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Gay rights
- Thread starter tedginnjr
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Scrote Squad
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United States Supreme Court rules in favor of same-sex marriage
Washington (CNN) In a landmark opinion, the Supreme Court ruled Friday that states cannot ban same-sex marriage, handing gay rights advocates their biggest victory yet.
The 5-4 ruling had Justice Anthony Kennedy writing for the majority with the four liberal justices. Each of the four conservative justices wrote their own dissent.
"No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and family," Kennedy wrote. "In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than they once were."
In a dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia blasted the Court's "threat to American democracy."
"The substance of today's decree is not of immense personal importance to me," he wrote. "But what really astounds is the hubris reflected in today's judicial Putsch."
The relevant cases were argued earlier this year. Attorney John Bursch, serving as Michigan's Special Assistant Attorney General, defended four states' bans on gay marriage before the Court, arguing that the case was not about how to define marriage, but rather about who gets to decide the question.
The case came before the Supreme Court after several lower courts overturned state bans on gay marriage. A federal appeals court had previously ruled in favor of the state bans, with Judge Jeffrey Sutton of the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals writing a majority opinion in line with the rationale that the issue should be decided through the political process, not the courts.
Fourteen couples and two widowers challenged the bans. Attorneys Mary Bonauto and Doug Hallward-Driemeier presented their case before the Court, arguing that the freedom to marry is a fundamental right for all people and should not be left to popular vote.
Three years after President Barack Obama first voiced his support for gay couples' right to marry, his administration supported the same sex couples at the Supreme Court.
"Gay and lesbian people are equal," Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. told the justices at the oral arguments earlier this year. "It is simply untenable -- untenable -- to suggest that they can be denied the right of equal participation in an institution of marriage, or that they can be required to wait until the majority decides that it is ready to treat gay and lesbian people as equals.
The same-sex couples who challenged gay marriage bans in Michigan, Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio were just a few of the estimated 650,000 same-sex couples in the United States, 125,000 of whom are raising children.
The challenges included same-sex couples who wanted to marry, those who sought to have their lawful out-of-state marriage recognized, as well as those who wanted to amend a birth or death certificate with their marriage status.
The lead plaintiff in the case is Jim Obergefell who married his spouse John Arthur in 2013 months before Arthur died.
The couple, who lived in Ohio, had to travel to Maryland aboard a medical jet to get married when Arthur became gravely ill. And when Arthur died, Obergefell began to fight to be recognized as Arthur's spouse on his death certificate.
The plaintiffs from Michigan are April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, two Detroit-area nurses who are also foster parents. They took to the courts after they took in four special-needs newborns who were either abandoned or surrendered at birth, but could not jointly adopt the children because Michigan's adoption code requires that couples be married to adopt.
Sgt. Ijpe Dekoe and Thomas Kostura became plaintiffs in the gay marriage case after they moved to Tennessee from New York.
The pair had married in New York in 2011, but Dekoe's position in the Army took the couple to Tennessee, which banned gay marriage and refused to recognize gay marriages performed in other states.[Quote/]
Soda
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Good. It's a step forward, IMO.
I LOVE YOU ABBY
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Oop, thought I was entering the Rudy Gay thread.
It feels instead like the Rudy Gay thread has entered me.
Nah but seriously, good for America. I never saw the downside to this. The argument against same-sex marriage is such a weak one, and why does it matter what other people want to do, especially when it has no impact on you.
Also, do you guys think Rudy Gay jerseys sell at less volume than other players of his skill and popularity level? I always felt like that wouldn't be a very desirable jersey.
Hanging up now.
It feels instead like the Rudy Gay thread has entered me.
Nah but seriously, good for America. I never saw the downside to this. The argument against same-sex marriage is such a weak one, and why does it matter what other people want to do, especially when it has no impact on you.
Also, do you guys think Rudy Gay jerseys sell at less volume than other players of his skill and popularity level? I always felt like that wouldn't be a very desirable jersey.
Hanging up now.
gourimoko
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Peoole can't vote to take away someone's fundamental rights. By suggesting we should have a referendum one separates or alienates the right from the person.
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I think the decision itself was horrible -- this is not an issue that should have been decided by the Supreme Court, but rather by voters in each state. All the flowery language in the Court's opinion just illustrates that the Court was acting as a policy-making legislature rather than a law-adjudicating court.
Kind of a funny contrast with yesterday's Obamacare decision. There, you had unambiguous language that said one thing, but the Court decided that the intent of those who drafted it should trump that language.
