Cali Supreme Court ruling on legality of same-sex marriage ban

Catholic Scientist:

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Marriage, in the eyes of the law, has nothing to do with sexual attraction or love. It is just a social contract. And it does have some restrictions.

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Then why does the INS take so poorly to "marriages of convenience"? Why do they look for signs of actual commingling of lives as would be expected by two people in love? Why do they ask about consummating the marriage?Why can a marriage be annulled if you haven't had sex? Annulment is not just another term for divorce. A divorce breaks the contract of marriage. Annulment means it never existed in the first place. Getting a divorce means you go through the various laws regarding the division of property, prenuptial agreements, etc. Annulment means none of that applies since there was never a marriage.Why is one of the reasons that you can sue for divorce lack of marital relations?Why is one of the reasons you can sue someone else loss of marital relations?Marriage is about sex. There are lots of other things attached to it, yes, but the big point is that it legitimizes a sexual relationship.

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None of us have the RIGHT to marry someone we're attracted to.

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Now you're just being silly. Nobody is saying you can force someone to get married simply because you are sexually attracted to them. We're saying that one of the big points about marriage is the legitimization of the sexual relationship. Why should only heterosexual couplings receive sanction?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

The reason that I was so forthright was because I think that the debate on homosexuality is unbalanced at present. Also I get tried of being an evil homophobic if I don't support the perspective favourable to homosexuality.A marriage as I believe the conception of the general majority is a life long commitment between a man and a woman.In N.Z. the legal rights are provided to those who enter a civil union which is also available to homosexuals.

Hoot Mon responds to me:

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But, Rrhain, the opinion of the vast majority is that "gay marriage" is not the same thing as marriage between a man and a woman.

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But Hoot Mon, the opinion of the vast majority is that "interracial marriage" is not the same thing as marriage between people of the same races. That was precisely the argument used to justify miscegenation laws.Were they legitimate then? If not, why does the sex of the participants matter?

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How could it be? The parts don't fit together.

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Strange...gay people seem to be able to have sex. What is it they know that you don't?Hint: There isn't anything gay people do that straight people don't.

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Note, "marriage" used to mean "between people of the same race."

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Please be specific about the law you are quoting.

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Let's not play dumb. Go look up Perez v. Sharp (1948) 32 Cal.2d 711.You did actually read the court's ruling in the marriage cases, yes? Footnote 32: Note the point: One of the first things the California legislature did as a new state was to nullify interracial marriage. One hundred years later, the CSC overturned that law.Were they wrong to do so? Again, from the ruling on same-sex marriage: You seem to be upset that the court was applying the law.

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Gay people have EXACTLY the same rights as I do. Please explain to me why they don't.

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Gay people can't get married.
Gay people can't serve in the military.
Gay people can be fired for being gay.
Gay people can lose custody of their children for being gay.
Gay people can be denied housing for being gay.
Gay people can have their wills overturned for being gay.
Gay children can be legally tortured by their parents in attempts to make them straight.

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Huh? Are you seriously saying that if a black person and a white person get "married," that somehow affects the marriage of two white people?

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No, I never said anything of the sort.

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But you said that about gay people. If the race of the participants in a marriage doesn't affect the marriages of other people, why would the sex of the participants do so?The arguments you are making are exactly the same ones, word for word, that people used to deny marriage to people of different races. If it was illegitimate in the question of race, why is it suddenly legitimate in the question of sex?

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I don't care who gets married, so long as the law stays out of it.

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Why don't I believe that? Why aren't you at the county clerk's office right now protesting the contract of marriage? Why is it that this sudden upwelling of disgust with regard to the state having a contract for interpersonal relationships only seems to come up when the people wishing to avail themselves of the contract happen to be gay?You admit to having been married three times. Are you saying you never had it licensed by the state?

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What affects me is that I, via the law, have to be a party to it.

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Huh? You're going to be forced into a marriage you don't want because gay people can get married? That makes no sense. What, precisely are you "being a party to"?

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I'm not objecting to civil unions between gays. But I object to anything that conflates government with religion, as is prohibited by the First Amendment.

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But marriage isn't a religious contract with regard to the state. It's a civil contract. So what's the problem?

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I was under the impression that the separation of church and state was established law.

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I believe you are under the right impression.

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So why are you invoking religion in your argument? We're talking about the civil contract of marriage. When you go to the county clerk's office, you ask for a "marriage" license. No religion involved.

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Well, I'm an atheist, and I've been married three times.

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So since you are quite clear on the subject of how marriage is a civil contract, not a religious one, I have to wonder why you are invoking religion as your justification for denying marriage to all citizens.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Catholic Scientist writes:

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I really don't care either way if gay people get married or not. I just don't think we should "turn on the lightswitch" on a federal level that redefines marriage to be between any two people.

