US Supreme Court Does the Right Thing

Liberty and Justice, HT Chris Clarke

 

 

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 :).

853 thoughts on “US Supreme Court Does the Right Thing

  1. Richardthughes:
    Hi Erik. My imaginary friend says you are a twat and shall henceforth receive no ice cream.

    He’s even defective as a twat.

    EDIT: I mean according to my own imaginary friend. I don’t mean according to me, since that would be an ad hominem on my part and against board rules. But since I’m reporting something I was told, it’s just hearsay and, as such, allowed here. (I think.)

  2. Erik,

    According to the 14th Amendment, the legal benefits are for everyone.

    No, they most definitely are not.

    The 14th Amendment, section 1, clearly states “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

    See that bolded part?

    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.

    The legal system recognizes that children are not competent to enter into contracts, including marriage. Are you suggesting that LGBT couples are similarly incompetent?

    And the purpose [of marriage] in your view is . . . ?

    Does it include sharing a life together and caring for each other?Does the legal purpose include being able to be together in the hospital when one of you is ill and not losing your shared assets when one of you dies?

    Are these things denied from e.g. friends in the United States?

    Yes. Marriage has a number of significant legal benefits. Denying those to same sex couples is unfair and unreasonable.

    Marriage has a definition: Marriage is the legal/social union of husband and wife.

    That may be the definition your church uses, but the legal definition in the United States is different.

    The re-definition also harms the prestige of marriage, which is low already.

    Please explain how more people wanting to participate harms the “prestige” of marriage. Same sex couples who choose to marry are showing respect for the institution. It’s not too much to ask to respect their desire to do so.

    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?

    Where’s the “mess”? This decision harms no one and helps many. You haven’t provided a single, measurable harm that comes from allowing marriage equality.

    If you are heterosexual, this affects you not at all. Why is the idea of other people being happy so offensive to you?

  3. Lizzie,

    I’m reassured that at least some people share that common ground.

    I think we’re in the majority, actually. 🙂

  4. 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.

    Perfectly logical.

  5. Patrick, It’s not the knowing that makes this stuff illogical, IMHO, it’s the omni-benevolence and omnipotence in conjunction with allowing the bad stuff that He (note the capital and gender) knows will happen.

    Punishing people for what we know (or at least have good evidence) they will do is not contradictory. It’s the power to prevent along with the failure to do so that causes problems.

  6. Erik,

    What I said only means that gay marriage is illogical and has no logical argument for it.

    You have failed to support that assertion. All your comments boil down to is “I don’t like that other people won’t accept my definition of marriage.”

    Again, why is denying happiness to other people so important to you?

  7. Erik,

    The purpose of the contract was manifold, often political, but the irreducible core element in it was procurement of offspring.

    Some close friends of mine have a son who is gay and married. He and his husband contracted with a surrogate mother who was impregnated, via in vitro fertilization, with two eggs, one fertilized by each of the men. They are now raising two beautiful babies.

    I have some other close friends, a man and a woman, who have been married for over forty years, but have never had offspring.

    Based on your “logic”, do you support the first marriage but not the second?

  8. Arguments from tradition fail because traditional marriage definitions have already changed for the generally acknowledged better.

    Arguments from fertility fail because infertile couples can already marry.

    Arguments from the purpose of marriage is to “procure” children, because people with no desire to “procure” children could marry anyway.

    Arguments from religion fail because nobody is forcing any religion to perform a marriage ceremony for gay people.

    Arguments from slippery slope fail because there is a clear non-slippery distinction between two consenting adults and any other combination of parties.

    Arguments from natural law fail because homosexuality is perfectly natural (gay penguins! Yay!)

    Arguments from “think of the children!” fail because there is good evidence that children brought up by gay couples turn out just fine.

    Arguments from “depriving children of their biological parents” fail because adoptive children need homes.

    Arguments from “surrogacy sucks” fails because that is a different issue and applies equally to heterosexual couples.

    So opponents are left with arguments from cake.

  9. Elizabeth: Arguments from religion fail because nobody is forcing any religion to perform a marriage ceremony for gay people.

    That’s a relative thing. Churches are likely to lose their tax-exempt status. Not that that would be a bad thing.

  10. Oh, that’s interesting.

    I don’t think that’s been an issue here. But non-church wedding venues have really taken off. They took off anyway, when wedding licenses were first issued in England and Wales (before that it was church or mostly-drab registry office cf Charles and Camilla), but they’ve found a huge new market for gay weddings.

