Supreme Court to Decide on Same-Sex Marriage

[The balkens]

Right! That's why issues like this one ought to be settled via the normal democratic process.

Which shockingly enough, this is.

Or do you not understand how the Supreme Court and the judiciary branch works?

Don't they interpret the constitution? Thats what i got from Civics class..

From the 1990s.

[Alien Space Bats]

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

I learned it from my history teacher and internet sources.

Your history teacher should be fired.

[The balkens]

I learned it from my history teacher and internet sources.

Your history teacher should be fired.

And his degree taken away IMMEDIATELY.

[Benuty]

Good god, hopefully its a yes.

If they want to set a good precedent lets hope. I just wonder if Scalia will be influenced by his religious beliefs to the negative?

[Christian Democrats]

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.

You're ignoring the fact that the Supreme Court has also held that the right to marry is universal. Denying it to same-sex couples therefore violates the Equal Protection Clause, just as Virginia's ban on interracial marriage was deemed to in Loving.

You beg the question, "Is 'gay marriage' marriage?" It's a circular argument that the right to marry includes homosexuals because the point being argued is whether or not same-sex relationships are or should be considered marriages in the first place.

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.

Again, the Equal Protection Clause says no, because States don't bar marriage by infertile heterosexual couples (i.e., men who've had a vasectomy, women who've had a hysterectomy, or post-menopausal women in general). The plaintiffs don't have to limit themselves to a comparison of same-sex marriage to FERTILE heterosexual marriages; all they have to do is note that no State anywhere bans INFERTILE heterosexual marriages, and it's game over for the opponents of same-sex marriage.

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.

What is the state's rational basis for allowing infertile heterosexual unions, while banning same-sex unions?

Answer: Barring religious offense, it doesn't have one.

You're asking for an argument stronger than rational basis review. Being in a heterosexual relationship and having children are significantly correlated, so the opposite-sex definition of marriage is rational.

The argument -- but some infertile heterosexuals marry -- is wrong because we're not arguing a least restrictive means test.

[The balkens]

Good god, hopefully its a yes.

If they want to set a good precedent lets hope. I just wonder if Scalia will be influenced by his religious beliefs to the negative?

What about the Clarence Thomas? though the man hasn't spoken in years on the court i believe.

[Katganistan]

No, that is the legal definition.

Source for "a contract to decide how the assets of the household are disposed if the union dissolves" is THE legal definition of marriage everywhere in the United States?

http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/marriage

Please note the part about the Supreme Court striking down DOMA at the end.

[Katganistan]

The Fourteenth Amendment can't possibly apply to gay individuals?

It applies to gays on rational basis review.

Being in a heterosexual relationship and having children are significantly correlated, thus a rational connection.

Not really. As has been explained multiple times.

[The balkens]

Source for "a contract to decide how the assets of the household are disposed if the union dissolves" is THE legal definition of marriage everywhere in the United States?

http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/marriage

Please note the part about the Supreme Court striking down DOMA at the end.

Ah, the Defense of Marriage act. never understood why some people got riled up when it was struck down.

[Mavorpen]

It applies to gays on rational basis review.

Being in a heterosexual relationship and having children are significantly correlated, thus a rational connection.

Not really. As has been explained multiple times.

I don't see why it's difficult to grasp the fact that homosexual couples tend to want children too. And, well, that we have ways of making that happen now.

[Katganistan]

So am I just never going to get an answer to the question of whether interracial marriage is "fundamental to our very existence and survival"?

Of course you won't. It's an uncomfortable question with an answer that everyone in the thread already knows. Therefore, it shall continue to be ignored.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/marriage

Please note the part about the Supreme Court striking down DOMA at the end.

Ah, the Defense of Marriage act. never understood why some people got riled up when it was struck down.

Because defense of marriage

[Geilinor]

http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/marriage

Please note the part about the Supreme Court striking down DOMA at the end.

Ah, the Defense of Marriage act. never understood why some people got riled up when it was struck down.

They got riled up because of what might happen when this case is decided.

[Alien Space Bats]

One just as easily can say, "Marriage is secularly a contract for exclusive sexual access, reproduction, and childrearing. Marriage means: if we ever have children together, we'll have certain rights and obligations on equal footing toward those children."

And towards EACH OTHER.

