Same sex marriage is a constitutional right for all USAians, regardless of the homophobic, religiously-motivated bigotry in 14 state legislatures.
Chief Justice Kennedy writing the 5-4 decision:
“The right to marry is a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of a person,
… under the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment, couples of the same sex may not be deprived of that right and that liberty.
.. The Court now holds that same-sex couples may exercise the fundamental right to marry,
… [They] ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right. </blockquote>
And Antonin Scalia displays his usual regressive Catholic assholishness: <blockquote>The opinion is couched in a style that is as pretentious as its content is egotistic,
Suck it, Popey-boy.
HT: Chris Clarke, image, and Ophelia Benson
Edit: Should have been Justice Kennedy, not Chief justice Kennedy. Thanks for the reminder, Kantian Naturalist :).
Observations plus insults.
I’m fine with being a rude, mean, insulting ass. At times. I’m don’t use racist sexist or phobic slurs, so I’m not the least bit ashamed of myself for being rude to Gregory. He’s a big boy. He can take it. And who knows, it may even be good for him in the long run: sometimes it takes being rude to someone to break through their lifetime indoctrination of regressive idiocy.
Now if you want to see me actually going ad hom on a scumbag, look for things I’ve said about popes. Look for something like “He protects child rapists in his organization. He has absolutely no right to talk about morals or anything else.” That’s a genuine ad hominem: telling you there’s no point in listening to the Pope’s arguments on any subject because he’s odious.
Well, logically, an odious pope might still have a valid argument about something and we might want to argue points with him in spite of his lack of moral standing.
But I could not care less about arguing with Gregory on the idiotic things he has said in this thread (or any other, for that matter.) As you noticed, I didn’t actually try to argue with him, but rather just point and laugh at how he looks when he says those things.
Do feel free to argue with Gregory if you choose. I’m not trying to dissuade you from that. (Which is why what I said is “observation plus insult” not “ad hominem”.)
You’re welcome.
🙂
Gregory,
walto,
As someone who is trying to get a straight answer out of Gregory, I find this kind of snark unhelpful.
Nonetheless, I lol’d.
There seems to be a bit of unhinged paranoia at play here. Of all the topics, I never thought that this SCOTUS ruling would have triggered it so dramatically.
llanitedave,
Really? It looks like garden variety spittle-flecked bigoted ranting to me.
Are YOU really Canadian? I’m from the West Coast, and we say “eh” all the time. Not a day goes by that I don’t give the world a hearty “fck’n eh!”
Good question.
i did say the people have their right removed to rule themselves on these moral/practical ieas and laws.
Thats why this decision is illegal and will not stanfd better Judges. its a reflection on the selection of Judges by Democrats. another issue anyways. In america everyone knows this and so simply picking better Judges, by republicans, can put it right again.
Its just another issue to a list that dominates what Judges get picked.
i insist God and the people ONLY have the right to make the laws they live under on marriage laws.
I have been reading Locke lately and get his great points.
Only by the consent of the people do laws have authority.
Saying the UYanks now, in the past, or ever NEVER had the right to prohibit gay marriages or between parents/kids or buildings is an absurdity.
The laws are made by those who give consent to be ruled by the laws.
Its not a fundamental right to marry as this would invalidate law period on marriage. Yet marraige only exists in human society because of being made a law in society.
Thats why Judges are dealing with it as law.
It can only be God or the people who create marriage laws and put themselves under them by consent. The people denied this lawmaking ability ends the consent and the contract.
Its really poor liberal selection Judges thinking.!
I think they went too far and might lose everything they invented the constitution saying.
Just like the Old South in the Dred Scott decision and then rebellion.
Tellimng the people its none of their business who can get married is a unique decision in mankind. All mankind has been persuaded they decide their marriage laws. Not someone mysterious except God.
Robert,
Will you be spearheading the effort to repeal the 14th Amendment?
No, they most definitely are not. The “right” of free speech doesn’t let you say anything you want with impunity. The “right” to marry doesn’t let babies get married. So you may want to look at this matter with more nuance.
