What is wrong with the Supreme Court, another week of justice denied.

[actuarial]

If they based it on gender I'd think they have trouble.

OTOH, different states have different age requirements etc. Also different rules on what it takes to lose your drivers license. In my state the first DUI conviction means loss of the license for a year. In many other states that's not the case. I.e., there is no equal treatment.

Fern

My whole argument as to why gay marriage is protected by the constitution is because banning it is based on gender. If a male wants to marry Cindy he is allowed, but if a female wants to marry Cindy she is not.

Now DL's have other conditions which are also based on protected classes (age, disability) but it's very easy to show why those would satisfy even the strictest forms of scrutiny.

With DL's, you could definitely make an argument that males should be subjected to a higher level of testing than females, but it wouldn't pass the strict scrutiny test.

 

[werepossum]

Well said.

Thank you. When smart people who are generally politically in opposition to me agree with me, I get a warm fuzzy feeling. To quote Neal Boortz, "If two people agree on everything then one of them is unnecessary." And as a corollary I propose "If two people agree on nothing, then at least one of them isn't thinking."

 

[Fern]

I think taxes would be enough; we are allowing single earner hetero couples the option of paying a lower rate (through marriage) than is available to single earner homo couples.

Income tax is a mixed bag.

For most year we have had a "marriage penalty" (and Obama is proposing it again). And filing separate can be materially punitive.

But it goes far beyond that. Hospital visitation, inheritance, child custody,..

My understanding is that hospital visitation and child custody already have remedies.

Inheritance does too (a will).

However, gay couples don't have an automatic exclusion from tax for amounts passed to a spouse. But unless and until they change the law this will affect only rather wealthy people. For all the rest there is no difference.

I would imagine if they are wealthy they can handle it as other wealthy people do.

and extension of Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination also spring to mind.

True.

Other protections also apply, such as the federal government not allowing insurance companies or landlords to discriminate against mixed-race married couples without granting the same protection to homosexual couples. To make those legal differentiations effectively makes homosexuals second class citizens unable to enjoy the same protections as do we in the heterosexual majority.

Don't need marriage for that. Just need to add gays to the 15th Amendment or the '64 CRA. To do it through a marriage act still leaves unmarried gays unprotected.

Fern

 

[Fern]

My whole argument as to why gay marriage is protected by the constitution is because banning it is based on gender. If a male wants to marry Cindy he is allowed, but if a female wants to marry Cindy she is not.

Now DL's have other conditions which are also based on protected classes (age, disability) but it's very easy to show why those would satisfy even the strictest forms of scrutiny.

With DL's, you could definitely make an argument that males should be subjected to a higher level of testing than females, but it wouldn't pass the strict scrutiny test.

And yet neither gender is allowed gay marriage.

Fern

 

[nehalem256]

My whole argument as to why gay marriage is protected by the constitution is because banning it is based on gender. If a male wants to marry Cindy he is allowed, but if a female wants to marry Cindy she is not.

You mean unless that male happens to be her brother/father in which case he is not allowed. Or if that male happens to be married to Sally.

 

[werepossum]

My whole argument as to why gay marriage is protected by the constitution is because banning it is based on gender. If a male wants to marry Cindy he is allowed, but if a female wants to marry Cindy she is not.

Now DL's have other conditions which are also based on protected classes (age, disability) but it's very easy to show why those would satisfy even the strictest forms of scrutiny.

With DL's, you could definitely make an argument that males should be subjected to a higher level of testing than females, but it wouldn't pass the strict scrutiny test.

Agreed. The State obviously has a compelling societal need to ensure that anyone licensed to operate a potentially deadly vehicle has the knowledge as well as the emotional maturity and the physical ability to do so safely, thus the restrictions on age at both ends. On the other hand, the State obviously has no compelling societal need to impose different standards on, for example, people whose ages are evenly divisible by six. Differing requirements based on gender is more of a gray area, but in my opinion the State should also have to demonstrate a compelling societal need to treat people as homogeneous groups rather than as individuals, and this would (I think) be much better supported by age grouping than by gender grouping. At some low age everyone is too young to be qualified to drive and at some high age everyone is too old to be qualified to drive, so attempting to set the ages for special scrutiny makes sense. By contrast, by no means is every man at some point too male to drive, even though statistically as a group males are more accident-prone.