THAT is what you're missing. Spouses have rights and obligations w/re to and towards EACH OTHER, and not just any children who may get sucked into the arrangement along the way. If my wife gets sick, I have the right to visit her in the hospital, and be involved in decisions regarding her health if she can't make those decisions for herself; as a husband, I have an obligation to support my (disabled) wife as best I can (as she does towards me, should I become disabled); together, we have the right to pool our property for our mutual benefit, and to be each others' presumptive heirs where questions arise regarding inheritance after one of us has died; and if we decide to divorce, we must reach an adjudicated settlement regarding the disposition of these rights, squaring them with each other before we can move on to other arrangements.

It isn't all about sex and children; and if you'd ever been married, you'd know that. Having been married without children twice, I can tell you that marriage is one Hell of a lot different than simply cohabitating.

So what IS marriage about? For the most part, it's primarily about PROPERTY, secondarily about INCOME and MUTUAL SUPPORT (financial or otherwise), and only after THAT do children come into it... IF AT ALL.

[Katganistan]

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.

Who we love defines us (I'm speaking here of all human beings, rather than just gays, lesbians, bisexuals, etc.) as thoroughly as our religious beliefs. So if religion is a protected choice, why not homosexuality? Who, precisely, is being hurt by such a choice? And if such a decision is so central to our self-identity (as our choice of lovers always is), why would human dignity and the need for us to be free to think, feel, express ourselves, and live in accordance with our core beliefs and values be something that anyone should be allowed to ban, so long as no one is hurt by such choices?

I'm not saying homosexuality is a choice; if saying that even if it were, human decency and a respect for fundamental human rights would demand that it be as protected as thought, speech, faith, and political expression.

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.

I am so fucking tired of what Thomas Jefferson thought. He didn't write a single word of our Constitution or any of its 27 Amendments, so who in the fuck is he to say anything about the whole thing? Just another uninvolved observer, that's who...

And as for where it found its way into our Constitution, you show your absolute ignorance of history by failing to realize that our rights REALLY come to us from the 14th Amendment, which was enacted by Congress in 1868. Look there, and to the phrases "life, liberty, or property", "equal protection", and "due process of law" if you want to understand where such rights come from.

The Bill of Rights protected us from Federal overreach into our lives, but only in a few very limited ways; and they did nothing to keep the States from robbing us of liberty if they so chose. It was the 14th Amendment that made us truly free, and it was John Bingham and the 39th U.S. Congress that we can thank for that freedom, not the "Founding Fathers".

Or didn't you notice the role the 14th Amendment is playing in this case?

So in that link, it says the first two questions the Supreme Court set up for itself (which it says is uncommon):

[i]"The court’s first question: “Does the 14th Amendment require a state to license a marriage between two people of the same sex?”

The second: “Does the 14th Amendment require a state to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-state?”"

It's right there in black and white: "Does the 14th Amendment require..."

Read those words and weep, Citizen.

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?

In case you haven't noticed, this is a bedrock principle of American politics: That (at least since the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868), electoral majorities cannot vote away the fundamental rights of the individual.

Marriage is a fundamental right. The Supreme Court has recognized this for decades, based on a long line of legal reasoning that goes back to English common law (and was formally introduced into our system by the 14th Amendment's use of the phrase "life, liberty, or property", which was a long-standing term of legal art for those common law rights long accepted to be every man and woman's birthright, but never fully enunciated).

Privacy is also a fundamental right. Again, the Supreme Court recognizes this, and again its reasoning goes back to the 14th Amendment and English common law, through the same legal mechanism described above.

Since then the Court has been slowly inching towards the realization that these fundamental rights protect our sexual behavior from unwarranted governmental regulation. If it doesn't hurt anyone, who cares what we do in the privacy of our own homes, or to whom we choose to do it (Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 [2003])? And if homosexuality is thus permitted, how can we deny people who love others of the same sex the fundamental right to marry?

It doesn't matter how many people think that it's wrong. My religion isn't subject to your approval, and neither are my love affairs; on that basis, why in the fuck should my right to marry be, either?

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

Surely you're not going to argue that our present economic woes are due to the overthrow of Jim Crow segregation, or that we would be a more harmonious society if we still denied blacks their fundamental human rights...

So it's NOT actually about marriage?

No, it's about marriage, all right. But marriage is not the end of the line, any more than it was with Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967).
Didn't the first Gay married couple actually get divorced recently?

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

That hasn't happened with interracial marriages. There are STILL all-white churches in America (as well as congregations comprised entirely of members of a SINGLE faith — imagine THAT!!!), and ministers can still refuse to marry people of different races or faiths if they please (not having ever been baptized, I wasn't allowed to marry my second wife in the Greek Orthodox Church, as we had hoped; instead, we had to settle for a civil ceremony in the Ypsilanti Town Hall [at least that allowed us to have Greek flags in the background...]). Nobody is going to force your congregation to allow gays among your ranks, or force your priest/minister to preside over same-sex marriages. That fear is bullshit, nothing more.