Yet here, even though nobody involved in the drafting/ratification of the 14th Amendment (and nobody for at least 100 years after that) intended it to force states to recognize gay marriage, their intent was completely ignored in favor of those 5 justices' preferred modern view of social policy.
Only consolation is that it's fun to see Robert's so outraged at the Court going beyond the text of the relevant legal authority.
Cavatt
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Absolutely. When has a minority gained rights through popular vote? Nothing springs to mind.
Lee
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So the right to have "separate but equal" schools for various races should remain at the state level?
Human rights issue belong on the national level. It really isn't even a little bit gray to me.
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Disclaimer: I'm for gay marriage. Just posting this for those wondering why any justices opposed this decision. They aren't saying they oppose gay marriage.
Why Four Justices Were Against the Supreme Court's Huge Gay Marriage Decision
Highlights from the Court's dissents.
BY BRIAN RESNICK, LAUREN FOX AND DUSTIN VOLZ
Supporters and opponents of same-sex marriage demonstrate near the Supreme Court.(Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
June 26, 2015 Same-sex marriage is now a right in every state in the country, following ahistoric 5-4 decision from the Supreme Court Friday. The four justices who disagreed with the Court's opinion, authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy, each wrote their own dissent laying out just why they believed the majority to be wrong.
Here's their reasoning.
Chief Justice John Roberts
Roberts argument centered around the need to preserve states' rights over what he viewed as following the turn of public opinion. In ruling in favor of gay marriage, he said "five lawyers have closed the debate and enacted their own vision of marriage as a matter of constitutional law."
Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas joined him in his dissent.
While Roberts said he did not "begrudge" any of the celebrations that would follow the Court ruling, he had serious concerns that the Court had extended its role from Constitutional enforcer to activist.
"Understand well what this dissent is about: It is not about whether, in my judgment, the institution of marriage should be changed to include same-sex couples. It is instead about whether, in our democratic republic, that decision should rest with the people acting through their elected representatives, or with five lawyers who happen to hold commissions authorizing them to resolve legal disputes according to law," he wrote.
While, he recognized the decision would be hailed as a major victory for same-sex couples and their allies, he noted they had been set back.
"Supporters of same-sex marriage have achieved considerable success persuading their fellow citizens—through the democratic process—to adopt their view. That ends today," Roberts wrote. "Stealing this issue from the people will for many cast a cloud over same-sex marriage, making a dramatic social change that much more difficult to accept."
Roberts disparaged the majority decision by saying that it was nothing more than a flimsy argument.
"Stripped of its shiny rhetorical gloss, the majority's argument is that the Due Process Clause gives same-sex couples a fundamental right to marry because it will be good for them and for society," Roberts wrote. "If I were a legislator, I would certainly consider that view as a matter of social policy. But as a judge, I find the majority's position indefensible as a matter of constitutional law."
Roberts's other dispute is that many of the arguments made in support of gay marriage could be used to also support plural marriage.
"If not having the opportunity to marry 'serves to disrespect and subordinate' gay and lesbian couples, why wouldn't the same 'imposition of this disability,'...serve to disrespect and subordinate people who find fulfillment in polyamorous relationships?" he writes. "I do not mean to equate marriage between same-sex couples with plural marriages in all respects. There may well be relevant differences that compel different legal analysis. But if there are, petitioners have not pointed to any."
Justice Antonin Scalia
According to Justice Antonin Scalia, today's majority ruling represents a "judicial Putsch."
Scalia wrote that while he has no personal opinions on whether the law should allow same-sex marriage, he feels very strongly that it is not the place of the Supreme Court to decide.
"Until the courts put a stop to it, public debate over same-sex marriage displayed American democracy at its best," Scalia wrote. "But the Court ends this debate, in an opinion lacking even a thin veneer of law."
Scalia stated he wanted to write a separate dissent "to call attention to this Court's threat to American democracy." Justice Clarence Thomas joined Scalia in this dissent.
Scalia attacked his colleagues' opinion with his signature flourish. "The opinion is couched in a style that is as pretentious as its content is egotistic," he wrote.
According to Scalia, the five justices in the majority are using the 14th Amendment in a way that was never intended by its writers. "When the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, every State limited marriage to one man and one woman, and no one doubted the constitutionality of doing so," he wrote.
"They [the majority] have discovered in the Fourteenth Amendment a 'fundamental right' overlooked by every person alive at the time of ratification, and almost everyone else in the time since."
Scalia called out the majority for acting like activists, not judges. (He was similarly critical in Thursday's ruling on health care.) "States are free to adopt whatever laws they like, even those that offend the esteemed Justices' 'reasoned judgment,'" he wrote.
