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SCOTUS blog: DOMA Unconstitutional

Papa bull said:
We've been over this. The argument that procreation must be a condition of marriage if it is the purpose of marriage is not valid.
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That is a defeating of your argument. Marriage is not limited to procreation, therefore you cannot keep using it as an argument AGAINST ssm.
 
Papa bull said:
You keep trying to argue the absurd in defense of your position. Being fertile COULD actually be a condition of marriage, but the state clearly assumes that male and female meets the rationale for "biologically sensible".
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BS, sterile couples are in no way able to procreate, yet ALL states recognize that their marriages are beneficial for them and the state.


Going further to demand fertility tests would be too intrusive and expensive for everyone involved since the premise of marriage remains intact merely by union of male/female.
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Straw, that was never suggested.

If the purpose of marriage was to "affirm love", then this argument wouldn't have happened in the first place. That's not the purpose of the state sanctioned entity of marriage and in some part of your brain, you must actually know this.
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More straw, I never made a claim that the reason the state would grant a marriage licence would be for love.


I understand that you don't like it since it doesn't fit your progressive views, but some part of you must know that you are not being completely honest even with yourself when you try to claim that the purpose of marriage really has nothing to do with procreation, bearing children and establishing the family unit. It's so intrinsic to marriage that you absolutely cannot deny honestly that it's true.
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More straw, I am not denying that part of the states interest MIGHT be for procreation, I am trying to get you to accept that it is not LIMITED to procreation.

The fact that sterile couples are granted licence in every state every day proves this.
 
Papa bull said:
Sorry, but you both are clearly smart enough to know that your arguments here are disingenuous to the point of frivolity. As I said before, the purpose for something is not necessarily and actually is quite rarely, the condition for it. Example: You don't have to fly a plane just because you got a pilot's license. If you have obvious impediments to flying such as being blind, you can't get a driver's license. But you can get the license and never get into an airplane if you don't want to.
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You are continuing the failed argument that a marriage license is permission to either have sex or procreate, when it isn't. It is solely a license to enter into a marriage, which is a legal contract. The license ends to become a contract at the moment it is recorded as official by the state.
 
Papa bull said:
You keep trying to argue the absurd in defense of your position. Being fertile COULD actually be a condition of marriage, .
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In some kind of nightmarish utopian eugenics based society.
 
AGENT J said:
yep just a made up failed strawman

procreation and offspring and 100% meaningless to legal marriage.
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Gimmesometruth said:
That is a defeating of your argument. Marriage is not limited to procreation, therefore you cannot keep using it as an argument AGAINST ssm.
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Historically, marriage has been almost entirely about procreation and raising families. Love played almost no role at all in marriage through most of history. This is what has changed. We ted to view marriage as "a love commitment" today. That's not what it was created for. Sometimes the truth isn't pretty, glamorous or romantic.
 
Papa bull said:
Historically, marriage has been almost entirely about procreation and raising families. Love played almost no role at all in marriage through most of history. This is what has changed. We ted to view marriage as "a love commitment" today. That's not what it was created for. Sometimes the truth isn't pretty, glamorous or romantic.
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Historically marriage has been a political tool and arranged by parents for money and title.
 
Papa bull said:
Historically, marriage has been almost entirely about procreation and raising families. Love played almost no role at all in marriage through most of history. This is what has changed. We ted to view marriage as "a love commitment" today. That's not what it was created for. Sometimes the truth isn't pretty, glamorous or romantic.
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Historically there was no interracial marriage in the US.....so what?

That in no way is a defense of your previous point:

I'm just not certain marriage should come up on the "re-engineering" table in order to meet the goals of providing a legal framework for relationships that are not biologically sensible.

Again, sterile couples TODAY are married, what would be the "biological" rationale for allowing this?


Beyond that, I already showed you that the state is not having to rework anything, ending a ban is not reworking. Allowing interracial marriage did not require a reworking of state organization.
 
Papa bull said:
Historically, marriage has been almost entirely about procreation and raising families. Love played almost no role at all in marriage through most of history. This is what has changed. We ted to view marriage as "a love commitment" today. That's not what it was created for. Sometimes the truth isn't pretty, glamorous or romantic.
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your opinion of marriage is meaningless.

procreation and off spring is factually 100% meaningless to legal marriage :shrug: this fact will not change. To bring it up is a meaningless strawman
 
And just to add, with these changes in history that you are arguing about, has this caused US society to thrive or not?
 
Papa bull said:
Historically, marriage has been almost entirely about procreation and raising families. Love played almost no role at all in marriage through most of history. This is what has changed. We ted to view marriage as "a love commitment" today. That's not what it was created for. Sometimes the truth isn't pretty, glamorous or romantic.
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Which has changed, and most view this change as a positive. The majority of people like the fact that marriage is about love and commitment first and other considerations second.

So what it may have been created for is no longer relevant because it isn't what it is now about. (But we know that it wasn't what it was all about even in the past though, since many places had marriage about family ties much more than it was about procreation. The fact that China for a long time allowed marriages between dead people or a dead person and living person in order to cement ties proves this.)
 
roguenuke said:
Which has changed, and most view this change as a positive. The majority of people like the fact that marriage is about love and commitment first and other considerations second.