To roll this back to the subject at hand, not all hetero couples are equal, and not all homo couples are equal. One would be hard-pressed to identify benefits to society from hetero married couples which would not also result from homo married couples, whether or not studies can show an edge for hetero married couples. (And I tend toward believing that virtually all studies on this comparison start with one result or the other in mind.) Without that there can be no compelling societal need, and government's default should always be toward maximum individual freedom and away from discrimination.

 

[nehalem256]

To roll this back to the subject at hand, not all hetero couples are equal, and not all homo couples are equal. One would be hard-pressed to identify benefits to society from hetero married couples which would not also result from homo married couples, whether or not studies can show an edge for hetero married couples. (And I tend toward believing that virtually all studies on this comparison start with one result or the other in mind.) Without that there can be no compelling societal need, and government's default should always be toward maximum individual freedom and away from discrimination.

Hetero marriage ensures that children created in that marriage will not be born to a single parent. Given that the poverty rate of single parents is 4-5x that for married couples that would seem to be a significant edge for hetero married couples. At least so long as you think child poverty is a bad thing.

 

[CrackRabbit]

Hetero marriage ensures that children created in that marriage will not be born to a single parent. Given that the poverty rate of single parents is 4-5x that for married couples that would seem to be a significant edge for hetero married couples. At least so long as you think child poverty is a bad thing.

Mmm, troll bait.

So what about those 50% or so marriages that end in divorce?
Children born in to them still end up with a single parent.

 

[Mandres]

imo, separation of church and state was trampled when the government decided to confer benefits to married people. Marriage is a church institution, and should not be a legal institution.

The answer is not to "allow" gays to legally marry, but to separate people's relationships from government involvement entirely.

 

[fskimospy]

For heaven's sakes, it mentioned numerous times throughout the Constitution.

E.g:

From Article 1



And four amendments post Civil War speak to voting rights.

Fern

Yes voting is mentioned in the constitution. It is still not an enumerated right. Enumerated right are affirmatively stated ones. The constitution only lists reasons the states cannot use to restrict voting rights, it does not guarantee people the right to vote as it does with speech, assembly, etc. They are very, very different things. As a good example, voter id laws. Do you think it would ever be constitutional to force you to show an ID to speak freely? Of course not.

If you want to get into the Constitution implying rights in happy to welcome you to the liberal wing of the supreme court and will applaud your repudiation of Thomas, Scalia, etc.

 

[werepossum]

Income tax is a mixed bag.

For most year we have had a "marriage penalty" (and Obama is proposing it again). And filing separate can be materially punitive.



My understanding is that hospital visitation and child custody already have remedies.

Inheritance does too (a will).

However, gay couples don't have an automatic exclusion from tax for amounts passed to a spouse. But unless and until they change the law this will affect only rather wealthy people. For all the rest there is no difference.

I would imagine if they are wealthy they can handle it as other wealthy people do.



True.



Don't need marriage for that. Just need to add gays to the 15th Amendment or the '64 CRA. To do it through a marriage act still leaves unmarried gays unprotected.

Fern

Yes, I expect that since the Democrats are once again driving the bus we'll get a return of the marriage penalty, since a married couple doesn't need as much money and our standard for taxation is now how much government figures you need. They might surprise me though, since so many people are now living together out of wedlock.