Scalia's scorn went beyond picking apart the majority's legal judgement. He also made fun of their language.
The majority began its opinion with the line: "The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity."
Scalia wrote that if he ever were to join an opinion that began with that sentence he "would hide my head in a bag," saying such language was more like the "mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie" than, say, legendary Chief Justice John Marshall.
Elsewhere, the majority wrote "The nature of marriage is that, through its enduring bond, two persons together can find other freedoms, such as expression, intimacy, and spirituality."
Scalia scoffed at this assertion, saying that even "the nearest hippie" would know that marriage hinders the freedom of intimacy. Here are his words:
Really? Who ever thought that intimacy and spirituality [whatever that means] were freedoms? And if intimacy is, one would think Freedom of Intimacy is abridged rather than expanded by marriage. Ask the nearest hippie.
What the nearest hippie knows about intimacy, Scalia did not elaborate on.
Justice Clarence Thomas
In his own separate dissent, which Scalia also joined, Justice Clarence Thomas pilloried the majority opinion as "at odds not only with the Constitution, but with the principles upon which our nation were built."
Kennedy and the court's liberal wing are invoking a definition of "liberty" that the Constitution's framers "would not have recognized, to the detriment of the liberty they sought to protect."
"Along the way, it rejects the idea—captured in our Declaration of Independence—that human dignity is innate and suggests instead that it comes from the Government," Thomas said. "This distortion of our Constitution not only ignores the text, it inverts the relationship between the individual and the state in our Republic. I cannot agree with it."
Thomas argues that the majority is erring in its interpretation of the 14th Amendment's due process clause, by reading it as more expansive and far-reaching than originally intended. The case lacks standing on this issue, he continues, because the plaintiff does not adequately show that a state ban on same-sex marriage constitutes a true deprivation of "liberty" under the law.
"As used in the Due Process Clauses, 'liberty' most likely refers to 'the power of loco-motion, of changing situation, or removing one's person to whatsoever place one's own inclination may direct; without imprisonment or restraint, unless by due course of law,'" Thomas wrote. "That definition is drawn from the historical roots of the Clauses and is consistent with our Constitution's text and structure."
Further, the long-standing legal understanding of liberty does not encompass the rights the majority opinion says it does, Thomas argues. Liberty has "long been understood as individual freedom from government action, not as a right to a particular governmental entitlement."
"Whether we define 'liberty' as locomotion or freedom from governmental action more broadly, petitioners have in no way been deprived of it," he continued. "Petitioners cannot claim, under the most plausible definition of 'liberty,' that they have been imprisoned or physically restrained by the States for participating in same-sex relationships."
Thomas, echoing a grievance expressed by many conservative politicians, also laments that the Supreme Court's decision is enshrining a definition of marriage into the Constitution in a way that puts it "beyond the reach of the normal democratic process for the entire nation."
Thomas additionally warns that the Court's "inversion of the original meaning of liberty will likely cause collateral damage to other aspects of our constitutional order that protect liberty." Further, he argues that the decision will threaten religious liberty by creating an unavoidable collision between the interests of same-sex couples and some religious organizations.
"In our society, marriage is not simply a governmental institution; it is a religious institution as well," Thomas wrote. "Today's decision might change the former, but it cannot change the latter. It appears all but inevitable that the two will come into conflict, particularly as individuals and churches are confronted with demands to participate in and endorse civil marriages between same-sex couples."
Justice Samuel Alito
In his dissent, Alito argues that gay marriage is not protected in the Constitution under the Due Process Clause because "liberty" only applies to those principles which are rooted in U.S. tradition. His argument is that the concept of gay marriage is new and therefore not included.
"For today's majority, it does not matter that the right to same-sex marriage lacks deep roots or even that it is contrary to long-established tradition. The Justices in the majority claim the authority to confer constitutional protection upon that right simply because they believe that it is fundamental," Alito writes.
Alito also reaffirms his position that there is no way to confirm what the outcome of gay marriage may be on the institution of traditional marriage and therefore the court is and should not be in a position to take on the topic.
"At present, no one—including social scientists, philosophers, and historians—can predict with any certainty what the long-term ramifications of widespread acceptance of same-sex marriage will be. And judges are certainly not equipped to make such an assessment," Alito wrote.
Alito's belief is also that traditional marriage has existed between a man and woman for one key reason; children. His argument is "for millennia, marriage was inextricably linked to the one thing that only an opposite-sex couple can do: procreate. Adherents to different schools of philosophy use different terms to explain why society should formalize marriage and attach special benefits and obligations to persons who marry."
