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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

#861

Post by __z »

baddox wrote: post #610
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, 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

No. United State v Windsor (the DOMA case) proved that. Spouses have estate tax exemptions. Windsor sued the IRS for $363,053 in estate taxes that she paid to them because the IRS didn't recognize her and her wife as legally married for tax purposes even thought New York did.

Civil marriage is a form of a "normal contract."

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

#863

Post by tzs »

dctoedt wrote: post #858
tzs wrote: post #844

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> I'm not so sure that the states would not have resolved it [slavery]. Opinions among historians seem to vary, but the impression I've gotten (albeit not with any careful study) has been that the slave states likely would have been extremely slow to abolish slavery, because: 1) the dollar value ascribed to enslaved people represented a huge proportion of the wealth of politically-powerful slave owners; and 2) many n…

Oops. I meant that I'm not sure the state's would not have resolved gay marriage, not that I'm not sure they would not have resolved slavery. I've edited my comment to clarify.

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

#864

Post by differentView »

ryandrake wrote: post #403
jayess wrote: post #148

My partner and I are discussing getting married, but the federal income tax "marriage penalty" is giving us serious pause.

Marriage penalty? My taxes went way down when I got married. Additionally, all of the income limits where benefits phase out go up when you're married, so for instance, you might qualify for a Roth IRA when you're married filing jointly, but not if you're single. In my experience, getting married is one of the best things you can do for your tax bill.

Not everyone marry someone who make much less than them.

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

#865

Post by intopieces »

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…

>People on both sides of the debate agree (if given the option) that the government probably never should have messed with marriage, at least not as the cultural/religious thing that it is.

They don't actually believe this, they only say they do. Take any person who says "Get the government out of marriage!" and ask them if they'd like to pay higher taxes and give up the rights that come with marriage. They'll say, "Well, no..."

Simply put, the libertarian cry you suggest is red herring. It's a way to disguise a disgust for gay marriage by making it sounds like you're for "smaller government." If they really believed what they said, they'd have gotten married in a church and then just never filed the documents with the state. Remember, you can get married in a church and not have it recognized by state. Gays were doing it for years.

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

#866

Post by ElComradio »

DanBC wrote: post #818
ElComradio wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any straight guy will, if given the choice, avoid scenes of man on man sex as much as possible. They might say it's "just not my thing" out of politeness or tact but watch what they do. When Chapelle said it it was funny because everyone watching can relate and it's a tension reliever to hear what you've been bottling up is actually true. Much comedy works this way.

> Any straight guy will A small change makes your sentence more truthy: "Many straight guys will". This isn't just a quibble. Public safety gave up using "gay men" because so many men do not identify as gay but do have sex with men. Thus, MSM is now used instead.

There are always exceptions so I don't fee the need to explicitly call that out. But I do submit that it's more like most than many.

Can you clarify how your second paragraph is connected to the first?

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

#867

Post by lifeisstillgood »

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…

Not until the meaning of marriage changes in people's heads too.

For some years my gay friends were "civil unionised" and I always had to do this two step in my head from the words to the meaning I had for life long loving partnership that still has blazing rows and .... You know - Marriage.

So, this is not about religion (really this is from a country where most people under 60 attending church are doing so they can get their kids into the associated school) - it's not about the tax laws, it's about what society sees, expects and hands out to a married couple.

It makes a difference - there is a difference between a couple who are "to all intents and purposes" married and a couple who are married. Because for the 95% straight relationships out there we read something into why that couple has not gotten married. And we are then forced to read the same into a gay couple. That's why marriage matters. Living together is not quite the same. And we know it.

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

#868

Post by anon4327733 »

anon4327733 wrote: post #385

What a crappy ruling. Yes the answer they got was right, but they never bothered to rule that sexual orientation is a (partial) suspect class. Now we have to wait for another ruling to get that resolved. Stupid lazy evaluation of courts.

Great job. Don't read more than the first sentence before voting.

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

#869

Post by sytelus »

guelo wrote: post #401
quizotic wrote: post #200

Earlier 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…

Scalia says striking down campaign finance laws passed by congress and supported by the people was vital but striking down discriminatory marriage laws is extreme judicial overreach. There's no principle there, it's just the politically expedient argument for his ideological battles.

It's surprising that a person with such a strong bias is part of supreme court panel. I'm not saying all judges must be atheists but are people ok with a fundamentalists types from any religion in the supreme court panels?

Scalia is a devout traditionalist Catholic, and his son, Paul, is a Catholic priest.[109] Uncomfortable with the changes brought about following Vatican II, Scalia regularly attends the Tridentine Latin Mass in both Chicago and Washington, and has driven long distances to parishes that he felt were more in accord with his beliefs.[110] In a 2013 interview with Jennifer Senior for New York magazine, Scalia was asked if his beliefs extended to the Devil, Scalia stated, "Of course! Yeah, he's a real person. Hey, c'mon, that's standard Catholic doctrine! Every Catholic believes that". When asked if he had seen recent evidence of the Devil, Scalia replied, "You know, it is curious. In the Gospels, the Devil is doing all sorts of things. He's making pigs run off cliffs, he's possessing people and whatnot … What he’s doing now is getting people not to believe in him or in God. He’s much more successful that way".[111] In another 2013 interview, Scalia stated that "In order for capitalism to work, in order for it to produce a good and stable society, traditional Christian virtues are essential".[112]

In 2006, Scalia, approached by a reporter upon leaving church, was asked if being a traditionalist Catholic had caused problems for him. He responded by asking, "You know what I say to those people?", and with a gesture, cupping his hand under his chin and flicking his fingers out. The gesture, which was captured by a photographer, was initially reported by the Boston Herald as obscene.

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

#870

Post by ElComradio »

vehementi wrote: post #782
kefka wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> But, why not? Because gays not being able to marry is an injustice, an unfairness, oppression, etc. Priority #1 is to stop doing harm to those people however it can be implemented. We didn't * say "Oh black people should have rights, but let's postpone that until we can come up with the best possible way to write it in legislature" *racist people did in fact use that argument

We should have, because what we ended up with is the concept of protected classes, which plays favorites with a specific set of personal attributes and is generally a massive injustice and is now normalized.
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