    And some churches do them as well of course (Quakers! Yay!)

  11. Erik,

    When men and women are infertile, they are not men and women in the relevant and complete sense.

    Wow. I didn’t think it possible for you to present as more bigoted and mean-spirited, but here you have! Well done.

  12. Typical English fudge:

    Q. Why does the Act ban the Church of England from conducting same sex marriages? Does this give them more protection from legal challenge than other churches?

    A. The church law of the Church of England, as the established church, is part of the law of the land, and at present church law precludes same sex marriage. It is also important to note that Church of England clergy are under a common law duty to marry parishioners (as are those of the Church in Wales). The Act therefore had to state that the Church of England and the Church in Wales may not solemnize same sex marriages to avoid clergy being obliged under common law to marry same sex couples in their parish. Both denominations may, if they choose, change their laws and opt in at a later date.

  13. walto,

    Patrick, It’s not the knowing that makes this stuff illogical, IMHO, it’s the omni-benevolence and omnipotence in conjunction with allowing the bad stuff that He (note the capital and gender) knows will happen.

    Punishing people for what we know (or at least have good evidence) they will do is not contradictory. It’s the power to prevent along with the failure to do so that causes problems.

    Christianity, and many other religions, are fractally irrational. No matter what scale you zoom to, there’s something illogical there.

  14. Elizabeth: 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 could just as well say anyone who feels like a woman can legitimately be termed “woman”. Wait, I guess this is approximately what “T” stands for in LGBT, so you indeed would say this. And this would be utter bullshit, nothing to do with marriage, men and women in any sensible way.

    Elizabeth:
    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….

    Stop right there. We were not talking about “different”. We were talking about what’s “just” and “equal”. We were talking about “right to marry”.

    I can now safely conclude that you are not interested in getting at rigorous definitions through coherent reasoning. You are interested in evading the core issue until I get tired and you can declare victory. You can declare victory by obfuscation right now. I am tired.

    Elizabeth:
    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.

    Yep, a tiny move legally, but it disregards the essence of marriage. Similarly, it would be a small legal move to extend the rights currently granted to cars on highways to everyone on the road, nevermind that this would efficiently kill off traffic.

    So, I walk away from this discussion having learned that husband, wife, and health are irrelevant concepts, while man, woman and marriage are positive words that should be free for everyone’s use without any need for definition. Any attempts at definition are to be sneered at and hushed down. All that matters is cheering a narrowly voted and irrational judicial decision that is somehow a great positive victory for everybody, even though it effects a change only for a statistically vanishing minority of the population and allegedly changes nothing but “extends the right” which never was a right and is not perceived as any sort of right by the majority of those who are currently enjoying the supposed benefits of the so-called right.

  15. Patrick:
    walto,

    Christianity, and many other religions, are fractally irrational.No matter what scale you zoom to, there’s something illogical there.

    Agreed.

  16. Erik: So, I walk away from this discussion having learned…

    Nothing. You could. But you don’t want to.

  17. Allan Miller:

    [Erik sez:] I mean that when a relationship’s purpose is not to procure offspring, it’s not marriage – by definition.

    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.

    And I was married once, and we did hope/intend having children, but I can assure everyone there was not a single word in the marriage license which we obtained from the county, nor in the blessing given us by the pastor, which mentioned our potential offspring. Childbearing simply is NOT part of the understanding of marriage, not even among the majority religious. Erik is simply wrong with his dinosaur definition of marriage. In our current world, the real world, not Erik’s fantasy feudal world, marriage is a meeting of two adults who (hopefully) love one another and are willing to commit to the responsibilities of a mutual future, in exchange gaining some legal benefits of being married which our society collectively supports.

    Good thing to be married if kids do happen along, though, makes the paperwork ever so much simpler.

  18. Aardvark: 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.

    God damn those motherfuckers.

  19. walto: Erik, my advice to you is to never suggest to any woman that she has become “defective” because she has reached, say 45.

    Or suggest to any young man that he has become defective because he’s had the snip.

    A guy I know had such great swimmers he joked he could get a girl pregnant just by looking at her. What a relief, two tiny little snips and he could stop worrying about leaving bastards behind in every port.

    He wasn’t very tall, Erik, but he’s built like a brick shithouse. He would beat your ass into a pulp if you dared to say to his face he was “defective”.

