Landmark gay marriage trial starts today in California

In California. But I don't see how that affects the Supreme Court.Take a parallel instance. Suppose the state of Georgia (for example) amended its Constitution to do away with the requirements for standing altogether. Would the Supreme Court then be bound to agree that anyone at all from Georgia has locus standi before the S.C? No. Georgia can change its own Constitution all it likes, it doesn't affect federal law.

OK, that's fairly convincing.

We came to that pass on December 15th 1791.

... or the right to own slaves, or the desirability of joining the Klan, or the inferiority of Jews, or the exciting political program of the Nazi Party ...Freedom of speech has always been guaranteed to bad people, this is not just some hip new trend invented by those long-haired young people with their newfangled i-peds and nubile phones. As for child molesters: Got that? It used to be legal to say that it was a good idea to have sex with a ten-year-old girl, and then to have sex with a ten-year-old girl. A century later, it's still legal to say it but not to do it, and you regard this freedom of speech as a novelty that presages the End Times.---You came out with similar ill-informed nonsense about gun control, too, didn't you? Those cannot remember the past are doomed to talk crap about it, as George Santayana would have said had he been more plain-spoken.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Why not? My wife and I imposed our situation on the rest of society by demanding that our living situation be treated as a marriage (or "got married", as people with less time on their hands than you would put it) and no-one complained. Every year, 4.6 million Americans impose their situation on the rest of society by demanding that their living situation be treated as a marriage. So why shouldn't yenmor and his boyfriend? How would two more people imposing their situation on the rest of society by demanding that their living situation be treated as a marriage make any difference?If it's just because they're gay, then perhaps you could come up with some specific arguments against gay impositionofone'ssituationontherestofsocietybydemandingthatone'slivingsituationbetreatedasamarriage. Or perhaps not.

But the data shows the exact opposite, as yenmor just pointed out (I was going to post those links).So in the interests of the children you should be in favor of gay people raising kids --- indeed, you should be campaigning for gay couples to be given preferential treatment when it comes to adoption, for the sake of the children. Why "stack the deck" against them by dooming them to being raised by one of those statistically substandard heterosexual families? That's assuming that you give a damn about the children, and weren't just looking for any desperate excuse to discriminate against gay people. Perish the thought. Obviously not. Superstitions have to be inculcated, or they perish. If no-one communicated the idea that breaking a mirror brings seven years' bad luck, then the next generation wouldn't believe it, it would hardly be likely to arise spontaneously.

Liar.

Er ... but the children of gay couples do not in fact "just know it's wrong". What they generally know is that it's fine and that the only problem is the existence of bigoted jerks, who are wrong. If you're going to appeal to what the children "just know", then what they "just know" is that you should STFU. As something unusual, perhaps, like having red hair. Not all societies have regarded it as wrong. Why isn't that the point? It seems like a very good point. Why is that the point?Of all inconsequential things, the definition of a word is perhaps the least consequential. If there's a bunch of loving couples that want to get married, and the only objection is that it will create a one-off small piece of extra labor for lexicographers, then that's not much of an objection. I can think of exceptions. For example, consider the time popularly known as "now" and the societies of Holland, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Iceland, Argentina, France, Uruguay, New Zealand ... Yes, well, if you were more widely known, then "as far as Faith knows" would have a good chance of becoming a colloquialism for untruth. History of same-sex unions.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Though on this thread these supposed statistics don't seem to be saying anything. So all the data that anyone's been bothered to actually produce says one thing --- and our old friend Faith, who practically makes a hobby of being wrong, says another. Hmm, what to believe?

The Religious Right must live in a state of permanent shock.---RR1: Look! Look over there! Some fiends are doing something ghastly to a word!RR2: Which word? Your eyesight is better than mine.RR1: I think it's ... yes, yes, it's "plant".RR2: A fine, upstanding word. What a tragedy that it should fall into enemy hands. What are they doing to it?RR1: I hardly know how to break it to you ... they're ... they're redefining it.RR2: OH MY GOD!RR1: I know, it's brutal. They're taking the part of its definition that says it includes fungi and they're cutting it off. Without anesthetic!RR2: How awful! How tragic!RR1: All societies have always defined plants as including fungi ...RR2: Is that actually true?RR1: So far as I know. Remember how we talked about how you shouldn't ask questions like that?RR2: Oh, sorry.RR1: And now the forces of evil have redefined it. It would have been more humane just to have shot it in the head.RR2: The ... head?RR1: The letter p.RR2: The poor innocent word!RR1: Say, I know what'll cheer us up ... let's go and lynch us some queers.RR2: Is that ... is that OK?RR1: Sure, why not? They're only people.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

And, of course, all heterosexual marriages should be forcibly dissolved after menopause.

Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

I was going to say something, but I don't really need to add anything to that, do I? That turned out to be one of those subjects on which you're not actually an expert, remember?

Would you say that a woman who's had a hysterectomy has "the anatomical potential to make babies"? If so, why? The reason I didn't immediately grasp your "point" is that it's so recondite and stupid that I couldn't imagine anyone making it. Really, why on Earth should that be the point? Not whether they're going to have children, not whether they can have children, but the precise nature of the cause of their inability to have children?Why in the world should that be a basis for making a decision?

But why should that be "the principle of the thing"?You wish to treat differently a heterosexual couple who can't make babies and a homosexual couple who can't make babies, on the basis of the precise reason why they can't make babies. Why? It seems to be an utterly unimportant distinction.If you issued a driver's license to one blind person but not to another, I'd be surprised. If you then explained: "Ah, the difference is anatomical, the one I rejected was blind because he had no eyes", then I'd think this was a poor basis to make a distinction between them.---One in 5000 women is born with Mllerian agenesis, an anatomical inability to conceive. They are clearly not "designed" to have babies. Should they be permitted to marry?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.