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Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules
841–850 of 1001 posts
Re: Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules
#842Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
5-10%? Are you saying that every 10th person is gay in America?
Close. Roughly one in every 20.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_demographics_of_the_Unite...
Re: Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules
#843Well, 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…
"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"
I don't see this as anything other than arguing a trivial semantic distinction - that we should use the word "union" for government rights granted to couples instead of "marriage"?
Even if you are right about a slightly better word, who cares? What is the effective difference? Religious and government marriages are different. A "marriage" license issued by a government is indistinguishable from a civil union license.
Why grant religions a monopoly on the use of the word.
In all honesty, this is a non-sensical frankenstein remnant of the separate but equal argument for marriage and civil union. It really has no value.
Re: Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules
#844Earlier 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? For the same reason that slavery couldn't be resolved by the states. For the same reason that racism can't be resolved by the states. Because these things haven't gotten resolved by states. The United States of America, sadly, has a significant minority of people who Just Don't Get It, and there are enough…
> or the same reason that slavery couldn't be resolved by the states. For the same reason that racism can't be resolved by the states. Because these things haven't gotten resolved by states.
I'm not so sure that the states would not have resolved it (Edit: gay marriage, not slavery).
13 years ago, there were 0 US states with legal gay marriage.
6 years ago it was 3.
2 years ago it was 12.
Yesterday, it was 36 states (plus DC, Guam, and a whole bunch of native american tribes). 70% of the US population lived in areas with legal gay marriage.
You might argue that a few states abolished slavery, too, but that was not going to lead to nationwide abolition without war. I think gay marriage would have been difference, because
1. We have much more interstate trade interdependence now, and
2. We have much more personal mobility.
More and more large national companies are including support for same sex couples in their benefits, and when opening new facilities will take into account if the location is friendly to all their employees, including the LGBT ones. I think as soon as one or two of the hold out states lost some big project that would have brought a lot of jobs and money, and the awarding company cited as a reason for picking a neighboring state was that the winning state is more friendly to their LGBT employees, you'd see a lot of the hold out states changing their tune.
Re: Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules
#845Well, 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…
Its a just marriage. But the noise created by politicians and media is out of proportion. Now that we have a verdict, hope all the noise goes away.
Re: Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules
#846Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a case of states violating the constitution of the united states. It's a pretty clear violation of equal protection. It's not up to the states to decide this. Rights of a minority should not be left to the democratic process.
Yes, but why this minority? Why not allow 12 year olds to marry as a consititutional right? Why not allow brothers and sisters to marry? I'm not trying to make a slippery slope argument. I'm really asking. States license things all the time, and the conditions of their licenses block certain people from doing certain things. Why are the courts blocking the right of states to license this activity (marriage) in this p…
In the United States, the government -- at all levels, federal, state and local -- is allowed to discriminate against or in favor of particular groups of people. The government just has to show that the discrimination serves some permitted purpose, and depending on the groups involved may have to clear a high bar of proof that the alleged purpose is the real purpose (since some groups have historically been discriminated against for bad reasons, we have higher suspicion of new discrimination against those groups).
For example, state governments can require a person to have a driver's license before driving a car. This discriminates against people who don't have a license, but the support for it is rooted in a good reason: safety. Requiring people to pass a brief examination to show their knowledge of traffic laws and possession of the basic skills of driving is quite reasonable, and so driver's licenses are a permitted form of discrimination.
Similarly, people under a certain age typically cannot enter into contracts on their own. The support for this comes from the fact that younger people are less likely to be mature and knowledgeable and understand what they're getting into, so restricting it to a particular age (typically, the age at which one graduates from the public school system) and requiring the advice and consent of someone over that age for a minor to enter a contract is reasonable, and is permitted.
Over the past few years we've seen multiple alleged justifications for banning same-sex marriage asserted in courts, and each time they've been knocked down as nonsensical or even as contradicting the other policies of the state which advanced those arguments.
For example, we've seen an argument advanced that states have an interest in ensuring the production and safe rearing of future generations, that marriage is provided for the sole purpose of advancing that interest, and so a same-sex couple (who cannot procreate) should be excluded from marriage. Except this argument falls apart if you so much as breathe lightly on it: states which make this argument do not require any sort of commitment to have children from a heterosexual couple, and in fact will grant marriage licenses to couples known to be sterile, and many of them allow same-sex couples to adopt and raise children.
The result of this process has been that there really is no alleged justification or purpose left, other than "we don't like same-sex couples, largely for religious reasons". And that's not something our country allows as a justification for a law ("we don't like that kind of people" stopped being allowed about a half-century ago).
Re: Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules
#847Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've often wondered if polyamorus families could make an end run around the old anti-polygamy laws by creating a corporation. It would give legal protection for shared property and money. Would also provide a mechanism for divorce by allowing the remaining people to buy out the shares of the person leaving. It wouldn't be perfect but it would be a start. I'm personally not poly in any way, but it's a fun thought expe…
Corporations can't have custody of children. Corporations can't issue medical directives for an incapacitated person. Corporate shareholders don't get hospital visitation rights or medical insurance via someone's job, et c.
Very true. There's a lot that legal marriage provides which can't be found in a corporation. The idea is that incorporating would provide some benefits and protections that the poly family wouldn't have otherwise.
Re: Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules
#848Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Can anybody counter Scalia, and say why the issue of gay marriage couldn't wait to be resolved by the states? For the same reason that slavery couldn't be resolved by the states. For the same reason that racism can't be resolved by the states. Because these things haven't gotten resolved by states. The United States of America, sadly, has a significant minority of people who Just Don't Get It, and there are enough…
> or the same reason that slavery couldn't be resolved by the states. For the same reason that racism can't be resolved by the states. Because these things haven't gotten resolved by states. I'm not so sure that the states would not have resolved it (Edit: gay marriage, not slavery). 13 years ago, there were 0 US states with legal gay marriage. 6 years ago it was 3. 2 years ago it was 12. Yesterday, it was 36 states…
Unfortunately, the southern states were going the opposite direction. There were states that strongly abolished gay marriage. Even after today's ruling, Texas is making passive-aggressive moves to make it difficult by encouraging county employees to use the "personal objection" reason to not issue licenses.
Re: Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules
#849Well, 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'm gay and I agree with you. But, it's not fair to ask gay people to wait around until marriage is removed from our entire legal system (taxes, immigration, property rights, family law, custody...). So in the mean time marriage equality is a much easier fix. Maybe someday there will be a ruling based on the Equal Protections Clause that bans treating married people differently than unmarried people under the law. Wo…
Not just from the legal system, but what about software systems out there?
How many Human-to-human systems out there have invariants coded in for gender/sex settings? It might make for some interesting scenes of discriminatory software in court for businesses that utilize them.
Re: Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules
#850While 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 g…
You've only seen polygamist relationships like that because that's what you've been fed by society to make you believe that it's wrong and can't work.