Congratulations, America!

[N1ghtmare]

So if Texas keeps refusing do we get to pull a gay-little rock nine and send in paratroopers to escort gay couples to the courtroom?

Other than that literally every argument for and against this issue is the same argument made for and against interracial marriage. So the outcome will be the same, inherently.

 

[Carbon]

I wonder how the struggle of marriage, which for American straight couples has only a 40 ~ 50% success rate, will play out for gay couples? I predict over a ten year mean to see a divorce rate upwards of 80% for male couples, 10 ~ 20% for female, based on nothing but hope.

I also can't wait to see the reality TV shows that will inevitably appear. I could imagine watching a serious drama surrounding any gay marriage as some form of uncanny valley.

 

[[GU]elmur_fud]

So if Texas keeps refusing do we get to pull a gay-little rock nine and send in paratroopers to escort gay couples to the courtroom?

Other than that literally every argument for and against this issue is the same argument made for and against interracial marriage. So the outcome will be the same, inherently.

Texas hasn't refused. I don't have statistics on how many same sex marriages have been filed here but they are happening and in enough numbers that some people here seemed shocked at just how many homosexuals are in the more major metropolitan areas.

The Texas attorney general stated that in his opinion clerks have the right to decline to process same-sex licenses on a religious objection basis... Which is to me a poorly thought out legal notion. For instance, I still work nights in retail as 1 of my jobs. It is against the religion I grew up in's moral (to a degree) and health beliefs to eat pork. That doesn't mean I have the right to refuse to sell pork to people. Sure if I owned the business I could just not carry it, but I don't, and part of my job is to sell customers any product we carry. I would find myself out of that job awfully quick were I to refuse such a thing.

To restate a sentiment from my previous post; Your right to hold a belief doesn't extend to subjugating the lives of others to your beliefs.

 

[tomcat ha]

there are plenty of countries with legalized gay marriages. the statistics havent really budged there.
I think the taboo of divorce should also die. People should stop getting their panties in a bunch and just divorce when it stops working just remarry/whatever. Making it low key will be better for the kids and still being able to get along with your ex.

i do hope for a eventual sorta poly amorous future. Not so much because i want to bang 10 bitches different bitches every day but because i can't imagine myself being a long consort to anyone and i feel like if i look at more traditional tribes that it doesnt really go against human nature. Although maybe with our large scale societies that kind of polyamory wont work anymore

 

[Jacks:Revenge]

To restate a sentiment from my previous post; Your right to hold a belief doesn't extend to subjugating the lives of others to your beliefs.

I'm glad you're capable of admitting it.

what Tomcat said above me is poignant, too.
the reason marriage is stupid and shouldn't be the sole domain of straight people is exactly because of divorce. marriage is obviously not a religious institution, between interfaith marriages and arranged marriages, the lies that build up in order to keep 2 incompatible people together. it is obviously not the bedrock foundation of a "successful" society. rich or poor, the only thing that really matters is having love and support, not a perfect set of Mommy and Daddy. it is obviously not sacred or sacrosanct because the people who already get married do not treat it with any respect. partners cheating on each other leading to expensive divorces and ugly custody battles. straight people didn't care about marriage to begin with, they don't deserve to tell other people how to use it.

 

[[GU]elmur_fud]

I'm glad you're capable of admitting it.

what Tomcat said above me is poignant, too.
the reason marriage is stupid and shouldn't be the sole domain of straight people is exactly because of divorce. marriage is obviously not a religious institution, between interfaith marriages and arranged marriages, the lies that build up in order to keep 2 incompatible people together. it is obviously not the bedrock foundation of a "successful" society. rich or poor, the only thing that really matters is having love and support, not a perfect set of Mommy and Daddy. it is obviously not sacred or sacrosanct because the people who already get married do not treat it with any respect. partners cheating on each other leading to expensive divorces and ugly custody battles. straight people didn't care about marriage to begin with, they don't deserve to tell other people how to use it.

Capable of admitting it? I hope I am reading to much into that. It sounds like a backhanded compliment and I have always been a fair minded individual.

For the same reason as what you quoted, marriage can be 'sacred'. It all depends upon the level of respect an individual has for it. Which by extension means it isn't restrictive to heterosexuals. Since what is or isn't sacred is entirely subject to the individual.