    Sure, you talk big on the internet, Erik, tough guy. Try going into any bar in Norfolk Virginia and telling the people there that they’re defective (or that their sweethearts are!! ) if they can’t make babies.

  20. hotshoe_: And I was married once, and we did hope/intend having children, but I can assure everyone there was not a single word in the marriage license which we obtained from the county, nor in the blessing given us by the pastor, which mentioned our potential offspring. Childbearing simply is NOT part of the understanding of marriage, not even among the majority religious.

    I can’t speak for the ceremony itself, but traditional marriage was all about producing heirs. That is probably why homosexuality was frowned upon.

    The Roman emperors, particularly Augustus, railed against citizens who chose not to have children.

  21. I think Erik is taking his definition of marriage from the Book of Common Prayer, which states:

    The union of husband and wife in heart, body, and mind is
    intended by God for their mutual joy; for the help and comfort
    given one another in prosperity and adversity; and, when it is
    God’s will
    , for the procreation of children and their nurture
    in the knowledge and love of the Lord. Therefore marriage is
    not to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly, but reverently,
    deliberately, and in accordance with the purposes for which it
    was instituted by God.

    Note the existence of the rider [in bold].
    So mutual joy, help and comfort are the “core” reasons.
    Procreation is optional.

  22. Patrick:
    Erik,

    Some close friends of mine have a son who is gay and married.He and his husband contracted with a surrogate mother who was impregnated, via in vitro fertilization, with two eggs, one fertilized by each of the men.They are now raising two beautiful babies.

    I have some other close friends, a man and a woman, who have been married for over forty years, but have never had offspring.

    Based on your “logic”, do you support the first marriage but not the second?

    My first entry in this thread here notes a simple fact of physiology. Nobody denied the fact. Instead, you are all going about some “right” and “constitution” and now you are ridiculing religion which I never mentioned throughout the discussion. I didn’t need to mention religion. Science is quite enough. I have on my side concepts from science and natural philosophy, while you only have ad hoc constructs and emotional insistence on desires. You are making a fundamentally irrational point. You don’t need me to point this out. You know it.

    It’s not my business to “support” any sort of marriage. I simply take note what kind of usage of the word makes sense and what doesn’t. Congress and Supreme Court can declare any sort of bullshit they want, it only makes them as bad as churches used to be.

  23. Erik, I don’t know what science or natural philosophy you’re talking about. Marriage is a social–not scientific or philosophical–construct. Maybe it’s stupid, I don’t know. But as societies have decided what are the criteria for valid marriages (and divorces–legal separations used to be very difficult to obtain in Mass., e.g., but they aren’t any longer), they also ought to be allowed to change them–and, as Lizzie has pointed out, occasionally have done so.

    And these criteria SHOULD be changed if the members of the societies want them to be changed. You seem to think you have a “higher” view of marriage, one that is “scientific”. But the procreation, which you apparently take to be a “scientific” matter, does not now require and has never required “marriage”–only, well….you probably know.

    Your view of the subject isn’t higher, it’s just undemocratic and elitist. It’s not based on science or “natural philosophy”–it’s based on your religious preferences. (And there’s really no use denying that point: it just makes your posts even more implausible than they already are.)

  24. Erik: You could just as well say anyone who feels like a woman can legitimately be termed “woman”. Wait, I guess this is approximately what “T” stands for in LGBT, so you indeed would say this. And this would be utter bullshit, nothing to do with marriage, men and women in any sensible way.

    Well, yes, quite sensible, actually, but I’m utterly amazed that you think that a woman who has passed the age of childbearing is no longer a woman. I’ve met people who think that a woman who was once known as a man is not *really* a woman, quite a few actually, but nobody who has actually doubted the womanhood of a post-menopausal woman. Or of an infertile one for that matter. Or one with an IUD.

    Sure I’ve heard people say that a man post-vasectomy is no longer a “real man” but that’s pretty redneck.

    Weird.

    But as you’ve raised it, let’s talk about the “T”. You know, of course, that gender isn’t binary? It’s strongly bimodal, but not binary. Even possession of a Y chromosome isn’t really “binary” because sometimes the Y chromosome doesn’t have the testes-specifying SRY gene, and sometimes it’s found on the X. And even if its there, it doesn’t always result in male genitalia, because sometimes the androgens normally produced by the developing testes are blocked. And sometimes those androgens are present during development, despite absence of testes. So sometime genitalia can be “ambiguous”.

