SCOTUS strikes down gay marriage bans, legalizing marriage equality nationwide

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Well I looked at 34 candidates's twitters and facebooks. Most were radio silence on the issue. The most noise was from Frothy Rick. Closest think I can find to a reasonable reaction came from Lindsey Graham:

I am a proud defender of traditional marriage and believe the people of each state should have the right to determine their marriage laws. However, the Supreme Court has ruled that state bans on gay marriage are unconstitutional, and I will respect the Court’s decision. Furthermore, given the quickly changing tide of public opinion on this issue, I do not believe that an attempt to amend the U.S. Constitution could possibly gain the support of three-fourths of the states or a super majority in the U.S. Congress. Rather than pursing a divisive effort that would be doomed to fail, I am committing myself to ensuring the protection of religious liberties of all Americans. No person of faith should ever be forced by the federal government to take action that goes against his or her conscience or the tenets of their religion. As president, I would staunchly defend religious liberty in this nation and would devote the necessary federal resources to the protection of all Americans from any effort to hinder the free and full exercise of their rights. While we have differences, it is time for us to move forward together respectfully and as one people.

Bolding mine. A surprisingly reasonable response from a leader in the party that has tried to repeal Obamacare 400 times.

I guess but outside of the idiots no one is going to try and fight to end gay marriage at the presidential level. It's all about "religious freedom " now. People like bush are probably relieved they don't have to actually debate this seriously
 
No man is an island. It's short-sighted to think that people's personal decisions have no affect on other people's lives. And, whether you think it's good or bad, there's no doubt that the cultural acceptance of homosexuality, simply the latest step in the continual progress of the Sexual Revolution that places individual feelings as the ultimate authority and the person as open to unbounded self-definition and self-determination, has profoundly affected everyone living in the culture.

Here we get to the heart of the problem - what is marriage? Some people believe it is about procreation. Some people believe it is a sacrament ordained by God. Most people today, though, believe it is based on personal feelings of affection and those alone. I can certainly see why people who believe those feelings are the ultimate virtue resent anything they feel restricts their expression of those feelings, but I would hope some of them would at least try to understand why people who believe marriage is more than an arbitrary social construct believe that it is an institution which needs some limits placed on it.

You are correct to assert no man is an island. Actions that individuals do take do impact others. I would also note that the relationship between the action and impact is function of the impact itself. For instance, me giving someone 10 dollars, benefits someone. Me punching someone for no reason harms that person. Allowing gays to marry gives them a sense of cultural equality which in turn reduces the suicide rate. Aside from the fact that people committing suicide as a result of feeling disenfranchised is bad enough, there are negative economic consequences associated with it, including population decrease, bereavment, and medical costs.

Historical evidence shows enfranchisement of minorities is a net gain for society, and the LGBT community will be no exception.
 
Everything you say at least sounds reasonable, insomuch as it is reasoned


Except it all falls apart here. Why? Why does it need limits placed on it, or rather why does it need these limits placed on it? If we're talking rationally I have never been presented with a rational set of reasons why marriage must be restricted against same-sex couples. It has always been either from appeals to emotion or to tradition. What are your reasons, if they aren't "thats how we've always done it" or "gay people are icky" or the widely scientifically discredited "its bad for the children"?

I think a fairly rational reason, and certainly what forms the core of the belief in traditional marriage from most people I know who hold to it, is that men and women have been designed to be complimentary to each other, biologically, emotionally, sexually, in a way that people of the same gender are not. (Consider sexual organs, for instance.) That hence there is an inherent difference between same-sex relationships and different-sex relationships - that the genders aren't interchangable.
 
Well I looked at 34 candidates's twitters and facebooks. Most were radio silence on the issue. The most noise was from Frothy Rick. Closest think I can find to a reasonable reaction came from Lindsey Graham:

I am a proud defender of traditional marriage and believe the people of each state should have the right to determine their marriage laws. However, the Supreme Court has ruled that state bans on gay marriage are unconstitutional, and I will respect the Court’s decision. Furthermore, given the quickly changing tide of public opinion on this issue, I do not believe that an attempt to amend the U.S. Constitution could possibly gain the support of three-fourths of the states or a super majority in the U.S. Congress. Rather than pursing a divisive effort that would be doomed to fail, I am committing myself to ensuring the protection of religious liberties of all Americans. No person of faith should ever be forced by the federal government to take action that goes against his or her conscience or the tenets of their religion. As president, I would staunchly defend religious liberty in this nation and would devote the necessary federal resources to the protection of all Americans from any effort to hinder the free and full exercise of their rights. While we have differences, it is time for us to move forward together respectfully and as one people.

Bolding mine. A surprisingly reasonable response from a leader in the party that has tried to repeal Obamacare 400 times.

lol she outright says "listen, we ain't gonna win ever if we continue to fight this"

realistic response.
 
Today was a good day

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Except for IS fucking it up as usual. A good day for LGBT rights!
 
I think a fairly rational reason, and certainly what forms the core of the belief in traditional marriage from most people I know who hold to it, is that men and women have been designed to be complimentary to each other, biologically, emotionally, sexually, in a way that people of the same gender are not. (Consider sexual organs, for instance.) That hence there is an inherent difference between same-sex relationships and different-sex relationships - that the genders aren't interchangable.

Emotionally?
 
