Breaking: same-sex marriage now legal in all 50 states.

It isn't that the "state needs to bless their lifestyle," it is that there are a great many benefits which come with having a recognized marriage, benefits afforded to straight couples but, until today, not gay couples.

Equal protection under the law applies to homosexuals just as much as it does to heterosexuals.

 

I wonder what the divorce rate for gay couples will be 10 years from now. I'll bet it will be less than half the rate of straight couples.

Wouldn't that be ironic...

 

In what is a shocker to no one, the Texas AG announced that he would be "following high court’s flawed ruling."

So the talk of him refusing to do so can just stop. He'd have destroyed himself if he actually tried to refused to comply with their ruling.

 

I would bet it would be either close to the same or even higher.....but that's irrelevant.

 

Political grandstanding, i.e. a hissy-fit.

 

Made?

Happiness is genetic man.

 

Those are businesses operating in the public sphere, which is a far cry from religious institutions, which are singled out with far reaching rights given to them by the First Amendment.

The Catholic church already refuses to marry people who don't go through their fairly rigorous requirements, nobody has won a lawsuit against them because they asserted a right to be married in that particular church.

 

Exactly that, and an embarrassing one. Trying to foolishly argue this issue is the quickest way to lose moderates and libertarians. What I call the "religious left", the big government Republicans, are just about the worst wing of that party.

 

So what exactly protects churches in this instance?

Honestly curious and don't know the legal mechanisms at work there.

 

The first amendment prohibits the state from "impeding the free exercise of religion", now that can be interpreted many different ways, but you can't really say that religion is freely being exercised if the state is forcing a religious institution to perform ceremonies that are unsupported by the beliefs of that religious institution.

I'm sure a few cases will pop up, but it seems fairly straight forward.

 

It's notable that the criminalization of marital rape began only 40 years ago in the US. The Constitution once protected husbands who raped their wives. The "sanctity of marriage" is slowly being established.

 

I was hoping it was something a little less ambiguous than this.

Giving special exemption and privilege to religion opens the door for lots of legal questions and abuse.

I don't want to see churches forced to do stuff against their will (other than pay taxes, lulz), but if businesses are forced to cater to everyone (which I also think is dumb), then so should they IMO.

 

Forcing a gay wedding at Westboro would be a big fat FU to say the least, but would still be beyond the pale for what's meant to be a joyous event.

Pretty cynical thought.

There's plenty of other options to get that certificate. The ceremony is more symbolic and doesn't legitimize marriage itself.

 

I really don't see any ambiguity here at all. I don't think you really get into any gray areas until you start doing sacrifices.

 

So what about the states where sodomy is illegal? Does that mean you can get married, but not have the sex?

 

Are there states where sodomy is still illegal? I know it was technically against the UCMJ (last time I checked) but I didn't think there were states that still had laws like that.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_laws_in_the_United_States

I guess it's legal in all states.

 

Lesbians have very high divorce rate

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce_of_same-sex_couples

 

In 2003, Lawrence v. Texas invalidated all sodomy laws. That was the first of the recent cases on gay rights. If you want some entertainment, read Scalia's dissent in that one. Even Thomas comes out sane in that case since he at least takes the time to acknowledge that criminalizing sodomy is insane. Scalia actually attempts to defend sodomy laws in his dissent.

Also, that one was only a 6-3 decision which still blows my mind. Kennedy and O'Conner sided with the 4 liberals in that one.