Obergefell v. Hodges

[NWODurruti]

On a more positive notes:  Glory, glory hallelujah.


On this day let us also remember the victims of evil and bigotry:

Rebecca Wight.

Matthew Shepard

Lawrence "Larry" King

Steen Fenrich


And many more.  The Tree of Liberty has long been watered by the blood of martyrs, but the blooms have been too few.  But, for at least today, it feel like Spring in America. 

[screwtape]

I don't think this decision is going to have any more effect on people's attitudes about gays and gay marriage than supreme court decisions about race had on race relations. In the latter case I think it probably made things worse and might even have the same effect here.

[MediumTex]

I might add to that list the ten people who were murdered by the Beltway sniper in the Washington, D.C. area in 2002.

Senseless violence is always tragic.  I don't know if it's worse to kill people because they are gay or to kill people for no reason at all.  It's probably just as bad either way, and the victims are certainly just as dead.

[Xan]

I doubt that gay "marriage" would have prevented any of those killings.  Madbean is right.  Particularly since this edict came down by judicial fiat, rather than as a result of people actually becoming convinced of anything, it's likely to simply entrench everyone in their positions.

As Justice Roberts put it, "Stealing this issue from the people will for many cast a cloud over same-sex marriage, making a dramatic social change that much more difficult to accept."

[Pointedstick]

I am happy about the result, but not the methods used to get there. It seems like  this movement was progressing quite nicely through the states on its own, with the number of states that permit gay marriage rising from 12 to 37 (I think) in the space of only a few years. That can be considered quite a stunning ascension! I don't see why the supreme court was required to extend it to the remaining states when the momentum was clearly in that direction anyway. I guess the supreme court didn't learn any lessons from Roe v. Wade.

Relatedly, and in concert with the week's other major ruling on Obamacare, it strikes me that we can formally close the door on Textualism and can probably expect to see Scalia's resignation soon. His ship has sailed, and apparently it sank.

[Xan]

The 37 number is significantly exaggerated, I think.  A large portion of those were states which wished to not grant the marriage licenses, but were being forced to by court order, orders which were all pending (in one direction or another) the result of this case.

[NWODurruti]

I don't think this decision is going to have any more effect on people's attitudes about gays and gay marriage than supreme court decisions about race had on race relations. In the latter case I think it probably made things worse and might even have the same effect here.

You should read MLK's Letter from Birmingham Jail.  You would have been part of his intended audience.  I would argue that it was insufficient "judicial activism," a favorite word of the defenders of the status quo, decades before Brown vs. Board of Education, that explains much of the awfulness of the American South in the post reconstruction era. 

I might add to that list the ten people who were murdered by the Beltway sniper in the Washington, D.C. area in 2002.
Senseless violence is always tragic.  I don't know if it's worse to kill people because they are gay or to kill people for no reason at all.  It's probably just as bad either way, and the victims are certainly just as dead.


Okay...

1)  We agree that murdering people is a very bad thing to do.

2)  Those people were murdered because they were Gay.  Only a few years later, the right of a Gay couple to get married has been upheld by the highest court in the land.  From the darkest acts of intolerance, we have progressed to the point, in a fairly short amount of time, that the equality of people regardless of sexual orientation, has been upheld by the highest court of the land and has been celebrated throughout the country.  I made a juxtaposition of images.

3)  These murders were not "senseless."  There was a very particular reason for why they were murdered. 


I doubt that gay "marriage" would have prevented any of those killings.  Madbean is right.  Particularly since this edict came down by judicial fiat, rather than as a result of people actually becoming convinced of anything, it's likely to simply entrench everyone in their positions.

As Justice Roberts put it, "Stealing this issue from the people will for many cast a cloud over same-sex marriage, making a dramatic social change that much more difficult to accept."

A person's constitutional rights are not decided by popular vote.  Also, the fact that you put marriage in quotation makes it very hard for me to take you seriously. 

[Xan]

Also, the fact that you put marriage in quotation makes it very hard for me to take you seriously.

Hang on, now.  In the history of civilization, many thousands of years, the idea of two people of the same sex being married to each other was a contradiction in terms.  The idea was invented what, 10, 20 years ago?  And now that position is so ridiculous that it can't be taken seriously?  To quote Justice Roberts again, "Who do [you] think [you] are?"

[moda0306]

The courts have "stolen issues from the people" time and time again when "the people" vote in unconstitutional laws.  Obviously, this is all up to interpretation, but a huge role of the courts is to "steal issues from the people."  It's what you do to prevent tyranny of the majority, and enforce the equal protection clause.

Ideally this stuff would happen as a result of majorities simply being fair.  But part of the reason we have a constitution rather than just a wide-open majority rule is because mobs often aren't.

