They made the right decision here. If a state recognizes a marriage, the federal government has no right to ignore that.
Silly inconsequential things like what country you get to live your life, or if your spouse gets sent away.
I do not understand why some in this country are so obsessed with how others live their lives so much that they want laws to keep them from doing so.
Especially when they claim they want less government control of their lives. BTW, welcome to the dark side. I think your transformation is complete.
To me this is the most significant part of this ruling. My decision is biased, however, because I have a friend who had to leave the country because her spouse couldn't get a visa.
The DOMA and the Prop 8 decisions were exactly as I expected. I figured they would overturn parts of DOMA while leaving that this wasn't going to make gay marriage acceptable to all states.
It is my understanding that only one provision of DOMA was addressed, the issue of benefits. People are jumping to false conclusions, like gay marriage has been legalized nationally. Not true.
Well, now if you want to scratch that itch, you can marry a man or a woman in certain states! Wow. look at that. inconsequential---in a day and age where homosexuals are still threatened with execution in certain countries, where homosexuals were never truly welcome---and 40 years or so to Stonewall, where gays faced a legal system that prohibited them from having intercourse, let along marrying... A curse that may have led to one of the greatest men of the 21st century to end his life---and certainly gave him grief for his entire life --- http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-...thinking--If-Alan-Turing-had-lived-to-be-100- 15 years or so to the heinous murder of Matthew Sheppard--- this movement was never just about taxes. And it has evolved in parallel with the civil rights movement. It is as important, and it's important to look back at the history for why. Your bitterness at such great progress is duly noted.
I actually agree with Commodore. Marriage law is an enterprise, and tax breaks are little more than being incentivized into the market. Convincing people that getting married means something beyond the individuals getting married is good advertising. Be it courting customs, weddings, divorced, etc. It's all money that marriage generates for the economy. Maybe it's my strongly objective views, but not giving same sex marriage all the benefits of traditional marriage seems more unfair than it is a social injustice. Not being allowed to live your live as you choose, and not being compensated the same as others as you do so are very different. That said, the reasons for opposing same sex marriage are merely about propping up personal ideology. Personal ideology has no place in law. LGBT marriage, joint adoption, stepparent adoption, etc should ALL be legal.
ARGLE-BARGLE (noun): an angry old jackass who shakes his fist at progress; believes corporations are people, etc. thanks Joe
You'd be surprised how many conservatives are cool with gay marriage. A lot of my conservative friends/family have no problem with it. My mother, who is a life-long Republican, plays the organ and has played many life-partner ceremonies (or whatever you call them in Texas) over the years. BTW, I heard someone on the radio yesterday talking about how the reason gay marriage is bad for the country is because gay people can now bring over illegal aliens to get married - thus, it will create a whole new immigration problem. Talk about a reach(around).
what's dumb about it? Why are people treated unequally before the law simply because of their sexual, er, marital preference? The dissenters might agree with you, they just thought the people should define marriage rather than have it imposed on them.
Because it's in the state's economic and collective welfare to encourage people to create stable, long-term relationships in order to support one another and potentially dependents---that preference does not need to transcend sexuality unless it's by irrational animus, but it does differentiate single people from married ones by definition you should just chill and enjoy the occasional diversity in your sex life
The dissenters' point was that it's not Kennedy's place to make this determination like some black robed priest. The people should decide. As Scalia said, the court robbed us of the ability to govern ourselves and decide what is in the collective welfare. For all you know he would vote for same sex marriage as a private citizen. And if the argument is equal protection under the law dictates people of different sexual preference be treated the same, the same argument can be made for marital preference. Yet singles are treated unequally clearly, they are denied a whole host of benefits afforded to gay and straight married people. 99.9% of the population thinks five judges approve of same sex marriage and four do not. A complete ignorance of the role of the judiciary and how our civic institutions are intended to function.
