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PoliGAF 2015 |OT| Keep Calm and Diablos On

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D

Diablos

Member
btw this is yet another decision we can thank Obama for (indirectly). No way would two SCOTUS justices appointed by a President McCain vote in favor of Obergefell.
 
C

Chichikov

Member
No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies
the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice,
and family. In forming a marital union, two people become
something greater than once they were. As some of
the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage
embodies a love that may endure even past death. It
would misunderstand these men and women to say they
disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do
respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its
fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned
to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s
oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the
eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.

Boom.
 
benjipwns

benjipwns

Banned
Scalia said:
I join THE CHIEF JUSTICE’s opinion in full. I write separately to call attention to this Court’s threat to American democracy.

The substance of today’s decree is not of immense personal importance to me. The law can recognize as marriage whatever sexual attachments and living arrangements it wishes, and can accord them favorable civil consequences, from tax treatment to rights of inheritance.

Those civil consequences—and the public approval that conferring the name of marriage evidences—can perhaps have adverse social effects, but no more adverse than the effects of many other controversial laws. So it is not of special importance to me what the law says about marriage. It is of overwhelming importance, however, who it is that rules me. Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. The opinion in these cases is the furthest extension in fact—and the furthest extension one can even imagine—of the Court’s claimed power to create “liberties” that the Constitution and its Amendments neglect to mention. This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves.

Until the courts put a stop to it, public debate over same-sex marriage displayed American democracy at its best. Individuals on both sides of the issue passionately, but respectfully, attempted to persuade their fellow citizens to accept their views. Americans considered the arguments and put the question to a vote. The electorates of 11 States, either directly or through their representatives, chose to expand the traditional definition of marriage. Many more decided not to.1 Win or lose, advocates for both sides continued pressing their cases, secure in the knowledge that an electoral loss can be negated by a later electoral win. That is exactly how our system of government is supposed to work.

...

But what really astounds is the hubris reflected in today’s judicial Putsch. The five Justices who compose today’s majority are entirely comfortable concluding that every State violated the Constitution for all of the 135 years between the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification and Massachusetts’ permitting of same-sex marriages in 2003.20 They have discovered in the Fourteenth Amendment a “fundamental right” overlooked by every person alive at the time of ratification, and almost everyone else in the time since. They see what lesser legal minds—minds like Thomas Cooley, John Marshall Harlan, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Learned Hand, Louis Brandeis, William Howard Taft, Benjamin Cardozo, Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter, Robert Jackson, and Henry Friendly—could not. They are certain that the People ratified the Fourteenth Amendment to bestow on them the power to remove questions from the democratic process when that is called for by their “reasoned judgment.” These Justices know that limiting marriage to one man and one woman is contrary to reason; they know that an institution as old as government itself, and accepted by every nation in history until 15 years ago,21 cannot possibly be supported by anything other than ignorance or bigotry. And they are willing to say that any citizen who does not agree with that, who adheres to what was, until 15 years ago, the unanimous judgment of all generations and all societies, stands against the Constitution.

The opinion is couched in a style that is as pretentious as its content is egotistic. It is one thing for separate concurring or dissenting opinions to contain extravagances, even silly extravagances, of thought and expression; it is something else for the official opinion of the Court to do so.22 Of course the opinion’s showy profundities are often profoundly incoherent. “The nature of marriage is that, through its enduring bond, two persons together can find other freedoms, such as expression, intimacy, and spirituality.”23 (Really? Who ever thought that intimacy and spirituality [whatever that means] were freedoms? And if intimacy is, one would think Freedom of Intimacy is abridged rather than expanded by marriage. Ask the nearest hippie. Expression, sure enough, is a freedom, but anyone in a long-lasting marriage will attest that that happy state constricts, rather than expands, what one can prudently say.) Rights, we are told, can “rise . . . from a better informed understanding of how constitutional imperatives define a liberty that remains urgent in our own era.”24 (Huh? How can a better informed understanding of how constitutional imperatives [whatever that means] define [whatever that means] an urgent liberty [never mind], give birth to a right?) And we are told that, “n any particular case,” either the Equal Protection or Due Process Clause “may be thought to capture the essence of [a] right in a more accurate and comprehensive way,” than the other, “even as the two Clauses may converge in the identification and definition of the right.”25 (What say? What possible “essence” does substantive due process “capture” in an “accurate and comprehensive way”? It stands for nothing whatever, except those freedoms and entitlements that this Court really likes. And the Equal Protection Clause, as employed today, identifies nothing except a difference in treatment that this Court really dislikes. Hardly a distillation of essence. If the opinion is correct that the two clauses “converge in the identification and definition of [a] right,” that is only because the majority’s likes and dislikes are predictably compatible.) I could go on. The world does not expect logic and precision in poetry or inspirational pop philosophy; it demands them in the law. The stuff contained in today’s opinion has to diminish this Court’s reputation for clear thinking and sober analysis.

Hubris is sometimes defined as o’erweening pride; and pride, we know, goeth before a fall. The Judiciary is the “least dangerous” of the federal branches because it has “neither Force nor Will, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm” and the States, “even for the efficacy of its judgments.”26 With each decision of ours that takes from the People a question properly left to them—with each decision that is unabashedly based not on law, but on the “reasoned judgment” of a bare majority of this Court—we move one step closer to being reminded of our impotence.
Click to expand...

bold is mine
 
N

NYCmetsfan

Banned
benjipwns said:
bold is mine
Click to expand...