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You do realize that there is a severe problem with at least one of those sentences, yes?There appears to be a contradiction: If you don't care if gay people get married, why do you care if marriage is "redefined" as between people regardless of their sex? Either you care or you don't.Too, just to make sure you aren't being disingenuous, nobody is saying marriage should be "between any two people." The question of marriage as it applies to the sex of the participants does not have anything to say to the question of, say, the familial relationship or the mental capacity of the participants.

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Another thing I don't like is drawing up lines and creating new groups of people and then finding some way that they are discriminated against so that laws can be made more liberal.

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So when the laws against miscegenation were struck down, that was a bad thing, right?Blacks and white shouldn't be allowed to get married to each other, right?"New groups of people"? You mean there were no gays until recently?

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Its those small nudges to the left over and over again that are eventually going to push us over the edge.

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(*chuckle*)Yeah, all that talk about "freedom and justice for all," that's just "liberal" claptrap.Well, actually, when you get right down to it, it is quite liberal. The idea that human beings are entitled to equal protection under the law is a liberal idea, not a conservative or centrist one. Given your reaction to all things "liberal," it is starting to make sense why you hold the Constitution in such contempt.It's a liberal document.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Catholic Scientist writes:

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They have every right that I have. I can't marry someone of the same sex either. This talk of them being denied rights is bullshit.

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(*chuckle*)You really don't know much about American jurisprudence, do you?As Anatole France put it: Now, he was French, but that sentiment has been taken up by the American judicial system. Laws that technically apply across the board are still discriminatory if in practice they really only affect one class of people.By your logic, miscegenation laws were perfectly OK as nobody was denied any right: A black person couldn't marry a white person just as much as a white person couldn't marry a black person. Equal, right?So the CSC and the SCOTUS were both wrong to strike down miscegenation laws, rights?

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Know that marring someone you love or want to fuck has nothing to do with the law. The law sees marriage as a social contract, with limitations.

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Then why does the INS take so poorly to "marriages of convenience"? Why do they look for signs of actual commingling of lives as would be expected by two people in love? Why do they ask about consummating the marriage?Why can a marriage be annulled if you haven't had sex? Annulment is not just another term for divorce. A divorce breaks the contract of marriage. Annulment means it never existed in the first place. Getting a divorce means you go through the various laws regarding the division of property, prenuptial agreements, etc. Annulment means none of that applies since there was never a marriage.Why is one of the reasons that you can sue for divorce lack of marital relations?Why is one of the reasons you can sue someone else loss of marital relations?Marriage is about sex. There are lots of other things attached to it, yes, but the big point is that it legitimizes a sexual relationship.

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Because some states were going to marry gays anyways, even though it wasn't legit.

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Huh? That's not what it was. The Hawaii Supreme Court was about to decide that the fundamental right of marriage, as declare by the SCOTUS, could not be denied to gay people. But before they could publish their ruling, the people of Hawaii voted for a constitutional amendment to ban equality in marriage, rendering the decision moot.Thus, there were no states that were going to marry anybody. And yet, the US Congress felt the need to pass DOMA. Considering that marriage is not a contract carried out by the feds, one has to wonder why they bothered.It wasn't that equal marriage isn't legitimate. It's that there was a threat of recognizing the legitimacy of equality in marriage.

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They passed it to defend the definition of marriage, hence the name, not to go on the offensive against gay people.

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BWAHAHAHA!Yeah, right! And the "Clear Skies Initiative" is actually about reducing pollution. The reason they called it the "Defense" of Marriage Act is precisely because they were going on the offensive against gay people. To call it the "Discrimination Against Citizens Act" wouldn't have had nearly as many sponsors.Question: If gay people get married, exactly how many straight people will be legally prevented from getting married and how many will be legally required to get divorced or have their marriages annulled?If the answer is none, then one has to wonder what the threat was such that marriage needed "defending." I'm a bit confused how allowing more people to get married is a threat to marriage.Be specific.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Catholic Scientist writes:

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They aren't being denied those rights in the sense that the State explicitly says that they cannot have them.

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Huh? If certain rights only come with marriage and if marriage is explicitly denied, how does one come to the conclusion that those rights are not being explicitly denied?

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The 14th amendment says that a State cannot have a law that deny's priviledges to its citizens.

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So gay people aren't citizens?

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There isn't a law that deny's gays priviledges.

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So why can't gay people get married?
Why can't gay people serve in the military?
Why can gay people be fired for being gay?
Why can gay people lose custody of their children for being gay?
Why can gay people be denied housing for being gay?
Why can gay people have their wills overturned for being gay?
Why can gay children be tortured by their parents in attempts to make them straight?

