9th Circuit Appeals Court affirms holding that CA gay marriage ban is unconstitutional

I am single person, and don't feel discriminated against because of that. That is quite a silly argument.

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I think this is one of the more odder arguments I've ever read. So, until there are no single people left in the country, nothing should change? Or should everyone be single? I can't figure out which.

 

Which is why my point remains. It's kind of a Dennis the Peasant gambit.

 

that lack the social meaning and cultural status of marriage.

So is that an admission that this has nothing to do with taxes, babies, visitation, ect at all, and that this is a fight over the social and cultural meaning of marriage? And that despite all the claims to the contrary and waiving the issues that in the end don't matter, that what a gay couple gets from the government does in fact have an impact on the institution of the straight couple down the street?

If the entire Raison d'être for the recognition of gay marriage is to promote the social and cultural status of their relationship, then shouldn't that society and culture be able to make up their own minds on the subject? I'm not comfortable with the law being used as tool to tell me to change what I find the social and cultural meaning of marriage is, and if government can't follow the will of the people in the matter, then it should have no say at all. So all this time you keep telling us that it isn't about us, it is about the homosexuals and that we should stay out of it, but when they get everything but a word your only justification is that well my definition of the word is the wrong one and you want to change it.

Gay marriage destroys the meaning of the word marriage, and while it was a very nice edifice, as you've gutted the interior I see no reason to maintain the pretense and figure leveling the entire building would allow everyone the ability to make their own.

 

Huh?

 

The meaning of marriage that's defined by your religion, that you wish to now force on to others?

 

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The law isn't telling you to change anything about yourself, Backwords. It's to make it easier legally so they don't have different rules for the same sort of thing.

 

Something I wonder on this part is, what prevents people from socially and culturally distinguishing between heterosexual and same-sex marriages by only treating heterosexual marriages as having social meaningfulness or giving it a cultural status? That part seems to be about how marriage is perceived by people as a whole, not on how it's treated by the law, and I don't really see people opposed to homosexuality changing their minds as soon as they can say they're married.
Or do people think that calling it marriage will change the minds of people that are opposed to it in a way that will give it the same cultural status? Maybe I'm lacking optimism on the ability to change minds.

 

I don't know whether Walker addressed this case in his judgment but in Kerrigan v Commissioner of Public Health ( 2008 Connecticut Supreme Court) the plaintiff brought an action claiming that the establishment of 'civil unions' although providing many of the legal protections of marriage nevertheless violated the equal protection test under the state constitution. The court basically held that civil unions relegated same sex couples to an inferior status by denying them the institution of marriage. The segregation of heterosexual couples and homosexual couples into separate institutions (the latter not being worthy of marriage) violated the equal protection test under the state constitution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerrigan_v._Commissioner_of_Public_Health

 

Well, it's more that marriage historically meant a contract between a man and a woman in which a man promised food, shelter, and protection to a woman in exchange for sexual fidelity and any male children that resulted. Men, were of course, free to engage in as many of these contracts as they could manage. The reason the state required that benefits be given was because women were typically unable to provide for themselves, especially if they had children.

I mean, the idea that two men or two women could fulfill both ends of the contract as above is laughable.

What's happened is that the change in the definition of marriage has already happened in our societal consciousness. It went from the above to a "lifelong commitment between two people who love each other."

I'm not saying that the above definition I gave of marriage is the ideal situation, just what it was. It's got much less to do with religion than you think. Espaldalabras and I have different religions yet we agree that marriage is something between a man and a woman associated with having children.

It makes more sense to me, in our modern society, that rather than require that companies give benefits to same-sex partners, to remove the requirement altogether. After all, women are much more able to support themselves than formerly. The patriarchal contract marriage is becoming pretty much obsolete. If people want to give power of attorney to a close friend, regardless of gender and romance, then whatever. Or power of attorney over their kids. Whatever.

It's just that "loving commitment between two people with a genital component to their relationship" is not what a marriage is. Sorry, it's just not. The state has no reason to support or subsidize it, or require other businesses to do so.