    And the part of the brain that signals gender identity responds, during a particular developmental window, to the hormones present in utero, largely produced by the gonads, but sometimes other things influence the mix, so that gender identity signals are at odds with the developing external genitalia, and sometimes with the sex chromosomes, and sometimes with the presence or otherwise of the SRY gene. And so as the person grows, they feel less strongly a member of the gender assigned to them at birth (usually on the basis of a fairly cursory inspection of the external genitalia) than the other gender. Sometimes this gender identity signal is extremely strong.

    Similarly the hormonal environment in utero is also not always congruent with the developing external genitalia during the developmental window in which sexual orientation is established.

    So we end up with a 2D spectrum of sexual orientations and sexual identities, dominated by people assigned male gender who identify as male and are sexually attracted to women, and by people assigned female gender who identify as female and are sexually attracted to men, but with all kinds of shades and hues in between.

    Which is why the rainbow is such an appropriate and lovely symbol of the varieties of human sexual identity and orientation.

    And I am so glad to live in an age where we know these things, and no longer, on the whole, regard people who don’t occupy those two rather boring peaks as the only “real” people and the rest as “sub human” or “defective” but as people with the same rights as the rest of us, to love, and to marry, if they want, and to raise children, even if their biology doesn’t lend itself to producing their own with their partner of choice, because lord knows there are enough children who need loving parents out there, and don’t have them, and indeed, of people prepared to donate sperm and ova and even carry another couple’s child to term.

    But I find it sad to see the irrational (because they are) fears this understanding still engenders – people who think in narrow binary terms about gender and sexual identity, contrary to all the evidence from developmental biology, and who feel that their own marital and sexual identity is threatened by people whose biology is different from theirs, or their spouses.

    But I’m also so glad to live in an age where instead of basing our prescriptions and taboos on biblical and traditional shibboleths, we actually base them on evidence from biology and psychology and sociology as to what promotes and what damages the wellbeing of others.

    Which I think is a truly moral advance. Friday made me proud of our species.

  25. Erik,

    Somebody (Neil?) has suggested “holy matrimony” for what you’re talking about.That’s a lovely idea: I think you should take that and run with it.You’ll have your union that is ultra-special, and we can all go on with our lives.

    Edit: My guess is that you’ll get push-back on restricting holy matrimony to couples that can have children, but I encourage you to try anyhow. (Wear a helmet.)

  26. Erik: Science is quite enough. I have on my side concepts from science and natural philosophy

    Actually, you don’t. You have a crude understanding of biology and an even cruder understanding of the philosophy of personhood.

    Someone who regards a post-menopausal woman as a “defective” woman is basing their views on neither sound science nor sound philosophy.

  27. Elizabeth: But I’m also so glad to live in an age where instead of basing our prescriptions and taboos on biblical and traditional shibboleths, we actually base them on evidence from biology and psychology and sociology as to what promotes and what damages the wellbeing of others.

    Which I think is a truly moral advance. Friday made me proud of our species.

    Me too. I’ve been walking on air since I first heard the news early Friday. And the reports all weekend, the pictures and soundbites from Pride march, were making me teary-eyed with joy. I’m so naturally pessimistic that it’s still hard for me to believe we humans have managed some genuine change for the good. Yes, believe it, we did it!

    Now onwards to thornier problems: employment discrimination, bullying in schools, murderous Catholic denial of condom use … But at least we (collectively) can celebrate the good of marriage equality. Yes, it really is something that promotes the well-being of others,and it’s wonderful that we’ve matured enough to recognize that.

  28. walto:
    And these criteria SHOULD be changed if the members of the societies want them to be changed.

    Can you suggest on what terms they should be changed? As I pointed out, when slavery became undesirable, it was not redefined. It was eradicated. It was done the right way.

    Why should marriage be redefined instead of eradicated? After all, you want “equality” and “justice”, right? Is it really justice when it concerns only two “consenting adults”, and not as many people as possible, preferably the entire population? And is it really justice when the Supreme Court’s decision is narrowly voted, it effects only a tiny legal change, it angers all religious people and the so-called “homophobes” (who are by any measure a much more significant part of the population than the LGBT community), plus makes no sense to rationalists without any religious affiliation, such as myself? Doesn’t look equal or just to me at all. Looks purposeless and divisive.

    walto:
    You seem to think you have a “higher” view of marriage, one that is “scientific”.But the procreation, which you apparently take to be a “scientific” matter, does not now require and has never required “marriage”–only, well….you probably know.

