One of Judge Walker’s strongest points was that traditional notions of marriage can no longer be used to justify discrimination, just as gender roles in opposite-sex marriage have changed dramatically over the decades. All marriages are now unions of equals, he wrote, and there is no reason to restrict that equality to straight couples. The exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage “exists as an artifact of a time when the genders were seen as having distinct roles in society and in marriage,” he wrote. “That time has passed.”That is, the conventional idea that marriage is between a man and a woman rests on gender stereotypes about what men and women are like. Since the sex discrimination cases already reject laws based on gender stereotypes, that conventional idea can't be the basis for rejecting same-sex marriage.
To justify the proposition’s inherent discrimination on the basis of sex and sexual orientation, he wrote, there would have to be a compelling state interest in banning same-sex marriage. But no rational basis for discrimination was presented at the two-and-a-half-week trial in January, he said. The real reason for Proposition 8, he wrote, is a moral view “that there is something wrong with same-sex couples,” and that is not a permissible reason for legislation.That is the Supreme Court case law. As Justice Scalia complained in his Lawrence dissent:
“Moral disapproval alone,” he wrote, in words that could someday help change history, “is an improper basis on which to deny rights to gay men and women.”
The Court embraces ... Justice Stevens’ declaration in his Bowers dissent, that “the fact that the governing majority in a State has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice”.... This effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation. If, as the Court asserts, the promotion of majoritarian sexual morality is not even a legitimate state interest, none of the above-mentioned laws can survive rational-basis review....It was no stretch to end up where Judge Walker did. Now, the 9th Circuit Court and the U.S. Supreme Court may struggle to find their way back from the routine legal reasoning that took Judge Walker where many people are unhappy he went. But to do that will require stretching for a preferred result, given the precedent.
Why not cheer yourself up by thinking about the boost this will give to conservatives in the upcoming election? And leave gay people alone.
Okay?
IN THE COMMENTS: garage mahal starts us off with a comment, that based on previous gay marriage threads, predicts where this thread is destined to go:
Great. Now now I can marry a desk. Or a freezer. Oh wait...
Posts
324 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 324 of 324Have you ever accidentally hit the accessibility button next to the word verification on accident without realizing you'd hit it? That was weird.
Who out there besides me would promote a constitutional amendment specifying that all references whatsoever to sex, race, marital status or familial status in all laws of the land be considered null and void ?
Mary -
The point is either those benefits should be available to everyone or they should not. Marriage should be irrelevant. Why shouldn't I, a single person, be able to name a social security beneficiary?
especially if your family might not recognize your spouse or non-biological children from a second-class legal relationship.
And that is certainly something that I think contracts should provide for.
And I also agree that being able to provide for a family is important. I am just not convinced that government is the way to do it. I think life insurance is a very good idea. (And we could get into a tangential discussion of whether or not the government should subsidize high risk life insurance pools as it does in some states with health insurance. I could probably compromise there.)
A couple of points:
1. The judge in the case was homosexual. shouldn't he have recused himself because he might have a vested interest? (I know, Federal judges are never biased and have no agenda and, since he's one of the club, no one else will call him on it.)
2. One of the main points of marriage as a legal issue is the protection of dependent children and their rights. Since the family is the building block of society (although not every heterosexual couple which marries ends up having children), the expectation would be that marriage laws are there to protect that family. Since most homosexual (wo)men won't be marrying to procreate, why do they need a piece of paper?
corsair the rational pirate said...
Jefferson said this about religions:
But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782
I would propose that the same applies in marriage. As long as people are not out on the streets scaring the horses, what business is it of mine how they want to define their relationship.
Go to zombietime and look at the post on the Castro fair or read how the "Gay Riviera" was created in Florida.
That will be their next "right".
For all your abstract talk, if anything happened to you and/or your husband tomorrow, you would be very glad that your sons could draw on your husband's disability and survior benefits.
That's pretty witty, Mary, and, undoubtedly, you're right...if it happened tomorrow.
How about ten years from now? Fifteen? Twenty?
There was a time, and not too long ago that SSM was also illegal. How'd that work out?
There was a time, and not too long ago that interracial marriage was also illegal in most states. How'd that work out?
Just let them get fucking married, who cares. If your hetero marriage is so threatened by a gay couple marrying across the country, your marriage ain't worth shit to begin with. I agree 100% with Palladian's position by the way. Civil unions for all, and leave the State out of it. The easiest, and fairest for everybody. Of course also why it will never happen.
Does no one see it?
Common public bathrooms exist as an artifact of a time when the genders were seen as having distinct roles in society!
1. The judge in the case was homosexual. shouldn't he have recused himself because he might have a vested interest? (I know, Federal judges are never biased and have no agenda and, since he's one of the club, no one else will call him on it.
I thought about this on the way in, edutcher, but the opposite is just as bad. A straight judge upholding Prop 8. In my mind, you'd have to find someone like asexual mayor Ed Koch :)
By the by, where are all the outraged black people that voted for Prop 8? How is a gay judge overturning their will any different than a white jury not convicting four cops? Shouldn't Korean groceries be on fire right about now?
I agree 100% with Palladian's position by the way. Civil unions for all, and leave the State out of it. The easiest, and fairest for everybody. Of course also why it will never happen.
Look at that. Palladian, Garage, and I agree on something completely.
Make it so.
@garage
I agree 100% with Palladian's position by the way. Civil unions for all, and leave the State out of it. The easiest, and fairest for everybody. Of course also why it will never happen
I agree, but let's make sure we're all on the same page. Peter can marry Mary, but he could also marry Paul if he wants. Check. They go down to the local state apparatus and get it recognized . If they want a ceremony, they can then go have it on their own dime. Check.
Now...what happens if it turns out that Peter, while in love with Mary, has always had a thing for Paul as well. He finds out Mary and Paul had a fling and everyone agrees they can afford more, do more, with three incomes rather than two.
Are they SOL?
SOL yes. Why is a separate question.
Sounds like all of this amounts to problems surrounding the government attempting to tax and control everything. If it stopped, how much is left to fiddle around with? Adoption contracts?
ALP,
I'm down with that. However, there are even a lot of heterosexual marriages that don't produce children.
For example, Althouse and Meade aren't going to be squeezing out any puppies, y'know? My post-menopausal aunt just got married a few years ago, and all of her and her own husband's children are fully grown now.
Vasectomies and tubal ligation aren't exactly uncommon, and there are many people who get married without producing offspring, either because they can't or they don't want to.
So the benefits that romantic couples get aren't really based on their ability to bear children.
The argument that romantic pairings create a stable environment for childrearing is true to a point. However, it's still irrelevant in the case of romantic couplings that do not or cannot produce children.
In addition, given how common divorce has become, it's clear that creating a stable environment for childrearing is not the primary interest of the state. (Otherwise, we wouldn't have laws that make divorce so easy.)
I can appreciate your point from the standpoint of evolutionary biology. However, our laws have clearly evolved in a very different direction. We are rapidly moving toward a point where marriage is minimally defined as "shacking up with someone you're attracted to".
This isn't something that started with this court decision in California, either. This is the result of hundreds of years of social and legal evolution.
Gays aren't asking to marry more than one more person, or their sister/brother, etc etc etc.
Scott -
There would be no "recognition" of anything. There simply would be no legal distinctions between married and unmarried
Wading into another ramification here: if homosexual partners want what heterosexuals have with marriage as Mary continues to assert (which we'll stipulate for the time being), there are still big problems with this case being used in that fashion. Here's one.
Suppose everything flows Mary's way and homosexual marriage stands. Picture three marriages: male/male with children, male/female with children, female/female with children. All three marriages are ending in divorce. To whom ought the children go, all else being equal?
The current presumption in law is that, all else being equal, the children stay with the mother. But how would that work now? Could that presumption even exist any longer in the law if homosexual marriage stands? That's a pretty big question, and I'd like to see how people respond to it (especially those who can't see how homosexual marriage could ever affect heterosexual marriages.)
(Part of the problem, of course, is that we wouldn't have a cultural expectation to fall back on; Lawrence and this case basically outlawed that kind of thinking. Committed homosexuals even now can hammer those details out through contract law for their specific cases, but this decision changes assumptions if it's made easier and cheaper, like Mary wants. Finally, a court decision doesn't anticipate these kinds of questions; at least legislation is supposed to pretend to address these issues.)
