Supreme Court to Decide on Same-Sex Marriage

[The Princes of the Universe]

An amendment could alter the 1st Amendment as well.

And that would most CERTAINLY never happen. Ever.

It's technically possible so long as the current constitution remains in force. As far as the likelihood goes, I'd probably give birth first (I'm a cis guy, so...).

[United Russian Soviet States]

I have hope that the Court will reject SSM. This is due to 5 conservative justices and 4 liberal ones.

[Moderate Republican]

If it is a constitutional amendment it can have a religious basis. The constitution couldn't be ruled unconstitutional.

It would still viloate the Establishment Clause, as it would be placing one religion above others.

That doesn't change the fact that the Supreme Court does not have the power to strike out parts of the constitution.

It would be just as true to say the establishment clause would violate that amendment, after-all.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

I have hope that the Court will reject SSM. This is due to 5 conservative justices and 4 liberal ones.

Scalia is the only one that I'd be sure to have a dissenting opinion.

The others don't seem so hard-lined

[New Frenco Empire]

I have hope that the Court will reject SSM. This is due to 5 conservative justices and 4 liberal ones.

I also have hope your breed of harmful conservatism will die a fiery death. Considering one of the conservative justices has denounced DOMA in the past, my fantasy seems more likely.

[Mavorpen]

I have hope that the Court will reject SSM. This is due to 5 conservative justices and 4 liberal ones.

It's honestly hilarious how you simplified this to such a degree. I can only assume it's to hide the fact that you don't really understand what you're talking about.

[United Marxist Nations]

I have hope that the Court will reject SSM. This is due to 5 conservative justices and 4 liberal ones.

The best you and other anti-SSM people can hope for is that the court will only throw out the clauses in some of the state laws saying that the state won't recognize SSM's performed outside the state, as those clauses are in open violation of the Full Faith and Credit Clause.

[United Russian Soviet States]

I have hope that the Court will reject SSM. This is due to 5 conservative justices and 4 liberal ones.

I also have hope your breed of harmful conservatism will die a fiery death. Considering one of the conservative justices has denounced DOMA in the past, my fantasy seems more likely.

This is more radical than striking down DOMA.

[Bezkoshtovnya]

I have hope that the Court will reject SSM. This is due to 5 conservative justices and 4 liberal ones.

Luckily, it isn't has hard cut as you make it out to be. Not all GOP members are christian hardliners.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

I have hope that the Court will reject SSM. This is due to 5 conservative justices and 4 liberal ones.

It's honestly hilarious how you simplified this to such a degree. I can only assume it's to hide the fact that you don't really understand what you're talking about.

Its almost as if conservative means they were born in the 19th century.

[WestRedMaple]

I have hope that the Court will reject SSM. This is due to 5 conservative justices and 4 liberal ones.

Why would you want other people to be unjustly discriminated against?

[Bezkoshtovnya]

I also have hope your breed of harmful conservatism will die a fiery death. Considering one of the conservative justices has denounced DOMA in the past, my fantasy seems more likely.

This is more radical than striking down DOMA.

Radical is hardly the word for it.

[The Lotophagi]

I have hope that the Court will reject SSM. This is due to 5 conservative justices and 4 liberal ones.

It's honestly hilarious how you simplified this to such a degree. I can only assume it's to hide the fact that you don't really understand what you're talking about.

Given their history and the fact that they've successfully corralled the entire thread into discussing and following their every word for several pages now, I would suggest there could be another reason.

[Bezkoshtovnya]

I have hope that the Court will reject SSM. This is due to 5 conservative justices and 4 liberal ones.

Why would you want other people to be unjustly discriminated against?

Because Jesus and the fact we should all adhere to his code of religious morals, obviously.

[Greed and Death]

I just know all states can secede because it happened once before and theres no amendment prohibiting secession.

However Texas and Louisiana don't have a right to secede by their constitution or charter. Texas does however have the ability to be divided into 5 separate states as per the chapter.

No state has the right to secede (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._White). And Texas does not have that ability. It may have been that at the time of the annexation of Texas, five states was an option. It no longer is. The Constitution does provide for forming new states out of the existing ones but it takes an act of Congress to make that happen, which it ain't.

Again, off-topic. My fault for encouraging this line of discussion, though it's a line easily fallen into.

Texas division is still debated because the 1845 statute that admitted Texas gave it the option to divide

And be it further resolved ... Third -- New States of convenient size not exceeding four in number, in addition to said State of Texas and having sufficient population, may, hereafter by the consent of said State, be formed out of the territory thereof, which shall be entitled to admission under the provisions of the Federal Constitution;

To be that reads very much like congressional consent. In practice its going to depends on which party is in power in congress as the court will almost inevitably view it as a political question or implied consent if congress does not act to block the new senators and legislators from being seated in congress.

