this morning's decision

Post #402,899 by rcareaga 6/26/15 12:35:32 PM 6/26/15 12:40:00 PM Reply	this morning's decision IANAL, and have read only excerpts from the ruling and the dissents, but the underlying principle seems to me of a piece with "Loving v. Virginia." I fear that mmoffitt will chime in here that there's a big difference in that the poor darkies can't help being black whereas the queers are just doing it to annoy the rest of us, and could perfectly well step up to the other gender's naughty bits if they didn't insist on being so darned, well, perverse. Could be I'm doing an injustice to mmoffitt here, but that strawman argument is one held quite dearly and sincerely by many mouth-breathers currently holding American citizenship. I'm also seeing a lot of "marriage has always been the union between one man and one woman," which certainly would have come as a surprise to a lot of the Old Testament patriarchs. Indeed, the Jewish practice of polygamy apparently came into conflict with Roman law, which called for monogamy, during the first few centuries of the Common Era. And of course, Islam still countenances the practice (void where prohibited), and the Mormons would re-embrace it in a heartbeat given the chance. So no, "one man and one woman" has never been a historical absolute. (I find, amusingly, the following rather surprising quote from Martin Luther, who I'm told is held in high esteem by many Protestants: "I confess that I cannot forbid a person to marry several wives, for it does not contradict the Scripture. If a man wishes to marry more than one wife he should be asked whether he is satisfied in his conscience that he may do so in accordance with the word of God. In such a case the civil authority has nothing to do in the matter.") I don't see the risk to "traditional" marriage* that seems so apparent to many who are bewailing the ruling, unless they're afraid that Denny ("Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?") Hastert might now feel free to abandon his wife and take up with a strapping Wheaton College undergraduate PE major. I wish for other reasons that my old sweetheart V was still around, but since she and her partner were among the 4000 couples who were issued marriage licenses in San Francisco during the monthlong period in early 2004 before the State Supreme Court closed that window, I'm particularly sorry that she's not around for this development. "The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice." I'm far from certain that the sorry record of the human race supports this conclusion, but today's SCOTUS action does appear to kink in that direction. cordially, (forgot to add): Now might be a good time to repeat my earlier recommendation that we abolish "marriage" and replace it with "Marriage Classic" (hetero/mono) and "New Marriage" (anything goes). In another twenty years, if we're lucky, the more enlightened among the cultural reactionaries—the demographic today that is grudgingly prepared to go as far as recognizing "civil unions"—will be harumphing "I don't care what* they call it as long as they don't call it "Marriage Classic." Edited by rcareaga June 26, 2015, 12:40:00 PM EDT Expand All History
Post #402,902 by Another Scott 6/26/15 12:41:33 PM Reply	Thanks.
Post #402,904 by mmoffitt 6/26/15 1:32:16 PM 6/26/15 1:36:08 PM Reply	I think Roberts fairly refuted the fallacy of comparing this with Loving. In NONE of the prior cases was the definition of marriage altered. Here, it was. With no basis in law whatever. But even more than that, there is no outline, no hint, no suggestion of the contribution that same-sex marriages will make to the State at all. It's easy to see why. Same-sex marriages are incapable of contributing to society what opposite sex marriages can, and most often do. In making a State policy, shouldn't the interests of the State be entertained at all? Edited by mmoffitt June 26, 2015, 01:36:08 PM EDT Expand All History
Post #402,905 by rcareaga 6/26/15 1:40:31 PM Reply	step into my parlor "Same-sex marriages are incapable of contributing to society what opposite sex marriages can." Explain. ravenously,
Post #402,906 by mmoffitt 6/26/15 1:47:31 PM Reply	BIO 101. You take it?
Post #402,908 by rcareaga 6/26/15 2:01:13 PM Reply	Re: BIO 101. You take it? So my wife and I, in our sixties, are childless, and BIO 101 suggests that no efforts on our part, however energetic, are likely to change this state. Is our marriage then not legitimate? Here: take this shovel. cordially,
Post #402,910 by mmoffitt 6/26/15 2:09:15 PM Reply	Nope. It just means that your marriage is of no value to the State. Note that I am not saying your marriage is without value to you, only to the State. But, your marriage does come at a cost to the State and I fail to see how it benefits the State to encourage relationships that are a net negative to the State. Next?
Post #402,914 by Andrew Grygus 6/26/15 2:16:15 PM Reply	That's a rather obsolete argument. Today, with overpopulation the root of most of our problems, especially ecological problems, that a gay marriage cannot produce children is a benefit to the State. Also, gay couples often adopt, which is also a significant benefit to the State.
