Discussion:

I wish I could “like” this more than once.

In historic proceedings Tuesday, a divided Supreme Court grappled with the question of whether gay and lesbian couples have a fundamental constitutional right to marry that trumps state laws banning same-sex marriage.

I’m not a constitutional scholar (or any kind of scholar), but shouldn’t the question be “Does government have a right to prevent same-sex couples from marrying each other?” I’m reasonably sure (again, not a constitutional scholar) there isn’t anything in the Constitution which says that same-sex couples can’t marry each other. If I were asked if I supported same-sex marriage, I would say, “I’m not in favor of it. I’m not against it either. Since I don’t plan on having one, it isn’t any of my business.” It isn’t the business of anyone except that of the two people who love and want to marry each other.

Too bad that the attorney for the SSM side apparently was not familiar with John Boswell’s 1994 book on “Same Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe”. That would have provided a pretty good answer.

The impact of oral arguments for Supreme Court decisions is vastly overrated. Guessing Kennedy’s vote from his questions today is voodoo stuff. The real debate will start now, with Justices sending each other memos and debating the finer points within their chambers and between chambers. Roberts, in the end, might have plenty of cover to join the majority. Or not. Nobody knows at this point.

When all was said and done today, I just wondered who likes gladiator movies most…Scalia, Alito or Roberts?

And when the decision is handed down (*I’m betting 6-2 in favor with Scalia being outed, resigning and retreating to the Vatican) …I know, I’m an eternal optimist, well, a guarded optimist! Selfishly, I just can’t help but imagine the shadenfreude I’ll feel if the decision is in favor of same sex marraige!

Th “Purity” movement still operates that way, with a girl pledging her fidelity to her father and wearing a ring until she finds a husband who meets dad’s approval.

It could be interpreted this way, but I seriously doubt that it will be. If it is, the ruling will make history for more than one reason. The “privileges and immunities”-clause has been dead for more than a century. It died for all practical purposes with the Slaughterhouse Cases (1873), and has been resurrected very, very rarely (last time by just one justice in McDonald v. Chicago, 2010).

So, if they use a doctrine which has been a sleeping beauty forever to kiss awake same sex marriage - wow, that would be a historic decision!

What does it take for Thomas to conjure up a question and ask said question?

Actually, I think legally that amounts to the same thing, but we don’t talk about the rights a government has, we talk about the rights of individuals. If marriage is a fundamental right, as I believe Loving v Virginia says it is, then the state has to show some compelling interest in preventing same sex marriage in order for such a ban to be Constitutional. And the reasons the advocates for such bans have given do not seem to me to be compelling. If we are talking about the welfare of children being the compelling interest, then the statistics that show that gay couples tend to be better parents, on average, than straight ones seems to me to decide the question in favor of allowing same-sex marriage. And certainly children would benefit by giving parental rights to both of the people who are parenting them, so that they won’t be left in some legal limbo should the one parent who is allowed to be treated as a parent die before they come of age.

Isn’t it convenient how Obama managed to get this case to be heard now, in order to distract us from his nefarious plans to have his Kenyan/Muslim/Communist brothers in arms destroy the great city of Baltimore?

He’s always one step ahead of everyone, dontchaknow.

Not just interfaith. A Catholic priest can refuse to marry any tithe-paying Catholic couple as well, for any arbitrary or even capricious reason. and they do take advantage of that discretion regularly. The priest always has had absolute discretion over which particular couples they perform the ceremony for.

Scalia is too ensconced in the right-wing echo chamber, which is of course all aflutter over people being “forced” to participate in gay weddings by, you know, baking a cake that gets delivered the day of the event or having to sell a wedding dress to a woman who will turn around and use it to marry another woman, etc. His hate-addled mind is just overloaded.

I’m confused. Isn’t a marriage based on emotional commitment superior to one based solely on a biological bond?? So what’s his point again?

I was thinking the same thing. You know, if I’m visiting a new country or state, I do some research before I go. If I have a big decision to make, like which washing machine to buy, I do some research. Is it too much to expect that Supreme Court Justices, making decisions that will affect Americans for generations to come, might do some research into the subject? “…as far as I know…” Well why doesn’t he know any further than that? Complete and utter bullshit. And laziness.

The ideal marriage, apparently, is one based on an unintended pregnancy. As nature and god intended.

The Earth will have to stop turning on its axis for that to happen.

Just because a Justice raise a point in hypothetical argument doesn’t necessarily mean that s/he agrees with that point.

AND…someone would have to wake Uncle Clarence up first.

An occasional give-a-fuck perhaps.

In fact, some of the happiest marriages I know are those where they have not procreated. They certainly don’t see themselves as less than married.

I’d like to see someone mention that if children are all-important, that couples with children should not be allowed to divorce.

My cousin and her Catholic fiance-- both Catholics, I mean- didn’t like her parish priest. They were worried that he would take advantage of the wedding mass to do a sermon decrying birth control (he’d done this before). So they went to the neighboring church and asked to be married there. That priest refused because there was a rule in that diocese that you couldn’t officiate at the marriage when the couple were “priest-shopping.”

Priests are supposed to refuse to marry a couple where one has been divorced. Etc. The law doesn’t force them.