Given this ruling, what do you now teach children? Do you tell your 5-year-old that "when you grow up you marry either a man or a woman"? Are both choices to be equally preferred? Or do you say, "by default" you marry someone of the opposite sex, but if you choose someone of your own sex that's OK? Is it OK to teach that being straight is "the default"?
Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules
701–710 of 1001 posts
Re: Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules
#702Well, 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…
Exactly. I think the libertarian way to go would be to limit the role of the Govt. to enable Tax breaks for spouses, and other impersonal things.
Re: Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules
#703Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm glad that my LBG friends can now marry anywhere. But damn, Scalia's counter opinion (and Roberts' opinion) strike me as well-considered and well-argued in the 2nd half of http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf . In brief, their view was that resolving this issue in the courts erodes the democratic process. Can anybody counter Scalia, and say why the issue of gay marriage couldn't wait to be re…
> 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…
Sometimes an upvote isn't enough. This is probably the most thoughtful writing I've seen on the topic today. Well done for someone that is not an expert. :-)
Re: Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules
#704For 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…
>Was this a question? I don't think I've heard anyone ever say otherwise.
You live in a very optimistic world! 2 quick examples: First, Glenn Beck and other popular conservatives have said exactly that, and worse: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/04/30/glenn-beck-if-gay...
Second: Do you remember the Mormon funded ad blitz in California, which promised all kinds of (patently untrue) negative consequences if prop 8 went the wrong way? Kids being indoctrinated in grade school, churches of all kinds forced to cater to same sex couples, etc.
Re: Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules
#705Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The state has a vested interest in procreation (i.e.: creation of new citizens & taxpayers as others die off), so takes an interest in "marriage" as a means for facilitating the most efficient & effective means of promoting procreation, doing so by giving special benefits in return for parents taking on special obligations. Expanding the beneficiaries of those benefits to those to whom there is absolutely no chance…
> So, you think marriage shouldn't be available for straight people who are both infertile? The rest of your argument around mutual care is reasonable. There are more nuanced views than a blunt "if state support for marriage depends on procreation, let's ban marriage for infertile people as well.", which sounds like spite: if I can't get it, then those guys over there should not get it either because they are similar…
> It's pretty easy to tell a man from a woman at birth. Biology and cultural norms make this distinction pretty obvious to anyone who's paying attention. It's both cheap and reasonable to tell apart men from women.
The decades and decades of non-consensual infant "corrective" surgery of people with intersex conditions, leading to physical and mental damage (and in some cases involuntary sterilisation), suggests otherwise...
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/07/should-we-...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/special-repor...
Re: Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules
#706Well, 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…
Trouble is, state governments have been messing with it. This is an attempt to stop it.
Re: Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules
#707Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Marriage has always been a government institution. Religion co-opted it for themselves at a later time. I don't think that's the full story. I suspect that religious marriage existed long before nation states and most of the current legal distinctions associated with marriage.
> I suspect that religious marriage existed long before nation states Do you have any actual evidence? Because here in reality-land, the evidence shows that the English legal tradition considered marriage a civil institution long before the churches tried to claim it.
In reality-land, marriage is far older than English legal tradition.
Re: Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules
#708I'm glad we'll have full gay marriage now. But the idea that "the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage" is pretty laughable. Does anyone really believe this right was in the Constitution for 250 years, only to be discovered recently? In reality public opinion and culture changed, and 5 justices decided to change the law.
> Does anyone really believe this right was in the Constitution for 250 years, only to be discovered recently? That seems to be the case to me. I'm not completely familiar with US history, but don't you think the right of black people to be free and equal to the other people was already written in the constitution 250 years ago, for example? Or women's suffrage. It just took a while to actually recognize it. Homosexu…
No. Simply because we already had equality as far as the law was concerned.
Everyone was entitled to marry someone of the opposite sex. Everyone was barred from marrying someone of the same sex. The law applied equally.
Re: Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules
#709as it is a technical nerds forum lets throw in a bit of technology aspect of it - today's ruling lays groundwork for protecting the interests of children which will be "born", or more specifically - created - using something like the DNA mix-up of the 2 same-sex parents (with, at least at the initial stages of the technology, may be throwing into the mix a biologically minimally necessary of bio-material from an opposite sex donor)
Re: Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules
#710Earlier quoted context omitted.
"The Contitution, the Bill of Rights in particular, protects minority rights"... "minority" should be replace with "individual". An individual is the greatest minority.
No, "minority" is correct here. Individuals who happen to be members of a majority do not need a Bill of Rights. Individuals who are a member of a minority do. (edit: Holy cow this post got downvotes! If you think this is wrong please go read pretty much literally anything on the topic of the bill of rights by literally any of the founding fathers. Protecting the rights of democratic minorities was a very, very, VERY…
From https://www.aclu.org/bill-rights-brief-history which is SOMETHING about the founding fathers and Bill of Rights:
"Democracy and liberty are often thought to be the same thing, but they are not. Democracy means that people ought to be able to vote for public officials in fair elections, and make most political decisions by majority rule. Liberty, on the other hand, means that even in a democracy, individuals have rights that no majority should be able to take away."
"Liberty, on the other hand, means that even in a democracy, individuals have rights that no majority should be able to take away."
"individuals have rights that no majority should be able to take away."