I think a fairly rational reason, and certainly what forms the core of the belief in traditional marriage from most people I know who hold to it, is that men and women have been designed to be complimentary to each other, biologically, emotionally, sexually, in a way that people of the same gender are not. (Consider sexual organs, for instance.) That hence there is an inherent difference between same-sex relationships and different-sex relationships - that the genders aren't interchangable.

it's true that the difference between gay relationships and straight relationships is that gay relationships are gay and straight relationships are straight (this is the argument being made when you strip away the linguistic obfuscation), but it's tautologically so, and so it doesn't answer the "ought" question at all.
 
You're being reductive and a little misleading.

The gist of the Alito and Scalia dissents is that same sex marriage is a policy issue that should be resolved legislatively. Scalia's has more jokes, but they're pretty close.

There's a bit of that in the Roberts dissent, but it's more concerned with attacking the legal framework of the Court's decision. His dissent boils down to an argument that marriage is a fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution, but the majority has altered the definition of marriage simply out of its own subjective beliefs in order to make its argument. I don't agree, but the dissent is pretty well thought out. He actually does make some points I agree with vis-a-vis the Court's Equal Protection argument as well as how the opinion would seem to compel constitutional protection for things like plural marriage.

Thomas's dissent is actually fairly typical of his jurisprudence in this area: he rejects the entire notion of substantive due process. In his view, "liberty" is a relatively narrow thing that does not encompass the broad panoply of things that judges have stretched it to cover since the passage of the 14th Amendment. He makes some other arguments about negative and positive liberty in support of this that are equally old-fashioned. He's still weird, but not inexplicably so.

Alito and Scalia's dissents boil down to a strict reading of the 14th amendment that does not include broadening its scope to include marriage as a fundamental right. I suppose I was being a little sloppy in summary, but that is the gist of their dissents.

Thomas' argument that slavery isn't compromising of dignity or humanity is a little inexplicable to me, but I'm not well versed in his philosophy about due process, so fair enough.
 
I think a fairly rational reason, and certainly what forms the core of the belief in traditional marriage from most people I know who hold to it, is that men and women have been designed to be complimentary to each other, biologically, emotionally, sexually, in a way that people of the same gender are not. (Consider sexual organs, for instance.) That hence there is an inherent difference between same-sex relationships and different-sex relationships - that the genders aren't interchangable.

You're not going to like this, but there's this thing called evolution...
 
You're being reductive and a little misleading.

The gist of the Alito and Scalia dissents is that same sex marriage is a policy issue that should be resolved legislatively. Scalia's has more jokes, but they're pretty close.

There's a bit of that in the Roberts dissent, but it's more concerned with attacking the legal framework of the Court's decision. His dissent boils down to an argument that marriage is a fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution, but the majority has altered the definition of marriage simply out of its own subjective beliefs in order to make its argument. I don't agree, but the dissent is pretty well thought out. He actually does make some points I agree with vis-a-vis the Court's Equal Protection argument as well as how the opinion would seem to compel constitutional protection for things like plural marriage.

But they then olympically decide to ignore the 14th amendment that says that, once one state allows for gay marriage, the others states are forced to recognize it too, as marriage is a fundamental right.

The argument is p clear. Is marriage a fundamental right? yes => it is covered by the 14th => did one state recognize gay marriage as marriage? => yes => thus, by the 14th every state has to recognize it. But the dissents decide to talk about state level democracy etc etc.
 
I think a fairly rational reason, and certainly what forms the core of the belief in traditional marriage from most people I know who hold to it, is that men and women have been designed to be complimentary to each other, biologically, emotionally, sexually, in a way that people of the same gender are not. (Consider sexual organs, for instance.) That hence there is an inherent difference between same-sex relationships and different-sex relationships - that the genders aren't interchangable.

I'm going to have to stop you there.

Humans were not designed, nor is evolution a guided process, nor does any characteristic of a human have an intrinsic purpose: characteristics of humans have apparent functions at most.
 
But they then olympically decide to ignore the 14th amendment that says that, once one state allows for gay marriage, the others states are forced to recognize it too, as marriage is a fundamental right.

Well, not so much, because the 14th amendment doesn't really deal in fundamental rights, but equal protection under the law. If you're going to have state-sanctioned marriage, you can't be discriminatory about who you let sign that contract. I don't think the ruling establishes marriage - alone - as a fundamental right.
 
I think a fairly rational reason, and certainly what forms the core of the belief in traditional marriage from most people I know who hold to it, is that men and women have been designed to be complimentary to each other, biologically, emotionally, sexually, in a way that people of the same gender are not. (Consider sexual organs, for instance.) That hence there is an inherent difference between same-sex relationships and different-sex relationships - that the genders aren't interchangable.

But homosexuality is biological in nature too. Homosexual couples can be just as emotionally complimentary to one another as straight couples. Should we just ignore those minority cases?
 
I can't wait for all the fox opinion segments tonight to see them flipping their shit about states rights and 'traditional marriage beievers' bullshit
 
I can't wait for all the fox opinion segments tonight to see them flipping their shit about states rights and 'traditional marriage beievers' bullshit

States Rights: The standby talking point for when you want to get up to some bigotry.

the picture is the greatest

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the court workers just chilling

The winner was the one who hung back and called it in. What are we, news cavemen?
 
Well, not so much, because the 14th amendment doesn't really deal in fundamental rights, but equal protection under the law. If you're going to have state-sanctioned marriage, you can't be discriminatory about who you let sign that contract. I don't think the ruling establishes marriage - alone - as a fundamental right.
Yes. Whether civil privileges regarding marriage should be a thing isn't a 14th amendment question at all; the 14th amendment comes up because of concerns over discriminatory application of a privilege.
 
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