[screwtape]

You should read MLK's Letter from Birmingham Jail.  You would have been part of his intended audience.  I would argue that it was insufficient "judicial activism," a favorite word of the defenders of the status quo, decades before Brown vs. Board of Education, that explains much of the awfulness of the American South in the post reconstruction era. 

I was a freshman in high school when MLK wrote that letter and I was a big fan of his. Probably read it then but don't remember. I became an even bigger fan when he spoke out against the war in Vietnam. Not so much when I learned more about him in later years.

But you raise an interesting point which is probably too off-topic for this thread. What would the South look like today if it hadn't been for the federal government's involvement with the Civil Rights Act, Brown vs. the Board of Education which led to court-ordered forced busing, etcetera? Do you think Southerners would still be clinging to their prejudices or was it only by governmental force that the change in attitude came about?

[Xan]

The courts have "stolen issues from the people" time and time again when "the people" vote in unconstitutional laws.  Obviously, this is all up to interpretation, but a huge role of the courts is to "steal issues from the people."  It's what you do to prevent tyranny of the majority, and enforce the equal protection clause.

Ideally this stuff would happen as a result of majorities simply being fair.  But part of the reason we have a constitution rather than just a wide-open majority rule is because mobs often aren't.

We're talking about a lot more than an unconstitutional law.  This is the finding that all of human history up until yesterday has been unconstitutional!

[MediumTex]

I might add to that list the ten people who were murdered by the Beltway sniper in the Washington, D.C. area in 2002.
Senseless violence is always tragic.  I don't know if it's worse to kill people because they are gay or to kill people for no reason at all.  It's probably just as bad either way, and the victims are certainly just as dead.

Okay...

1)  We agree that murdering people is a very bad thing to do.

2)  Those people were murdered because they were Gay.  Only a few years later, the right of a Gay couple to get married has been upheld by the highest court in the land.  From the darkest acts of intolerance, we have progressed to the point, in a fairly short amount of time, that the equality of people regardless of sexual orientation, has been upheld by the highest court of the land and has been celebrated throughout the country.  I made a juxtaposition of images.

A person who would murder someone because he or she is gay probably feels the same way today that he felt yesterday.  The Supreme Court didn't change that.  I think that murdering people because they are gay hasn't been anything most people would have thought about doing for a very long time (maybe even since the Old Testament), so I don't know how much that tells us about the way most people feel about homosexuality. 

It is certainly true that attitudes toward homosexuality are far more progressive now than they used to be, but the metric I might use would be the frequency with which gay people are ridiculed by morning DJs, rather than the number of people who are murdered for being gay.  It used to be a staple of morning radio to have skits making fun of gay people (I suspect because imitations of a gay male voice translate well over radio), but those days are definitely behind us now.

3)  These murders were not "senseless."  There was a very particular reason for why they were murdered.

Are you seriously arguing with me about whether it is senseless to murder people because they are gay?  I don't like to use this word, but that feels a lot like trolling to me.

A person's constitutional rights are not decided by popular vote.

Well, Constitutional rights ARE kind of decided by popular vote (we adopt and change the Constitution by a series of votes).  It's the interpretation of those Constitutional rights that are not subject to popular vote.  The next time you think that Constitutional rights are anything but a political construct, try using a copy of the Constitution to parry a bayonet thrust.

[NWODurruti]

Are you seriously arguing with me about whether it is senseless to murder people because they are gay?  I don't like to use this word, but that feels a lot like trolling to me.

I assure you that I am not trolling.  It is not senseless in the literal sens of the word (without discernible meaning or purpose).  He was murdered because he was Gay.  The people were murdered by other people who did not think that Gay people had the right to live  "out in the open."  There was a definite purpose being fulfilled in the killings.  I would agree though that the purpose being served was reprehensible. 

[Pointedstick]

As Justice Roberts put it, "Stealing this issue from the people will for many cast a cloud over same-sex marriage, making a dramatic social change that much more difficult to accept."[/b]

A person's constitutional rights are not decided by popular vote.  Also, the fact that you put marriage in quotation makes it very hard for me to take you seriously.

I dunno, politicians and regions that don't like certain constitutional rights put them to a popular vote all the time. But granting that theoretically they shouldn't, the question was, is gay marriage a constitutional right? The court decided yes. But before today, it wasn't a constitutional right, and therefore was subject to popular vote.

[NWODurruti]

Also, the fact that you put marriage in quotation makes it very hard for me to take you seriously.

Hang on, now.  In the history of civilization, many thousands of years, the idea of two people of the same sex being married to each other was a contradiction in terms.  The idea was invented what, 10, 20 years ago?  And now that position is so ridiculous that it can't be taken seriously?  To quote Justice Roberts again, "Who do [you] think [you] are?"