Are these things denied from e.g. friends in the United States? What a sick society you must be living in, but a marriage law is not going to improve this. What you need is a law that explicitly allows friends to share a life together (whatever that means, I would not want all my friends over at my place all the time and I make sure I won’t overannoy my friends either, but where I live, this “right” is not abridged in any way), care for each other and visit each other in hospital.
But all this has nothing to do with marriage. I was expecting a rational argument for gay marriages from you, but I guess I can stop waiting now.
Marriage has a definition: Marriage is the legal/social union of husband and wife. Husband is male and wife is female and this is how it’s supposed to be on physiological and biological reproductive purposes, i.e. on grounds of natural philosophy, which happens to be universal. Anywhere in the world you look, you will see the same definition of marriage. Do you have an argument to support the re-definition of marriage?
Now, how does the re-definition harm me? Illogic insults rational people’s intelligence. If you try to re-define bachelors not only as unmarried males, but also females, simply to be more “inclusive”, you are doing violence to logic and rationality. And you should have the “right” to do it, why exactly?
The re-definition also harms the prestige of marriage, which is low already. Marriage as a social function, even though not too popular (more than half of children in Europe are born outside marriages, so obviously they don’t see marriage as something so significantly beneficial that they should try to get into it), used to be a clear concept. The re-definition muddles it, and muddling can only make things worse, not better.
Think about it this way: Roads are for everybody, so to say, but there are rules – pedestrians to the sides, cars more to the center, but the opposing directions are clearly marked apart and are to be observed. When you try to re-define the rules to be more “equal” and “inclusive” so that pedestrians can walk anywhere they like, kids can play in the center of the road, and cars don’t have to observe the direction, then you will obviously get a mess. Can you tell why should anyone accept the “equal rights” that only produce a mess?
Erik,
That’s a pitiful argument. I think Christianity is illogical. Shall we ban it on those grounds?
Logic and illogic are not a matter of opinion, but of rational proof. You, sadly, argue from personal opinion. Intelligence does not equal personal opinion and laws are not made based on personal opinions.
Erik,
I can demonstrate that Christianity is illogical.
Again, shall we ban it on those grounds? Shall I claim, following your example, that Christianity “insults rational people’s intelligence” and should therefore be prohibited?
You keep mentioning rationality and intelligence, yet you haven’t thought this through at all.
You are talkinga bout the right of “a people”. I was talking about individual rights. The right of “a people” to rule themselves often conflicts with the rights of individuals. For instance, a people could vote, by a majority for a government that made the minority slaves.
So am not talking about the rights of “the people”. I am asking what rights, you, individually, personally, or any individual American, is removed by the granting to gays of the right to marry?
If I was talking to a rational person, I would not need to remind you of the topic. We are not talking about banning something. We are certainly not talking about banning something based on that it insults rational people’s intelligence.
I am merely pointing out that if logic and rationality matter, then arguments pro or contra anything should be based on logic and rationality. And this applies only to arguments pro and contra, not laws. Legislation will unfortunately always be subject to majority opinion and whim of authorities, and will never completely follow logic and evidence, so laws are a separate matter.
If we can agree on this much, then our discussion will be on rational basis and we can continue. So, I gave you rational arguments why I don’t support gay marriage. It’s long overdue that you should present your rational arguments, if any. If not, I will ignore you henceforth.
Erik,
Allow me to remind you of your words:
You cited harm to yourself as an argument against marriage equality. If same-sex marriage should be forbidden because its supposed illogic causes harm by ‘insulting rational people’s intelligence’, then why shouldn’t Christianity be forbidden on the same grounds? I can demonstrate that it is illogical, after all.
You’ve backed yourself into a corner.
Yes. Just as marriage is no longer defined as being indissoluble. Just as marriage is no longer defined so as to negate the identity of the wife. Just as marriage is no longer defined as rendering the wife as the property of her husband. Just as marriage no longer turns a woman from “feme sole” to “feme couvert”, and transfers all her property to her husband. Just as marriage no longer includes polygamy. Just as marriage is no longer, in general, defined as existing until the husband declares that he divorces his wife, with the words “I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you”.