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So yeah, it sucks for gay people that they don't have those benefits and it'd be nice if they got those benefits.

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Huh? Now I'm confused. First, you said there aren't any rights that gay people don't have and now you say that there are rights that gay people don't have. Which is it?

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You know the 14th was written for slaves.

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What does that have to do with anything? Are you seriously claiming that the various rulings that rely upon Fourteenth Amendment justifications are all null and void simply because we don't have slavery anymore? If that's the case, then what on earth is the point of even having the Fourteenth Amendment? The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery.You seem to hold the Constitution in extreme contempt. As mentioned previously, I think I can understand why:It's a liberal document. With your severe reaction against all things "liberal," it is not surprising to find that you consider equality to be distasteful. It's a "liberal" value.

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The gay partner doesn't count as a spouse. That's why all that occurs, not because of homophobic bigots.

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(*chuckle*)You do realize that those two sentences contradict each other, yes?"The gay partner doesn't count as a spouse" is an inherently homphobic, bigotted remark.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

VirtuousGuile writes:

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Also I get tried of being an evil homophobic if I don't support the perspective favourable to homosexuality.

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Hey, I understand the response.But if one cannot accept the equality of all people regardless of sexual orientation, that that necessarily makes one a bigot and if your attitude is that gay people are to be denied complete equality at all levels, then that necessarily makes you, in your words, "an evil homophobic."Nobody likes to think that they are evil. So if you don't like being evil, then stop what you're doing that makes it so.Why are you so obsessed with other people's sex lives?

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A marriage as I believe the conception of the general majority is a life long commitment between a man and a woman.

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So rights are only for the popular?Not that helpful if the only things that are "rights" are things that nobody would think of denying in the first place. The point of a "right" is to defend those things that are unpopular. It's that whole "tyranny of the majority" thing.The general majority in many countries used to think that black people weren't citizens but instead were chattel.Did that make slavery right? We here in the United States went to war over it. Are you saying that was a bad idea?

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In N.Z. the legal rights are provided to those who enter a civil union which is also available to homosexuals.

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...except it's not the same. A civil union in New Zealand is not equivalent to marriage.And surely you're not saying that your entire objection to equality is a semantic one, are you? If the sticking point for you truly is the word, then why don't you change the word for your relationship? The rest of the world will keep the word "marriage" and you can have your "special friendship" or whatever you want to call it.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

If it has nothing to do with sexual attaction or love, then why should it have anything to do with gender?

Yes legally it is the same. Culturally no it is not. They only get support if someone thinks they're popular. It is not an established right. So debate over its status is clearly on the agenda.It is not clear to me that the case for nature versus nurture has yet been made. As a right it only has a basis as nature. It is very clear that to disagree with homosexuality is a taboo but that is not a reason to recognize it as right.So on the assumption that it is nurtured (as nature would be). It it harder to say that black man is not a man. With homosexuality the issue is not whether you are human or not. Even if you are man or a woman. If it is nurture based than you cannot appeal to to this argument.So sir by your own words I have a reason for my position thus I am not a bigot but the slur bigot is common if one does not agree with the homosexual position.

