Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

531–540 of 1001 posts

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

#531

Post by jasonjei »

sliverstorm wrote: post #528
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…

There are pregnant mothers who sneak to America to birth their child on American soil. There are green card marriages. In the case of the first, we have decided that we will still give the kid citizenship. In the case of the second, we don't allow it (if we catch it). I'm pretty sure you can marry without a marriage license. You just aren't legally married, i.e. you don't get all the legal benefits.

Right. So we need permission from the government to marry with a "marriage license"? Why not just record the marriage? License implies a privilege not a right. I'm OK with "Certificate of Marriage." My issue lies with the "Application for Marriage" that implies marriage awaits an approval or denial decision from government. What's next? Do we need to take a marriage test, like we do with driving?

Why do we let the government deny our marriages in the first place? The law should be changed so that we record and acknowledge marriages, not have a bureau officer approve or deny it.

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

#532

Post by ceejayoz »

WorldWideWayne wrote: post #140

Gay Marriage is a controversy that is constantly used to to distract people from much bigger problems. The ruling that had vastly more wide-reaching effects this week is that they upheld the the terrible "Affordable" Care Act. This act is a capitalist abomination of much more well thought-out socialist single-payer plans. Now that health insurance companies have a state granted monopoly, there's no reason to bring pr…

> This act is a capitalist abomination of much more well thought-out socialist single-payer plans.

It was what was possible - it barely passed as-is, and only via some technical processes that let it slip through Congress - and I think history'll show it to be a first big step towards single-payer.

> Now that health insurance companies have a state granted monopoly, there's no reason to bring prices down or change anything.

How so? Before the ACA, there were a number of insurance companies that had to compete between each other. After the ACA, there are a number of insurance companies that have to compete between each other. ACA just removed the "I won't buy any and use the ER when I get cancer" option.

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

#533

Post by aaronem »

lisper wrote: post #310
angersock wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what a significant minority of people is when they have a majority? A majority. I'm not saying they're not idiots, mind you, but you can't go against the will of the majority (dumb as it is) and still wave the "democracy" flag. On a related note, this is why democracies suck: at least half the people participating are below average.

Who is waving the democracy flag? Certainly not me. I'm waving the fourteenth-amendment equal-protection flag. The United States isn't a (pure) democracy. Never has been, never will be. Thank goodness.

You're actually waving the tyranny-of-the-majority flag, in favor of equal protection for minorities. I'm not even honestly sure what to call that.

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

#534

Post by hackuser »

coryfklein wrote: post #477
hackuser wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. As a former Mormon, I'll give a resounding YES. Mormons have a persecution complex. And whenever Prop 8 or gay marriage is brought up it gets even worse. They tend to inflate opposition - you say "we should legalize gay marriage" and they will respond "I have a right to talk about my religious beliefs!!"

IME, it's just part of the rhetorical toolbox of the 'outraged conservative' (I'm not criticizing all conservatives, just those who get carried away with this talk radio / Fox News rhetoric). Outrage, persecution complex ... you can see it in some of today's dissents: Alito protesting that people opposing gay rights will be criticized (is this an issue for the Supreme Court?), and, you won't believe it, but Scalia was outraged. Why should Friday be any different than Thursday?

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

#535

Post by estel »

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…

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

But at the expense of meaning that some couples wouldn't be able to marry, for, what - the next decade? Fifty years? And it's not as if a broader change to the meaning of marriage is off of the cards as a result of this - let's take the wins as they come.

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

#536

Post by verisimilidude »

samatman wrote: post #121

While 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…

How does polygamy benefit the state? It's a serious question.

With regular two-people marriage, you're roughly giving almost everyone a shot at finding a partner for marriage. This means you don't get large roaming populations of one sex or the other without any hope of finding a partner, and all the problems that can bring (see China). Those people will not be able to participate in the state-approved stability that marriage can bring.

Gay marriage is actually positive for the state in these respects, since it expands the number of people who can participate in the current framework. Polygamy is much more complicated at scale, and I think you'd need to find solutions to many other potential problems before you could convince the state to accept it.

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

#537

Post by bane »

wyager wrote: post #520
bighi wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But marriage is not a religious thing. Before most popular religions were created, marriage was already old. For cultural reasons, it's popular to do a RELIGIOUS CEREMONY along the marriage. What's religious there is the ceremony, not the marriage. You can have religious ceremonies without marriage, and marriages without the religious ceremony. Two independent concepts that, by happenstance, often come together.

Even if it's just a social ceremony, the government should not give it special legal allowance. The government doesn't recognize Quinceañeras or bar mitzvahs. If you believe that marriage has an important legal function, it's also not fair to preclude polygamists from getting those same legal utilities. A much better generalized solution is to expand the purview of contract law to allow it to do everything marriage d…

> bar mitzvahs

The government does recognize a legal "coming of age" in several cases (at least in the U.S.).

- Driving a car (restricted at 15 years and some months, open at 16)

- Entering the Majority (18)

- Can enter the military (18, or 17 with some restrictions)

- Can have Sex (rules vary by state, but is generally 16-18 with various limits)

- Can drink (21)

etc.

It just so happens that these legal coming-of-age points don't specifically align with any religious coming-of-age. The two are divested from each other due to various pre-existing cultural forces. But it's completely conceivable in some alternate universe that the two are conflated and one enters the majority legally at the same time as going through a "traditional" Sacrament of Confirmation.

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

#538

Post by jasonjei »

GuiA wrote: post #530
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…

I mostly agree with you, but I'm unclear on: > A marriage should be recognized in the same manner that we issue a birth certificate In the case of a birth there is a clear indisputable fact: a child is born, therefore a new human being that must be taken care of and have rights as a citizen is added to the world. That's a pretty clear event to which a birth certificate can be attached. Is there such an equivalent for…

If two people agree to marry, isn't that indisputable fact? What else do we need to require to prove a marriage? A "Registration of Marriage" would be sufficient, not an "Application for Marriage License." Marriage is a right, not a privilege. Or do we need to let the government decide who can marry still and continue with the permitting process?

Edit: I would like to know why you might disagree if you are down voting me. yellowapple and I have similar sentiments, I think.

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

#539

Post by nmrm2 »

jrs235 wrote: post #441
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…

"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 explicit goal of the bill of rights.)

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

#540

Post by Sevzinn »

michaelsbradley wrote: post #318

A sad day for our country, our highest court and much of our culture has succumbed to social insanity. For my part, I will never under any circumstances recognize by word or deed that any so-called marriage can be or has been established between two persons of the same sex. No government on earth has the power or authority to do that, anymore than a legislature could repeal the law of gravity or a judge could declare…

Well argued. I clicked and noticed that you happen to be religious, but I see nothing religious about your message here. Thanks!
Post reply on HN