Marriage has been constantly defined and redefined from the time that it was considered a legal entity. Most of those changes have been in the direction of granting equal rights to men and women. Now the changes grants equal rights to gay people as well.
Legal definitions can, and should, be changed, when we discover that they are unfair. Up till Friday, in the US, the legal definition of marriage was unfair. Now it is fairer, just as it was when it was redefined to give women equal rights in a marriage.
Why should that be a problem?
It’s not my job to teach you how to read. Anyway, I said, as you correctly quote, “Now, how does the re-definition harm me? Illogic insults rational people’s intelligence.” This statement rests on the assumption that logic is good and illogic is bad. Anything about banning there? No, nothing.
What I said only means that gay marriage is illogical and has no logical argument for it. You have done nothing to prove otherwise. Therefore my position stands: Gay marriage makes no sense socially, legally, physiologically.
And I can safely conclude you are incapable of rational discussion on this topic.
All this is false given specific contexts. But, for the sake of simplicity, let’s focus on the core issue. The core issue, in my view, is that in your eagerness to demolish the traditional views of marriage you have made it completely devoid of any meaning whatsoever. If marriage can always be redefined at will, then what makes you define it to include gay people, but exclude pre-pubescent kids, dogs, or someone’s most beloved dildo? What is stopping you?
The core issue is – what is the core definition of marriage, that which did not, does not, and should not change in the midst of the changeable specifics? Can you give it? If not, then marriage, as per you, essentially does not exist and there is no such thing as “right to marriage” either.
Erik:
Dogs and dildos aren’t covered by the equal protection clause. Pre-pubescent kids are, but they are not considered competent to consent to marriage. Is this really so hard, Erik?
As for marriage being redefined, what about property ownership? Do you think we should resurrect slavery, since it is a traditional form of property ownership? First property ownership, now marriage — what will those crazy anti-slavery, pro-gay libruls try to redefine next?
You’re a dinosaur, Erik. The world is moving in a new, better direction. Adapt or go extinct.
Not hard at all. And, on your part, I assume that it’s not hard to bring your reasoning to its logical conclusion: Couples (one+one) are now covered by the equal protection clause. Any reason why threesomes etc. shouldn’t be? And, in the mess of the re-definition, any reason why this thing should still be called marriage? Can you indicate a core characteristic of marriage that remained the same with this re-definition, along with why you think it’s a core characteristic?
Here’s an interesting historical note. It’s generally supposed that ancient Greeks were very gay-friendly. Everybody went through a supposedly traditional pedophiliac stage before marriage. Very nice and tolerant in modern terms. However, somehow it never occurred to them to demand “equal right to marriage” for homosexuals and pedophiles. Have you ever given a thought why they didn’t re-define marriage back then?
So, you are saying that ownership of people is a core characteristic of property ownership? So that when people cannot be owned these days, this changed the definition of “property ownership”? You might want to give this some deeper thought.
Well, no, it is not. Marriage has, in the past, been defined in all those ways, and in some places still is. There are still jurisdictions where women are the property of their husbands, and where polygamy is legal.
The abolition of couverture in many jurisdictions gave women the right to marry a man without losing her property, her legal identity, and many of her basic rights as a human being. The legal introduction of divorce gave people the right to dissolve a marriage, without having to demonstrate that it was never legally constituted. Both those changes were radical changes to the prior definition of marriage, especially the second.
Absolutely not. It remains thick with meaning, personal, social, and legal. That’s why the change was made: because it is a meaningful contract, and gay people were denied access to it in many US states before Friday.
Erik, ask yourself: what do a straight adult and a gay adult have in common that is not shared by: kids; dogs; dildos?
Hint: the answer is in the question.
How about: a lifelong partnership contract between consenting adults? That would, of course, exclude many things traditionally called “marriage”, but I am perfectly happy to exclude forced marriages and child brides from the core.
Allan Miller,
So you mean if other people didn’t have the right to marry people of the same sex, than it is not discrimination to not allow anyone of the same sex to be married.
So Erik’s objection is purely semantic? Not even a whiff of influence from his religious inclinations?
phoodoo,
Huh? You were talking about your right to parade naked somewhere or other.