Post #402,919 by mmoffitt 6/26/15 2:31:44 PM Reply	I'm not blind to the overpopulation problem. But you assume facts not in evidence. First, I haven't seen compelling evidence that suggests the benefits of a reduction in birth rates a State receives from childless marriages overwhelms the burdens placed upon the State by the cohabitation of the married couple. Let alone being denied the potential contributions to the State the children could make should they actually be born. Second, the adoption question is an open one. There's no conclusive proof (yet) that children are better off being raised by a couple who do not fit the conventional mother/father roles. That may well be the case. We're in the midst of an experiment with the next generation. But it's far too early to make a claim about benefits or costs associated with being raised in a household headed by a same-sex couple. There simply is no conclusive evidence that the State receives the benefit of better performing citizens when those citizens were raised by same-sex couples as there is when they are raised by their biological parents. Until such evidence is presented, adoption by same-sex couples cannot be fairly characterized as either a benefit or a cost to the State.
Post #402,927 by rcareaga 6/26/15 3:07:25 PM Reply	BTW, don't you think that Virginia... felt that the state had an interest in tamping down the numbers of mulatto children?
Post #402,933 by mmoffitt 6/26/15 3:22:33 PM Reply	Yes. See. Marriage really was all about procreation!
Post #402,948 by Andrew Grygus 6/26/15 4:40:13 PM Reply	When a child is taken out of state care . . . . . and is instead cared for by an income generating couple, that is a cost benefit to the State. Increasing population requires the state to spend more on infrastructure to support that population, and more on human services as well. Taxes have to be higher with a growing population than for steady state due to a larger part of the population being under wage earning age. The environmental costs of overpopulation are too obvious to require a study (except for the benefit a study may provide to a person preparing a doctoral thesis).
Post #402,915 by Another Scott 6/26/15 2:19:27 PM Reply	You keep making these pronouncements in these threads... "no value to the State". Really? The State has much more interest in marriage than procreation. It has an interest in promoting the health, safety, and general welfare of its citizens. It has an interest in minimizing overbuilding of housing stocks (no "all adult humans must live in physically separated abodes!" laws). Marriage promotes lots and lots of benefits other than reproduction. If the State only cared about procreation, then procreation would be a requirement of marriage. If it only cared about procreation, why would there be over 1000 federal benefits of marriage? It isn't. Please stop bringing up this discredited argument. Thanks. ;-) Cheers, Scott.
Post #402,921 by mmoffitt 6/26/15 2:40:54 PM Reply	Re: The State has much more interest in marriage than procreation. Well, it might now. But historically it hasn't. Marriage, historically, was the means by which the State encouraged biological parents to remain with their biological offspring until those offspring reached maturity. I'm the first to admit it was not an optimal solution. But claiming that the State benefits in equal proportion from childbearing and non-childbearing marriages contains the implicit "truth" that children are of net zero value to the State. I will not and cannot do that.
Post #402,938 by Another Scott 6/26/15 3:59:58 PM Reply	We've been arguing about the history for at least 11 years... We're not likely to convince each other. ;-) #135825. Enjoy. Cheers, Scott.
Post #402,942 by rcareaga 6/26/15 4:09:38 PM Reply	Re: The State has much more interest in marriage than procreation. In that case, divorce ought to have been universally outlawed.
Post #402,950 by mmoffitt 6/26/15 4:51:04 PM Reply	It was in Rome.
Post #402,956 by Another Scott 6/26/15 5:33:28 PM Reply	Eh? http://www.womenintheancientworld.com/divorceinancientrome.htm Cheers, Scott.
Post #402,917 by crazy 6/26/15 2:22:05 PM Reply	What what what!? Benefit to the state is the criteria that you use when determining what should be lawful? The state exist for us, not the other way around. Confederate communist viewpoint is amazing.
Post #402,920 by rcareaga 6/26/15 2:40:31 PM Reply	"Confederate communist viewpoint is amazing" Yes, it's almost as though he has cherry-picked the most preposterous elements of each ideology. While this means that there is little of substantive value in his contributions, the entertainment content is considerable. cordially,
Post #402,918 by hnick 6/26/15 2:25:40 PM Reply	Umm... My wife and I are also childless. You are claiming that our relationship is a net negative for the State. I would submit that this is the United States, not the Soviet Union. The people here ARE the State. Happy people in stable relationships are a positive for the state, not a negative. People here, who have too many children they can't afford or can't maintain are more of a load on society than my wife and I who work as much as we are able (considerable still)and maintain our property. As a side note, discounting what the Republicans think, our society is not a business; everything is not a financial profit/loss transaction, and we don't "manage out" the bottom 10% on a performance basis. "Religion, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable." ~ AMBROSE BIERCE (1842-1914)
Post #402,924 by mmoffitt 6/26/15 3:04:05 PM Reply	Would you leave your wife if you didn't have a marriage license? I, respectfully, submit to you that the strength of the relationship you and your wife enjoy is not dependent upon a state issued marriage license. Further, if the existence of "happy people in stable relationships" is entirely dependent upon a State issued license, then how happy can the people truly be? How stable can be their relationships when it is only a legally binding document that keeps them together?
