As far as I can tell, this is good. Somebody else needs to read this.
The majority of my family is pretty disheartened by the news. Ha ha, fuckers. Separate your church and state.
"The sanctity of marriage is ordained by God!" I'm going to start an inflammatory campaign about how Jesus was gay. I'll need the hair guy from Ancient Aliens.
Sorry, I completely misspoke there. I, personally, am dancing around the office. I have good friends that are affected by this decision, and I'm beyond ecstatic for them. This is a huge step in the right direction to treating humans like humans regardless of [insert descriptor here]. The entirety of my family, however, are diehard Mormons and see this as some sign of the end times. What I'm thinking is the same thing as am_Unition: "Ha ha, fuckers. Separate your church and state."
Oh, so you feel like a horrible person for betraying your family, or thinking less of them? I took your statement to mean you are disappointed by the ruling, and think you're horrible because you have a conflict between your moral beliefs and your sense of civil equality.
The betrayal of family thing was something I had to go through about six years ago, but have since gotten over. Though I'll never really get over that huge feeling of disappointment weighing on my gut that someone I once respected so highly---my father---could be so desperately close-minded. The horrible person aspect? It's because my first inclination after many heated debates with most of the members of my family was to gloat. Six years of trying to show them that this was the right path, I feel like I deserve some "I told you so!" time, but doesn't change that it kinda turns me into an ass.
You must have gone through a difficult process of breaking away from the indoctrination. Losing family is hard, but good for you for freeing your mind to think for itself. I also have family members who belong to a fundamentalist religion, and while they secretly think that their invisible friends are better than everyone else's invisible friends, we are still able to be very close and loving and mutually accepting (I think, more or less, well most of us).
Sometimes the reason a person feels like an ass is because an ass would never feel like an ass. I wouldn't be too hard on myself if I were you. Sometimes when people become addicted to antiquated illogical dogma, you gotta use some tough love.
Which is a faulty SCOTUS decision based on a Thomas Jefferson letter that had the opposite intent from what the biased SCOTUS decision "found" in the 1st Amendment that isn't really there (like Dred Scott). The Baptists were petioning the Virginia legislature to not have their voice shut out. The statement "wall of separation" came out of Jefferson's response with the main intent being that "government" should not favor one denomination over another. Out of that, we get the "fabrication" of the separation of church and state that you allude to, but is totally baseless in the nation's founding discussions, the founding state constitutions and most of our history. It wasn't until the 1950's that a biased, ACLU slanted SCOTUS made this fabricated ruling which should be overturned due to its faulty rationale. However, the Congress, in the last 90 years, remains "gutless" to pursue the Constitutional remedy. The fact remains the "buzzwords" you so readily toss about are capacious talking points promoted and kept alive by an all too complicit and slanted mainstream press and career politicians more interested in preserving their political "hides" than doing the right thing.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/billflax/2011/07/09/the-true-meaning-of-separation-of-church-and-state/
Scalia's dissent is worth a read. [...] Since there is no doubt whatever
that the People never decided to prohibit the limitation
of marriage to opposite-sex couples, the public debate
over same-sex marriage must be allowed to continue. But the Court ends this debate, in an opinion lacking
even a thin veneer of law. Buried beneath the mummeries
and straining-to-be-memorable passages of the opinion is a
candid and startling assertion: No matter what it was the
People ratified, the Fourteenth Amendment protects those
rights that the Judiciary, in its “reasoned judgment,”
thinks the Fourteenth Amendment ought to protect.
That is so because “[t]he generations that wrote and ratified
the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did
not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its
dimensions . . . . ” One would think that sentence would
continue: “. . . and therefore they provided for a means by
which the People could amend the Constitution,” or perhaps
“. . . and therefore they left the creation of additional
liberties, such as the freedom to marry someone of the
same sex, to the People, through the never-ending process
of legislation.” But no. What logically follows, in the
majority’s judge-empowering estimation, is: “and so they
entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the
right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning.”
The “we,” needless to say, is the nine of us. “History
and tradition guide and discipline [our] inquiry but do
not set its outer boundaries.” Thus, rather than focusing
on the People’s understanding of “liberty”—at the time of
ratification or even today—the majority focuses on four
“principles and traditions” that, in the majority’s view,
prohibit States from defining marriage as an institution
consisting of one man and one woman. This is a naked judicial claim to legislative—indeed,
super-legislative—power; a claim fundamentally at odds
with our system of government. Except as limited by a
constitutional prohibition agreed to by the People, the
States are free to adopt whatever laws they like, even
those that offend the esteemed Justices’ “reasoned judgment.”
