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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

#881

Post by csallen »

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 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"

Yes we did. Black people were legally discriminated against for almost 100 years until the Civil Rights Act. And before that, we were slaves until the 14th Amendment. Similarly, women weren't allowed to vote until the 19th Amendment.

I'm all for civil disobedience in the face of injustice. And I'm 100% for gay rights. And I'm ecstatic about the court's decision today. I think it was undeniably right from a moral perspective. But it was probably wrong from a legal perspective, and that's worrisome.

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

#882

Post by sampo »

quizotic wrote: post #240
gibsonje wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a case of states violating the constitution of the united states. It's a pretty clear violation of equal protection. It's not up to the states to decide this. Rights of a minority should not be left to the democratic process.

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…

Sometimes the general opinion (let's say > 55% of the population) changes so quickly that it would take 10-20 years to wait for the parliament and senate to be sufficiently repopulated by representatives from the new generation, with more modern opinions.

In these cases you can reach a situation where the democratically elected representatives will hold an opinion that is more conservative than that of the general population.

In this case, whatever shortcut mechanism can be exploited to bring the legislation closer to the general opinion, it will be cheered by the general population.

The decision was not made through the normal channels, but people are happy nevertheless.

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

#883

Post by millstone »

jasonjei wrote: post #538
GuiA wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 votin…

I agree with you that marriage is a right, but there are various reasons why a marriage may be invalid. Perhaps one or the other is underage, or it is incestuous, or bigamous, or immigration fraud. You both must prove eligibility in order to acquire the special legal rights associated with marriage, and rightly so. But of course there is no eligibility requirement for being born!

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

#884

Post by ufmace »

tommorris wrote: post #859
ufmace wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's much more along the lines of what I think. It's kind of the libertarian dilemma - with Gay Marriage, there's one huge, loud camp of religious homophobic bigots demanding that big daddy Government say that Gay Marriage is an illegal abomination, and another huge, loud group of homosexual-rights activists demanding that big daddy Government say that Gay Marriage is a-ok and governments everywhere are required to…

It is politically unviable because it would basically take away the current benefits from straight married couples to further a libertarian pipe dream. Politics is the art of the possible: extending marriage benefits to gays and lesbians is a lot easier than clawing it away from all straight couples in order to satisfy a desire for libertarian ideological BS.

I'd say that the proper libertarian solution is not to eliminate those benefits, but to detach them from marriage. Handle inheritance, hospital visitation, benefits sharing, and other such things directly, instead of linked to marriage. I think it would solve what the gay marriage proponents say they want, and probably a lot of other edge cases too. Who knows how many other people out there the current options aren't working for, but will never have the level of support gay marriage does to write new laws for their case?

But then, this was never really about benefits in the first place. If it was, they could have had civil unions a decade ago. This is about getting the Government to endorse it as Marriage to stuff it in the face of all the homophobes out there. This has always been entirely about ideological "BS", but not the kind the myself and any other libertarians are spewing.

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

#885

Post by vectorpush »

kstenerud wrote: post #857
vectorpush wrote: post #840

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The difference between the number of participants vs the gender distribution of the participants is academic. That's incorrect. The difference is critical as it pertains to discrimination against a certain type of persons. Prohibition of gay marriage means "this type of person cannot marry that type of person"; this is a restriction based on type of person . Contrast that with prohibition of polyamorous marriage wh…

> The difference is critical as it pertains to discrimination against a certain type of persons. How do you define "type"? > Prohibition of poly-marriage has nothing to do with whom you choose as a partner. Does it matter? It's still hindering people from being in the relationships they want. > There is no whom, the only factor is how many, a quality completely detached from the qualities of any individual. There is…

Your argument is absurd. My point is really very simple. Poly-marriage is a function of the marriage structure while same-sex marriage is a function of the sex of individuals.

    persons_table:  person_id, name, age, sex
    marriage_table: marriage_id, person_id
If I drop "marriage_table" it is impossible to identify any poly-marriages in the database. If I drop "persons_table" it is impossible to identify any same-sex marriages in the database.

No amount of pedantic quibbling will allow you to escape the fact that poly-marriage is defined by the TOTAL NUMBER OF PEOPLE in the marriage, it doesn't matter how many partners an individual prefers, the only question is the number of people, not WHO THEY ARE.

I understand that you're trying to suggest that "number of people I want to marry" is the individual trait that factors into the prohibition of poly-marriage, but that argument is disingenuous as well tautologically absurd; it's akin to saying "speeding laws target people who like to speed" which is obviously true but misses the point that the law is based on your actual speed not on your personal predilection for speeding; it's not discrimination because it's not about you.

I don't have to know anyone in the car to know that a car moving at 70mph in 50mph zone is illegal, just like I don't have to know any of the people in the marriage to know that a 3 person marriage is illegal.

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

#886

Post by yellowapple »

enjo wrote: post #618
yellowapple wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression is that OP wants the current rights from marriage to be part of civil unions instead, not for said rights to be eradicated outright. The former sounds like a more reasonable position and would address your (and the parent commenter's) concerns.

But if all we're doing is just changing the name.. then who really cares? Marriage isn't historically a religious institution, it's a civil one.

I certainly don't care what it's called, as long as there's something that confers those rights.

That said, I do object to the oft-stated remark that marriage has historically been a civil rather than religious institution, primarily because historically that's been a distinction without a difference. Such remarks tend to take a separation of church and state for granted when, in reality, both those things were very frequently conflated until maybe the last few centuries, and even then it was a very gradual shift in practice.

Hell, church and state are still one and the same in much of the modern world (see also: significant portions of the Middle East, the United Kingdom, various others). Implying that this was any less prevalent historically is, well, silly.

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

#887

Post by acjohnson55 »

mod wrote: post #789
masklinn wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So he wants the exact same thing with a new name for essentially no reason? That strikes me as an inane waste of resource.

The reason is to abolish the religious ties, I believe.

But that's a silly and dishonest argument because there are plenty of areligious hetero marriages. If separation of church and state is anything more than lip service, statutory marriage isn't an explicitly religious institution. Not to mention that religions exist that have no problem with gay marriage.

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

#888

Post by delecti »

swasheck wrote: post #806
aikah wrote: post #715

Earlier quoted context omitted.

marriage certainly predates Christianity. Therefore marriage shouldn't be associated with Christianity or Islam or whatever. Marriage is a social construct before being a religious one.

you're conflating "Christianity" with "religion" though. it was addressed above but it bears repeating, social and religious constructs were inextricable in antiquity. the concept of separating them is fairly modern.

That really depends how far back you go and where you look. I'm sure I could find as many counter-examples as examples.

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

#889

Post by millstone »

bcheung wrote: post #690
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.

What would this look like? My wife has no income because she is raising our children. Should she be eligible for welfare? Do I owe gift tax if she orders a pizza from our joint checking account?

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

#890

Post by analog31 »

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 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).

The state that I live in passed a constitutional amendment specifically prohibiting civil unions. The only remaining recourse was the supreme court.

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