This man is like the personification of salt.

But what really astounds is the hubris reflected in today’s judicial Putsch. The five Justices who compose today’s majority are entirely comfortable concluding that every State violated the Constitution for all of the 135 years between the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification and Massachusetts’ permitting of same-sex marriages in 2003.20 They have discovered in the Fourteenth Amendment a “fundamental right” overlooked by every person alive at the time of ratification, and almost everyone else in the time since
Click to expand...
But that's exactly what the did do.

And I've maintained this point before (I think meta can probably find the post)
 
C

CrimzonSamurai

Member
Roberts' dissent isn't even really a dissent so much as a throwaway wish that the democratic process had handled this instead of the court. I think if his vote was actually needed for the majority opinion he would've swallowed it and voted for SSM. Seems like he wanted to use this opportunity to blunt some of the damage his King ruling has caused his reputation.

From the majority opinion:

"The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times. The generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions, and so they entrusted to future generations a character protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning."
Click to expand...

I might actually fucking cry.
 
N

NYCmetsfan

Banned
CrimzonSamurai said:
Roberts' dissent isn't even really a dissent so much as a throwaway wish that the democratic process had handled this instead of the court. I think if his vote was actually needed for the majority opinion he would've swallowed it and voted for SSM. Seems like he wanted to use this opportunity to blunt some of the damage his King ruling has caused his reputation.

From the majority opinion:



I might actually fucking cry.
Click to expand...
That quote is why I love America, we fuck up, A LOT, but we keep improving
 
benjipwns

benjipwns

Banned
Funny how all of the sudden DEMOCRATS don't care about DEMOCRACY when the majorities right to a moral society is taken away by five unhinged left-wing atheists.
 
R

Retromelon

Member
Crazy how in 20 years we go from the defense of marriage act to nationwide legalization and the wife of the man who signed that bill into law might be president
 
benjipwns

benjipwns

Banned
kjXZXlV.jpg
 
B

BertramCooper

Banned
I'm torn.

As an Ohioan, I don't know whether I should be proud of the fact that it was an Ohioan's case (with a few others) that brought SSM to the entire nation, or to be ashamed that it was Ohio's ban that brought the issue to SCOTUS.
 
C

Crisco

Banned
BertramCooper said:
I'm torn.

As an Ohioan, I don't know whether I should be proud of the fact that it was an Ohioan's case (with a few others) that brought SSM to the entire nation, or to be ashamed that it was Ohio's ban that brought the issue to SCOTUS.
Click to expand...

You live in Ohio man, take the win, they don't come that often!
 
F

Fuchsdh

Member
NYCmetsfan said:
That quote is why I love America, we fuck up, A LOT, but we keep improving
Click to expand...

That's why I get really annoyed at the people who piss on the American founders as a bunch of racists, et al. Ok, so to us they were. But they put in place a system that could adapt, and that could always grow into that promise of equality and opportunity, even if they weren't willing or able to do it themselves.

benjipwns said:
kjXZXlV.jpg
Click to expand...

Well, mission accomplished I guess, because those illustrations are pretty creepy. Especially how the illustrations feel like they came from the 1970s.
 
F

FyreWulff

Member
BertramCooper said:
I'm torn.

As an Ohioan, I don't know whether I should be proud of the fact that it was an Ohioan's case (with a few others) that brought SSM to the entire nation, or to be ashamed that it was Ohio's ban that brought the issue to SCOTUS.
Click to expand...

Be proud that all of Ohio's victories will come with an asterisk
 
C

CrimzonSamurai

Member
All the backlash.

SOUND AND FURY, SIGNIFYING NOTHING!

I actually need to get work done today, but I'm just too fucking jazzed. I feel like I shoved an eight ball of china white right up my keister.
 
R

Retromelon

Member
Chichikov said:
cyaiVfb.jpg


I don't think Obama should get that much credit for gay marriage, if anything, diamond Joe should, but it's pretty funny.
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Obama played an instrumental role, tho. Without kagan and sotomayor, most of us wouldnt be celebrating today.
Edit: cleaning my living quarters of junk so the mouse doesnt come back. If it jumps out at me remember me fondly brehs
 
H

HylianTom

Banned
It looks like he hasn't issued an order; he's just "begging" clerks to not issue licenses.

I wonder how much resistance we'll see..

Question: is this Obama's best week of the second term? He's not directly responsible for the marriage ruling, sure, but I'm trying to think of any other weeks he's had..
 
P

PhoenixDark

Banned
BertramCooper said:
Hey, having two backup QBs that are better than pretty much everyone else's starting QBs isn't cheating.

You a Sparty fan or a Wolverine fan, PD?
Click to expand...

Neither, I support local teams plural! I'm just a concerned citizen from Michigan. I suppose I'll give you dap for quieting some of the "Big Ten sucks" talk but...

Yall will be back on probation in the next 5 years.

grew up as a Michigan fan but got tired of the arrogance. Went to Eastern Michigan, which has a better business school IMO.
 
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