 

Yes because before Mormonism came along the concept of marriage being between a man and a woman was totally alien.

I disagree with the position that it is being withheld without a rational basis. It seems withholding it because they by definition can't create a child is a pretty rational basis.

Who is forcing the definition of marriage on whom? I want to force the traditional meaning, the one that has a history of hundreds of years and was universally understood. The quote evidence that the entire point of forcing it to be called marriage is so that it is the same word and meaning as the previously understood relationship. When you change the definition of a word, you change it for everyone. If I start calling dogs humans, then that effects all humans, and not just the dogs. Silly example, but you get the picture.

I don't see it as the "same sort of thing" at all. One is a marriage, the other isn't.

 

Well, whether you accept that sort of thing or not depends on your point of view.

 

The elephant in the room that no one here has mentioned, at least not recently, is that homosexual orientation is not a choice, and that a person's orientation should not bar them from partaking in the same rights that heterosexuals have.

 

"Who is forcing the definition of marriage on whom? I want to force the traditional meaning, the one that has a history of hundreds of years and was universally understood."
Well, so at least you note that you are, indeed, forcing a definition on others.

I'd agree with Obi-Zahn.... times have changed, the situation has changed, and as such, I think it is fully open to society to decide to change what we consider the definition of marriage to be. I think we should redefine marriage to a newer and broader definition that reflects a change in society, and words have in the past, and will in the future, change when society changes their usage. Some need updating.

 

Ah, but a counter-argument to this for the religious-types is that it is a choice, and sexual orientation does not always have to include sexual activity. I bring up the second because Backwords got there first.

 

Espaldy, you asked when the addition of protected classes should stop, and Quix pointed out that it need never stop, so long as there is some coherent set of criteria that allow us to say, "this group needs protection, that one does not."

You didn't quite answer his question about what your criteria might be, although you give a hint when you bring up the idea that groups defined by common behaviors, rather than inborn traits, should not be protected. I don't think that you can really mean this, because if we eliminate behavior-defined classes, we lose the protected status of religion. By definition, being a member of a religion requires a long-term series of conscious lifestyle choices. So does "creed," that most-ignored of protected classes.

If only inborn traits are protected, then homosexuality probably needs protection, while religion does not. With that as a criterion, we ought to live in a country in which gay marriage is common, and religious objectors are told that they should just stop choosing to follow religions that order them to take offense at others' weddings.

Assuming this is not the country you have envisioned, I'd be interested to hear what kind of criteria you think would sort reasonable protected classes from unreasonable ones.

 

Marriage shouldn't be treated as a right for heterosexuals either. Heck, I'm decently open to kicking marriage back to religious institutions and leaving the government only dealing with a secular and distinct entity.

 

That's not going to happen, though, so as long as the government recognizes marriage, the privilege should be extended to homosexual couples.

 

"This is not my choice. This is not forced upon me. This just is."

 

Well, yeah, it's not going to happen now because getting rid of marriage in favour of civil unions for all would be unconstitutional if the ruling stands, and so a law that would make it so that no one can marry in a gov't sense because the government gets rid of civil marriage would also be unconstitutional.

You're using the term privilege, but it's not a privilege with the new ruling.

 

Equal protection under the law and due process are rights, which is what the ruling addressed.

 

Darth_Guy, the judge wrote "Each challenge is independently meritorious, as Proposition 8 both unconstitutionally burdens the exercise of the fundamental right to marry and creates an irrational classification on the basis of sexual orientation."

From http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/08/prop8-gay-marriage.html

 

Why would we start eliminating protected classes?

The creation of protected classes is not something any judge or court can create. The judicial branch has no armed force to enact its will, it rules by the respect the public gives its opinions. Overriding the law of so many states on such weak footing will have consequences we can't fully understand.

Religion is a protected class because of the history of religion. And while it is a protected class, it is also limited in how it can participate compared to other ideologies. You can't very well prohibit the free exercise of religion and then not expect religion to not try to establish itself. In the end the way we handle religion is a political compromise we've all accepted.

Judicial activism such as this makes it impossible for such compromises to occur in the future.