Look at that. Palladian, Garage, and I agree on something completely.
Add my name to that list.
If the government wants to interfere, then it should do so by civil union, under which ALL are treated equally, including property rights, income tax laws, support laws, etc. The state(s), and not the federal government should decide the particulars.
"Marriage" should be conferred by religious ceremony, according to the beliefs of the religion in which the marriage ceremony is conducted. It is separate and distinct from a civil union.
Don't contrive 100 pages of legal drivel to solve a simple problem. And stop insisting that grade school children be taught what the parties to a civil union do in the privacy of their bedrooms.
Freeman Hunt
Get the government out of marriage.
Yes, and get the government out of the bedroom too. If someone wants to marry someone of the same sex the government should not be able to stop them. Glad you agree.
WHAT GARAGE SAID!
(I can't believe I just typed that.)
Yes, and get the government out of the bedroom too. If someone wants to marry someone of the same sex the government should not be able to stop them. Glad you agree
I'm with you. What if, though, three people of varying genders decide they want to get married?
Former
> There are thousands of valid SS marriages in California, two years old on average at this point. So far they have not worked their evil effects on any straight marriages, at least, not that I have heard.
And if Judge Walker wants to note that, that is his business. But it is absolutely improper to pretend a prediction of the future is a fact.
For context, remember the pull quote that Althouse used to introduce this post: the judge's assertion that sex roles were "an artifact of a time when the genders were seen as having distinct roles in society and in marriage... That time has passed." If that's true, then clearly a mother ought not have the presumption of custody "in the best interests of the child" in a divorce proceeding. Everyone on board with that? (Without a vote, of course. Actually, then, it doesn't matter if you're on board or not. The judge has spoken, after all.)
Scott M
Three way marriage. Are they SOL?
Yes, they are. Stop playing games. You know and everyone knows this kind of case would be thrown out of court. Your logic is flawed in part because you are applying it only to an issue you don't like.
But lets say you expand your logic to the Second Amendment. If I have a right to bare arms then why can't I own a nuclear warhead or carry a gun into school? If I have freedom of speech why can't I yell fire in a crowded theatre? The list goes on. If you want your logic to be sound you need to apply it to other scenarios. Only then will you see why it falls apart. And the reason is because any issue you name can potentially be made into a slippery slope argument. And so you sound like a broken record with no real argument except argument for the sake of argument.
Gosh, come to think of it, that also overturns alimony assumptions, too. (Wonder if the phrase "deadbeat dads" will go out of vogue.) I mean, most custody and alimony questions aren't built into the initial marriage contract that most people have when they get married (unless a pre-nup will now be required for a marriage license.) We kind of let the prevailing assumptions of the system at large interpret those "contracts" when they get dissolved. Now all of those assumptions probably have to be brought out into the light and day and re-decided (and probably re-litigated) in light of this decision.
So even libertarians who want the State out of marriage proper are going to get drawn back into this argument since they do accept the State as a legitimate enforcer of contract law. Are we ready for the cost of looking at all of these questions?
So it's state law. Big deal. Prop 8 was a state referendum. This decision made it a federal constitutional issue. The question still stands.
The current presumption in law is that, all else being equal, the children stay with the mother.
Current presumption is an ass. This is one of the most fucked up areas of family law. The presumption should be joint custody unless one can establish cause for why not.
(Same thing applies to alimony. Why do the courts simply assume that the wife gets alimony? In some states, the lower income person gets alimony. Why?
BTW, don't start saying "traditionally in divorce" because there is no traditional in divorce favorable to the woman. We've just swung crazy shit in the other direction.
If I have a right to bare arms...
wrong thread dude.
Matt wrote:
"Yes, and get the government out of the bedroom too."
I think that NAMBLA endorses such a position as well, for obvious reasons. I'm sure that people who practice incest and variations of multiple marriage would as well.
This is why "get the government out of the bedroom" is a really stupid and untenable position.
Freeman Hunt's position, on the other hand, is infinitely more sensible. Getting the government out of the marriage business means that we can keep laws on the books to prosecute child predators and parents who rape their sons and daughters.
With the government out of the marriage business, multiple marriages are possible. And as long at the i's are dotted and t's crossed on the contracts, there's nothing wrong with that.
Getting the government out of the bedroom means that we have given up on any conception of sexual morality.
The judge in the case was homosexual. shouldn't he have recused himself because he might have a vested interest?
Sure, just as a heterosexual judge would have a vested interest (the argument was that SSM would impair straight people's marriages.
But then they would have had to find an asexual judge to hear the case -- probably still pretty difficult.
"Look at that. Palladian, Garage, and I agree on something completely."
It means we definitely have the best idea.
But as garage said, that also means it's not going to happen.
As for polygamy, I haven't thought about it much but I suppose I don't have a problem with it if it's a purely private (non-State sanctioned) matter and of course if it's between consenting adults. If the people involved want a civil union, they'll have to choose which two partners will enter into it though. I don't think limiting the number of partners in a civil union to 2 partners is the same as limiting/defining those unions by the sex of the participants. I also don't think there are very many people out there who would want to enter into polygamous/polyandrous unions in the first place.
But what do I know? My great-great-great grandfather Milo had 11 wives (some of them concurrently) and 57 children. The interesting thing about Milo's relationships is that he and several of the wives "parted":
After one week's rest, I went to work in the 19th ward and built me a house; and about the 1st of January, 1851, my wife, Jane, and I parted. In June, 1851, I married the Widow Tuttle, and the November following my wife, Sarah Ann Miles died. I married Adaline Alexander in March, 1852. In December, 1852, I married Mary Ann Webster.
A very interesting view of marriage.
But lets say you expand your logic to the Second Amendment. If I have a right to bare arms then why can't I own a nuclear warhead or carry a gun into school? If I have freedom of speech why can't I yell fire in a crowded theatre? The list goes on. If you want your logic to be sound you need to apply it to other scenarios. Only then will you see why it falls apart. And the reason is because any issue you name can potentially be made into a slippery slope argument. And so you sound like a broken record with no real argument except argument for the sake of argument.
Nice try, Matt, but if you're going to extend my argument logically, you might want to apply some logic.
Nukes and shouts in theaters are prohibited because there are compelling reasons to do so. Please outline the compelling reason for same-sex marriages to be legal while multi-partner sex to be illegal. There is none other than the arbitrary fancy of the number two, as far as I can see.
To set you even further straight, I'm all for same-sex marriage and polygamy. I don't believe the government has any place restricting what consenting adults want to do.
It is possible, you see, to have sever problems with this judges logic and still support SSM. I'm sorry you lack the imagination to see that.
lol...multi-partner sex should read multi-partner marriage. Any married person can tell you the two aren't necessarily the same thing :)
Getting the government out of the bedroom means that we have given up on any conception of sexual morality.
Not it doesn't. Only an ass who's being intentionally stupid pretends there is no difference between consensual and non-consensual acts.
(This also applies to the repeated idiotic argument of people marrying animals or inanimate objects. Legal consent means something and NOBODY but lunatics are arguing otherwise.)
Enough of the straw men.
Okay, I withdraw the terms "traditionally in divorce" and accept that I'm not an expert in the whys and wherefores of divorce law. Never had to be, and never expect to be because I've got a solid, stable marriage.
But then again, I never expected to be challenged to defend and justify the traditions, laws, and rationales for marriage either. Yet here we are. My point was to mention that a decision like this brings a lot more out in the open than people realize at first glance.
I wouldn't be surprised that family law has some real problems. Maybe it would do us good as a society to mull over all the assumptions and rules once again. But it is a cost to be paid to go through that process. I just think it's important to recognize that.
Youngblood
Umm yeah, because gay marriage is the same as raping children or something like that.... Come on. Use your head dude. If you hate gay marriage just say so. If you hate gays just say so. But stop dancing around making criminal accusations against gays who want to marry each other.
Common public bathrooms exist as an artifact of a time when the genders were seen as having distinct roles in society!
As an old bird hunter I have to say that the roles of pointers and setters were essentially the same.
"I mean, most custody and alimony questions aren't built into the initial marriage contract that most people have when they get married (unless a pre-nup will now be required for a marriage license.)"