So what it may have been created for is no longer relevant because it isn't what it is now about. (But we know that it wasn't what it was all about even in the past though, since many places had marriage about family ties much more than it was about procreation. The fact that China for a long time allowed marriages between dead people or a dead person and living person in order to cement ties proves this.)
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That is your opinion and you are entitled to it. As it stands that is not the opinion in my state and quite a few other states. The laws of this state aren't governed by your opinion, China's opinion nor California's opinion. Not should they. When marriage changes into something else IN THIS STATE, then it will be legislated as something else IN THIS STATE. AGAIN, as it should be.
 
From Reuters.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When the U.S. Supreme Court declined on Wednesday to rule on whether gay men and lesbians have a fundamental right to marry, it delivered an implicit message to those seeking such a right: Don't hurry back.

All nine of the justices, with their votes and rhetoric in a pair of cases, signaled they either would never be willing, or are not ready yet, to cut off the unfolding state-by-state legislative debate on gay marriage. The five-justice alliance that came together in one case to extend federal benefits to same-sex couples splintered in the other case to avoid facing a larger test on the constitutional right.[/quote ]
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Papa bull said:
That is your opinion and you are entitled to it. As it stands that is not the opinion in my state and quite a few other states. The laws of this state aren't governed by your opinion, China's opinion nor California's opinion. Not should they. When marriage changes into something else IN THIS STATE, then it will be legislated as something else IN THIS STATE. AGAIN, as it should be.
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You can run but you can't hide.
 
Papa bull said:
From Reuters.
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The SCOTUS never got to the point of of the constitutionality of banning SSM since the the defenders of prop 8 had no standing. BUT, Walker's finding of it being in violation of CA constitution stands.
 
Papa bull said:
That is your opinion and you are entitled to it. As it stands that is not the opinion in my state and quite a few other states. The laws of this state aren't governed by your opinion, China's opinion nor California's opinion. Not should they. When marriage changes into something else IN THIS STATE, then it will be legislated as something else IN THIS STATE. AGAIN, as it should be.
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The laws of any state are governed by the US Constitution though. And when laws violate the Constitutional guarantees, they are overturned. Plus, the laws of whatever your state is are not as you claim. No matter what state you live in, marriage is not about procreation according to your laws. You cannot prove otherwise using solely your marriage laws.
 
roguenuke said:
The laws of any state are governed by the US Constitution though. And when laws violate the Constitutional guarantees, they are overturned. Plus, the laws of whatever your state is are not as you claim. No matter what state you live in, marriage is not about procreation according to your laws. You cannot prove otherwise using solely your marriage laws.
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If they violate constitutional rights, they get overturned. The Justices went out of their way to make sure they didn't issue a ruling that state laws violated the constitution, so your point is moot.
 
Papa bull said:
From Reuters.
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This simply isn't true. Several of the Justices wanted to tackle the issue of same sex marriage on a state level. The split in the Prop 8 decision was not on partisan lines at all.

If given the chance, there is a very strong possibility that the SCOTUS would rule to overturn state laws pertaining to same sex marriage, as long as there is not a technicality allowing some or most Justices to avoid this decision. This is why there are certain cases going up from certain states that would have to be ruled on by the SCOTUS and not dropped back to a lower court decision. The only issue is waiting for one of those to make it up to the Court.
 
Papa bull said:
If they violate constitutional rights, they get overturned. The Justices went out of their way to make sure they didn't issue a ruling that state laws violated the constitution, so your point is moot.
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The decision on Prop 8 was made for a completely different reason than you believe. Only 5 Justices went out of their way to push it back to the state decision, and it was simply to put it off. Once given no other choice (which certain cases from certain states would set up), they would have no choice but to rule on the constitutionality, and it would apply to all states. It is highly unlikely the next time this comes up to the SCOTUS (and it is likely to come up within the next decade or sooner), that they will punt it. They know that this will have to be addressed soon. They simply bought themselves a little more time.

I think Kennedy's opinion went out of its way to avoid saying that the states had an absolute right to define marriage as they want. Instead, he emphasized the fact that the federal government had no right to deny positive recognition of rights/protections the state deemed appropriate. He didn't say anything about the state rights being more important than individual rights.

This particular punting (although many of us for ssm do not think it was right) wasn't unexpected and gives the states a little more time to get turn those states that are going to change on their own anytime soon. A ruling that strikes down laws in about 5 or so years will apply mainly to states that would take much more time to give equality to if left to their own ways. And it will take about 5 or so years (or at least it normally does) to get another good case (such as Windsor was for DOMA, or Loving was for interracial marriage) up to the Court.
 
roguenuke said:
The decision on Prop 8 was made for a completely different reason than you believe. Only 5 Justices went out of their way to push it back to the state decision, and it was simply to put it off. Once given no other choice (which certain cases from certain states would set up), they would have no choice but to rule on the constitutionality, and it would apply to all states. It is highly unlikely the next time this comes up to the SCOTUS (and it is likely to come up within the next decade or sooner), that they will punt it. They know that this will have to be addressed soon. They simply bought themselves a little more time.

I think Kennedy's opinion went out of its way to avoid saying that the states had an absolute right to define marriage as they want. Instead, he emphasized the fact that the federal government had no right to deny positive recognition of rights/protections the state deemed appropriate. He didn't say anything about the state rights being more important than individual rights.

This particular punting (although many of us for ssm do not think it was right) wasn't unexpected and gives the states a little more time to get turn those states that are going to change on their own anytime soon. A ruling that strikes down laws in about 5 or so years will apply mainly to states that would take much more time to give equality to if left to their own ways. And it will take about 5 or so years (or at least it normally does) to get another good case (such as Windsor was for DOMA, or Loving was for interracial marriage) up to the Court.
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Well, good luck with that, then.
 
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