Thank you for putting it so clearly and logically.

[Geilinor]

Ah, the Defense of Marriage act. never understood why some people got riled up when it was struck down.

Because defense of marriage

Any time a law has a clever acronym or name, it's hiding something.

[Benuty]

Ah, the Defense of Marriage act. never understood why some people got riled up when it was struck down.

Because defense of marriage

Cognitive dissonance. By opposing the right of GSM to be equal in the tree of marriage they instead sought to chop it down rather than let it live.

[Katganistan]

No, that is the legal definition.
Face it: you CANNOT get religiously married in the US without a STATE license.

Guess which takes precedence? Because if you have no state license, you do NOT get the tax benefits and all the rest.

Please, PLEASE learn a little about what you're talking about.

Now in response to the eerily close red mod text which raped my eyes and took certain peoples virginity away. You can get a religious marriage without state recognition. It just wont be an actual "marriage" now if you excuse me I need to repair my glasses since you broke them.

I will assume it also removed your ability to read the rest of the post in which I stated it's not a legal marriage and you don't get the legal benefits of it, or that for whatever reason a chance to snark took precedence over, you know, the actual topic.

[Dhomland]

Why is the court even deciding it? Where has democracy gone?? Who elected the court??

SSM is a political issue and people should decide it! Either through a referendum or through elected representatives.
As far as I know people in Mississippi do not want gay marriage. And if it is legalized there against the will of the people it will be a downfall of democracy!

[Katganistan]

That hasn't happened with interracial marriages. There are STILL all-white churches in America (as well as congregations comprised entirely of members of a SINGLE faith — imagine THAT!!!), and ministers can still refuse to marry people of different races or faiths if they please (not having ever been baptized, I wasn't allowed to marry my second wife in the Greek Orthodox Church, as we had hoped; instead, we had to settle for a civil ceremony in the Ypsilanti Town Hall [at least that allowed us to have Greek flags in the background...]). [b Nobody is going to force your congregation to allow gays among your ranks, or force your priest/minister to preside over same-sex marriages. That fear is bullshit, nothing more.[/b]

This has been said several times before, but isn't this about legal/civil marriages/unions, and not religious ones? So why do people have to get their panties all tied up if this legal marriage and not religious? And even then, there are churches that support same-sex marriages, so there's that.

Because certain people are under the mistaken assumption that their religious belief trumps secular law.

[The balkens]

Ah, the Defense of Marriage act. never understood why some people got riled up when it was struck down.

They got riled up because of what might happen when this case is decided.

OH THE ANGST! THE GAYS COULD GET...MARRIED!

[Geilinor]

Why is the court even deciding it? Where has democracy gone?? Who elected the court??

SSM is a political issue and people should decide it! Either through a referendum or through elected representatives.
As far as I know people in Mississippi do not want gay marriage. And if it is legalized there against the will of the people it will be a downfall of democracy!

The courts are a part of our democracy.

[Katganistan]

You may be shocked to learn that the laws in Japan do not apply in the US.

Try harder.

You might have been shocked to learn that there are non-religious societies that define marriage as a heterosexual relationship.

Try harder.

We're talking about the US Supreme Court and US law, so irrelevancies about Japan are just that. Irrelevant.

Ball's in your court.

[Alien Space Bats]

I don't think the state should marry people. But if it must, then sure, let the homosexuals have at it (whether the court's inevitably convoluted decision will agree is obviously unclear).

The state HAS to marry people, because the state has an obligation to deal with matters of property and its ownership. The only place you could ever have "stateless" marriage would be in a perfectly communist world, where nobody had any property to own.

I don't see why polygamy is still illegal?

Do YOU want to try and figure out how to handle death and inheritance (not to mention divorce) where more than one surviving spouse is involved?!?

Because I sure as Hell don't.

<shudders>

tl&dr: Just keep repeating to yourself this mantra: "Marriage is all about property and mutual support", and you'll understand all of these issues much, MUCH better.

[Dhomland]

Why is the court even deciding it? Where has democracy gone?? Who elected the court??

SSM is a political issue and people should decide it! Either through a referendum or through elected representatives.
As far as I know people in Mississippi do not want gay marriage. And if it is legalized there against the will of the people it will be a downfall of democracy!

The courts are a part of our democracy.

Democracy means rule of the people (rule of the majority). If the court decides something that people don't want, it is not a democracy.