My only interest is what, if anything, this has to do with marriage. Luckily you granted my request and attempted a definition of marriage.
This definition prompts some questions. Currently we have just two “consenting adults”. Why not three or more? And why does a partnership contract between consenting adults need constitutional protection? Is it really impossible to arrange a contract with whatever content between consenting adults in our wildly free Western world?
To give you some idea where I am coming from, let me say something about forced marriages and child brides. Traditionally, marriage has resembled nothing like your definition. They were a contract between two families, not just between two people. The contract was negotiated by the parents of those who were supposed to get married. The purpose of the contract was manifold, often political, but the irreducible core element in it was procurement of offspring.
The modern redefinition disregards this core irreducible element. To be clear, I don’t mean that when a relationship’s purpose is not to procure offspring, it should be banned. I mean that when a relationship’s purpose is not to procure offspring, it’s not marriage – by definition. Just like bachelors cannot be married – by definition. The legal issue is separate from the logical definitional issue, but my preference is that legal concepts be rational.
Gregory,
Considering how the right half of our culture war in the USA Rules-Lawyered the Affordable Care Act over four words, what hotshoe_ has described is accurate. Case law for the USA is millions of pages long precisely because of the human propensity to litigate every tiny discrepancy for advantage. Using the word marriage will save the SCOTUS alone many dozens, the lower federal courts scores, and state courts hundreds of further cases.
Well, it may be that polyamorous people do come to feel that there are benefits available to married people that they are currently deprived of. But unlike making marriage available to all couples, which requires minimal change to the law, there would be far more ramifications for contracts involving a different number of partners. I’m sure it could be done, but unlike the present change, which essentially uses the same legal description as was used to describe heterosexual marriage (which, incidentally, would have been impossible under “couverture”), it would need something radically different. So if it turns out that polyamorous groups do want this, they will probably need to seek separate legislation. Then, what they, or you, call it, will be a matter of language, not of law. But clearly, a contract between more than two people is different to a contract between two people. Look no further than issues surrounding the death of one partner.
Same reason as marriage does: potentially including, but not restricted to, spousal benefits; next-of-kin rights; inheritance rights; protection from domestic violence rights; protection of both partners in case of divorce; custodial rights to children; child support; income tax; visitation rights; etc. In most contexts, a spouse is regarded as a person’s closest relative. Now this is true for gay spouses as well.
Well, as others have pointed out, rewriting civil partnership legislation to make it identical to marriage would have been far more cumbersome (and expensive) than simply applying existing marriage legislation to all couples.
OK. Well, thank goodness at least in most places we don’t have that any more.
Good.
Good.
Well, by a definition of marriage that defines it as “to procure offspring”, then clearly you are correct. But clearly that is not the only definition of marriage, and clearly applies to many marriages that nobody disputes are “traditional” marriages.
And the definition of marriage used in the US up till last Friday did not include the requirement that its purpose must be “to procure children”.
Right. But by the Federal definition of marriage last Thursday, a marriage entered into without the purpose of procuring children was still a marriage.
The same remained true on Friday.
It is not rational at all to have a legal definition of marriage that includes the marriage of infertile couples who cannot have children by each other, and then refuse to extend it to gay couples on the grounds that they cannot have children by each other. Unless the legal definition included “for the purpose of procuring children”, which it did not, then by that same definition, a gay marriage is a marriage.
“Procuring”?
walto,
Lizzie was just echoing Erik, who chose that word.
(Maybe he means that the only true marriage is one that results in adoption. 🙂 )
Yeah, that gave me a turn, too.
Erik,
I wasn’t married once, then, despite having all the ceremonial and legal trappings of being so. Because I had no intention of having children. Suddenly I became ‘married’, the day we fell pregnant.
llanitedave,
I sat in a Wendy’s on Saturday afternoon, after a day at the beach with my sister and her kids, and listened to the sitters/people watchers who sit and watch the news on the big screen all day. One of them went on and on about how he wasn’t going to give up his gun and he wasn’t going to let them force him to marry a man. They really think this.