As to the "bedrock foundation of a "successful" society" comment... Does anybody but idiots and/or the uninformed honestly try and sing this song anymore? It has been well known for years that the divorce/marriage rates have very little to no impact upon the success of a society.

 

[BillyBadAss]

This is the part that bothers me about the entire thing. The next logical battle will be legally forcing a church to allow it via a 'but discrimination!' lawsuit just like the ones that shuttered the Christian-owned businesses here in the states because they asked for religious consideration. It's coming too. US government has pretty much taken proxy control of everything since 9-11 and church is the last place for SCOTUS to establish dominance. It's interesting that we are here to bear witness to the waning days of the America we know.

That's never going to happen. It would raise hell with every religion organization in The U.S. The First Amendment says so, it was the founding purpose of this country. If it really happens, America will be as different as Germany and Nazi Germany. Gays being able to marry says we are doing exactly what this country was founded on by not letting the church have a word on legal issues and it works the other direction too.

 

[Jacks:Revenge]

Capable of admitting it? I hope I am reading to much into that. It sounds like a backhanded compliment

you're reading too much into it.

I'm glad you're capable of acknowledging reality.
not because I don't think that you Elmur Fud weren't capable or that I expected otherwise, but because people in general have a difficult time with that.

it's a compliment to yourself and humanity at large.

As to the "bedrock foundation of a "successful" society" comment... Does anybody but idiots and/or the uninformed honestly try and sing this song anymore?

you know as well as I do that plenty of people still think this way.
there are massive political pacs and think tanks devoted to the 'Traditional Values' or 'Traditional Family' movement. they are alive and well in spite of the sweeping social changes we're seeing. they will continue to be alive and well until the simple passage of time begins to erode their remaining support.

but they haven't disappeared over night just due to this latest Court ruling.

 

[[GU]elmur_fud]

...
it's a compliment to yourself and humanity at large.


you know as well as I do that plenty of people still think this way.
there are massive political pacs and think tanks devoted to the 'Traditional Values' or 'Traditional Family' movement. they are alive and well in spite of the sweeping social changes we're seeing. they will continue to be alive and well until the simple passage of time begins to erode their remaining support.

but they haven't disappeared over night just due to this latest Court ruling.

Sure I know that plenty of people do. But I count them to be idiots and/or uninformed. So in my opinion they don't count. As of 1 week and 1 day ago I have been happily married for 15 years. I understand better then many the value of marriage, but its impact upon the success of a society has dwindled over the last century and is now nominal at best and in all truth it is more likely almost non-existent.

That aside though, I find the whole thing poorly thought out and terribly presumptuous that it takes a person of each gender to form a 'successful marriage'.

 

[Jacks:Revenge]

well I won't argue that they're abject idiots and vastly uninformed.
but I'm afraid their opinions do count in certain circles and they still carry weight.

we've never really gotten past the Civil Rights movement. not in actuality.
blatant racism and sexism may have been swept under the rug in public but hidden/institutional oppression and subjugation is still very much alive and kicking. they fill mega-churches and convention seminars, they sell-out speaking tours and book sales, they make millions on TV and radio, they have millions of followers online and in blogs/forums.

there's a reason why it's been so hard to stamp out this bigotry.
there's a reason why we have more public massacres, riots, and shooting sprees than any other developed nation.

I'm not saying individual Conservatives are all as bad as Republican leadership represents them.
but unfortunately Republican leadership has led your party so far astray that it's reached comical levels of absurdity; when GOP leadership speaks it's like watching an actual Monty Python or Saturday Night Live skit. it's in-fucking-credible how out-of-touch they've become.

 

[Al]

I'm not saying individual Conservatives are all as bad as Republican leadership represents them.
but unfortunately Republican leadership has led your party so far astray that it's reached comical levels of absurdity; when GOP leadership speaks it's like watching an actual Monty Python or Saturday Night Live skit. it's in-fucking-credible how out-of-touch they've become.

