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**BREAKING** U.S. Supreme Court Refuses to Rule on Gay Marriage

Anthony60 said:
Quick point, nobody is being told they can't get married. It isn't a fundamental right to change marriage to suit your own needs. That's the real issue.
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incorrect. homosexual couples are being told that they can't get married in some states, which violates the equal protection clause.
 
j-mac said:
Show me this fundamental right in the constitution please.
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14 Supreme Court Cases: Marriage is a Fundamental Right | American Foundation for Equal Rights

Section 2.

The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority;--to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls;--to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction;--to controversies to which the United States shall be a party;--to controversies between two or more states;--between a state and citizens of another state;--between citizens of different states;--between citizens of the same state claiming lands under grants of different states, and between a state, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens or subjects.
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Article III | Constitution | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute
 
Visbek said:
Meaning what? Amendments issued after the Civil War are null and void?
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You need to actually read the arguments you wish to respond to for comprehension. I said no such thing. However, it should give you a clue of the scope and intent of the amendment.

Visbek said:
So the addition of the Bill of Rights was merely "regular maintenance?" How curious.
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What? Again, see my first comment about comprehension.

Visbek said:
There were no limits placed on the scope of the amendment process. We are more than entitled to use it to modify the Constitution as we see fit -- including empowering another Constitutional Convention to completely rewrite and chuck the whole thing, if we so choose.
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And I said there was where?

Visbek said:
It's also not a particularly easy process; in fact, the bar to amend the Constitution is fairly high. Unlimited scope, hard to enact -- that sure doesn't sound like "regular maintenance" to me.
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And yet, until the modern era we managed to do it regularly.

Visbek said:
Oh, whatever

There is no reason why contemporary Americans need to be yoked to the political beliefs of a bunch of dead, white, aristocratic politicians. We are under no obligation whatsoever to reject gay marriage just because they did, or to accept slavery because they did, or deny women the franchise because they did.
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And that's why we aren't. Again, there's that regular maintenance thing.

Visbek said:
And of course, the people who wrote -- and equally importantly, ratified -- the Constitution did not see eye to eye on lots of issues. They almost immediately split on topics like whether to have a standing army and a central bank.

Oh, and they are no longer alive. Not only are we just getting someone's biased and self-serving interpretation of their opinions, they are not living in the same world as us, experiencing the societal changes we are, and they don't have to live with the consequences of our policies.

A Constitution that cannot be modified or reinterpreted is not freedom. It's a straightjacket. Pass.
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More babble from travelling down the path of non-comprehension. The Constitution can be modified, updated, changed - that's why we have an amendment process. Reinterpretation is a ****ty way to go and not at all consistent with the Constitutional government we created. All this was discussed in the Federalist Papers. It puts all the power in the hands of a few lifetime appointed robes.
 
CanadaJohn said:
The Supreme Court really can't avoid this issue forever. It will come back to them if, and more likely when, a gay couple, legally married in one state moves to a state where SSM is not recognized and demands equal treatment under the law. Likewise, when a gay couple who live in a state where SSM is not recognized travels to a state that does recognize it and legally marries only to return to their home state and demand equal treatment under their home state's laws.
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They can as long as no circuit court contradicts another circuit court. If we have consistent rulings amongst the circuits, there is no reason for the SCOTUS to ever have to hear such a case.
 
j-mac said:
Show me this fundamental right in the constitution please.
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this type of fallacy counter has never worked one time on anybody let alone a poster who is educated and nonbias.
 
Ockham said:
U.S. Supreme Court Refuses to Rule on Gay Marriage - Bloomberg



The SCOTUS has ruled they will leave it up to the states to decide and will not take up a nationwide ruling on same sex marriage. This means that lower court ruling will stay in place unless challenged in the future. No federal ruling of marriage is in the near future....
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SCOTUS did not rule that states can decide. If that were the case, they would have overturned the Circuit Court rulings that struck down the bans the states decided were constitutional. If anything, by dismissing the cases SCOTUS has implicitly affirmed the rulings of the circuit courts that states cannot ban same-sex marriage.
 
Ockham said:
I disagree - they can leave it to the lower courts forever and continue to refuse to take the issue up. It should be IMO a state issue not a federal issue. Government really has no business being in the middle of marriage of any sort.
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But state government does?
 
