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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

#641

Post by seanalltogether »

jasonjei wrote: post #504
ffn wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax, immigration/emigration, and will/inheritance reasons. For one thing, the government gives you a tax break if you marry; this was particularly useful because, in the old days, women didn't work so it made sense to not tax the man (who did work) because he was effectively making money for two (and possibly more if they had children). Similarly, getting married changes your defaults if you die intestate (that is, y…

Tax, inheritance, and immigration laws don't require you to apply for a permit though to have your kids recognized so long as there is a registered birth certificate. My problem is the "application for marriage" process. A marriage should be recognized in the same manner that we issue a birth certificate; something that is issued as a matter of fact, not as a result of application awaiting approval or denial. Why is…

> Why is it not "registration of a marriage" as opposed to "application for marriage"?

Because you cannot be married to two different people at the same time. Marriage is not an event that happens, it's a legal contract that cannot be in conflict with an existing legal contract. A new marriage does not immediately nullify the existing contract, so an application must be processed to verify this.

There are also other things that need to be verified like age.

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

#642

Post by slayed0 »

MajorLOL wrote: post #343
lisper wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that I necessarily disagree with legalizing polygamy, but I think there is one non-bigoted answer: logistics. Our financial system in general, and our tax system in particular, has N=1 or N=2 hard-coded into it. There are other practical considerations as well. Suppose, for example, you have an N=5 marriage and three of them want to break away and take the kids. Resolving situations like that would be much more c…

While true, it's not a valid reason for preventing progress on the deconstruction of marriage. 'Our system is messy and complicated, so if we add more variables, it will be an even bigger mess!' - so make the system less messy and enable more variables. Can you imagine if someone came and said add this function/feature to the program and in response you said "the program is complicated and the code is long, no need t…

In regards to your software development comparison, that happens all the time. Someone decides, this system is already so complicated it would be a mistake to try to bake in all this additional complexity. A more sensical solution would be to design a different system for handling these or deal with them in one-off cases if they are infrequent enough.

Vague metaphors aside, this happens occasionally in the industry I'm in (finance) when we trade small lots of non-traditional products. These products don't follow many of the rules that all of our other traded products do. Instead of re-writing our systems to deal with these(totally impractical), we manually shimmy these in to the database until they expire or are traded away, at which point we can forget about them.

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

#643

Post by jasonjei »

tommorris wrote: post #625
baddox wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tax, immigration/emigration, and will/inheritance reasons. Inheritance should be simple enough with normal contracts, regardless of marriage (same goes for hospital visitation and medical decision-making, which you didn't mention). Immigration is already completely arbitrary, at the whim of the government. The government could change the immigration effects of marriage just as easily as changing who can get married…

> Inheritance should be simple enough with normal contracts, regardless of marriage (same goes for hospital visitation and medical decision-making, which you didn't mention). Should be, but isn't. Gay couples have been having expensive lawyers write these contracts for twenty years or so and when push comes to shove, they often don't mean shit. That's why we have been pushing for marriage rights. The other issue is d…

Even though getting married is relatively easy compared to being divorced, we essentially sue the other party and let a supposedly neutral party decide :)

Divorce is pretty easy compared to marriage. Like you said, it's just figuring out who gets what...

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

#644

Post by andreyf »

hackuser wrote: post #437
andreyf wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Today's decision pushes back the more important goals of social equality and cultural integration. ... there are no and have been no segregation laws in America for decades as a result of federal action, but you'd be silly to say the result was that segregation does not exist in America. As a counterpoint: Since the civil rights era, the welfare and integration of the black-skinned Americans has improved dramatical…

Good points. "Few hearts and minds" is more accurate.

> Some argue that desegregation alienated more hearts and minds than it helped, but I've yet to see any evidence.

It's a question that isn't easy to answer empirically, but it's not outside of the realm of possibility that we would today have a less segregated of a society if segregation had come been eradicated in each community separately and via local and state laws rather than federal action.

