Post #402,909
6/26/15 2:05:26 PM
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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.
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Post #402,912
6/26/15 2:14:17 PM
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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.
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Post #402,916
6/26/15 2:21:27 PM
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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,
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Post #402,922
6/26/15 2:52:12 PM
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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.
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Post #402,926
6/26/15 3:04:55 PM
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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,
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Post #402,932
6/26/15 3:21:09 PM
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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.
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Post #402,943
6/26/15 4:11:57 PM
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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,
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Post #402,951
6/26/15 4:53:45 PM
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In the final analysis. You're right. It isn't. But it is stupid.
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