Post #402,929 by rcareaga 6/26/15 3:14:15 PM Reply	easy-peasy Let's assume hnick and his wife are not actually married. The (virtual) Mrs. hnick, whose parents have never liked her boyfriend, is mortally ill. Her parents bar hnick from the hospital room, and from the subsequent funeral service. Since the hnicks neglected to do proper estate planning, her entire assets go to the virtual in-laws. Lord, the barrel is so tiny, and the fish so big.
Post #402,934 by mmoffitt 6/26/15 3:26:23 PM Reply	Ah, then we're talking of the selfish interests of the couple. That's what's really important here, right?
Post #402,939 by hnick 6/26/15 4:02:49 PM Reply	Re: Ah, then we're talking of the selfish interests of the couple. Protecting the interests of the citizens (including couples) is the only legitimate business of the state. As long as there are varying rights in society that are dependent on a declared status e.g. marriage, all consenting adults are entitled to access that privilege. Now, in the instance of marriage, they have it. If this overly bothers you, well, pissfiddles... it's only the selfish interest of an individual they're messing with. "Religion, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable." ~ AMBROSE BIERCE (1842-1914)
Post #402,953 by mmoffitt 6/26/15 4:57:01 PM Reply	The State also has an interest in seeing that it survives.
Post #402,955 by Andrew Grygus 6/26/15 5:32:45 PM Reply	The State has interests . . . . . The State this, The State that, The State something else, always The State - geez, what a commie :)
Post #403,034 by mmoffitt 6/29/15 8:47:50 AM Reply	:0)
Post #402,958 by hnick 6/26/15 6:35:19 PM Reply	My last comment in this thread "You are not just wrong. You are wrong at every conceivable level of resolution. Zooming in on any part of your worldview finds beliefs exactly as wrong as your entire worldview." Fractal wrongness "Religion, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable." ~ AMBROSE BIERCE (1842-1914)
Post #402,960 by drook 6/26/15 7:39:00 PM 6/26/15 8:11:51 PM Reply	Man, I gotta keep that link ... Oh lord, time sink from hell! My new favorite term: Gish Gallop. From which I find this little (unsurprisingly apropos) nugget: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Essay:77_Reasons -- Drew Edited by drook June 26, 2015, 07:46:40 PM EDT Edited by drook June 26, 2015, 08:11:51 PM EDT Expand All History
Post #402,964 by Another Scott 6/27/15 12:51:41 AM Reply	Things like that were on Pharyngula when PZ was debating. He eventually quit debating.
Post #403,202 by Ashton 7/2/15 5:43:00 PM Reply	Holy Cthulhu! ... why this thesis might be appended to Gödel's Proof--thus bringing scale + relativity to human mouth noises!--at last. {Alas, as with Dr.Strangelove's Doomsday device: it only works if everyone Knows about it} ;-/ ..so as to return so many bat-shit crazies to their former status: being utterly ignored. For cause.
Post #402,909 by Another Scott 6/26/15 2:05:26 PM Reply	The Majority opinion, again. Objecting that this does not reflect an appropriate framing of the issue, the respondents refer to Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U. S. 702, 721 (1997), which called for a “‘careful description’” of fundamental rights. They assert the petitioners do not seek to exercise the right to marry but rather a new and nonexistent “right to same-sex marriage.” Brief for Respondent in No. 14–556, p. 8. Glucksberg did insist that liberty under the Due Process Clause must be defined in a most circumscribed manner, with central reference to specific historical practices. Yet while that approach may have been appropriate for the asserted right there involved (physician-assisted suicide), it is inconsistent with the approach this Court has used in discussing other fundamental rights, including marriage and intimacy. Loving did not ask about a “right to inter-racial marriage”; Turner did not ask about a “right of inmates to marry”; and Zablocki did not ask about a “right of fathers with unpaid child support duties to marry.” Rather, each case inquired about the right to marry in its comprehensive sense, asking if there was a sufficient justification for excluding the relevant class from the right. See also Glucksberg, 521 U. S., at 752–773 (Souter, J., concurring in judgment); id., at 789–792 (B REYER , J., concurring in judgments). That principle applies here. If rights were defined by who exercised them in the past, then received practices could serve as their own continued justification and new groups could not invoke rights once denied. This Court has rejected that approach, both with respect to the right to marry and the rights of gays and lesbians. See Loving 388 U. S., at 12; Lawrence, 539 U. S., at 566–567. IOW, asked and answered. Loving wasn't about whether the couple could get married in Virginia. They were married in DC. Loving was about (among other things) the state recognizing the marriage and the couple getting all the same benefits as non-mixed-race couples. IOW, the same thing here. The "definition" of marriage has certainly changed throughout the years. Even in the 20th century. After all, if you couldn't get a license, you couldn't legally marry. Wikipedia: The constitutionality of anti-miscegenation laws was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1883 case Pace v. Alabama (106 U.S. 583). The Supreme Court ruled that the Alabama anti-miscegenation statute did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. According to the court, both races were treated equally, because whites and blacks were punished in equal measure for breaking the law against interracial marriage and interracial sex. This judgment was overturned in 1967 in the Loving v. Virginia case, where the Supreme Court declared anti-miscegenation laws a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and therefore unconstitutional. [...] In 1928, Senator Coleman Blease (Democrat of South Carolina) proposed an amendment that went beyond the previous ones, requiring that Congress set a punishment for interracial couples attempting to get married and for people officiating an interracial marriage. This amendment was also never enacted. Your (and Roberts') arguments didn't carry the day. Sigh and move on. :-) Cheers, Scott.
