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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

#761

Post by ElComradio »

masklinn wrote: post #600
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…

> Why is it not "registration of a marriage" as opposed to "application for marriage"? I think the semantics are important, since "application" implies we are ceding power to the government. Because you're applying for an official recognition of your marriage for which the government grants various benefits, and the government can in fact refuse it (for siblings for instance)

All of these things are failures only of bureaucracy to keep up. I should be able to notify the government of who my default estate recipient should be. Maybe it's my best friend or some stranger. No marriage required. Tax treatments for married couples need to disappear and flatten out in general. Insurance should be an individual matter or if it's going to be provided by the government (read: all of us are forced to pay for each other), healthcare issues disappear. The only thing basically left is an adoption issue which is more or less an edge case in all this.

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

#762

Post by gpvos »

leejoramo wrote: post #735
giaour wrote: post #694

Earlier quoted context omitted.

France has done so. When you get married there, it has to be performed by a government official (usually someone representing the mayor's office). You can have a big church wedding if you want, but the state doesn't recognize it. Later, France created a very powerful form of non-marriage civil union (the PACS) and saw it become incredibly popular with straight couples.

This is largely true in the US. I can't speak for how it works in all states, but in most you need an official to marry the couple. The official can be either a religious minister or a government official (such as a Judge or Clerk). From the States point of view, it is not really a religious issue. There are actually "religious" organizations who for a small fee will give you a certificate to act as a minister to per…

That's the difference between France (and many other European countries such as the Netherlands) and the US: here, the official cannot be a religious minister. You first have to get married by an official from your municipality, and only after that is it legal to get a religious marriage (or anything else that carries the name "marriage" but is not the official government-recognized marriage). Because of the separation of church and state, the official marriage cannot be done as part of a religious service, only in a civil ceremony (which can be very minimal).

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

#763

Post by yeahdude »

_ls7m wrote: post #757
rmxt wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a red herring, almost concern troll-esque, argument. This ruling isn't a slippery slope towards moral depravity and chaos, no matter how much religious authorities will attempt to paint it as such. We can definitely know that civilization as we know it will not collapse because two guys/girls are allowed to kiss, hold hands once in a while, and receive acknowledgment from civil authorities that they share tax…

You're right, it's not a slippery slope. It's a gate we've opened and said that whatever your sexual compulsion is, no one else has a right to tell you that it's wrong. That is a very dangerous gate to open and you don't get to close it after gay "marriage" is approved - others will want the freedom as well. It's not a red herring because you already have people on HN, and I'm sure many many other places, asking when…

> You're right, it's not a slippery slope. It's a gate we've opened and said that whatever your [thoughts, feelings and behaviors about X are], no one else has a right to tell you that it's wrong. That is a very dangerous gate to open and you don't get to close it after [X] is approved - others will want the freedom as well.

This isn't an insult, but you're a nitwit? The argument you're making is the prototypical "slippery slope" fallacy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

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

#764

Post by kstenerud »

yeahdude wrote: post #755
kstenerud wrote: post #746

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it does: The trait of whom you choose as a partner. The trait of the structure of your union. The difference between the number of participants vs the gender distribution of the participants is academic.

Not when you consider the legal ramifications.

The legal ramifications are the same as well: Property rights under the union, taxation, child guardianship, visitation, protection upon dissolution, and wills.

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

#765

Post by DannyBee »

0x5f3759df-i wrote: post #723
DannyBee wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but as a lawyer totally in favor of gay marriage, Roberts, at least, is completely right on the legal theory. There has been basically nothing, in the history of our country, considered more of a state right than defining marriage. The supreme court is not a ruling council. Our constitution is about freedom from government intervention, not guaranteed government benefits. The debates over everything in the pas…

>There has been basically nothing, in the history of our country, considered more of a state right than defining marriage. Sorry, this statement just isn't true: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia >The debates over everything in the past that led to amendments looked roughly the same as the debate over same sex marriage. For example, people beat each other on the floor of the senate chamber over slavery…

" Sorry, this statement just isn't true: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia"

I'm aware of loving, which said nothing different? Loving basically said the same thing i did - they need a legitimate state interest. Race based discrimination is not a legitimate state interest. Therefore, Loving falls.

That is sane legal theory. But it doesn't change this case?

"So you are saying that every social issue must end with a constitutional amendment? The 14th amendment is already there. Why must we repeat the mistakes of the past every time a new issue comes along? Are you suggesting we should go to war to settle same sex marriage?"

So what is your view on the 14th amendment. What do you think equal protection means? Because what you've said here essentially implies you think the 14th amendment swallows the rest of the constitution, when instead, the 14th amendment has very specific application.

"You have not established this conclusion with anything you said. Nothing in this comment strikes me as from a "lawyer" but what do I know, I'm just an astronaut doctor lawyer in space."

You haven't actually refuted any point i've made. If you are arguing i am not a lawyer, that's fairly easy to verify. Past that, why actually listen to a lawyer, when you can cite that great legal authority, wikipedia.

If you want to make a legal argument, make one. Simply saying "Loving", does not work, because Loving is different.

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

#766

Post by henrikschroder »

randyrand wrote: post #708
seszett wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Yes, and bans on interracial marriage didn't violate equality because everyone was allowed to marry someone of their own race...

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

#767

Post by rpearl »

jasonjei wrote: post #647
seanalltogether wrote: post #641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is it not "registration of a marriage" as opposed to "application for marriage"? Because you cannot be married to two different people at the same time. Marriage is not an event that happens, it's a legal contract that cannot be in conflict with an existing legal contract. A new marriage does not immediately nullify the existing contract, so an application must be processed to verify this. There are also other…

If we are to use the biblical sense of marriage, the Old Testament has a few incidents where a man was married to multiple wives[1]. Then if we are to be traditional, can a marriage not be among multiple people? Since we have denied same-sex marriage on religious or moral grounds, are we saying we should deny the right for a man to marry multiple men or women or a woman to marry multiple men or women because of our b…

We are not using the biblical sense of marriage. Marriage has been a social institution--not a religious one--for many years.

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

#768

Post by ajays »

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…

> What should happen is the government should stop defining marriage ...

Sure. But gay marriage and getting government out of marriage altogether are not mutually exclusive. Government can still get out of the business of marriage (and divorce). Please feel free to petition your legislators to pursue that approach. In the meantime, it is only fair that the gays enjoy the same rights that the rest of us do.

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

#770

Post by mdpm »

giaour wrote: post #694
brownegg wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't upvote this hard enough. OP is right in my mind, but.... I'm straight (and divorced), and we got married for many of the same reasons that LGBT folks want to--it makes sense. Visitation rights, inheritance, tax treatment, etc. It's unlikely that marriage would be removed as something of concern to lawmakers--has that kind of thing ever happened anywhere, any time, any way? I respect OP's opinion, but it's ivo…

France has done so. When you get married there, it has to be performed by a government official (usually someone representing the mayor's office). You can have a big church wedding if you want, but the state doesn't recognize it. Later, France created a very powerful form of non-marriage civil union (the PACS) and saw it become incredibly popular with straight couples.

Thanks for the information.
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