If the state is out of the marriage business entirely, then there's no longer any need for a marriage license, just as Catholics don't need a license from the state to receive their first Holy Communion, and those who feel that they have been "born again" don't need a license to be baptized.
Marriage, from a civil standpoint, would simply be a series of contracts. This wouldn't confuse things in the courts, it would ultimately make them clearer.
I'm with you. What if, though, three people of varying genders decide they want to get married?
Then those couple hundred people that exist can pool together their resources and try and get the law changed. But again why is that even relevant? They aren't arguing for or against multiple partner marriages. I understand the argument but it's a red herring. To me anyways. I always thought conservatives would be smart to lead on this, it would be an easy scoop -- as it will happen. Democrats are way too spineless to lead on it.
Then those couple hundred people that exist can pool together their resources and try and get the law changed. But again why is that even relevant? They aren't arguing for or against multiple partner marriages. I understand the argument but it's a red herring. To me anyways. I always thought conservatives would be smart to lead on this, it would be an easy scoop -- as it will happen. Democrats are way too spineless to lead on it.
Oh, I get it, Garage. So the blacks can get their civil rights, but the Asians, Hispanics, etc, they need to pool their own resources and get it for themselves. Is that your logic?
Look, I've already stated that I've got absolutely nothing against SSM. Why is it so hard, if this is a civil rights issue, for a SSM advocate not to recognize that it's just as wrong to discriminate against one form of non-traditional marriage as it is another? Why the arbitrary decision against polygamy?
Scott M
I don't lack the imagination at all. I'm sure there are people who want to marry wolves or kangaroos too. But you are essentially saying that this ruling means only one thing and that is that it will open the gates to other wild or not so wild marriage challenges. I say bring it on. If people want to go to court for polygamy or for wanting to marry their hampster that is fine with me. There are cases thrown out of court every day. These will be too.
The only real issue is it will waste our time, the courts' time, lawyers time and probably a shit load of money. But that's part of democracy.
I just don't see how gay marriage is a bad thing. Sorry I won't bite into your argument. But I'll tell you what; if a judge somewhere allows polygomy or allows someone to marry their sibling then I will think of you. And I will toast you for being so prescient.
Scott M: Because limiting the number of partners in a union is not the same as limiting unions by the sex, race or creed of the partners.
And anyway, if the government were out of the business of defining marriage and only granted civil unions, then limiting the contract to two participants would be a neutral rule, not an arbitrary discrimination on innate personal traits. And with marriage in private hands, polygamists could marry as many people as they wanted. But if they wanted a civil union, they'd have to choose which two of them got it and work the rest out between themselves with some sort of private contract.
"Umm yeah, because gay marriage is the same as raping children or something like that...."
I didn't say that. Read what I wrote instead of what you want to pretend that I wrote.
Your argument, "get the government out of the bedroom" is fucking stupid. If you are making that argument, you are saying that there is no such thing as sexual morality.
"Come on. Use your head dude."
I am using my head. You're the one who said get the government out of the bedroom.
"If you hate gay marriage just say so. If you hate gays just say so. But stop dancing around making criminal accusations against gays who want to marry each other."
I made no criminal accusations against gays. I said that your position was untentable, and I explained why.
I am completely 100% for gay marriage. If you use one of those comment search things, you can look through my past comments here and you will see that I have been consistent on this point. I don't hate it at all.
I have no problem whatsoever with gays. I don't hate them. I am not disgusted by them. I do not fear them. I believe that homosexuals should be equal to heterosexuals under the law, which includes the right to serve in the military. (Which, again, I have argued in the comments section of this blog.)
I am not saying that homosexuality is the same as pedophilia. I am saying that your position, "get the government out of the bedroom", is stupid.
Before you respond to my next post, learn to fucking read, please.
And no one could marry their dog or goat or freezer or desk because civil law does not recognize those things as possessing personhood or capable of informed consent.
Youngblood, I don't see how the State can get out of the "marriage business", even if you want to make it purely contract-based.
Right now two 18-year-old kids who want to get married fill out just a couple of forms as far as the State is concerned to get married. If that goes away, then all the questions the status of "marriage" handles implicitly would have to be handled explicitly by those kids through the contracts you're talking about. People claim that they get too confused by mortgage paperwork to be held responsible for their actions--how does that change when it comes to marriage-substitution contracts?
Furthermore, suppose they don't fill out the contracts, they have kids, and one of them dies or they separate. Now what? What happens to the kids, the property, the debsts?
I don't think that's clearer, and I think that's a huge cost. Multiply that by however many million heterosexual marriages there are, and I think it would get staggering pretty quickly. You think the courts are burdened now....
@Matt
LOL! So polygamy is equivalent to bestiality in your mind? They are the same as people that want to marry wolves and kangeroos? How does that make you any better than someone who said something like that about SSM's?
The same point for the "waste of time" defense. How does that make you any less of a bigot than someone opposed to SSM? So equality is a waste of time?
You felt compelled to say you didn't think gay marriage is a bad thing. I never claimed you did. Please point to where I did (or something) that compelled you to say that.
My argument has nothing to do with this ruling other than the subject matter and the fact that, much like yourself, SSM supporters are just fine with advocating that SSM not be discriminated against, but slam the door shut in the faces of those that see polygamy as a valid lifestyle and want all the legal protects SSM supporters are trying to get.
Seems to me, like Garage said, if they (SSM and Polygamists) pooled their resources, they'd be more effective. Unless, of course, you're just bigoted against polygamists for some reason...
In that Rasmussen poll thew 67% political class has to be basically all the Democrats. The numbers are about right for that, and it seem right intuitively.
Actually no. From the original poll that described "Political class":
Preliminary results indicate that 55% of Americans can be classified on the populist or Mainstream side of the divide. Only seven percent (7%) side with the Political Class. When leaners are included, 75% lean in the Mainstream direction and 14% lean the other way.
Thirty-seven percent (37%) of those on the populist side of the debate are Republicans, 36% are Democrats, and 27% are not affiliated with either major party.
Twenty-two percent (22%) of government employees are aligned with the Political Class along with just four percent (4%) of private sector workers.
And anyway, if the government were out of the business of defining marriage and only granted civil unions, then limiting the contract to two participants would be a neutral rule, not an arbitrary discrimination on innate personal traits. And with marriage in private hands, polygamists could marry as many people as they wanted. But if they wanted a civil union, they'd have to choose which two of them got it and work the rest out between themselves with some sort of private contract.
WHY??? WHY IS THE NUMBER TWO SO DAMNED IMPORTANT?
Mary;
Are trying to sound condescending or is it just a quirk in the way you respond/post?
garage mahal wrote:
Polygamy is already illegal. So no.
So is gay marriage. Yet to you that's discriminatory. What's the dif?
"Unless you have some cites from SSM advocates openly discriminating against polygamists, I don't see where that's their problem whether polygamy should be legal or not."
I'm not asking whether proponents of ssm are personally discriminating against polygamists, I'm asking whether the state is. Or against brothers/sisters who wish to marry, or pepole who want to marry someone under the legal age. Whatever the restriction. Yes, they are illegal. I'm asking, on what grounds are they illegal and are you ok with that? If in fact it is illegal, and people are not allowed to engage in it (as sanctioned by the govt.) is it discriminatory, since they are denied the marriage of their choosing? And if they petition the govt, should the govt allow them to be married, based on the same argument that gays say we should change the definition of marriage to suit them with?
Also, you never addressed the issue that gays already have the right to marry women just as heteros have a right to marry women so there is already no difference. And gays, can, if they don't mind the state not be involved in their affairs marry whoever they want be it one person or an infinite number.
Scott M: Because limiting the number of partners in a union is not the same as limiting unions by the sex, race or creed of the partners.
All I want to do is marry the woman I love. And she wants to marry me, too. And it's all fine as far as her husband is concerned: I get her Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays while he gets her Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. We split Sundays as they come along.
Slarrow,
The things that you are describing happen all of the time under the current system.
You said it yourself, in fact. Those who get married without pre-nups have to fight it out in the courts already. In addition, people have children out of wedlock already. Concepts like child support and deadbeat dads exist outside of marriages, and have for quite some time.