    Traditionally, marriage is the social institution meant to protect family. Marriage and family are inseparable. I will not have a debate with you about what constitutes a family, because you have already done away with the concepts of husband and wife, thus doing away with marriage in any meaningful sense. This case is closed.

    walto:
    Your view of the subject isn’t higher, it’s just undemocratic and elitist. It’s not based on science or “natural philosophy”–it’s based on your religious preferences.(And there’s really no use denying that point: it just makes your posts even more implausible than they already are.)

    My view is traditional and common sense. The procreative function is the core of the subject under discussion. The procreative function is concretely physiological, not some social construct. When you leave this aside, whatever you say fails to address the irreducible key characteristic of marriage and family.

    If you insist on disregarding the procreative function, as everyone of you has done in various ways, you are simply not talking about marriage. What you really want, if we are to look for any logic and consistency in your position, is to replace marriage with “civil union” for “couples” or “configurations”, while husband, wife, and family are to be forgotten.

    In short, we are not talking about the same thing.

  29. Erik, you’re acting like a doddering lexicographer here. Look, something is now allowed by all the states to occur between men and men, and between women and women. If you want to call it “shmarriage” I don’t mind. Probably nobody will give a shit. They want to call it “marriage” because they don’t think the man/woman biz is essential to the concept. You think that it IS essential to a real marriage.

    Good for you. Call it whatever you want. Again, you’re not actually fooling anybody by pretending this isn’t a religious matter for you. FWIW, I don’t like “helm” used as a verb. I’m not making a Federal case about it though. Why not? Because it’s just a word.

    “Marriage” means a lot to some people. You may say, “well, it also means a lot to a bunch of people who disagree with those who want the term broadened.” I don’t doubt that. I get that a lot of religious people and a miscellaneous additional batch of homophobes and liberla haters don’t like this ruling. But more people DO like it, and, as someone who believes in democracy, that IS important to me, even if you call my current marriage (to a 60+-year-old) a shmarriage, and call us defective.

    As I’ve said, I consider the defects in your logic much more interesting, prevalent and engaging.

  30. Erik: If you insist on disregarding the procreative function, as everyone of you has done in various ways, you are simply not talking about marriage.

    What complete bullshit. There is nothing in any marriage ceremony that requires the ability or the attempt to procreate.

    But since you initiated the subject of procreation, have you ever masturbated, Yes or no?

  31. Erik:
    Traditionally, marriage is the social institution meant to protect family. … This case is closed.

    Good.

    You lost.

    Well, you are absolutely right that the case is closed. The US Supreme Court has ruled and the case is indeed closed.

    You lost, along with every other homophobic bigot and deluded religious regressive. You’ve been relegated to the dustbin of history along with the Victorians and whatever their view was on the sanctity of marriage and the “protection of family”. Whatever it was, it’s been replaced by a more humane, more inclusive, more realistic (and happier, too!!) view of “man” “woman” “marriage” and “family”. And that’s a positive moral good.

    Do feel free to go away and sulk yourself to your little heart’s content.

  32. petrushka: What complete bullshit. There is nothing in any marriage ceremony that requires the ability or the attempt to procreate.

    Yeah, that’s what I was saying earlier, petrushka.

    When I got married, there was not a single word either in the legal document or in the parson’s ceremony that mentioned attempting to bear children.

    I mean, sure, some people quietly assumed we were going to have kids sooner or later, but it was never mentioned at the wedding, not once.

    The “procreative function” is simply NOT the function of marriage. No matter what bullshit Erik chooses to believe.

    If it were, then we would never allow a marriage ceremony until the couple has already come up preggers. How’s that for logic!

  33. hotshoe_: When I got married, there was not a single word either in the legal document or in the parson’s ceremony that mentioned attempting to bear children.

    I had an Episcopalian (Anglican) ceremony, which mentions children (God Willing).

    The demand for children comes from tribalism and the desire of tribal chieftains to maintain and increase their populations. That, and the desire to have property and power maintained in a regular succession. The alternative was war.

  34. walto,

    FWIW, I don’t like “helm” used as a verb.

    “Incent” is my current pet peeve.

  35. Perhaps a different way of looking at SSM is that legalising it does away with a clear case of gender inequality:

    Before, men and women were treated differently under the law. Men could only marry women, whereas women could only marry men. Now, this inequality has been removed: men and women can both marry men and women.

