, you are right. Morally and practically, I'm not so sure. Few hearts and minds are changed as a result of the supreme court's rulings, just the code powering the justice system. Convincing 5 of the top judges is easy compared to convincing the populace, and the latter is more important for the long term goals of equality. Federally legislated social change pushes back the more important goals of social equali…

Hearts and minds are more easily influenced by the status quo than one might think. People whose opposition wasn't obsessive tend to take note of the fact that they know some friends of friends who had one of those gay marriages and they're apparently very happy, whilst their pastor who gave such eloquent warnings about the impending moral breakdown of America whilst the anti-gay-marriage ballot initiatives were being drawn initiatives has changed the subject of his moral crusade to something else, and above all it doesn't really doesn't seem worth revisiting the issue or worrying about homosexuals at all when they could be mobilizing to save unborn babies, their constitutional right to lethal weaponry or the immortal soul of their atheist nephew. When change is less drastic than you feared, it becomes easier to accept than you anticipated.

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

#584

Post by ctdonath »

ohitsdom wrote: post #543
curiousgeorgio wrote: post #451

Well, I know I'm probably a minority in saying this, but I'm disappointed - not because I don't think everyone should have access to the government rights attached to marriage, but because it seems our country doesn't actually want to fix problems at the root. What is the root problem? People on both sides of the debate agree (if given the option) that the government probably never should have messed with marriage, a…

I agree, but I don't think you can be disappointed from this ruling. Getting the government out of marriage is not an option for the court to take, and it wasn't the issue before them. If we want government out of marriage, it'd have to be done through Congress and a reformed tax code.

Some states have started looking at dropping the formal recognition of marriage entirely. Increasingly devoid of any meaning, and given enough harassment for limiting who it applies to (consider, say, 12 people and a goat), comes a point where the state decides there is simply no point in recognizing the institution at all.

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

#585

Post by FrankenPC »

curiousgeorgio wrote: post #451

Well, I know I'm probably a minority in saying this, but I'm disappointed - not because I don't think everyone should have access to the government rights attached to marriage, but because it seems our country doesn't actually want to fix problems at the root. What is the root problem? People on both sides of the debate agree (if given the option) that the government probably never should have messed with marriage, a…

Is it possible that LGBT marriage rights were officially recognized because it was becoming apparent that the next step was to strip religion out of the discourse? Thereby losing a valuable beachhead in society? Nah. To conspiracy theory-ish.

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

#586

Post by eropple »

yellowapple wrote: post #566
brownegg wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't upvote this hard enough. OP is right in my mind, but.... I'm straight (and divorced), and we got married for many of the same reasons that LGBT folks want to--it makes sense. Visitation rights, inheritance, tax treatment, etc. It's unlikely that marriage would be removed as something of concern to lawmakers--has that kind of thing ever happened anywhere, any time, any way? I respect OP's opinion, but it's ivo…

My impression is that OP wants the current rights from marriage to be part of civil unions instead, not for said rights to be eradicated outright. The former sounds like a more reasonable position and would address your (and the parent commenter's) concerns.

It is a reasonable position, but a realistic one only if you believe that the opposition to same-sex marriage is the use of the word "marriage" and not a fear-driven hatred of people with a different use for their plumbing. As it happens, I do not; I am entirely certain that "civil unions" being applied to gay people would call down the exact same rhetoric from the exact same people. (I am further certain that the whole "defense of marriage" is only a proxy for not being able to beat the shit out of gay people for funsies anymore. Progress, I suppose.)

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

#587

Post by masklinn »

yellowapple wrote: post #566
brownegg wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't upvote this hard enough. OP is right in my mind, but.... I'm straight (and divorced), and we got married for many of the same reasons that LGBT folks want to--it makes sense. Visitation rights, inheritance, tax treatment, etc. It's unlikely that marriage would be removed as something of concern to lawmakers--has that kind of thing ever happened anywhere, any time, any way? I respect OP's opinion, but it's ivo…

My impression is that OP wants the current rights from marriage to be part of civil unions instead, not for said rights to be eradicated outright. The former sounds like a more reasonable position and would address your (and the parent commenter's) concerns.

So he wants the exact same thing with a new name for essentially no reason? That strikes me as an inane waste of resource.

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

#588

Post by jaynos »

giaour wrote: post #352
gadders wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incest amongst consenting adults.

IIRC, New Jersey allows this, and consenting, incestuous couple have moved there in droves. I would try to look up the reference but I don't want to do a search for "legal incest New Jersey" on my work computer.

New Jersey allows marriage of first cousins [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage_law_in_the_Uni...

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

#589

Post by snowwrestler »

mhurron wrote: post #434
th0waway wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

holy crap! "granted by the US Constitution" - wow, where to begin? Here, how about this: our 'rights' are not granted by the Constitution, they are emphasized, publicly proclaimed. The Constitution delineates the rights and responsibilities of the GOVERNMENT. Anything granted can be taken away.

Rights that are not backed by Law do not materially exist. That is why the Bill of Rights (and related documents in other countries) had to be written in the first place.

The debate about the Bill of Rights went like this:

For: Let's enumerate some rights, just in case future generations are stupidly literal about things and get confused because it's not all written down for them.

Against: Bad idea! By writing some down, we might create the impression that those are the ONLY rights.

For: Well then we'll make the 10th Amendment a catch-all, so it's crystal clear that rights exist beyond those we've enumerated so far.

------

So did the 10th Amendment work? It seems like probably not, since people so frequently refer to the Bill of Rights as proof that the Constitution "grants" rights--rather than the intended effect, which is that the Bill of Rights limits government power over rights that already (and always) exist.

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

#590

Post by nathan_long »

kefka wrote: post #527
eropple wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What should happen is the government should stop defining marriage of any form (leave that to religion or personal tradition), and simply define all these rights under civil union (or a similar phrase with no significant religious/cultural attachment). Sure. And that was not in the cards. What you want is not on the table and likely never will be. But expanding the rights of people because of basic fairness is a st…

> Asking gay people to wait for a unicorn is bullshit. Please don't be That Guy. Ideological purity is so often the enemy of making the world better. But, why not? I'm a male. And I'm bisexual and polyamorus. I understand, and accept if a family wants to have 3 adults. Or 4 adults. I'm even OK if children are raised in that atmosphere. Right now, there are rules and restrictions on polygamy (which is a subset of poly…

> I understand, and accept if a family wants to have 3 adults. Or 4 adults. I'm even OK if children are raised in that atmosphere.

Do you think that it serves the interests of the rest of society to offer special benefits and protections to 3-4 person unions? If so, what? Is there a size limit on such unions? And under what conditions do they begin/end? If one person leaves the union, is the entire union abolished? What if two leave together? Can you have a divorce that turns one union into two or more? What happens with property and/or child custody in that case?

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