Post #402,912 by mmoffitt 6/26/15 2:14:17 PM Reply	I cannot "Move On"... "Moving on" means knowingly claiming a falsehood is true. Specifically, that any same-sex marriage will ever be the equal of mine for the simple reason that no same-sex marriage will ever contribute to the State what mine already has, and the contributions mine has made to the State will only multiply in the coming decades. You're asking me to claim something is true that is plainly, flatly false. I didn't do that as a nine year old in the Soviet Union and I'll be damned if I'm going to start doing it now.
Post #402,916 by rcareaga 6/26/15 2:21:27 PM Reply	Your so-called contribution ...did not require a marriage license. And what did the legally married parents of Mr. Dylann Storm Roof "contribute," exactly, to society? less cordially,
Post #402,922 by mmoffitt 6/26/15 2:52:12 PM Reply	Re: ...did not require a marriage license. I think we at last may have found some common ground. I know somewhere in the endless threads about this I've said that my commitment to my wife had nothing to do with our getting married; but a strong desire not to have my children listed as bastards or illegitimate. Knowing that they would be so classified were I not married when they were born, I proposed some 35 years ago only because I had found the woman with whom I wanted to have children. I repeat myself again, but the stigma attached to out-of-wedlock births has largely disappeared in the last 30 years or so. Hence, marriage has about outlived its usefulness, notwithstanding today's ruling. I think the solution that makes the most sense now is that we just stop issuing marriage licenses to anyone. What a marriage is today is little more than a meaningless (to the State - who, after all, is being asked to issue these licenses) intensive issued by two people.
Post #402,926 by rcareaga 6/26/15 3:04:55 PM Reply	I have a relative, shortly to be married ...who was technically a "bastard" when she was born (her parents married a few years later, and went on to have two more children). Her "illegitimacy" (of which she has been long aware) has not so far as I am aware cost her or anyone associated with her so much as a second of sleep these past thirty years. Your then-obsession with "stigma" says much more about the regional cultural climate in which you were raised than it does about the merits of in-wedlock childbirth. As a thought experiment, I imagine one of your daughters coming out as a lesbian and asking your blessing for her marriage to another woman (and I'm thinking fat, butch, crewcut, and with more tattoos'n you could shake a stick at) with whom she's deeply in love. Would you extend your approval, or stand on non-ceremony? cordially,
Post #402,932 by mmoffitt 6/26/15 3:21:09 PM Reply	Regional. That's funny. I was raised in Long Beach, California (ages 4 - 18 ). Of course, I was raised by two people from rural North Carolina and that had greater influence than the "region" I lived in. And there was heavy stigma attached in their thinking and rearing, despite both being college grads and my father holding a Master's degree. With both my daughters being in their early 20's (my youngest is aghast at my views on this subject), I've told them what I've always told them, "There's no point in getting married if you have no intention of having children." So would I object to one (or both) of them making the decision you suggest? No. I'd think it was a stupid decision, but no more so than if they decided to marry a man with no intention of having children. I can't imagine either of them asking for my "blessing" in any case. They know that my view is that it is their decision and, frankly, none of my business.
Post #402,943 by rcareaga 6/26/15 4:11:57 PM Reply	Nor indeed, then, is it any of your business ...if a couple of guys want to tie the knot. Glad we got this settled. cordially,
Post #402,951 by mmoffitt 6/26/15 4:53:45 PM Reply	In the final analysis. You're right. It isn't. But it is stupid.
Post #402,925 by boxley 6/26/15 3:04:38 PM Reply	hey, christians beleive you can bang one of your slaves to whelp a get that would get you locked up 8 ways from sideways today Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep

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