All that aside, I think legal equality is a worthy cause and a great victory on its own. I hope we do not forget about social equality and cultural integration as worthy causes, as well.

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

#645

Post by bdowling »

verisimilidude wrote: post #491
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…

Marriage is really important to people. If you define the legal part of that as "civil union", people will add new cultural/religious significance to that new definition. Then when polygamy or whatever becomes popular in 2115, the conservatives of that time will cry out about the "sanctity of only two people in civil union, the way it's always been !" And around the circle we go. What's important today is that our co…

2115? Something tells me it won't be nearly that long.

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

#646

Post by zzleeper »

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…

Well you have the legal/civil marriage and the religious marriage.

You can call it "civil union" or whatever you want, but the important thing are the rights attached and that's what this ruling is about. Nothing to do with church, just the civil part.

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

#647

Post by jasonjei »

seanalltogether wrote: post #641
jasonjei wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax, inheritance, and immigration laws don't require you to apply for a permit though to have your kids recognized so long as there is a registered birth certificate. My problem is the "application for marriage" process. A marriage should be recognized in the same manner that we issue a birth certificate; something that is issued as a matter of fact, not as a result of application awaiting approval or denial. Why is…

> Why is it not "registration of a marriage" as opposed to "application for marriage"? Because you cannot be married to two different people at the same time. Marriage is not an event that happens, it's a legal contract that cannot be in conflict with an existing legal contract. A new marriage does not immediately nullify the existing contract, so an application must be processed to verify this. There are also other…

If we are to use the biblical sense of marriage, the Old Testament has a few incidents where a man was married to multiple wives[1]. Then if we are to be traditional, can a marriage not be among multiple people?

Since we have denied same-sex marriage on religious or moral grounds, are we saying we should deny the right for a man to marry multiple men or women or a woman to marry multiple men or women because of our beliefs? Isn't that the same reason that we're denying same-sex marriage(s)?

Age verification is OK, since minors aren't recognized to be capable of forming contracts.

[1] Jacob was married to multiple wives.

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

#648

Post by woofyman »

yellowapple wrote: post #605
eropple wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wh…

Except that reality doesn't agree entirely with that model; a large number of opponents to same-sex marriage have expressed acceptance of same-sex civil unions. However, your point still stands true in the case of custody rights, since same-sex-marriage opponents tend to claim (rather dubiously) that children raised in such a family tend to experience psychological trauma. I'm really more-or-less neutral on the matte…

Many of the statewide same sex marriage bans also prohibited civil unions. Virginia went so far to prohibit contracts that between same sex partners that established defacto civil unions.

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

#649

Post by pekk »

eropple wrote: post #586
yellowapple wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wh…

I can't agree. The word "marriage" in particular makes people irrationally excited and start thinking about their church's definition of marriage. So politically, it is a line in the sand. "Defense of civil unions act" doesn't have the same ring and wouldn't get Republicans out to the polls the same way. If, in an alternate history, this could have been made a matter of the government meddling in the issue of marriage as big brother, then we would have seen more input from at least the libertarian side of the right wing if not also the mainstream. As it is, I'm glad about the outcome but now we have another irreconcilable front in the culture war alongside abortion.

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

#650

Post by thraaaawaaaa »

brlewis wrote: post #546
bargl wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a question about this. I'm not saying I feel this way, but does this mean that religions that are opposed to gay marriage have to perform marriages for people who are gay? I.E. Catholics? The only reason I ask is because many Catholics I know say this is basically her argument against gay marriage. They don't always care about civil unions (some do) as long as it doesn't affect their church.

Currently, are Catholic priests required to perform marriages for non-Catholics? I think they are not, even though the right to not be Catholic is constitutionally protected. But just in case, the majority did insert language making clear that this is about what the government can and can't do, not about what religions can and can't do: Finally, it must be emphasized that religions, and those who adhere to religious…

There's controversy at the state level over whether religious photographers, DJs, bakers, florists, and wedding planners should be forced to participate equally in all weddings regardless of their religious belief. That's going to be the next big fight.
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