A system of government that makes the People
subordinate to a committee of nine unelected lawyers does
not deserve to be called a democracy. Judges are selected precisely for their skill as lawyers;
whether they reflect the policy views of a particular constituency
is not (or should not be) relevant. Not surprisingly
then, the Federal Judiciary is hardly a cross-section
of America. Take, for example, this Court, which consists
of only nine men and women, all of them successful lawyers
who studied at Harvard or Yale Law School. Four
of the nine are natives of New York City. Eight of them
grew up in east- and west-coast States. Only one hails
from the vast expanse in-between. Not a single Southwesterner
or even, to tell the truth, a genuine Westerner
(California does not count). Not a single evangelical
Christian (a group that comprises about one quarter of
Americans), or even a Protestant of any denomination.
The strikingly unrepresentative character of the body
voting on today’s social upheaval would be irrelevant if
they were functioning as judges, answering the legal
question whether the American people had ever ratified a
constitutional provision that was understood to proscribe
the traditional definition of marriage. But of course the
Justices in today’s majority are not voting on that basis;
they say they are not. And to allow the policy question of
same-sex marriage to be considered and resolved by a
select, patrician, highly unrepresentative panel of nine is
to violate a principle even more fundamental than no
taxation without representation: no social transformation
without representation.[...][I]t is not of
special importance to me what the law says about marriage.
It is of overwhelming importance, however, who it
is that rules me. Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and
the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a
majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. The
opinion in these cases is the furthest extension in fact—
and the furthest extension one can even imagine—of the
Court’s claimed power to create “liberties” that the Constitution
and its Amendments neglect to mention. This
practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee
of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant
praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important
liberty they asserted in the Declaration of
Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the
freedom to govern themselves.
Scalia isn't arguing that same-sex marriage should not be passed. In fact he's arguing his personal opinion is irrelevant. He's merely stating that he does not think same sex marriage should have become legal in the matter it did, by the ruling of nine naturally biased persons. These people do not represent all 320 million Americans and their viewpoints. Accordingly, this ruling by 9 persons undermines the views of the other 320 million of us. I'm glad this ruling occurred, but I'm inclined to agree with Scalia. It would have been better if the states had passed their own laws to similar effect, after due public discourse. Is this cold hearted? Yes, but let's not have personal emotion and beliefs interfere with the basic processes and beliefs that underline the American Constitution. I do think the 14th Amendment does guarantee the right to same sex marriage, but the precedent set here is more worrisome.
I understand strict constitutionalism but this is like coming down against Brown v. BOE and expecting the states to sort out segregation on their own. The Court has to at times drag the country into line with what is just even if it isn't through democratic means
I suppose we just have different views on how our government should work. Fair enough.
I can see where he's coming from on that extent, but at the same time, you could view it as a sort of escalation. Someone brought it before a court, and the court said "such and such verdict". To those seeking that verdict, things made sense. To those who disagreed, it did not. So, they exercised their freedoms and pushed further. It eventually lands at the feet of the Supreme Court. It's clear, when it has reached that point, that the opinions of 320 million Americans are difficult to sort through when it comes down to constitutional interpretation, so we're trusting our final "escalation point" to interpret it for us, because "Well, we can't agree on this. What do you say?" And then they pass their verdict. This didn't remove the rights of 320 million Americans; on the contrary, there are those who exercised them to reach this particular point. Then again, in a contrary vein, when the question is really "do we treat these other humans like we treat us humans?" and there were people saying no we obviously shouldn't because reasons... well, we're just glad the Supreme Court is there.
> the opinions of 320 million Americans are difficult to sort through when it comes down to constitutional interpretation > "Well, we can't agree on this. What do you say?" Opinions of 320 million Americans don't and shouldn't matter in Constitutional interpretation—that's the whole point of an unelected judiciary. The court's job isn't to reflect the balance of public opinion, nor to anticipate the long-term direction public opinion is heading in. The court's job isn't to be the final arbiter of public debate, it's to assess whether statutory laws are in violation of the Constitution. > This didn't remove the rights of 320 million Americans I'm not convinced. Every single referendum on the subject of gay marriage came down against it until Iowa. The majority of states that had legal gay marriage before this decision had enacted it via judicial fiat, overturning public referenda or statutory law passed by the public's representatives. What is happening when five justices invent something unwritten in the actual text of the Constitution in order to overturn both the existing results of the democratic process and any future democratic initiatives/revisions?
If the 14th Amendment guarantees the right to same sex marriage, then same sex marriage has to be legalized. That was the precedent set here--following the constitution and the rights it guarantees to all citizens. Many of the arguments that Scalia made could easily have been made against allowing interracial marriage. Likewise, they could have easily been made against abolition, or integration. What the 14th Amendment does is fight the "tyranny of the majority"--it protects the rights of marginalized groups from majority rulings. If the majority always had its way, slavery and segregation would still be legal. Sometimes the majority is wrong. Just because a lot of people believe something does not necessarily make it right. Several hundred years ago, the majority of the people believed that the sun revolved around the earth. Seventy years ago, the majority of Americans believed that the races should be segregated. Sometimes, the majority takes away the rights of the few--and in those instances, we should be grateful that a document like the Constitution gives the Supreme Court the (seldom-used) ability to overrule the majority.
