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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

#791

Post by __z »

pacala wrote: post #666
tommorris wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The state has a vested interest in procreation (i.e.: creation of new citizens & taxpayers as others die off), so takes an interest in "marriage" as a means for facilitating the most efficient & effective means of promoting procreation, doing so by giving special benefits in return for parents taking on special obligations. Expanding the beneficiaries of those benefits to those to whom there is absolutely no chance…

> So, you think marriage shouldn't be available for straight people who are both infertile? The rest of your argument around mutual care is reasonable. There are more nuanced views than a blunt "if state support for marriage depends on procreation, let's ban marriage for infertile people as well.", which sounds like spite: if I can't get it, then those guys over there should not get it either because they are similar…

All the gay parents out there (including April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse two of the plaintiffs in this case) beg to differ.

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

#793

Post by SomeStupidPoint »

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…

Extending the law that provides special rules for pairing, because society deemed pairing useful, to all pairs is fundamentally different than discussing whether we should be arranging groups larger than pairs.

I'm not saying the second question isn't important, I'm just saying that it's a little unfair to make people wait while we already have a law about pairings in place while we have an unrelated conversation.

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

#794

Post by rustynails »

primroot wrote: post #516
nostromo wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Wouldn't you agree something similar applies to workplace discrimination? For example, I would never be willing to work with someone who discriminates against gays. However it is only due to my own economic circumstances that I'm able to act based on that preference. One could as well conclude that the root of the problem is people having to tolerate unfavorable conditions just to get by, and that addressing the issu…

I struggle to understand people's language quite often. For example, you say that you won't work with people who discriminate against gay people. Why caveat that? Is it that you're happy to work with people who discriminate against other criteria other than sexual orientation? I usually find this language reflects how a person thinks, eg. I am gay; therefore, I only care about discrimination against gays. There is no benefit in your caveat (as far as I can see). It does, however, open up a myriad of other issues. Eg. To discriminate is to choose. Also, one of my favourite chestnuts: positive discrimination is negative discrimination against others. Eg. "I must hire someone who is ____" is the same as "I won't hire someone who isn't _____ regardless of experience, certification". This logic has always baffled me.

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

#795

Post by ebiggs »

rayiner wrote: post #274
sigzero wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SCOTUS shouldn't wait on consensus. They don't need that. They need to decide if it is legal or not. If it is not, send it back to Congress to fix. While I agree with the ruling, this court has been doing things clearly outside its purview.

SCOTUS has no police or armies to enforce its edicts. The institution functions entirely on "trust capital." Every time it strikes down some democratically-instituted law, it uses up some of that trust capital. Sometimes, it must spend that capital. But doing it too often erodes faith in the institution, and ultimately, that is the only thing they have. I'd argue that Citizens United is a great example of that in act…

SCOTUS has far more than faith. It derives its powers from the constitution, and a constitutional amendment would be needed to destroy it, not merely a lack of faith, and until its destroyed it has the ability to set precedent and make rulings. To say it has no police or armies is simplistic as well, once departmentalization of constitutional interpretation starts occurring, you have a divided nation on the path to civil war. The thought that there wouldn't be Americans willing to take up arms in solidarity with supreme court rulings, and with SCOTUS rulings as their justification is rather naive.

The only time the executive has ignored supreme court ruling I believe was when Lincoln was in charge, and well, to say the nation was divided at that time would be an understatement.

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

#796

Post by tommorris »

anti-shill wrote: post #35

good...now maybe the so-called "leftists" can put this issue aside and concentrate on issues that matter to more than about 1% of the population...I refer to these really "silly" issues like wages, single-payer healthcare (obamacare is a mess), trade, flooding of the labor supply, the drug war, worker rights and benefits, more time off and vacation, monopolies, regulatory capture, NIMBYized zoning/regs (aka affordabl…

Gay people fighting for their rights doesn't stop anyone else fighting for anything else.

Zero-sum fallacy.

If you want gay people to stop being all annoying and campaigny, then get people to stop persecuting us all around the world.

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

#797

Post by AnimalMuppet »

kstenerud wrote: post #736
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #731

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority opinion in the comments here seems to be that polygamy would be OK. So is there anywhere where you would draw the line? Incest? Underage? Anything at all? Is everything really acceptable?

What do either of those have to do with polygamy?

There was a time when homosexuality was considered morally wrong by the majority of people in this country. Polygamy was also considered wrong, as was incest, marrying children, bestiality, and probably some other things that I'm forgetting.

So my question is this: Given that the majority of people here seem to be so liberal-minded that they consider (consensual, non-coercive) polygamy to be fine, is there anything that anyone will still look at and say "That's actually morally wrong"?

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

#798

Post by olalonde »

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.

What? That's exactly the opposite of what parent is suggesting (if I understood correctly): marriage should be a private or religious matter and not a legal institution. Also, non religious marriage has been going on for a long time in many countries (e.g. China) and I don't think France is a notable pioneer in that area.

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

#799

Post by tommorris »

baddox wrote: post #727
tommorris wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because switching to a system where everybody has to get unmarried in order to satisfy the ideological preferences of people who want to get the government out of the marriage business is something that's going to be a really hard sell to all the existing straight married people. I wrote a long post about it a while back: https://tommorris.org/posts/2555

I'm not sure what you're talking about. Why would people have to get "unmarried"?

If you get government out of the marriage business, marriage stops being a legal reality. You therefore get rid of the legal status of people who are married. You take away benefits and legal status from straight people who are already married.

No amount of sugar makes "oh, by the way, we don't recognise your marriage anymore" taste any better.

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

#800

Post by wcummings »

pekk wrote: post #649
eropple wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a reasonable position, but a realistic one only if you believe that the opposition to same-sex marriage is the use of the word "marriage" and not a fear-driven hatred of people with a different use for their plumbing. As it happens, I do not; I am entirely certain that "civil unions" being applied to gay people would call down the exact same rhetoric from the exact same people. (I am further certain that the wh…

I can't agree. The word "marriage" in particular makes people irrationally excited and start thinking about their church's definition of marriage. So politically, it is a line in the sand. "Defense of civil unions act" doesn't have the same ring and wouldn't get Republicans out to the polls the same way. If, in an alternate history, this could have been made a matter of the government meddling in the issue of marriag…

>"Defense of civil unions act" doesn't have the same ring and wouldn't get Republicans out to the polls the same way.

Because its not coded language designed to appeal to homophobes, unlike actual Republican rhetoric. If it wasn't an "attack on marriage" it would be something else.

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