But clearly, if the main point is to make rights “equal”, there’s absolutely no reason why rights should be “equal” between couples and not between threesomes etc. So, clearly, the main point is not to make rights equal. The main point, if there is a point at all, is to undermine the definition of marriage – the traditional definition, which also happens to be the rational definition. If this is not the point, then there’s no point in the change at all.
This goes against the definition of spouse and again raises the question why threesomes etc. are excluded from the benefits. Since there’s no rational response to the question, it follows that your suggested reason is not the real reason.
Moreover, more than half of children are born outside marriages in EU. Probably nearly the same is true of the United States too. This shows that the “benefits” argument doesn’t hold up in practice. If there were real benefits to marriage, people would be getting eagerly married, but people are not getting eagerly married, so evidently there are no benefits.
Any example of traditional marriage that is not about offspring?
But this is not merely about the legal definition. I am talking about the traditional and rational definition. On your definition, I don’t see any purpose to marriage (both the word and anything it entails in practice) at all. You even didn’t think as far as threesomes etc.
Infertile couples are included in marriage, because the core of the relationship – husband and wife – is superficially the same, even though they are deficient. It’s like a dog who has lost a leg. By definition, dogs are quadruped, but a dog who lost a leg is still dog, even though deficient. Does existence of dogs who lost a leg permit us to redefine dogs as having any number of legs? Similarly, existence of infertile married couples does not permit to redefine marriage as a relationship between infertile people.
Erik,
No, but it does permit us to redefine marriage to include relationships between infertile people, and we have wisely done so. It would be inhumane to deny infertile heterosexual couples the benefits of marriage, and it is just as inhumane to deny them to gay couples.
That dogs may have lost a leg or two is a reason for NOT defining dogs as four-legged creatures. It shows that any definition requiring four legs is a bad definition. The principle here is the same. Women may actually reach ages at which they can no longer bear children. Both men and women may be sterile. Hence definitions requiring men or women to be fertile are bad definitions.
Counterexamples to definitions are reasons for dropping such definitions.
Not at all. What this legislation does is to give people who want to marry the person they love the same rights, regardless of whether that person is the same or a different gender. Up till Friday, that right – to marry the person you love – was available to straight people but not gay people. That right is now extended to both straight people and gay people. They now have the same – equal – rights to straight people.
If you want to give everyone a right that currently no-one (at least in the US has, at least since Utah changed) to marry more than one person, then feel free to make that case. But there is nothing “unfair” about the law as it stands, because nobody has that right at present, and if you did want to make it possible, the contract would need to be a bit different from the contract covering couples. The magic thing about the number two is that when you take away one, you have one left, which in the context of marriage, means a single person again. With all other numbers, taking away one, leaves some other partnership contract. So the contract would have to be legally different from current contracts which are designed for couples. But merely extending the contract to cover gay as well as straight couples requires no change at all to the nature of the contract.
No, that is not the point. The point is to allow gay couples the same legal benefits of coupledom as straight couples. Dead simple.
A threesome, as I’ve pointed out, would have to be a different contract. No reason, in my view, not to make such a contract possible, but until there’s pressure for it, and argument for it, it’s hard to say. Polygamy has its disadvantages wrt to individual rights (it’s inherently unequal – the husband has more than one spouse but the wives don’t), but that’s not necessarily the case with polyamory. But the contract would be more complex, for reasons I give above.
No. Lots of people are “getting eagerly married” (some after the children are born, rather than before). And some people would rather not. That’s not a reason to withhold the right to marry the partner of your choice from those who would.
Loads. Not every couple wants children. Not every couple can have children. Not every couple even want sex.
Well, a lot of people do. And now, if they are gay, and live in the US, they can fulfill that purpose, which they couldn’t before Friday, at least in some states.
As I said, it would be a different kind of contract. Not one that I would be opposed to, though.
Not necessarily. They could be infertile by choice.
It would be foolish to exclude dogs with three legs from the definition of dogs. Number of legs is not what makes a dog a dog. Nor is being able to have joint biological children what makes a marriage a marriage. So your analogy fails.