See Virginia v. West Virginia, 78 U.S. 39 (1871)(where a transfer of 2 counties from Virginia to West Virginia was allowed without explicit congressional consent, widely held as authorizing implied congressional consent). See also Virginia v. Tennessee, 148 U.S. 503 (1893); Wharton v. Wise, 153 U.S. 155 (1894); Arizona v. California, 292 U.S. 341 (1934); James v. Dravo Contracting Co., 302 U.S. 134 (1937); and De Veau v. Braisted, 363 U.S. 144 (1960).


This is all academic of course since Texas dividing is about as likely as repeal of the 17th amendment.

[Alien Space Bats]

They seceded because they thought the federal government was going to abolish slavery.

Gahhhhhh!!!!!! No, they did not. Now can we end this side-track before the mods rain Hellfire down upon us? Please?

[MERIZoC]

I have hope that the Court will reject SSM. This is due to 5 conservative justices and 4 liberal ones.

Scalia is the only one that I'd be sure to have a dissenting opinion.

The others don't seem so hard-lined

Thomas and Alito probably will as well.

[Alien Space Bats]

It is in line with American ideals. Why do you think we were against the Soviets in the Cold War?

Because they wanted same sex marriage?

Don't be absurd.

They were anti-religion and leftist.

God, where did you learn history?!? What's with kids these days?!?!?!?

[Soldati Senza Confini]

It is in line with American ideals. Why do you think we were against the Soviets in the Cold War?

Because they wanted same sex marriage?

Don't be absurd.

They were anti-religion and leftist.

God, where did you learn history?!? What's with kids these days?!?!?!?

I'd say they just opened a US History book in High School.

[Alien Space Bats]

I have no problem with multiple partner marriages, aside from one, who would that be set up? Right now marriage is set up to work between a couple, it is not set up to work between more then two, so before that could be allowed the legal parts would need to be worked out.

This is why any Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality isn't going to lead to the legalization of polygamy and/or polyandry (polyandry is when a woman marries more than one man): While in principle States have no legitimate grounds for opposing such unions, in practice no State (including even Utah) has any real legislative or judicial experience in dealing with them, in the sense of being able to say how one is dissolved through divorce, what happens to property or children upon the death of a spouse (or the dissolution of the marriage), and a host of other issues; nor can polygamy or polyandry be simply treated as a set of "simultaneous overlapping marriages". Who has the right to what has the potential to become such a thorny problem within such marriages that States have a VERY good practical reason for wanting to avoid them like the plague.

On the other hand, consanguineous marriage (including sibling marriage) is going to be on. THAT'S unavoidable.

[Katganistan]

Who gives a fucK? People who would marry the same gender will have precisely the same number of children they'd have without the benefits of marriage.

Which is, like everyone else, none, one or some.

I hope you aren't talking to me.

Because we all know the Oedipus Complex is nothing, but good fiction.

I beg pardon? What are you talking about?

[Wisconsin9]

I have hope that the Court will reject SSM. This is due to 5 conservative justices and 4 liberal ones.

They've been de facto legalizing for a while now.

[Katganistan]

One which was previously banned by law, which was later decided to be unconstitutional.

Marriage already exists, is already legal, already has those benefits attached to it.

There is no constitutional reason to ban it for SOME people. There is no 'loss' incurred here by the state. The unconstitutionality is in saying that only SOME legal consenting adults are not allowed to enjoy its benefits, and it's no one's business what legal, consenting adults do.

The idea that there is some right to deny rights to people because of how they live their lives when their lives affect you NOT IN THE SLIGHTEST is as ludicrous as telling women that the decisions made by them and their doctors are up to popular opinion.

And you're preaching to the choir, I strongly agree with you. But if the lawyers arguing for the for same-sex couples goes in and starts arguing that allowing abortions is a reason o overturn states ban on same-sex marriages, the justice will not really like it and that type of stuff, while it makes a great argument in a debate, it does not really in a court of law. The lawyers for the same-sex couple is mostly going to argue that the equal protection clause grants the right to marry for same-sex couples.

Plus, I know a lot of that are anti-abortion and strongly pro-LGBT rights....and they will get pissed and might drop their support for LGBT rights if it tied to the abortion rights movement.

I'm sorry, I was under the impression I was arguing in the general forum and that I was not a lawyer.

There are parallels, though. It's private -- the union of two adults and how they handle their household is as private as can be. We don't demand to know what sort of sex they plan on having, or how many children they will have, or what medical procedures they are allowed to have. I see no reason why the moral big-mouth majority should affect others' lives.

