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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

#681

Post by mrgoldenbrown »

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…

It sounds like you have bought into the fox news talking point that "marriage" is fundamentally a religious word and civil union is a legal thing. Merriam Webster's first definition talks about marriage as a union in law. It doesn't even mention religion at all in fact. Dictionay.com mentions both, though "legally" is mention before "religiously". The English word marriage, in the United States, can refer to either the government approved legal contract, or a religious ceremony. If we want to separate the church and state, let's invent a new word to refer to the religious aspects.

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

#682

Post by sliverstorm »

taki1 wrote: post #25
agd wrote: post #4

Great decision. It's amazing how quickly gay rights have advanced in the western world. Unfortunately it's still legal in many states to discriminate against employees on the basis of sexual orientation. Hopefully that's next to be fixed.

not to mention how hard it is for gays to land a job in early years education. So backwards! The worst are these mothers. Once they see a male working in a Child Care Center there is going to be lawsuit, that's for sure. Gay male employee at Child Care Center? I hope there will be some progress too!

Once they see a male working in a Child Care Center there is going to be lawsuit, that's for sure.

Isn't this a gender discrimination problem, not a sexual orientation problem?

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

#683

Post by rodgerd »

aNoob7000 wrote: post #347
quizotic wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You asked, why this minority? Because two consenting adults want to get married, that's why. Not two children, but two adult Americans want to get married and have it recognized around the United States, not just a few states. States screwed up when they took the civil part of marriage and associated it with the ceremonial part in a church.

> States screwed up when they took the civil part of marriage and associated it with the ceremonial part in a church.

In England that was because the church - specifically the Anglican church - wanted to gain religious power over marriage as a mechanism to make it harder for Anglicans to marry into other faiths. So I'm not really sympathetic to churches in common law countries crying about this one.

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

#684

Post by bippi »

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…

You're talking centuries of property and estate rights laws in all states and counties. It would be a freakin' mess.

But yeah, this ruling eschews poly relationships.

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

#685

Post by netfire »

mikeash wrote: post #571
netfire wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you specify what part of the constitution is being violated here? There are amendments that protect race, color, gender, etc. Protection based on sexual orientation doesn't seem to be covered, at least not specifically. In my mind, the correct solution to this issue should have been legislative (that is, add an amendment to the constitution), not judicial.

This really has nothing to do with sexual orientation . It's not gay marriage, it's same-sex marriage. This is a subtle but extremely important distinction. Gay people have always been allowed to marry. They haven't been allowed to marry the people they want, but a gay man was allowed to marry a gay woman in every state in the union. Similarly, straight people were not allowed to marry other straight people of the sa…

I should have phrased my earlier comment more specific to same-sex marriage, that's true. I don't think your second argument that marriage is sex discrimination is valid though. As you point out, both men and women have been allowed to enter into non same-sex marriages, regardless of their orientation or gender.

What's in question here is whether its discriminatory to not allow same-sex marriages to occur and whether states should be able to determine what marriage means and restrict it accordingly. Marriage has traditionally been between a man and a woman and certainly wasn't intended to be part of the 14th amendment when it was added to the constitution in 1868.

To add it more than 100 years later seems like a case of the judicial branch legislating and adding to the law, more than interpreting existing law in the context and intent of which it was passed.

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

#686

Post by ScottBurson »

nmrm2 wrote: post #539
jrs235 wrote: post #441

Earlier 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…

And yet, jrs235 is making an important point. The question is, which way does the causality run? Do individuals have rights because they're members of minorities, or do minorities have rights because they're composed of individuals? The correct answer, in my view, is the latter.

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

#687

Post by SwellJoe »

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…

I agree with you on the end goal, but perfect is the enemy of the good, and I could not more strongly disagree about waiting until that perfect solution is on the table.

Having every gay couple wait another couple of decades until everybody gets their head out of their ass to have basic rights like visitation of their partner in the hospital, inheritance rights, co-parental rights of children, etc. is an unacceptable moral compromise, and it is heartless to demand that millions of gay Americans make that sacrifice so that the law can look like I want it to.

We still have a long way to go to recognize all of the shapes relationships take (I'm non-monogamous, for example, and don't really expect to see multi-party legal unions in my lifetime), but making one huge group of people suffer while those other things get sorted out is an ethically untenable option, for me. And, honestly, I suspect this is a step in that direction...the religious loons will continue to campaign for changes, because of this. And, we can continue to push for reform.

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

#688

Post by TheBeardKing »

quizotic wrote: post #200
mkr-hn wrote: post #17

For 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…

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 you imagine if the repeal of Jim Crow laws had been left to the states? How long would it have been before Mississippi integrated?

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

#689

Post by pohl »

baddox wrote: post #602
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.

Marriage need not be a "government thing" in the modern sense, with all the legal distinctions we currently have. Marriage is inherently a legal thing, in the sense that it's a contract between people.

State is a prerequisite for law, except in a libertarian's dorm-room fantasies.

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

#690

Post by bcheung »

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…

Equally the government should not discriminate based on whether you are married or not for tax purposes.

They need to treat everyone the same in the eyes of the law.

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