Scott: Two is special because it's the square root of four, which is the ideal number of people in a marriage. When you get pissed off at one wife you have the other wife to comfort you, and vice versa.
Getting the government out of the bedroom means that we have given up on any conception of sexual morality
Do you truly believe that morality extends from government? If you do, then you must be blind to what happens every day while Congress is in session.
WV: vicswed I keep waiting for an invitation to vicswed, but I'm not sure she's even engaged. <= (A small number of friends will get this)
Comrade X wrote:
are you going to explain why your coupling is more deserving of financial benefits from the government than my bachelorhood? please don't use an argument that exists as an artifact of when marriage had a distinct role in society because that time has passed.
That's a good point. Suppose I have a long term gf but we're not officially married. Can I allow her to visit me in hospitals if she's not an immediate family member? Is it right for the hospital to discriminate against me and my gal that way?
Or is that really a separate issue from marriage that could be handled outside of the confines of marriage. As in, petition hospitals to allow patients to determine who and who can't visit be they friend or family? Boom. Problem solved. No reason to change marriage because of that.
That's a good point. Suppose I have a long term gf but we're not officially married. Can I allow her to visit me in hospitals if she's not an immediate family member? Is it right for the hospital to discriminate against me and my gal that way?
Or is that really a separate issue from marriage that could be handled outside of the confines of marriage. As in, petition hospitals to allow patients to determine who and who can't visit be they friend or family? Boom. Problem solved. No reason to change marriage because of that.
Wouldn't common law marriage cover this? I suppose it depended on the amount of time y'all were shacked up.
Yes, Youngblood, they certainly do. They cost a lot of time and money and hassle and heartache.
And they are the exceptions.
What it sounds like you're describing to me is a system in which such cases are the rule. I think that imposes a great cost that would need to be faced.
Scott: Two is special because it's the square root of four, which is the ideal number of people in a marriage.
3 is a magic number
Michael Haz wrote:
"Do you truly believe that morality extends from government? If you do, then you must be blind to what happens every day while Congress is in session."
I get your joke, but no, I do not believe that morality extends from the government.
Let me try to do this another way.
We do ban relationships based on nothing more than common morality.
For instance, many incorrectly believe that the ban on incest is about preventing children with recessive genes. If you read the statutes, you will learn that many states also ban relationships between people related by marriage (as in, step brothers and step sisters) or by adoption. That is in many states Greg Brady cannot marry Marsha Brady, and to go to Different Strokes as a metaphor, Willis can’t marry Kim, because Kim’s father adopted Willis as his son. In both cases, Greg and Marsha, Kim and Willis, the people are genetic strangers to each other, presenting no greater danger of bringing out recessive genes, but not only to we say they can’t marry, but we also say they can’t even have sex. And if they do, we will throw them in prison.
And no one seriously questions the constitutionality of that.
Of course in academic circles we dress it up. Oh, no, we would never be so provincial to say that we morally disapprove of sleeping with your adopted daughter. No, we just feel that it is psychologically unhealthy. But that strikes me as a difference without a distinction. And it doesn’t matter, anyway. If those relationships can be forbidden because we feel they are psychologically unhealthy, then why can’t the people of California say that gay relationships are psychologically unhealthy, too?
That is why I keep tossing out the example of gay incest, to make you think about what the ban on incest is REALLY about, so you realize that in fact morality does have a proper place in law.
Michael Haz wrote:
Do you truly believe that morality extends from government? If you do, then you must be blind to what happens every day while Congress is in session.
WV: vicswed I keep waiting for an invitation to vicswed, but I'm not sure she's even engaged. <= (A small number of friends will get this)
Suppose you are an adoption agency or a social worker and it's your job to place a child into a family. How, if govt is not "in the bedroom" as you put it (and seriously, people do whatever they want in their bedrooms now, govt is not breaking down the door if you like to take it up the butt) are they determining what is or isn't a health family. Since govt is out of hte marriage business, then there is no basis for determining whether a child should be placed in the family or not. Because there is no standard for what defines a family. Is placing a child amongst polygamists ok? What if they are going to groom her, as a child to marry the elder of the compound or any other outlandish scenario you could think of.
Scott M wrote:
Wouldn't common law marriage cover this? I suppose it depended on the amount of time y'all were shacked up.
And similarly, wouldn't civil uinions cover this for gay couples as well? ANd if not, wouldn't the proper avenue to pursue this be with hospitals who make stupid policy. I can certainly see why gays would be annoyed that they can't see their loved ones in hospitals, but that shouldn't be a marriage issue. that should be a hospital issue.
And lo and behold, we have as we speak a brand new health care bill. Why is no one saying "hey, this whole visitation policy in hospitals is really stupid. Why can't anyone simply write down who can visit and who can't be they gay or straight married or single."
Scott M wrote:
Wouldn't common law marriage cover this? I suppose it depended on the amount of time y'all were shacked up.
And similarly, wouldn't civil uinions cover this for gay couples as well? ANd if not, wouldn't the proper avenue to pursue this be with hospitals who make stupid policy. I can certainly see why gays would be annoyed that they can't see their loved ones in hospitals, but that shouldn't be a marriage issue. that should be a hospital issue.
And lo and behold, we have as we speak a brand new health care bill. Why is no one saying "hey, this whole visitation policy in hospitals is really stupid. Why can't anyone simply write down who can visit and who can't be they gay or straight married or single."
Why can't anyone simply write down who can visit and who can't be they gay or straight married or single.
Probably because that's tough to do when you show up breathing through a machine with various tubes running into and out of various parts of your anatomy. And that's all before they check your wallet.
Scott M
We're talking past each other. I say I support gay marriage. Period. Buy instead you hear something about proponents of gay marriage being against polygamy or some other forms of marriage. I have no opinion for or against polygamy. What I do say is there are laws now in place that do not allow for it and if people want to challenge it in court fine. Go for it. But I think it will be thrown out of court because the courts have indeed found a compelling reason not to allow it. If those reasons hone very closely to the same reasons they did not allow gay marriage then that is of interesting. Let the courts decide.
[And no I am not comparing polygamy to bestiality. I was simply running the gamet of other kinds of marriage the right wing feels will now be challenged in court.]
But anyway being for gay marriage is not the same as being against polygamy. I am not sure where you get this idea except maybe someone somewhere made a point about it and you can't get the two out of your head.
Youngblood
Okay, I hear what you are saying. My reaction was based on your reading of "the government getting out of the bedroom". I was specifically referring to gay marriage. But, yes, the government has to be in the bedroom for some things. Point taken. And so, yes, get the government out of marriage instead.
Slarrow,
I am not describing a situation where that is the rule. You asked what happens to people who get married (presumably under the aegis of some church) without entering into some sort of marriage contract.
I don't think that, under the system I have described, people would do that. Only, instead of entering into a vague yet all-encompassing contract (as marriage currently is), they would enter into a series of more clearly defined contracts.
Yes, there would be legal wrangling. There always is. However, we could do no worse than we're doing today, in which we pressure people to enter into a vague contract based purely on romantic attraction.
Garage Mahal wrote:
Gays aren't asking to marry more than one more person, or their sister/brother, etc etc etc.
No but polygamists are asking to marry more than one person, and there are court cases challenging this as we speak. Why shouldn't these be allowed. Why are you so gungho that gender means nothing, yet the number 2 is sacrosanct. Especially considering all around the world there are places were polygamy is normal.
cough
thanks for tip Palladian. I deleted some of my comments because I was unknowingly engaging a stalker who's been asked to leave this site before. Sorry Professor.
@Matt
My point, exactly, is not that pro-SSM people are anti-polygamy. My point was that it is inconsistent to be pro-SSM and anti-polygamy. That's it entirely.
My angst comes from the fact that there are, in fact, quite a few SSM advocates who somehow do the intellectual gymnastics to assert otherwise. A quick google search turns up quite a few.
I don't have a horse in the race either way. I simply want those most vocal about being denied rights to acknowledge the rights of others. Intellectual dishonesty, particularly in the realm of public policy, should be one of the seven deadliest sins and should always be taken to task.
Scott M said...
"@Mick...just...why?
This does no one any good. You could have said exactly the same thing and made the same point without lowering it to pejoratives. In this, you are no better than the liberal carpet-bombers that happen by from time to time and poison the discussion with their invective.