After all, don't many of these same "gays are sinful!" type scream for LESS government intervention in their lives?

[NeoColumbia]

The LGBT community has been fighting this fight for decades, and they may finally see some progress.

I like the part where they got homosexuality declassified as a mental illness by protesting the APA incessantly rather than actually you know, use science.

Now we are at a a point today where people are claiming mental illnesses don't exist at all, nope it's just nuerodiversity! That's "progress" i guess:roll:

There's no guarantee the courts will rule in favor of Same-Sex Marriage, but we've got to hope. No American should feel like a second class citizen in their own country, especially when they've done nothing wrong and just happened to be born homosexual or decided to be homosexual.

So people can choose to be Gay? Funny how it not being a choice used to be justification for why it wasn't wrong ,now that its mainstream people conveniatly drop that lie.
Homosexual sex is wrong and those who choose to engage it it are wrong.

The bans on Same-sex marriage, in my opinion, are unconstitutional,

Based on what? Obviously the founding fathers, the ones that wrote the constitution didn't think so, Thomas Jefferson thought that Homosexuals should be castrated.

Even if you don't understand homosexuals, that does not mean they're inherently evil or the way they live is unnatural.

It is unnatural unless your definitionf for natural is "anything that occurs in nature", by that definition rape,necrophilia, incest and all other sorts of terrible things are also "natural". Most acts of Homosexuality in Nature involving males occur out of a display of dominance, more akin to prison rape than romance.

Some law makers, and millions of Americans disagree.

Civil rights for all except those who disagree, that the point of this law right? Overturning what the people decided should be the law in their own states?

But these were the same people arguing that interracial marriage would lead to the breakdown of American society, yet here we are 50 years later....our country lead by the product of interracial relations.

Yes look at our rising economy, racial harmony, adequate employment and infastructure.
I bet you live in nice mostly white community don't you?

I believe that if the court rules in favor of Same-Sex Marriage, the LGBT community will be making it's first real inroads to equality. Because marriage isn't the real issue, it's just emblematic of a larger problem. The problem being that it's still an acceptable position to hold that gay people shouldn't be allowed in some businesses, shouldn't be hired by some companies, and shouldn't be treated equally under the law.

So it's NOT actually about marriage?
Didn't the first Gay married couple actually get divorced recently?

Should Same-Sex Marriages be legalized Nationwide, why or why not?

No, because their no point and this will end with more priests being force to perform ceremonies they find immoral or face legal reprocussions, how's that for civil rights

[Christian Democrats]

Source on that? Because there's nothing in SCOTUS's decision that mentions procreation, birth, or anything else related to that and nothing I have ever read about Loving v. Virginia mentions anything about procreation, birth, etc.

Jut so you don't forget, CD, I'm still waiting on a response to this.

Read the Loving decision yourself rather than relying on LGBT reinterpretations of it.

Unfortunately, I think the Court will rule in favor of same-sex couples given its apparent stance that any favoritism for heterosexuality is irrational ipso facto. In Lawrence and Windsor, it ruled in favor of gays applying mere rational basis review.

The justices should go with precedent. "[T]he two sexes are not fungible; a community made up exclusively of one [sex] is different from a community composed of both." United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515, 533 (1996) (quoting Ballard v. United States, 329 U.S. 187, 193 (1946)).

I think they should apply the same reasoning as behind Roe v. Wade: nobody's fucking business except the involved parties and their practitioners.

Applying its abortion precedent, the Supreme Court would be ruling against LGBT plaintiffs. The Supreme Court has said that a woman has a right to determine on her own whether or not to obtain an abortion, but she does not have the right to demand government support for her decision. See Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297 (1980), finding that women, although they should be able to procure abortions, have no right to demand government support for abortion in the form of financial resources.

If the Supreme Court takes the path you suggest, the government must allow gays and lesbians to act on their sexual orientation (Lawrence v. Texas), but it has no obligation to endorse homosexuality in the form of civil marriage and its accompanying benefits.

In addition, the abortion case law holds "that the State has a legitimate interest in promoting the life or potential life of the unborn." Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 870 (1992). Given that the Supreme Court applies rational basis review to sexual orientation cases, all the state has to do is prove that it has a legitimate interest in promoting heterosexual monogamy. In other words, if the Court treats abortion and homosexuality the same, then it will uphold traditional marriage laws as legitimate.

Their relationships might be subjectively valuable to them, but they do not offer society the same objective benefits as marriages.

Bullshit. No straight married couple is obligated to have children, and your stance ignores the fact that many same sex couples DO have kids.

Your post ignores the legal test. The state does not have to offer a compelling or even a substantial justification for its position. All it has to prove is a rational connection. Being heterosexual and having children are significantly correlated. The connection is rational.