Totally agree. Sometimes when listening to them spew their rhetoric, I wonder if I've gone completely insane and they're not really saying what they're saying. I just find it un-fucking-believable that people actually acknowledge and believe what they're hearing out of the mouths of most of the major Republican presidential candidates, for instance.

Is it crazy to believe "Bridgegate" Chris Christie would probably be the most sane out of the lot?

 

[Sir_Brizz]

The way in which this "law" was enacted is worrying if not downright scary. Essentially, the Supreme Court has decided that they have the power to rewrite existing law to mean whatever they darn well please it to mean and make that the new law of the land without any check or balance. Before you start saying "it's okay" imagine if the Court was loaded with anti-abortion fanatics and they applied the same test to say that a fetus' rights required the full protections of the law.

The correct process that this should have followed was for the Supreme Court to invalidate DOMA, which would mean there was no federal legislation regarding marriage one way or the other. The decision should have also invalidated many state laws leaving the majority of states without legislation regarding marriage one way or the other. In the short term, this would have left it up to State leadership to decide how to proceed.

Afterwards, a new piece of legislation should be crafted that is Consitutional.

However, given the fact that "marriage" as a term isn't even socially relevant anymore, I would perfectly happy if the government refused to support the pointless construct any further and abolished the construct from governmental involvement altogether. Not only would this save time and money but would give everyone what they wanted (even other fringe groups that this decision does nothing for). At that point "marriage" would be whatever you decide it should be. Why should the government uphold the construct anymore?

I'm sure the next post replying to me will say something about rights/benefits/whatever so let me nip that one in the bud. The current social environment in the US currently does not provide well for anyone that is in a non-traditional relationship. Those things that are "so easy" to transfer to another person through marriage really need to be "so easy" to transfer to another person full stop. A good example is that aging, unmarried siblings might want each other to have next of kin, power of attorney, insurance, etc. benefits which should be their right but they shouldn't have to be able to get married to make that happen. The same is true in many other platonic relationships. For all those people, this decision does nothing to help them or solve the actual rights problem that continues to exist in this country.

 

[N1ghtmare]

Ah, the typical "If I cant have my version of marriage nobody can".

You do realize the supreme court is the check to the balance of states abusing their power (in this case).

But I said it before in this thread; that entire argument above me is the same argument used against interracial marriage and desegregation. /they doesn't hold up in court, and that's why they all lost.

 

[[GU]elmur_fud]

... Republican leadership has led your party so far astray that it's reached comical levels of absurdity...

I have no party affiliations. I genuinely find party politics to be an archaic and intellectually vacuous notion that only promotes corruption within our legal system.

P.S. I realize you weren't actually referring to me but to conservatives, however your wording could lead somebody to think otherwise.

Also I meant to say thank you for the compliment above.

 

[Sir_Brizz]

Ah, the typical "If I cant have my version of marriage nobody can".

No. I didn't state anything about my preferences for how marriage is recognized. This is simple. Why does the government recognize marriage in the first place? If there is no purpose behind it, the government shouldn't have anything to do with it. It's not an enumerated power in the Constitution, which doesn't mean they shouldn't necessarily... but it doesn't mean they should, so why should they?

You do realize the supreme court is the check to the balance of states abusing their power (in this case).

The court gets to decide which laws are Constitutional and which laws aren't. They also get to interpret the meaning of existing laws as they are written. In this case they are defining what the law should be, not what the law is as written. They are also not validating the Constitutionality of the existing law. That is a huge abuse of power. The three branches of government are supposed to be checks and balances for each other, but where is the check or balance on this? The Judiciary is not the checker and balancer of the government.

But I said it before in this thread; that entire argument above me is the same argument used against interracial marriage and desegregation. /they doesn't hold up in court, and that's why they all lost.

Uhhh, which part of my argument was used against interracial marriage or desegregation? My argument above says nothing about whether gay people should be able to get married or not.

If you're talking about the abuse of power by the Supreme Court, it's not terribly surprising it might have been brought up then. The Supreme Court has been used as a stick to normalize whatever preferences "the man in charge" has for the last 50+ years now. This isn't an argument against any type of marriage, this is an argument against the Supreme Court abusing their power and not doing their job as it is defined. They don't get to say gay marriage is legal. They get to say that laws limiting marriage are not Constitutional.