You will convince no one using this tact. In fact, you may actually achieve the opposite."
Really? the word "fag" is that offensive? It's not like I said he was no stranger to a dick, or a pole smoker. Who are you, the thought police. No one here listens to reason anyway. The reality is that the state has a vested interest in promoting Marraige between men and women for the propagation of the citizenry. It has nothing to do with equal protection or discrimination or anything else. The reason why gays want to marry is to receive the same benefits that married inter-sex couples receive, it's not about "love" or they would be fine w/ civil unions. Well they don't provide the same benefit to the state, so they are not entitled. I know that to the relativists here that torques their little brains.
And Matt...perhaps it would be better to write "some on the right" rather than "the right wing". There are just as many at fault on both sides for this same error, but I would really like to see us stop painting with broad brush strokes every time we talk about the other side. One of our biggest problems as a people as we believe groups to be so monolithic and similar. As Americans, we should understand that this is almost never the case.
Matt wrote:
Okay, I hear what you are saying. My reaction was based on your reading of "the government getting out of the bedroom". I was specifically referring to gay marriage. But, yes, the government has to be in the bedroom for some things. Point taken. And so, yes, get the government out of marriage instead.
If you want govt out of marriage, then how would courts laugh marrying your cat out of court? You could marry your cat, your dog, your car, a sandwhich, you could have three separate marriages whatever. I'm also wondering how family law is going to work when there is no definition of a family. How will custody arrangements work, who gets when when a spouse dies.
Also, if you really don't want govt to be involved in marriage, there is an easy fix. Don't petition the govt to validate your marriage. You can do this now by the way, and will have absolute freedom (so long as you don't violate the law like say having sex with minors). Wouldn't that ultimately be what you want when you say get govt out of marriage? If govt is out of marriage why would it supply benefits to anyone in a relationship since it wouldn't matter if you were single married or had some other arrangement.
Youngblood, I think we can leave it at this. I think that a system such as you describe adds more cost to the contractual status that marriage itself currently confers. As such, I would expect more people to opt for a church marriage ceremony yet never bother to get the requisite marriage-like contracts. Then, when things do go wrong, more people would then be cast into a system in which neither their explicit wishes could be followed (since no contract was ever signed) nor implicit assumptions could be followed (because we threw those right out.)
That's what I would expect based on my reading of how people behave. I think, though, that your expectations of how people behave differ. Since I'm not trying to get you to change your expectations but rather face the cost of an alternative future, I think we can leave it at that.
One final point, though, before I skedaddle: you said that "we could do no worse than we're doing today." And yet it seems like there's always still room to fall....
Scott M said,
"I don't have a horse in the race either way. I simply want those most vocal about being denied rights to acknowledge the rights of others."
There is NO "right" to marraige for anyone.
Matt,
The reason that I am harping on this point is because same-sex marriage is the narrow end of a wedge. There are plenty of lifestyle groups whose members construct their lifestyles and identities on practices that, like homosexuality, are well out of the mainstream.
Scott M may be frustrating you, but his point is valid. Marriage has traditionally been defined as "one man, one woman, with the purpose of continuing the line of heirs". The 20th century redefined marriage as "one man, one woman, unified by romantic love or at least physical attraction".
We are well on the path to redefining marriage as "two people, unified by romantic love or at least physical attraction".
No too far down the road, you will have people asking, "Why the number two?" or "Why romantic love?" or "Why should people who are attracted to each other get special treatment that single people don't get?"
Mary?
Is that you? Lawyer? Rice Lake?
It's me, AllenS. Remember me? We exchanged emails.
Scott M
Okay I hear what you are saying. But I think some would disagree with your view. Read this article.
Choice section:
...on what grounds do they insist upon the traditional, arbitrary and exclusionary number of two?"
Here's the answer. The number isn't two. It's one. You commit to one person, and that person commits wholly to you. Second, the number isn't arbitrary. It's based on human nature. Specifically, on jealousy.
So there you have it. Two is company three is a crowd.
Just as there is no such thing as a roasted ice cream fillet, there is no such thing as a homosexual 'marriage'. There are homosexual 'relationships', but these are not marriage relationships, any more than my relationship with my table-saw is a 'marriage'. Just putting the words 'homosexual' and 'marriage' together does not produce in reality a 'homosexual marriage' anymore than putting the words 'square' and 'circle' together produces a square circle. Y'all just be lying to yourselves.
I am more interested in stopping the perversion of the language than I am in stopping whatever perversion floats your boats.
You commit to one person, one person at a time. Nobody is going to marry two women at the same time. America has societies who believe that after a certain amount of years, the husband can take another wife. And then another. And then another. I think the limit is 4. You can look it up.
Lets see...the Estate tax is likely coming back. My Mom has a pretty nice estate.
If I divorce my wife and "as two consenting adults the State should not meddle with the private choices of" - marry my Mom so the whole estate passes to me tax-free. But my sister might want to marry Mom so she gets the estate.
Have to ask Mom how she feels in the new reality that the lawyers run the show, and our marriage is now a possibility.
And then there is the matter of actuarially likely, Mom passes before me. Could we have a joint funeral-wedding ceremony? Meaning, it would be the right time for me to marry one of my daughters, so the estate is again safeguarded...and I get government healthcare benefits from my daughters job.
Of course if I die, what exactly is the impediment to a Blessed Gay Wedding ceremony at my funeral between my Mom and my daughter?
As for my wife, what if she is bitter about me divorcing her for my Mom? What if she picks up a dog as solace, who is clearly a consenting party who follows my then "ex" around and eagerly obeys her? Could she marry the dog and would her government health insurance cover the dog's Vet bills?
And Anthony Kennedy snickered when Scalia warned him he and the vapid, ditzy O'Connor were paving the road to gay marriage, beastiality, polygamy, and state-sanctioned incest.
Ha!
A.W. wrote:
Of course in academic circles we dress it up. Oh, no, we would never be so provincial to say that we morally disapprove of sleeping with your adopted daughter. No, we just feel that it is psychologically unhealthy. But that strikes me as a difference without a distinction. And it doesn’t matter, anyway. If those relationships can be forbidden because we feel they are psychologically unhealthy, then why can’t the people of California say that gay relationships are psychologically unhealthy, too?
I agree, but why would it even have to view gays psychologically negatively. Society can view gayness completely neutrally and still come to the same conclusion. Society simply wants to promote the idea family, not for love but for the furtherance of society. The idea is that men and women produce children, Becasue they do so, and because society wants to promote a relationship that will actually take care of children (as opposed to the state) and will also further society by producing more children it promotes marriage. Gay marriage doesn't produce children, normally. Both a mother and father have instrinsic value in raising children, so the relationship that society promotes should allow children to have both a fathers and mothers influence. Gay relationships either have two fathers or two mothers, so devalue the missing parent. Which is why it's so imperative to suggest that men and women, mothers and fathers are identical in all respects and remove gender from the equation.
So, if you value the idea that there should be a family structure that promotes child bearing, has a place for a mother and father who will raise the children that are produced then what's wrong with promoting that without it being seen as hatred for gays. I could care less for gays, I don't like them or dislike them, and I'm sure when the idea of marriage was discussed at the countries founding there was no talk of setting up marriage so it discriminates against gays.
This is not to say that individuals can't be happy in gay relationships,or that single moms can't raise kids or whatever. The family paradigm is simply the ideal that society wishes to promote. And it promotes it because it believes and wishes to promote a family. Saying that society should get out of the marriage business, ultimately becomes an argument to devalue a family, or make it mean absolutely nothing. Proponents of marriage, are also proponents of the family structure promoted through marriage. And again, it has nothing to do with gay animus. If gays want a comparable relationship, they should work to strengthen civil unions which can accomodate their DIFFERENT relationship.
Mary,
I was just in Turtle Lake, yesterday. Next time there is an auction in your area, I'll email you. I'll buy you a hot dog and a beverage. Do you get homesick when I talk about the area?
jr565 wrote:
"If you want govt out of marriage, then how would courts laugh marrying your cat out of court? You could marry your cat, your dog, your car, a sandwhich, you could have three separate marriages whatever."
If you'd like, you can have a big woowoo ceremony in your yard and marry that ham and cheese sandwich you love so much. Then you can divorce it and marry your cat and your car at the same time.