"Their basic argument is that States formalize and promote marriage, unlike other fulfilling human relationships, in order to encourage potentially procreative conduct to take place within a lasting unit that has long been thought to provide the best atmosphere for raising children," he writes.
This story is breaking and will be updated.
Why Four Justices Were Against the Supreme Court's Huge Gay Marriage Decision
Highlights from the Court's dissents.
BY BRIAN RESNICK, LAUREN FOX AND DUSTIN VOLZ
Supporters and opponents of same-sex marriage demonstrate near the Supreme Court.(Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
June 26, 2015 Same-sex marriage is now a right in every state in the country, following ahistoric 5-4 decision from the Supreme Court Friday. The four justices who disagreed with the Court's opinion, authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy, each wrote their own dissent laying out just why they believed the majority to be wrong.
Here's their reasoning.
Chief Justice John Roberts
Roberts argument centered around the need to preserve states' rights over what he viewed as following the turn of public opinion. In ruling in favor of gay marriage, he said "five lawyers have closed the debate and enacted their own vision of marriage as a matter of constitutional law."
Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas joined him in his dissent.
While Roberts said he did not "begrudge" any of the celebrations that would follow the Court ruling, he had serious concerns that the Court had extended its role from Constitutional enforcer to activist.
"Understand well what this dissent is about: It is not about whether, in my judgment, the institution of marriage should be changed to include same-sex couples. It is instead about whether, in our democratic republic, that decision should rest with the people acting through their elected representatives, or with five lawyers who happen to hold commissions authorizing them to resolve legal disputes according to law," he wrote.
While, he recognized the decision would be hailed as a major victory for same-sex couples and their allies, he noted they had been set back.
"Supporters of same-sex marriage have achieved considerable success persuading their fellow citizens—through the democratic process—to adopt their view. That ends today," Roberts wrote. "Stealing this issue from the people will for many cast a cloud over same-sex marriage, making a dramatic social change that much more difficult to accept."
Roberts disparaged the majority decision by saying that it was nothing more than a flimsy argument.
"Stripped of its shiny rhetorical gloss, the majority's argument is that the Due Process Clause gives same-sex couples a fundamental right to marry because it will be good for them and for society," Roberts wrote. "If I were a legislator, I would certainly consider that view as a matter of social policy. But as a judge, I find the majority's position indefensible as a matter of constitutional law."
Roberts's other dispute is that many of the arguments made in support of gay marriage could be used to also support plural marriage.
"If not having the opportunity to marry 'serves to disrespect and subordinate' gay and lesbian couples, why wouldn't the same 'imposition of this disability,'...serve to disrespect and subordinate people who find fulfillment in polyamorous relationships?" he writes. "I do not mean to equate marriage between same-sex couples with plural marriages in all respects. There may well be relevant differences that compel different legal analysis. But if there are, petitioners have not pointed to any."
Justice Antonin Scalia
According to Justice Antonin Scalia, today's majority ruling represents a "judicial Putsch."
Scalia wrote that while he has no personal opinions on whether the law should allow same-sex marriage, he feels very strongly that it is not the place of the Supreme Court to decide.
"Until the courts put a stop to it, public debate over same-sex marriage displayed American democracy at its best," Scalia wrote. "But the Court ends this debate, in an opinion lacking even a thin veneer of law."
Scalia stated he wanted to write a separate dissent "to call attention to this Court's threat to American democracy." Justice Clarence Thomas joined Scalia in this dissent.
Scalia attacked his colleagues' opinion with his signature flourish. "The opinion is couched in a style that is as pretentious as its content is egotistic," he wrote.
According to Scalia, the five justices in the majority are using the 14th Amendment in a way that was never intended by its writers. "When the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, every State limited marriage to one man and one woman, and no one doubted the constitutionality of doing so," he wrote.
"They [the majority] have discovered in the Fourteenth Amendment a 'fundamental right' overlooked by every person alive at the time of ratification, and almost everyone else in the time since."
Scalia called out the majority for acting like activists, not judges. (He was similarly critical in Thursday's ruling on health care.) "States are free to adopt whatever laws they like, even those that offend the esteemed Justices' 'reasoned judgment,'" he wrote.
Scalia's scorn went beyond picking apart the majority's legal judgement. He also made fun of their language.
The majority began its opinion with the line: "The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity."
Scalia wrote that if he ever were to join an opinion that began with that sentence he "would hide my head in a bag," saying such language was more like the "mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie" than, say, legendary Chief Justice John Marshall.