For the rest, yes, we could handle this with various rules and laws for each situation. But to me government's laws and regulations should be as simple, straightforward, and broad-based as is practical. Or put another way, separate but equal is always unequal, otherwise there would be no reason for it to be separate. Having the same protections enshrined in marriage for heteros and by special statutes and laws for gays seems unnecessarily convoluted and inviting legal action, especially since government is essentially protecting my right to prevent someone else from doing something which offends me even though it does not directly affect me. There should not be a right to control my neighbor's behavior except as it directly affects me, and I no more want the right to prevent him from marrying another man than I want the right to prevent him from marrying a fat chick or a black woman or a Jewess. It offends me that government affords me that power, even assuming it never gets turned back on me and gores my ox, more than did the thought of my neighbor marrying a man even when I was young and anti-gay marriage. This is because it strikes at the very heart of our nation's founding philosophy, that all men are created equal, inherently free creatures, and entitled to pursue happiness by establishing government's right to establish suitable marriage partners (or more accurately, to prohibit marriage partners it finds unsuitable) as though we are property. It really isn't about the specific protections, it's about the freedom to enter into social contracts as two adults wish as long as those social contracts do not directly and materially harm others.

 

[actuarial]

And yet neither gender is allowed gay marriage.

Fern

This argument is so easily debunked. Would you also say the same thing if no race was allowed inter-racial marriage?

If I can marry someone but a woman can't, she is being discriminated based on her gender. That's not to say all discrimination is unconstitutional, but simply saying "it applies to both genders" is simply not true. Males are allowed to marry women but females are not. Just like in the past whites were allowed to marry whites but blacks were not.

 

[actuarial]

You mean unless that male happens to be her brother/father in which case he is not allowed. Or if that male happens to be married to Sally.

Neither of those are protected classes so the scrutiny is lower. And I'm against outlawing plural marriage, but I believe that it's a separate issue.

In addition, I find the argument that since the government discriminates on one thing that it should be allowed to discriminate based on anything deeply flawed.

 

[actuarial]

Hetero marriage ensures that children created in that marriage will not be born to a single parent. Given that the poverty rate of single parents is 4-5x that for married couples that would seem to be a significant edge for hetero married couples. At least so long as you think child poverty is a bad thing.

Gay marriage ensures the same thing for gay couples who decide to have children. Vaginal intercourse isn't the only way to produce offspring.

 

[werepossum]

Hetero marriage ensures that children created in that marriage will not be born to a single parent. Given that the poverty rate of single parents is 4-5x that for married couples that would seem to be a significant edge for hetero married couples. At least so long as you think child poverty is a bad thing.

Unless you are willing to prohibit gays from having children, this is an argument FOR gay marriage. Some gays are going to bring in children from a previous straight relationship, others will adopt, still others will use surrogates or in vitro to have their own. Unless you are willing to prohibit all these things - including literally ripping children from the arms of gay parents - or can turn gays straight, this will continue. With gay marriage prohibited, all these children are inherently born to and/or raised by single parents, for we deny them the security and prosperity of a married couple home. If you believe that marriage strengthens a couple's bond, lessens the chance of a split, provides additional security to children, and thereby lessens a child's chance of growing up in poverty - the highest predictor of a failed life in many forms - how can you support withholding this from children of gays?

When I was young I thought gays were completely and bizarrely different from us normal folk, aberrations (if not abominations!) not to be trusted, and was very much against allowing gays to marry, adopt, teach, etc. I never knew one openly gay person; it just wasn't done in rural Tennessee in the 70s, and frankly we doubted that such behavior was more than a handful of people (mostly in California.) Part of this was getting caught up in the S/M scene in Atlanta at a young age and seeing some bisexual people who were, um, pretty messed up, and extrapolating how messed up would be someone who was actually gay rather than bi. It took three friends, a co-worker who was patently a great guy and none of those things but who was gay and a great lesbian couple, to disabuse me of this notion. (If I have known only three gay people and they are all great folks, obviously either my position on gays is defective or my knowledge of statistics is faulty.) Yet even then, as a redneck from the deep woods with all the ignorance and callow certainty of youth, the children of gay marriage bothered me. How could I be pro-family and yet anti-gay marriage? My solution at the time was to simply not think about it and to assume these children were a vanishingly small sample probably best handled by the government. After all, I didn't know any children with gay parents; how many could there possibly be?