And it won't matter one bit. Because sandwiches, cats, and cars cannot enter into contracts.
"I'm also wondering how family law is going to work when there is no definition of a family."
What's the definition of a family today, exactly? In some cases, it's a stable nuclear family. In a lot of cases it's being shuttled between two families. In a lot of cases it's being raised by a mother and an aunt. In others it's being raised by dad and grand pop.
This is nothing new by the way. My grandfather was raised by a schoolteacher until he apprenticed at a stable at 12.
"How will custody arrangements work, who gets when when a spouse dies."
I haven't looked at the figures recently, but I think that something like 20% of divorces end in custody battles. More often than not, custody arrangements are made informally, without even the necessity of a legally binding contract.
Cedarford,
If you wait a little longer, you won't have to divorce your wife. You'll be able to add you mother to your list of wives.
Meade wrote: Mind if we don't take Mary?
How would that even be possible? I thought she came with turf?
Cedarford
Well I guess you missed Althouse's update? Yes, a conservative has taken the bate and actually thinks gay marriage will lead to people marrying dogs. [Sigh].
Mary,
I received in the mail, a brochure and a special secret key from the Link brothers. They were trying to sell cars not too far from the casino. Across the street. You're talking about the Tri-County advertiser, yes? I look at it every week. I'm looking for a 3 bottom plow and a Jeep. Not a nice Jeep, but something that I can work on. Link had one, but it said NO NO NO. It's tough being retired.
Matt wrote;
Okay I hear what you are saying. But I think some would disagree with your view. Read this article.
Choice section:
...on what grounds do they insist upon the traditional, arbitrary and exclusionary number of two?"
Here's the answer. The number isn't two. It's one. You commit to one person, and that person commits wholly to you. Second, the number isn't arbitrary. It's based on human nature. Specifically, on jealousy.
So there you have it. Two is company three is a crowd.
That's just....dumb (somebody actually wrote that as an article?) First off, many polygamous relationships exist and the members of it say there is no jealousy. And is the author seriously suggesting that there is no jealousy in hetero marriages? WHat about open marriages where they allow one or both parties to stray? And compare husbands who end up killing their wife or ex wife (and occasionally the reverse) with polygamists who kill their spouses. Granted, it's a small pool to work with, but I haven't heard that many tales of polygamists going on a rampage. Maybe because of how the housework is divied up and because more money is brought into the houshold people feel more relaxed. Maybe they are happy to not have to ALWAYS be with someone and prefer their alone time, which they could use to start a new hobby.
The idea that people have to commit to one and only one person sounds awful provincial wouldn't you say? ANd is that a reason enough to outlaw the practice? Because of the potential for jealousy?
That's reason enough to discriminate against people who love each other and just want to get married and raise their kids (and get the benefits afforded to married couples). Sounds like the author is a bigot and hates people who think differently than himself, and can commit to more than one person. Sounds like a fascist who thinks that his bigotry should prevent people from being able to marry who they want. You can't legislate morality as they say.
(Playing devils advocate here, not saying we should have polygamous relationships, I just don't see how allowing or disallowing gay marriage versus allowing or disallowing polygamy is at all different, especially when advocates for gay marriage suggest that society can't discriminate against people when it comes to marriage.
@Matt, you've pegged garage mahal as a conservative?
You must be wa-a-a-a-ay off on the left side of the spectrum! I suspect garage was being sarcastic.
I've always regarded same sex marriage as being a case of liberals using homosexuals to stick a thumb in the eye of the devout Christians that liberals hate so very much.
After this blows over there'll be something else that the Left just has to have right this very minute and it will be calculated to offend Christians even more.
It's okay to hate Christians, you see, because they don't chop noses off of women, they don't saw heads off of bound captives with poorly-sharpened knives, they don't con some addle-brained fool into blowing himself up in a crowded area to get a piece of 72 virgins.
Gawd help liberals if they ever do.
Mary is a permanently banned commenter and she knows it. All her comments will always be deleted, unread by me, regardless of content, even when, unfortunately, others have taken the trouble to respond to her.
I'm sorry to anyone who wrote a comment that doesn't make sense now because of the deletions.
Mary knows, in fact, that I regard her comments as *illegal* harassment under Wisconsin law. Her continuing to comment her is extremely offensive to me.
"Mary, you are a banned commenter and you know it. I have made it very clear that I regard any comment by you here as harassment. You are a lawyer, and I urge you to carefully read the Wisconsin statute § 947.0125 -- "Unlawful use of computerized communication systems." It is defined as a crime in Wisconsin if a person "[w]ith intent solely to harass another person, sends repeated messages to the person on an electronic mail or other computerized communication system.""
I wrote that here in December 2007.
That is a *criminal statute.*
I regard any further comment by Mary as a request that I call the police. Take note.
garage mahal said...
Gays aren't asking to marry more than one more person, or their sister/brother, etc etc etc.
Yet.
PS The issue of "keep the government out of our bedrooms", as trumpeted by our Lefties and Libertarians, was scrupulously ignored when the issue of "spousal rape" was the subject of legislation sponsored by the Gloria Steinbrenner crowd.
Ann,
You deleted my comment! Not a big deal, but ... why?
HT: Best to ignore the Mary thing and move on. If you have an email address for a long-timer here, maybe go that route instead.
reader_iam said...
HT: Best to ignore the Mary thing and move on. If you have an email address for a long-timer here, maybe go that route instead.
++++
Ok, don't understand what you mean, about the email address but ok. Will move on.
LarsPorsena in reply to Scott M: "I'll give full-blown support of same-sex marriage when same-sex marriage advocates stop discriminating against polygamists. Frankly, I don't think this part of the debate gets aired out enough. I find it to be a fundamental part of the issue."
Me too. Every time this issue has been discussed I've asked the same question i.e., if the state can not restrict SSM what other kinds of unions can it not prohibit?
You guys are joking, right? You are correct in believing that the same arguments applying to gay marriage will be applied to polygamy, etc., but they're already out of the gate. I give it, oh, one or two years before "hater" and "bigot" is being screeched at anyone who thinks permitting polygamy is a bad idea. (I'd put money on AllenS's prediction: "Islamophobe" will be enthusiastically employed in this context.)
And no matter how much history or anthropology any dissenter adduces against it, all he'll get in response is "...you have no rational basis...", on infinite loop.
The mormons will be in california court tomorrow to outlaw anti polygamy laws. If immorality is no excuse then the third set of moral laws to fall will be pedophile protection laws. After all pedophiles have been reviled due to outdated gender and ageist prejudices. They should receive the same protections as gays and lesbians under SCOTUS analysis? Right? And if you could will your property to your pets, why should the courts interfere with you marrying Fluffy or Rover? The heart loves what it loves? Doesn't it?
The last axe to fall will be the liberals' outlawing the teachings of normative Christianity and traditional Judaism, through anti discrimination laws and the teaching of same sex practices and marriage to kindergärtners. Heather has Four Mommies will be the next civil rights textbook.
I know this thread has gone on way too long. And for the likes of garage, who simply argue this is about gay marriage, and not polygamy, well, eventually, it will be. The federal judge in this case was gay, and decided the right to gay marriage is in the constitution and therefore prop 8 is unconstitutional.
How long before a federal judge who happens to be Muslim gets to decide whether polygamy is a constitutional right?
When you make a decision like this, it's disruptive of existing family law, to say the least, because a lot of family law was decided on the basis of custody of children going to the mother by default, as well as alimony. None of that applies in SSM.
And now purely blather:
Does this mean, eventually, someone will be able to marry a corporation? A corporation can enter into contracts, and provide informed consent.
Someone married to a corporation could die, and leave their state, military, and/or federal retirement to them. A widow's benefit for as long as the corporation exists.
And then, two older men will marry a young girl just above the age of consent. Woo hoo! The consummation of the marriage will be on the internets. Woo hoo!
Some of you won't watch, and we know why, don't we, BIGOTS!
What if they are of different races. You still won't watch, will you?
RACISTS!
If you ask "why would anyone marry a corporation," it could be a polygamous arrangement. You start a corporation, with your wife, then you marry the corporation. Then you make your children employees of the corporation. And your pensions are earned forever after you pass, like a trust, but the corporation has widow's benefits. Your children do the same thing.