Your asking me to seriously believe that after over 270 posts, you had no idea what we're talking about when it comes to the "rights" of gays as they relate to marriage. All this crappola from you and Hoot Mon about how "they can marry anyone of the opposite sex they want" and "I can't marry someone of the same sex either" wasn't your way of avoiding the obvious issue? Forgive me if I don't believe you. Does this not reek of circular reasoning to you? Where did these stupid fucking "Laws" come from Catholic Scientist? No need to answer CS, it's a rhetorical question because we both know the answer is that they are the result of homophobic bigots getting all fussy because they find the idea of two guys getting married icky. Or...and this makes it completely Unconstitutional...because of their religious beliefs.There were no laws against homosexual marriages until such time that States (and now the Feds) started writing and passing them. Not until DOMA (on the fed level) and other State laws were passed. How so? Honestly, how is it possible that the 14th Amendment doesn't apply to gay people. They are citizens of this Country...are they not. For the love of God CS...stop already with this pathetic, insulting, stupid, dumb-ass line of reasoning. Enough is enough. I mean, you just went though explaining to me that you had no idea what "rights" I was talking about...and that you were confused between what Granny was saying and what I was saying...and now you go right back to saying this same ole garbage. So I guess we all now know that your first paragraph is bullshit...and that you knew exactly what I was taking about the whole time. But you're the one creating this sub-group. You're the one that wants to deny a certain group of individuals their Constitutional rights. Not me...Catholic Scientist...you. You're the one that wants to come up with multiple definitions of a marriage so that each little group of people you dislike can have their own type of marriage with their own little set of special laws.Me...well...I just want everyone to be treated equally under the Law. Marriage didn't need to be re-defined until homophobic bigots decided to discriminate against homosexuals. That's just it though Catholic Scientist...there were no problems until homophobic bigots decided to define marriage in such a way as to discriminate against homosexuals. The Libs didn't fucking do anything CS...it was conservative homophobic bigots that changed the laws. Libs did nothing, except actually read and fucking understand the Constitution. Here we go with the "Libs" bullshit. Liberal judges making laws...liberal media won't leave "W" alone...Liberals twisting the Constitution.Piss off, Catholic Scientist. Either present some evidence of this vast liberal conspiracy bullshit, or save it for the gullible morons at your local homophobe meeting. This sorta crap doesn't fly here. I can only thank god that you were not one of the writers. What a completely dumb-ass argument, Catholic Scientist. Are you sure you want to use this line of reasoning? Do you not know anything, at all, whatsoever, about the framers of our Constitution and why they wrote it the way they did? Please oh please oh please, do tell, Catholic Scientist, please do tell us all what the original framers of the Constitution meant when they wrote it. This should be a hoot (not a Hoot Mon...just a "hoot").Look...the Constitution was written to be fluid, to be dynamic...not static, Catholic Scientist. It was purposefully written with broad terminology just so this very sort of thing wouldn't happen. The Rights and Amendments were purposefully broadly defined...to prevent the majority from ruling the minority. I'm really surprised you didn't know this.Believe me, Catholic Scientist, I am fully confident that the framers of our Constitution would be 100% on my side in this particular discussion. No doubt about it...none. No shit, Sherlock...that's the whole fucking problem. Bull and shit. Why else is this happening then, if not for the "new" laws and "new" definitions that deny homosexuals the same rights and protections that heterosexuals get? Explain to me how our Constitution doesn't apply to homosexuals.

Do you believe this? If so, you're deluded. Straight men don't try to have sex with other men. Straight women don't try to have sex with other women. Do these count for anything? Wrong! NOTHING prohibits them from marriage, so long as they do it with members of opposite sexes. What ever happened to "Don't ask. Don't tell."? Are you saying then that gays can do a lot of this that straights can't do? Fundamental flaw: Race and sexual orientation are two entirely different things. For you to imply, by way of your assertion, that a black man's plight in our culture is equal to that of a gay man then you are a bigot of the highest order. Have you forgotten that our government is constituted to be "of the people, by the people, and for the people"? This put ME right in the middle of what my government does. The problem is that the state needs to get out of the business of "marriage" and restrict its jurisdiction to civil unions. There are no valid arguments for why the state should do the business of the church. In fact, the First Amendment strictly prohibits it.”HM

You really need to learn what the word "bigot" means. It's like you're a little child that has heard the word "fuck" for the first time, and then goes around repeating it over and over and over at inappropriate times because he likes the way it sounds.

A bigot is someone who is unwilling to respect another person's opinion.You clearly have disrespected, and have been unwilling to respect, both my and HM's opinions.Ergo, you're a bigot. Bigot:a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion. Intolerant:1. not tolerating or respecting beliefs, opinions, usages, manners, etc., different from one's own, as in political or religious matters; bigoted. Edited by Catholic Scientist, : No reason given.Edited by Catholic Scientist, : No reason given.

Well, I guess that blows my signature all to hell.
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I mean, this is America. Everybody loves seeing lesbians go at it, as long as they are both hot and not in a monogamous, legally sanctioned relationship.

You keep saying that I am unwilling to respect your opinion...and I keep telling you that while I may vehemently disagree with your opinion, I do respect that you have one. Hell, I think it's wonderful that you and I can have differing opinions and that we have the right to express those opinions. Disagreeing is not bigotry.But there's something you conveniently keep forgetting about our "two" opinions. Your view point denies a certain group of people (based solely on their sexual orientation) some of the same protections and privileges that you get. That's what makes you a bigot. You want laws passed and definitions written (and/or re-written) that will result in homosexuals not getting the same Constitutional protections that you, as a heterosexual, get. That's why you are a bigot.How can I be a bigot when I do not want homosexuals to be treated any differently that I myself am treated? Ya know, simply calling me a bigot because I completely disagree with you does not, ipso facto, make me a bigot. If my actions somehow denied to others (you...since you claim I am bigoted against you) some of the rights, privileges, and protections afforded me, by our Constitution as a U.S. citizen , then I would be as you...a classic example of a bigot.