Elsewhere, the majority wrote "The nature of marriage is that, through its enduring bond, two persons together can find other freedoms, such as expression, intimacy, and spirituality."
Scalia scoffed at this assertion, saying that even "the nearest hippie" would know that marriage hinders the freedom of intimacy. Here are his words:
Really? Who ever thought that intimacy and spirituality [whatever that means] were freedoms? And if intimacy is, one would think Freedom of Intimacy is abridged rather than expanded by marriage. Ask the nearest hippie.
What the nearest hippie knows about intimacy, Scalia did not elaborate on.
Justice Clarence Thomas
In his own separate dissent, which Scalia also joined, Justice Clarence Thomas pilloried the majority opinion as "at odds not only with the Constitution, but with the principles upon which our nation were built."
Kennedy and the court's liberal wing are invoking a definition of "liberty" that the Constitution's framers "would not have recognized, to the detriment of the liberty they sought to protect."
"Along the way, it rejects the idea—captured in our Declaration of Independence—that human dignity is innate and suggests instead that it comes from the Government," Thomas said. "This distortion of our Constitution not only ignores the text, it inverts the relationship between the individual and the state in our Republic. I cannot agree with it."
Thomas argues that the majority is erring in its interpretation of the 14th Amendment's due process clause, by reading it as more expansive and far-reaching than originally intended. The case lacks standing on this issue, he continues, because the plaintiff does not adequately show that a state ban on same-sex marriage constitutes a true deprivation of "liberty" under the law.
"As used in the Due Process Clauses, 'liberty' most likely refers to 'the power of loco-motion, of changing situation, or removing one's person to whatsoever place one's own inclination may direct; without imprisonment or restraint, unless by due course of law,'" Thomas wrote. "That definition is drawn from the historical roots of the Clauses and is consistent with our Constitution's text and structure."
Further, the long-standing legal understanding of liberty does not encompass the rights the majority opinion says it does, Thomas argues. Liberty has "long been understood as individual freedom from government action, not as a right to a particular governmental entitlement."
"Whether we define 'liberty' as locomotion or freedom from governmental action more broadly, petitioners have in no way been deprived of it," he continued. "Petitioners cannot claim, under the most plausible definition of 'liberty,' that they have been imprisoned or physically restrained by the States for participating in same-sex relationships."
Thomas, echoing a grievance expressed by many conservative politicians, also laments that the Supreme Court's decision is enshrining a definition of marriage into the Constitution in a way that puts it "beyond the reach of the normal democratic process for the entire nation."
Thomas additionally warns that the Court's "inversion of the original meaning of liberty will likely cause collateral damage to other aspects of our constitutional order that protect liberty." Further, he argues that the decision will threaten religious liberty by creating an unavoidable collision between the interests of same-sex couples and some religious organizations.
"In our society, marriage is not simply a governmental institution; it is a religious institution as well," Thomas wrote. "Today's decision might change the former, but it cannot change the latter. It appears all but inevitable that the two will come into conflict, particularly as individuals and churches are confronted with demands to participate in and endorse civil marriages between same-sex couples."
Justice Samuel Alito
In his dissent, Alito argues that gay marriage is not protected in the Constitution under the Due Process Clause because "liberty" only applies to those principles which are rooted in U.S. tradition. His argument is that the concept of gay marriage is new and therefore not included.
"For today's majority, it does not matter that the right to same-sex marriage lacks deep roots or even that it is contrary to long-established tradition. The Justices in the majority claim the authority to confer constitutional protection upon that right simply because they believe that it is fundamental," Alito writes.
Alito also reaffirms his position that there is no way to confirm what the outcome of gay marriage may be on the institution of traditional marriage and therefore the court is and should not be in a position to take on the topic.
"At present, no one—including social scientists, philosophers, and historians—can predict with any certainty what the long-term ramifications of widespread acceptance of same-sex marriage will be. And judges are certainly not equipped to make such an assessment," Alito wrote.
Alito's belief is also that traditional marriage has existed between a man and woman for one key reason; children. His argument is "for millennia, marriage was inextricably linked to the one thing that only an opposite-sex couple can do: procreate. Adherents to different schools of philosophy use different terms to explain why society should formalize marriage and attach special benefits and obligations to persons who marry."
"Their basic argument is that States formalize and promote marriage, unlike other fulfilling human relationships, in order to encourage potentially procreative conduct to take place within a lasting unit that has long been thought to provide the best atmosphere for raising children," he writes.
This story is breaking and will be updated.