I know rich people are basically able to do the same thing with trust funds, but the trust funds get started from family assets and investments. Not from state & federal governments, or private pensions, on the hook for as long as the corporation exists. Which could be forever.
First they wanted rights that heterosexual couples had with regards to marriage, money, hospital visitations, taxation breaks, etc. Then they got it via civil unions, which by the way, hardly anyone, if anyone complained about. Nope that wasn't good enough. Now we are here and their fictitious lies continue to spur even greater power grabs at the expense of majority decisions.
As I said before, if you read the opinion, the judge leaves no distinction now between hetero and homo, and therefore equates the same, therefore, it is no longer marriage as defined by societies as we've known them to be, but are open to new moral interpretations.
c3 wrote: I would like to hear a non-sectarian (and non-"its tradition") rationale against gay marriage.
Try this, by Jonathan Rauch. Rauch supports same sex marriage, but he does a good job of explaining where the opposition is coming from.
methadras, civil unions were only extended in a few states, so it's inaccurate to write that "Then they got it via civil unions, which by the way, hardly anyone, if anyone complained about."
The second part of your statement doesn't make sense, either, as several states (Virginia is one) explicitly forbid civil unions.
Had federal civil unions been offered, and I think there might be the chance for a compromise.
ScottM wrote:
Probably because that's tough to do when you show up breathing through a machine with various tubes running into and out of various parts of your anatomy. And that's all before they check your wallet.
Why would you have to write it down right when you get sick? Have it written out like a living will? Have someone supply that to a hospital ahead of time, or include it with your medical records which Ithought were all going digital. Btu again, if I'm dating a gf for a few months and want her to visit, but I'm not married can I do that now? No. So then it's not simply a matter of hospitals discriminating against gays.
AllenS said...
Cedarford,
If you wait a little longer, you won't have to divorce your wife. You'll be able to add you mother to your list of wives
================
Excellent point. That way the government will never be able to tax any estate or business ownership transfer.
Conceivably, with SSM and polygamy you could have half the Wall Street cabal married to one another, not have to testify against one another, and wealth permanently concentrated in the hands of a few!
***************************
On marriage with animals, animal psychologists have defined many things that are of some hazard to the animal as NOT CRUELTY because the animal is aware of the risk and consents (dog goes in burning building after Master cries help, Fido!)
Since the state sanctions sexless marriages, wouldn't that be reasonable. And have government or companies pay for health care? I mean part of the argument is that gays WORK for their benefits and have a right to enjoy the bennies a partner or family of gay couple adoptees gets. So what about the woman that works, isn't married, isn't gay - and lives by herself in a home with her 6 dogs and 2 horses and 11 cats?? Her family? Why shouldn't she be able to get government or a company to pay her Vet bills if she "works but can't get benefits for her loved ones?"
==================
The guy who mentioned how SSM may affect a private family corporation really raises some intriguing posiblities. A whole Synogogue or Mormon Temple or Mosque full of people linked in polygamy with straight and single sex marriage and marriage between generations of the same family!
The welfare benefits, freedom for transfer taxes, immunity from testifying against one another, linked free taxpayer medical care for the people the Clan would technically calim had no real income or assets?
Sweet! Sweet! Sweet!
edutcher said...
1. The judge in the case was homosexual.
Which is the sum total of his considered decision.
Like I said, Pee Wee Herman could have stood in for Ted Olson and Judge Walker would have issued the exact same ruling. Now with Kagan affirming.
Village dirt-bags aside, it's law by fiat - which proves once again that we're not a nation of laws, but of Liberals. Where the most corrupt and contemptible notions gain in law by any and all means possible.
The mormons will be in california court tomorrow to outlaw anti polygamy laws.
No they won't. The LDS church is rather extreme when it comes to being anti-polygamy [anti-polygny to be exact], which was sometimes a little uncomfortable, or at least amusing, for those of us with polygamist ancestors. (My take is that they are scared shitless that if polygamy is legalized it will cause all sorts of doctrinal problems within the LDS church.)
There may be a few splinter LDS groups that demand polygamy, but that's unlikely since last thing most of these groups want is for their wives to have legal rights. (This is a big reason I'm for it--the lack of legal rights for women in polygamy in many of these communities causes tremendous problems.)
Dumb Bunny Queen confuses legislation based on an inability to consent with morals legislation:
If the majority view on immorality doesn't mean jack, then why have any laws regarding adults having sex with minors?
Nice going there.
I guess having better things to do during the day means I get to miss about twelve rounds of stupid each day. Oh well.
Part of the problem is that many are a bit confused by Obama's position on same sex marriage --- some even think it's composed of totally dishonest political calculation. I have figured it out and as a public service will explain it to all of you:
(a) He "opposes" same-sex marriage and ---
(b) believes that states should be able to set their own
marriage rules ---
(c) but if a state decides to set its own rules by adopting his
very own position, then it’s “divisive and discriminatory.”
Is it any clearer now?
Part of the problem is that many are a bit confused by Obama's position on same sex marriage --- some even think it's composed of totally dishonest political calculation. I have figured it out and as a public service will explain it to all of you:
(a) He "opposes" same-sex marriage and ---
(b) believes that states should be able to set their own marriage rules ---
(c) but if a state decides to set its own rules by adopting his
very own position, then it’s “divisive and discriminatory.”
Is it any clearer now?
Ann posts:
I call on those who want to draw a line between the sodomy case and the same-sex marriage case to make a choice between the jurisprudence of O'Connor and Scalia. Do that and stick to it across the broad array of cases. Don't be hypocritical.
Draw the line where it feels right for you and then stop bringing up Justice Scalia as the model of judicial reasoning. That will be your challenge.
I must be missing something important since it's not even a close call.
Justice O'Connor insisted (rightly) that the decision should have turned on a traditional equal protection analysis...and then she promptly refused to do so if all she had to do was assume that there was some rational basis for the law but couldn't find it. But she determined that the law reflected a "desire to harm a politically unpopular group". And therefore, there couldn't possibly be a rational basis.
And not surprisingly, Judge Walker dutifully concluded that centuries of laws and custom that define marriage as a boy/girl thing are only a reflection of society's prejudice against homosexuals.
However, that completely ignores many judgments that mankind has formed about how society most productively organizes itself, over the long run, to produce the most desirable results. That judgment very often becomes an understanding of what is "right" and what is "wrong". As Scalia trenchantly observed, “judges can validate laws by characterizing them as "preserving the traditions of society" (good); or invalidate them by characterizing them as "expressing moral disapproval" (bad).
With respect to marriage, history has taught mankind about how things work best.
1) Can anybody deny the remarkable improvement in the security and prosperity of women generally when they marry? This has nothing to do with gender stereotypes.
2) Isn't it entirely clear that males over the course of time become far less feral and far more civilized due entirely to a marital relationship with a woman? If there is any doubt about that, just close your eyes and picture some caveman existence where men take whatever they want from some woman they can drag into the cave by her hair. And then run off to romp with his boyz to find their next conquest with no obligations of sperm.
3) Aren't children (who are indisputably the future of any society) generally much better off when they grow in a family structure that includes mom and dad?
Isn't there, at a minimum, a rational basis for society to nurture and promote such an essential building block of growth and advancement that marriage has historically proved to be?
What O'Connor and Stevens clearly ignore is that society is fully entitled to organize itself based upon what it has learned about what is "right" and "wrong". From an evolutionary standpoint, other permutations of organizational structures have clearly failed.
Scalia put in terms that puts the role of the courts more in line with their true Constitutional purpose.
What Texas has chosen to do is well within the range of traditional democratic action, and its hand should not be stayed through the invention of a brand-new "constitutional right" by a Court that is impatient of democratic change.
Really. What more needs to be said?
As a previous poster pointed out, nothing but grief and decades of bitterness flow from legally squirrelly decisions that place the "enlightened" policy outcome over the expressed view of the people who instinctively know that there are certain values around which we prefer to organize ourselves and that promote societal growth. Of course, that view can change over the course of time, but it should be left to us to decide.
How much of that fabled liberty Justice Kennedy discussed in Lawrence do we really have left if unelected, unaccountable oh-so well-meaning wisemen and "wise Latinas" make those decisions for us?