Today we don't have that luxury. With surrogates and in vitro and widespread divorce there are many, many children with gay parents. We have to take a side. Are we pro-family and pro-marriage? Or are we anti-gay? The cost of being anti-gay is to deny all these children the security of a married home when absent government discrimination, some would have that security. That's a high price to pay for maintaining the illusion of traditional America, and it's the worst kind of price - the kind we can make someone else pay.

 

[Darwin333]

You might want to look up the poverty rate of single mothers compared to married couples before you start advancing that as something positive.

I did not once state that it was a positive I simply stated it was a fact. So again, being married is not a requirement to rear a child but being able to rear a child should be a requirement to get married? Or I guess we could make it a felony to have a child out of wedlock? Mandatory abortions perhaps? THEN the entire "kids" issue will have some weight when talking about marriage.

 

[Darwin333]

So its not just a private contract between 2 people after all :sneaky:

Yes, it is. It just so happens that by entering into the contract the government allows you certain privileges. Is that so difficult to understand?

 

[Darwin333]

Can't get around the fact the federal govt will be involved.

Aside from the passion this generates in some, the real 'play' here, IMO, is for federal benefits for gay couples. If that is in fact the case, there is no way to leave the federal govt out of it, the supporters won't stand for it.

Fern

I think you missed my point, I was saying that the Feds shouldn't be involved in ANY marriages at all. The right who is generally for small government and less regulation literally wants the Feds to regulate who you can or can not marry. Just seems absurdly hypocritical to me.

 

[actuarial]

I think you missed my point, I was saying that the Feds shouldn't be involved in ANY marriages at all. The right who is generally for small government and less regulation literally wants the Feds to regulate who you can or can not marry. Just seems absurdly hypocritical to me.

The size of what needs to be unwound then is staggering. What about survivor benefits for SS. How do you do division of property under divorce?

 

[Darwin333]

Hetero marriage ensures that children created in that marriage will not be born to a single parent. Given that the poverty rate of single parents is 4-5x that for married couples that would seem to be a significant edge for hetero married couples. At least so long as you think child poverty is a bad thing.

Gay marriage ensures that NO children will be born into poverty OR if they so choose they could adopt a child who is currently in poverty, it would seem to me that would be a significant edge for homosexual married couples. At least so long as you think child poverty is a bad thing?

 

[Darwin333]

The size of what needs to be unwound then is staggering. What about survivor benefits for SS. How do you do division of property under divorce?

No reason why those things shouldn't be able to be handled with a simple contract. You could update the .gov when you enter into a civil union contract of sorts so that survivor benefits are passed, division of property is already handled with contracts if you have a pre-nup and frankly would be much better if this was standard.

 

[nehalem256]

Unless you are willing to prohibit gays from having children, this is an argument FOR gay marriage.

Biology does that. Two men/women cannot have a child together. Come on now even kids who get "abstinence-only" sex education learn that much.

 

[nehalem256]

Inheritance does too (a will).

However, gay couples don't have an automatic exclusion from tax for amounts passed to a spouse. But unless and until they change the law this will affect only rather wealthy people. For all the rest there is no difference.

I would imagine if they are wealthy they can handle it as other wealthy people do.

Liberals using lower taxes on the 1% as an argument for gay marriage is the height of hypocrisy.

 

[nehalem256]

Mmm, troll bait.

So what about those 50% or so marriages that end in divorce?
Children born in to them still end up with a single parent.

I have come out multiple times in favor of no-fault divorce including I believe in this very thread.

So to me at least the solution to marriages ending in divorce is obvious.

 

[Darwin333]

Biology does that. Two men/women cannot have a child together. Come on now even kids who get "abstinence-only" sex education learn that much.

So children from previous straight relationships, adoption, in vitro, surrogates, etc.... are all really just made up and never actually happen?

Besides, if you are saying a benefit to hetro marriage is that children aren't brought up in poverty then by your own admission the same advantage exists for gay couples because....... wait for it......... children won't be brought up in poverty....