Nobody is asking you to. All that is necessary is for it not to be defined as a relationship between fertile people. Which would be a stupid definition, and not one that anyone uses.
And as it wasn’t the US Federal definition on Thursday, nothing is changed on Friday.
Actually, there is an important nuance to the four-legged definition that you missed. Namely, it establishes that three-legged dogs have a defect, they are not completely healthy dogs. Looks like you are well in the process of doing away with the definition of health too.
When men and women are infertile, they are not men and women in the relevant and complete sense. When you redefine men and women so liberally, you get something abstract, like “subjects” or “entities”, not men and women.
Not at all. The legislation still gives people right to marry just one person they love. It’s not giving them right to marry all the people they love. And why stop at people? You are missing the point and now I know it’s deliberate.
In what sense is the thing you are talking about still “marriage”? When its core element is declared irrelevant, then it’s logically not marriage anymore. I seriously don’t see how you are talking about marriage.
Earlier you said that traditional marriage was unjust. So, what you actually want is to do away with marriage altogether and have something in its place that you think is just. Instead of redefining marriage, do away with the whole concept. For example slavery was not abolished by redefining the word, but by identifying its core characteristics and prohibiting them. This would be the rational way.
Erik,
LOL. You libruls think infertile people are people? When you redefine ‘people’ so librully you get something abstract, like “subjects” or “entities”, not people.
By the way, do you have any defects, Erik? I’d like to know whether I should be referring to you as ‘he’ or ‘it’.
You just managed to imply that it doesn’t matter if people are fertile or not. I will not descend so low as to explain what’s wrong with your idea. A reasonable person should understand it without explanation.
Erik, my advice to you is to never suggest to any woman that she has become “defective” because she has reached, say 45.
Also, I suggest you google “Amy Schumer last fuckable day”
Erik,
Oh, it matters, particularly if they want to have children, but it should have nothing to do with whether we consider them people.
Now about those defects of yours — does it disappoint you to be less than a person? Have you considered being a bit more lenient toward yourself and your fellow humans?
ETA: Pardon, I meant “sub-humans”.
And your advice to infertile women is to not go to see a doctor, right? After all, there’s nothing wrong with them. “Wrong” doesn’t exist!
I don’t give a flying fuck whether they go to see a doctor or not. Why should either of us be advising infertile women?
I’ll give you this–your reasoning is often defective and wrong. How’s that?
These things matter not only if they want to have children, but also when we are aiming at technical precision as to what constitutes “man” and “woman” which were the terms under discussion when you began to ridicule fertility.
Terms like “defects” and “sub-humans” etc. have their domain of usage. We (you and I) disagree about requirements for terminological relevance and precision. There’s no common ground here.
And why did you jump to advise me?
Prove it. Then I may probably care.
Hi Erik. My imaginary friend says you are a twat and shall henceforth receive no ice cream.
Utter bullshit. A person’s gender identity is not their reproductive capacity. I did not become a woman when I became fertile, and I did not cease to be a woman when I ceased to be fertile. good lord.
You are missing mine, and I’m not sure whether it’s deliberate or not. I will assume not. The reason you stop at one person is, for reasons I have laid out very clearly, is that a contract with more than one person would have to be a different kind of contract to that of a contract between two people. And the reason you stop, not at “people” but at “consenting adults” is because “consenting” and “adults” are rather important. A marriage without consent is not one that I want to give legal status to, and a minor or a non-human cannot be assumed to give consent. Nor, for that matter, can a dildo.
In other words, extending marriage to all couples is a minor change that simply extends the rights currently granted to heterosexual consenting adults to all consenting adults.
Erik,
That’s for sure. I think infertile people are still people.
I’m reassured that at least some people share that common ground.
Not only is this post-menopausal woman still a person, I am still a woman. And not “defective”.
[insert lame joke here as you will]
Lizzie,
Thank God (so to speak) for that. If consent were required, the jails would be full of people charged with dildo rape.
Which raises an interesting question. If technology proceeds apace, will there someday be sentient dildos?
ETA: I never read Naked Lunch. Was “Steely Dan” sentient, by any chance?