Brian said:
Does this mean, eventually, someone will be able to marry a corporation? A corporation can enter into contracts, and provide informed consent.
Someone married to a corporation could die, and leave their state, military, and/or federal retirement to them. A widow's benefit for as long as the corporation exists.
Would this give new meaning to being "married to your job"?
Matt wrote:
But lets say you expand your logic to the Second Amendment. If I have a right to bare arms then why can't I own a nuclear warhead or carry a gun into school? If I have freedom of speech why can't I yell fire in a crowded theatre? The list goes on. If you want your logic to be sound you need to apply it to other scenarios. Only then will you see why it falls apart. And the reason is because any issue you name can potentially be made into a slippery slope argument.
The slippery slope argument arises when the Court uses exceptionally flimsy legal reasoning that never seems to apply for very long when the next case comes along and some new "liberty" or “right” magically appears from the mists of the due process clause or the penumbras. Speech and gun decisions arise from clear language in the Constitution with reasonably useful Court standards that are somewhat reliable from one case to the next.
However, nothing of the sort can be said of the Lawrence case in which out of thin air, some entirely new basis for deciding such matters was used that not only overturned a prior well-founded decision, but made a mockery of the people's right to establish laws as a self-governing people based on what we think is right or wrong.
We are then reduced to lesser beings awaiting the next piece of diktat to fall upon us from on high that are the result of the vagaries and whims of a preferred social outcome rather than a decision driven by clear and predictable legal thinking.
Justice Scalia addressed this very point when Justice O'Connor, offered up some dicta in her concurring opinion:
Unlike the moral disapproval of same-sex relations--the asserted state interest in this case--other reasons exist to promote the institution of marriage beyond mere moral disapproval of an excluded group.
However, as we now know, Judge Walker has held that marriage is precisely that: an expression of moral disapproval of and animus toward the excluded group. Scalia predicted that very outcome.
This reasoning leaves on pretty shaky grounds state laws limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples. Justice O'Connor seeks to preserve them by the conclusory statement that "preserving the traditional institution of marriage" is a legitimate state interest…. But "preserving the traditional institution of marriage" is just a kinder way of describing the State's moral disapproval of same-sex couples.....This case "does not involve" the issue of homosexual marriage only if one entertains the belief that principle and logic have nothing to do with the decisions of this Court. Many will hope that, as the Court comfortingly assures us, this is so.
Hahaha....that was a nice zinger there. And the very same ephemeral, free-floating logic of the Court in this case will inevitably apply to any excluded class about which society has expressed its moral disapproval. Bestiality, incest, statutory rape, public nudity, prostitution.....
The point in all this is that even though there are laws that some of us may find offensive and even unjust, that's not the same as saying they are unconstitutional and that the will of the people should be summarily overturned. We are not a free people and liberty is a meaningless concept when leftie elitists on the court determine for us that they know best.
Justice Thomas said it perfectly:
If I were a member of the Texas Legislature, I would vote to repeal it. Punishing someone for expressing his sexual preference through noncommercial consensual conduct with another adult does not appear to be a worthy way to expend valuable law enforcement resources.
Notwithstanding this, I recognize that as a member of this Court I am not empowered to help petitioners and others similarly situated. My duty, rather, is to "decide cases 'agreeably to the Constitution and laws of the United States
I think it's a mistake to focus on the same-sex marriage element. The real problem is the judicial arrogance which allows a single individual (or small group) to invent a new "fundamental right" with no basis in custom, tradition, or precedent. We don't need a constitutional amendment on same-sex marriage; we need one to break the power of the judiciary.
Thank you so much for sharing it.
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former law student:
A.W.: There are thousands of valid SS marriages in California, two years old on average at this point. So far they have not worked their evil effects on any straight marriages, at least, not that I have heard.
And there are polygamist relationships in Utah, and traditional marriage hasn't been harmed. Does that mean that we should therefore allow polygamy?
By the same token, there have been gay civil unions for a while as well, and they haven't harmed gay people.
Ritmo wrote:
"Dumb Bunny Queen confuses legislation based on an inability to consent with morals legislation:"
in response to this:
"If the majority view on immorality doesn't mean jack, then why have any laws regarding adults having sex with minors?"
Do you seriously think that laws regarding adults having sex with minors is not morals based? Do you think kids can't consent because society tells them that they can't because they're not mature enough (hence the immorality) or do you think kids are physically incapable of giving consent. The reason they can't consent is because society tells them so, just as society says that people can't vote under a certain age. Do you think that fifteen year olds, who are weaned on X Boxes and computers would be physically incapable of pulling a lever to vote if society hadn't said they couldn't? Of course it's morals based.
Which is why NAMBLA always suggests that society is morally wrong to place the restriction on sex with minors and usually resort to arguments about persecution and outdated morals.
Biologically though, do you think kids can't consent? One classic example is the Prophet Mohammad. He married his wife Aisha when she was six, but waited till she was 9 to consumate the relationship (how nice of him) once she started menstruating. THat society said that age was determined by when a girl has her period. If she has her period at 9, she's a woman and can be screwed.
We have laws against sex with kids, but they are totally morals based. Society determines what interactions are allowed or disallowed with kids based on society's morality or moral codes or imperatives.
I'm not sure why the question should turn on whether or not my marriage would be harmed. Isn't it really sufficient that, as a free people, most of us are still unwilling to overturn many centuries of consensus as to what marriage is? And, as a society, we have determined that it is in our best interests to provide benefits to those who are married that do not accrue to those who aren't.
So the question should really be looked at from the perspective of whether or not homosexuals have made a good enough case that they have a worthy claim to break that consensus and therefore received economic benefits for which the rest of us will pay.
Aren't we entitled to ask what long term societal benefit we have purchased from homosexual marriages?
There are other less savory issues involved as well. A very great part of the push for this has less to do with discrimination as it has to do with an aggressive in-your-face demand for moral acceptance that is to be enforced by state action.
Once gay committed relationships are legally categorized as having the same societal value as heterosexual relationships, moral acceptance is then really imposed by fiat.
Imagine the cascade of consequences that flow from that.
The problem here is that if society's moral judgments can be the basis for discarding its laws if the purpose is to disadvantage a particular group, can we then rely upon the court to extend that same logic to laws that have the same effect when the moral outrage of libruls is involved?
For example, don't we constantly hear that the rich need to be required to pay their "fair share". When the top 2% of tax payers are paying 50% of all taxes, one of the great moral questions of the day must be how much more should they be paying before we can all agree that they are finally paying their fair share?
But isn't that kind of policy specifically intended to disadvantage...even punish... a particular group merely because the record reflects moral outrage that that the rich are doing better than the rest of us? In fact, isn't the right to private property one of the most fundamental rights we have? At a minimum, doesn't a soak the rich tax policy require "a more searching form of rational basis review"?
Would lefties on the court be willing to say things like "Our obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code" in determining that leftie moral outrage that the rich own a disproportionate share of the nation's wealth is not a sufficient reason to deny basic property rights that are essential to our liberty? We certainly can't say that the rational state interest is to raise money when when Christine Romer and her husband published a very interesting study in 2007 that shows that tax increases actually cause a reduction in GDP by a multiple of 3.
What about limits on "obscene" CEO compensation? Or "windfall profit" taxes on oil companies?
Isn't it entirely clear that these are moral judgments that result in laws that "single out one identifiable class of citizens for punishment that does not apply to everyone else"?
That's precisely what is wrong with this kind of legal analysis.
We often have laws that we don't like, but that doesn't mean that there is a remedy outside of the political arena where most such disagreements belong. Generally, it's better for the courts to butt out and let us duke it out. It may take more time, but the end result is far more satisfactory than undemocratic decrees from looselugnut librul judges who want to short-circuit the political process because they are "impatient of democratic change".
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I admit I still find older lesbian couples kind of sad, married or unmarried, and that's my main impetus for not opposing their legal right to marry. It's basically guilt for the pity I feel.
I was around older lesbians all the time in Berkeley and they depressed the hell out of me. Gay men and bisexuals never had that effect. Go figure.
None of this has any legal ramifications, of course, but is just commentary on my own emotional disconnect whenever I see one of these photos. Yes, I'm aware this is not the highest level reaction in the world to have.
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