 

[Manticore]

This:

They don't get to say gay marriage is legal. They get to say that laws limiting marriage are not Constitutional.

 

[Jacks:Revenge]

...which means that gay marriage is legal.

toMato
tomAto

poTato
potAto

gay marriage is legal whether y'all bigots like it or not.

 

[gopostal]

This is what really bothers me about discussing gay marriage. I can't dislike it or else I'm a full on "bigot" and "homophobe". It's an end-around move to quash freedom of speech and it's working far too well. You are entitled to your opinion and I am mine and efforts by either side to try to stifle the other's right to respectfully discuss their thoughts on the matter ought not to be tolerated. People are losing their jobs, their careers, their very freedom by only speaking what they believe in. And before you go "Well, they deserve that!" would you feel the same if it were reversed? If a gay couple were fired from their job for being in a same sex relationship would you say the same? OFC not.

Using 'bigot' in your post shows the real intolerance at work.

How about whether you like it or not a standard marriage is special and unique, no matter what laws are passed. No other union besides a man and woman can create new life. Gay marriage is a biological dead end. I wouldn't condemn anyone for being in a same sex relationship but it's very clear that nature selects against that type of union. (Notice: no religion-speak so let's not bring that strawman to the party. I can do just fine without needing to include that.)

Marriage doesn't need redefined, it works very well for what it was intended to do. Government needs to get out of the marriage business anyway. They should create a civil union and enforce that. It just kills me that this is what will drive Christianity into the fringes (again) by the coming lawsuits forcing churches to marry against their doctrine.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/s...iests-to-perform-same-sex-marriages-or-lose-l
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/oct/20/idaho-citys-ordinance-tells-pastors-to-marry-gays-/

There's no true tolerance by anyone involved.

Edit: check this out, and it's my home state
http://www.breitbart.com/big-govern...sues-gag-order-against-opposing-gay-marriage/

1995: We don’t want marriage, just civil unions.
2005: Our marriage won’t affect your rights.
2014: Bake me a cake, or else.
2015: Your opinion against same sex marriage is illegal.

Next logical step is....?

 

[tomcat ha]

Intolerance against intolerance is not the same as being homophobic dude. That is like crying about people finding it shitty if someone who says wildly discriminatory things gets repercussions because of it.

as for gay marriage being a dead end. Why? We don't even really understand homosexuality. We know homo and bisexuality are common in the animal kingdom especially among the more social species. The animals with the most rampant sex lives are bonobos and they are our closest relatives. As for when it comes to humanity we know a couple things. We know that mothers with homosexual children tend to have more kids and we know having older male siblings also increases the chance.
This still barely tells us anything. Anyway the % of homosexuality and to a lesser extend bisexuality in the general human population is so high that there must be some kind of evolutionary advantage at work. Either directly or indirectly.

Also saying that marriage should just be for children then i guess infertile people should never get married either.

 

[Jacks:Revenge]

How about whether you like it or not a standard marriage is special and unique, no matter what laws are passed. No other union besides a man and woman can create new life. Gay marriage is a biological dead end. I wouldn't condemn anyone for being in a same sex relationship but it's very clear that nature selects against that type of union. (Notice: no religion-speak so let's not bring that strawman to the party. I can do just fine without needing to include that.)?

if this is how you honestly feel then you're a bigot.
a petty bigot, but a bigot all the same.

if marriage was JUST ABOUT BIOLOGICAL PROCREATION then you have to concede that the elderly, the infertile, the mentally handicapped, the sick, and the lame cannot get married either. oh, and you have to agree that any young woman or man who has a medical issue that prevents them from bearing children cannot get married either.

but you wouldn't agree to that because it's absurd.
so you shouldn't have any problem with gay marriage.

marriage was never about biological procreation.
at its most ancient core, marriage is a form of Patriarchal Societal Control. it's a system designed by men to ensure that men remain at the top of the societal food chain, so to speak. it's a control on property rights (like the dowry) and social class restraints. it was mostly intended to keep the poor people separate from the ruling classes so that they wouldn't intermix.

it has nothing to do with procreation.
that's just the scraps that the religious community left on the table after they realized they couldn't subjugate women any longer....