    Is more equality under the law not a good thing?

    fG

  36. Worth repeating:

    You’re a dinosaur, Erik. The world is moving in a new, better direction. Adapt or go extinct.

  37. The verbization of the English language is ruining the lives of a lot of traditionalists. I’m calling my board of selectmen.

    But I’m not stopping there, you assholes. I’m not stopping there.

  38. hmm, tried to post an image and got empty space
    Grand ol’ guys
    Guardian news photo of Sirs Derek Jacobi and Ian McKellen. Parade Grand Marshalls for New York Pride.

    How can anyone be so small-minded as to not be swept up in their joy?

    (And neither one of them is even USAian, so their joy is so much larger, an expression of worldwide humanity not confined by borders.)

  39. walto:
    The verbization of the English language is ruining the lives of a lot of traditionalists.I’m calling my board of selectmen.
    But I’m not stopping there, you assholes.I’m not stopping there.

    Of course, the word “call” has been nouned.

  40. “If you want to call it “shmarriage” I don’t mind.”

    The legal term ‘civil union’ would have done just fine. The only arguments I’ve heard otherwise are ‘too complicated’ or ‘it would cost too much.’ I guess widening (and lowering – sacred -> secular) the meaning of ‘marriage’ isn’t worth that much to some people. Not enough for atheists to actually want to pay for it.

  41. Erik: Is it really justice when it concerns only two “consenting adults”,

    Yes. This isn’t difficult, Erik. You know what a “couple” is, right?

    Erik: And is it really justice when the Supreme Court’s decision is narrowly voted, it effects only a tiny legal change,

    Precisely. It’s a tiny legal change.

    it angers all religious people

    Not all, fortunately. But that’s their problem, frankly. Nobody has the right not to be offended.

    Erik: plus makes no sense to rationalists without any religious affiliation, such as myself

    Well, you aren’t being very rational, that’s for sure. You don’t seem to have thought at all about why a couple who love each other might want to get married, and all you’ve come up with are some non sequiturs about “procuring children” which isn’t even part of the current legal definition of marriage. You certainly haven’t shown that any harm results from gays couples having the same rights in law as straight couples.

    Erik: Traditionally, marriage is the social institution meant to protect family.

    Traditionally, marriage was meant to protect family wealth, gather it into the male line, and to treat women, as property.

    Thankfully, we’ve moved on.

    Marriage and family are inseparable.

    No it isn’t. Plenty of straight marriages don’t have children and plenty of gay marriages do. Your point is irrelevant to the issue of gay marriages.

    Erik: This case is closed.

    Your mind certainly appears to be.

    Erik: Why should marriage be redefined instead of eradicated?

    Because many people want marriage.

    Erik: If you insist on disregarding the procreative function, as everyone of you has done in various ways, you are simply not talking about marriage.

    Yes, we are.

    Erik: while husband, wife, and family are to be forgotten.

    Who said anyting about forgetting heterosexual marriage? Or families?

    Erik, the point seems to be escaping you: No heterosexual marriage is affected one jot by the rights of gay couples to marry.

    Not. At. All.

  42. “The world is moving in a new, better direction. Adapt or go extinct.”

    Social evolutionary bullshit.

  43. No, Gregory the best argument against “civil unions” was the argument given when the Supreme Court overturned “separate but equal” treatment of black school children.

    Again, that YOU would have preferred a civil union law is neither here nor there, Gregory. Those who were affected by the existing state laws wanted to get married, not form civil unions. Why should YOUR view trump theirs?

  44. Gregory: The only arguments I’ve heard otherwise are ‘too complicated’ or ‘it would cost too much.’ I guess widening (and lowering – sacred -> secular) the meaning of ‘marriage’ isn’t worth that much to some people. Not enough for atheists to actually want to pay for it.

    Everyone would have paid. Religious and non-religious. For the right to a word. A word that has meant the subjugation of women for centuries.

  45. petrushka: Of course, the word “call” has been nouned.

    If I’m not mistaken, “bond” was originally a noun only. I’ve learned to adjust however–not only to daytime dramas but glue commercials.

  46. walto: Those who were affected by the existing state laws wanted to get married, not form civil unions. Why should YOUR view trump theirs?

    Exactly.

  47. Patrick:
    Erik,

    Wow.I didn’t think it possible for you to present as more bigoted and mean-spirited, but here you have!Well done.

    He has a sort of “bacterial” view of humanity.

Leave a Reply