Ockham said:
If that's the narrative that SSM advocates want to portray that's fine by me. I see it as yet another victory that the federal government won't be taking over SSM with a SCOTUS ruling - regardless of which way they would rule.
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You have a bizarre reading of this decision. Somehow, in your mind the fact that 11 states are being told by federal courts that they cannot ban same-sex marriage means states are deciding SSM? What?
 
clownboy said:
No, not just voting rights. Women were still second class citizens and the 14th did nothing to change that or the unequal application of law in their regard.
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Granted. But I don't think it matters. Even with the reconstruction amendments blacks were treated as de facto second class citizens in much of the country for almost another hundred years. We did a crappy job of implementation. That still doesn't narrow the actual scope of the amendment.
 
Anthony60 said:
Looks like you did not understand what I wrote.
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i understood it perfectly. it's the classic "of course homosexuals can get married; to someone of the opposite sex! (even though homosexuality is not a choice, and they are as attracted to members of the opposite sex as heterosexuals are to the same sex, so this argument is fatally flawed.)"

i've read this same bull**** argument about a thousand times now, and it's still bull****.
 
OMG!!!! You mean the federal government is now going to be forced to allow states to determine their own position??? No wonder Holder is leaving ... he'd have nothing left to do.
 
Helix said:
i understood it perfectly. it's the classic "of course homosexuals can get married; to someone of the opposite sex! (even though homosexuality is not a choice, and they are as attracted to members of the opposite sex as heterosexuals are to the same sex, so this argument is fatally flawed.)"

i've read this same bull**** argument about a thousand times now, and it's still bull****.
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and it will continue to be bull**** and get laughed at by anybody honest, educated and nonbiased
 
clownboy said:
Once again, the 14th specifically cuts women out of the picture:
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Not regarding the equal protection clause, nor due process.
 
GBFAN said:
OMG!!!! You mean the federal government is now going to be forced to allow states to determine their own position??? No wonder Holder is leaving ... he'd have nothing left to do.
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uhh, no. Federal circuit court rulings are now final.
 
Helix said:
this is a fundamental right that is being denied to an entire group of people. that makes it a pressing issue.
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Every case reflects on an entire group of people. There are no laws that apply to single individuals.
 
Taylor said:
And just to be clear, just because they claim marriage a fundamental right does not mean that ssm is necessarily a fundamental right.
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Technically correct, but the Supreme Court is a fairly authoritative body on the subject.
 
Taylor said:
I believe it to be necessary in promoting the general welfare of the country. If you're going to do away with government involvement, you may as well do away with the concept entirely, because the contract becomes meaningless.
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I can't believe you wrote something on here I actually agree with. Of course the government should be involved in the legal recognition of marriage. Leaving it as just some religious institution makes custody, joint property, and a whole host of issues built around marriage ridiculously complicated from a legal perspective.
 
tres borrachos said:
They shouldn't have to sanction or promote any form of marriage. It ain't their job. They can't even handle the job they are supposed to do.
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Taylor said:
I believe it to be necessary in promoting the general welfare of the country. If you're going to do away with government involvement, you may as well do away with the concept entirely, because the contract becomes meaningless.
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Recognizing legal kinship is important for all manner of government operations, and it staggers me that people don't realize this.
 
clownboy said:
You need to actually read the arguments you wish to respond to for comprehension. I said no such thing. However, it should give you a clue of the scope and intent of the amendment.
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Which, apparently, you don't bother to articulate.


What? Again, see my first comment about comprehension.
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You're suggesting that the amendment process should be limited to "maintenance." Even if someone somewhere wrote that down in the secondary literature, there are no such limits, or even a suggestion thereof, in the Constitution itself.


And I said there was where?
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In your claims that amendments were for "maintenance only."


More babble from travelling down the path of non-comprehension. The Constitution can be modified, updated, changed - that's why we have an amendment process. Reinterpretation is a ****ty way to go and not at all consistent with the Constitutional government we created.
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And yet, people from all political persuasions routinely utilize the court for exactly that purpose. Go figure.


All this was discussed in the Federalist Papers. It puts all the power in the hands of a few lifetime appointed robes.
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Oh?


"....the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them.... The judiciary, on the contrary, has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments."

Federalist 73 also discusses why it's a bad idea for Congress to decide the constitutionality of its own laws; it asserts that the judiciary should be able to void laws; and defends the idea of an independent judiciary with lifetime appointments.
 
Taylor said:
And just to be clear, just because they claim marriage a fundamental right does not mean that ssm is necessarily a fundamental right.
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equal protection under the law. if heterosexual marriage is a fundamental right recognized by the state, conveying preferential status, than homosexual marriages must be recognized, as well.
 
Deuce said:
Recognizing legal kinship is important for all manner of government operations, and it staggers me that people don't realize this.
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I agree that there is really no need to get rid of the marriage license, but recognition of legal kinship could be done without a marriage license issued by the government.
 
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