Avaiihn's comment sums up my response better than I could in my own words
#2 on today's Daily Beast Cheat Sheet: "Justice Scalia’s furious dissent in the Supreme Court case legalizing same-sex marriage exceeded his previous outbursts, not just in rhetorical flourish but in doctrinal conservatism." That's right: Scalia's choadyness actually made the headlines.
Not sure he beat his own dissent from yesterday in terms of rhetorical flourish. I give you jiggery-pokery.
I hate Scalia but you need Scalia. He forces shit to be more solid by way of providing a dissenting opinion. I don't think any ideas are truly thought out until you've had a few people shit all over them and try to prove you really, really wrong. If your idea still stands after that, you know you did the right thing, instead of assuming you did the right thing.
Wait, are you suggesting that b_b was the Scalia of team hubski? "That's the fucking dumbest idea I've ever heard." -b_b, multiple times after suddenly reengaging the conversation between hockey periods. And I miss it.
I was actually thinking about that as I wrote that comment! However, I didn't want to compare b_b to Scalia because... Fuck Scalia.
Oh boy. Scalia... That guy should've been a drama writer, but obviously you make a lot more money from supporting things like Citizens United and trying to ban abortion. He always falls behind really smart and important rhetoric and calls towards the spirit of the writers of the constitution and what the people of the time perceived to be true, but when it's something that his super-religious-self cares about, he suddenly forgets all of the spirit of the writers of the Constitution. It's so easy to dislike that guy...
If you want a real mind-bender, check out Roberts' opinion on the Obamacare thing. He pretty much wrote all the most relevant passages by entirely quoting Scalia's (very recent) opinions regarding reading an entire law in context. Scalia's cognitive dissonance is impressive.
Interestingly, I just that exact phrase in my little soapbox-rant on where SCOTUS' dissenting opinions are trending toward.
I have a lower threshold for comments. If you want something deeper than the Onion, Check out 29 pages of Robert's dissent. I've made it through 15.
I wanted to submit that article but didn't is all. The Onion does great work when presented with something so rife for satire. I submitted the Trevor Moore song because I really like it and wanted to share it today and didn't think it would go over so well with some people on my Facebook.
Court has been on a Liberal Terror lately! The Texas license plate thing, Obamacare, the Fair Housing Act, and now this. Although I agree with them on all counts, I'm shocked. I guess the Roberts Court really is shifting leftward.
-Fair Housing Act expanded to acts that aren't obvious or intentionally discriminatory. Lawsuits can be brought against unfair housing even in the cases of neutral acts that are still discriminatory against minorities. -I think the plates were banning the distribution of plates with the confederate flag.
A little clarification on the license plate ruling: The courts ruled in favor of the state of Texas over the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The dispute being that the State of Texas issued a statement saying the SoCV could not have the confederate flag printed as a special license plate. The court sided with the state essentially because they deemed that license plates are gov't issued and are therefore gov't property, not the property of the individual receiving the license plate. The most odd part of this is in my opinion is that the state of Texas was against the motion in the first place.
If you want to read more:
What a day!States cannot keep same-sex couples from marrying and must recognize their unions, the Supreme Court says in a ruling that for months has been the focus of speculation. The ruling was made by a 5-4 decision.
I teared up when reading the last paragraph from Kennedy's ruling. The very real and positive impact that this will have for millions of Americans cannot be overstated.No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed.
I love it when they start talking about moving to Canada.
How did this become the default fall back plan? "You try to ensure equality for groups I don't like and I'm gonna move to a different country that also disagrees with me on this point." It's like they heard Alec Baldwin say he was going to leave for Canada over Iraq or whatever it was and that became a blanket threat for the dissatisfied. "You want to create a market based solution for healthcare? Well I'm just gonna pack my bags and move to a country with a robust socialized system that I also disagree with. You're gonna miss me when I leave and start testing just how polite those Canadians are with my politics that are considered reactionary in any other Western nation."
First off, I will say that I am for gay marriage. One of the reasons a large number of people are against the ruling is because of the way it was decided. I, too, find the process through which the ruling was made in-just. The job of the Supreme Court is to judge a law and see if, by the Constitution, a law is legal. Anything outside the Constitution is decided by the states. Many states were already making gay marriage legal. Since there is no law in the Constitution regarding gay marriage, the law was supposed to be made individually by each state. The Supreme Court overrode the States' right to chose whether gay marriage is legal. That is one big concern. Furthermore, since the decision was made by the supreme court, which is picked by the President, many felt that the decision was biased and not properly though through. Again, let me state that I believe that gays should have the right to marry. However, the method with which the ruling was made was objectively unconstitutional. TL;DR States are supposed to have the right to decide on gay marriage, meaning that the method used for the ruling was unconstitutional.
its absolutely a constitutionally protected act. Under the 14th amendment.)
The amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws
equal protection.
If this had been dragged out state by state, it could have taken another decade or more in some places, and I know more than a few people who would have continued to suffer as a result. Advocates of states' rights will likely be against this decision, but a greater good was done here.
Why? You do realize we still don't have marriage equality, right? So far we've got racial and gender both covered. But that's not all cases. We still have polygamy and 'multiple consenting individuals' to go. AFAIK I'm still unable to marry my AGI lover. There's also the issue of married couples gaining legal benefits that unmarried couples don't get. That ain't equal. From what I can tell, the end game is to just abolish marriage/unions in their entirety and give people equal rights regardless.
> From what I can tell, the end game is to just abolish marriage/unions in their entirety Funny, this is what conservatives were warning about from the beginning. And people mocked them for slippery slope arguments.
But is that really an issue though? I'm guessing almost certainly that most people are going to react to these later issues the same way people reacted to gay marriage. "Oh noes, my rights!" I honestly can't see any benefits of arbitrary restrictions upon specific individuals who have consented to be paired up seemingly randomly to share resources which are halved if they decide to remove it. The issue is that it's inherently a discriminatory act. So if you want perfect equality, you just have to get rid of it.
I liked Obama's quote:“Progress on this journey often comes in small increments, sometimes two steps forward, one step back, propelled by the persistent effort of dedicated citizens. And then sometimes, there are days like this, when that slow, steady effort is rewarded with justice that arrives like a thunderbolt.”
Biblical marriage is the union of one man to one woman. This has to do with public documents and court documents that dictate how very important processes like taxation, deed transfer, visitation, guardianship, power of attorney, and much more work. This does not effect how ceremonial marriage works. A church is not obligated to perform a marriage. Churches do not file marriage certificates. Furthermore, many churches have performed marriages between same-sex couples since long before same sex marriage (the public law type) was legal. To sum it up, marriage already _was_ a law. Several states had additional laws dictating what marriage was. These were at odds with the certain provisions of the US' Constitution and were impeding upon the rights of many citizens. The "truth" here is that Marriage, as far as the Federal Government and any administrative district is concerned is simply a provision that says that Person A and Person B are entitled to certain joint rights.
Same sex marriage is legal (here) in Spain for 10 years now, roughly. The Spanish conservative party pushed against it, and raised the law for Constitutional High Court's approval, in hopes of stopping it. The court didn't and the law passed. Such a fuss, back then. Religious and right winged demonstrations, ridiculous declarations to media... Now, they hang rainbow flags, if reluctantly, from their party's balconies. The same politicians who stood by "the principles of family and law" tweet congratulations on pride's day. USAns, you lot were being left behind Mexico and Canada, and USA is referential for a lot of countries. So, in 10 years or so, when it'll be only normal to be gay and married, even conservatives will feel ashamed for having opposed to this. And hopefully some reluctant countries wil change their laws. Just because America.
Im very happy for the gay community but I just wish they realized they shouldn't have to beg the government in the first place to get married as I think the government has no business in the marriage game at all. Straight or Gay.... get the hell out of marriage government
I assume you are referring to marriage as the sort dealt with by a church. The government's not touch that. This just says that states cannot prevent two individuals from going to their County Clerk and getting a marriage certificate, which among other things establishes joint taxes, and next of kin.
I realize that. My point is that the entire concept of the government being involved in marriage is kind of bizzare. Why do you need to ask the government who you can sleep with, who you visit in the hospital, and who gets custody of your children if you die? I think two people, regardless of gender, should be able to sign a contract between the two that states rights, money, love, sex, children,etc and the state can enforce the contract...
Well, the marriage certificate is that contract. We saw what happened when the states were given room to oversee that contract. I cannot think of an instance where the government itself (not an agent of the government such as a clerk) has denied such a contract/license. As such, I do not consider it as "asking", especially as marriage licenses are pretty much always issued at the time they are requested, as the only prerequisite is that both (soon to be) spouses consent.
So I live in a house with myself, my fiance, my college buddy, my two brothers, both of whom are bi, and another of my childhood friends with his boyfriend. (It's a big house, 4 bedrooms). As soon as I heard the news, I texted everybody and I called my mom. She didn't believe me at first, but she was really glad once she had determined that I really, absolutely wasn't playing a prank on her. I didn't really have a point there, I just thought I would share my happy feeling. I think this is going to be a historic moment, where people are going to remember what they were doing when they heard that marriage was fully legal.