Actually for most of the history of marriage it was between one man and several women if he preferred it that way.  Also, for most of the history of marriage the woman was seen as property.  When did it become illegal to rape your wife?  The 1970's?

Are you saying that the longevity of a tradition is, in and of itself, a sufficient defense for its legitimacy/continuation?  Is slavery a legitimate business practice because it has been around for thousands of years?

[craigr]

I banned NWODurruti. IMO, he's trolling.

[MediumTex]

Are you seriously arguing with me about whether it is senseless to murder people because they are gay?  I don't like to use this word, but that feels a lot like trolling to me.

I assure you that I am not trolling.  It is not senseless in the literal sens of the word (without discernible meaning or purpose).  He was murdered because he was Gay.  The people were murdered by other people who did not think that Gay people had the right to live  "out in the open."  There was a definite purpose being fulfilled in the killings.  I would agree though that the purpose being served was reprehensible.

Do you think it is worse to murder someone for no reason than it is to murder them for a reason we find distasteful?

That's the problem I have with the notion of a "hate crime."  If someone is upset enough with another person to murder them, I already assume that there is hatred in the killer's mind.  Added to the inherent uncertainty in trying to determine a killer's precise state of mind (what is the proper threshold of "hate"?), the practical problem with trying to follow a "hate crime" line of reasoning is that we wind up focusing on particular types of "hate crimes" while completely ignoring others, and that means that "hate crime" is really just a tag for a certain political agenda--e.g., we want to send a message to would-be anti-gay murderers that they should think twice before killing gay people., which seems sort of silly to me (do murderers really think about things like that before killing someone?).

Premeditated murder with an aggravating factor will normally get you life without parole or the death penalty.  What is the added value in calling it a "hate crime"?  If you say that it allows the Feds to prosecute the case, I would say that if we want to talk about things that are unconstitutional, I would say that all federal criminal law dealing with anything but interstate commerce clearly has no basis in the Constitution.

[Tyler]

Matthew Shepard was killed by a gay man he was sleeping with in exchange for crystal meth.  Despite the popular meme at the time, it wasn't a hate crime.  http://tinyurl.com/przh7vt  I would argue he's a poor example.  But really that's beside the point.

I'm with PS on this (as with most things).  I had a long discussion with a gay friend a few years ago on this very issue.  He was very adamant about wanting  the government to force all people to recognize gay marriage.  I pointed out the problem with getting "acceptance" by force is that the switch could easily be flipped with a new guy in charge.  The much longer-lasting way is to win over public opinion by setting a positive example, and the gay community as a whole was already making great progress in that regard.  If anything, the most extreme supporters hurt the cause more than they helped.  On that we agreed.

[Pointedstick]

I banned NWODurruti. He's trolling..

Sometimes I wish we had more thoughtful left-leaning members here but it seems to me that the ones who are actually open-minded often migrate to various flavors of libertarianism or conservatism instead of maintaining their beliefs.

there are only a few pieces of solid ground for the left to stand on... i like hearing from those that have the mental sharpness to find that solid ground and make good sound arguments from that position ... sadly to much on the left is not coming from solid ground or soundly made arguments the far-left media talking points type argument get cut to mincemeat pretty quick around here.

or they have to much high blood-pressure and gnashing of teeth (trollish attributes)

[MediumTex]

I banned NWODurruti. He's trolling..

Sometimes I wish we had more thoughtful left-leaning members here but it seems to me that the ones who are actually open-minded often migrate to various flavors of libertarianism or conservatism instead of maintaining their beliefs.

Reminds me of this quote:

"Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains." *

* Often attributed to Winston Churchill. The phrase originated with Francois Guisot (1787-1874): "Not to be a republican at twenty is proof of want of heart; to be one at thirty is proof of want of head." It was revived by French Premier Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929): "Not to be a socialist at twenty is proof of want of heart; to be one at thirty is proof of want of head."

[Greg]

Are you seriously arguing with me about whether it is senseless to murder people because they are gay?  I don't like to use this word, but that feels a lot like trolling to me.

I assure you that I am not trolling.  It is not senseless in the literal sens of the word (without discernible meaning or purpose).  He was murdered because he was Gay.  The people were murdered by other people who did not think that Gay people had the right to live  "out in the open."  There was a definite purpose being fulfilled in the killings.  I would agree though that the purpose being served was reprehensible.

Do you think it is worse to murder someone for no reason than it is to murder them for a reason we find distasteful?

That's the problem I have with the notion of a "hate crime."  If someone is upset enough with another person to murder them, I already assume that there is hatred in the killer's mind.  Added to the inherent uncertainty in trying to determine a killer's precise state of mind (what is the proper threshold of "hate"?), the practical problem with trying to follow a "hate crime" line of reasoning is that we wind up focusing on particular types of "hate crimes" while completely ignoring others, and that means that "hate crime" is really just a tag for a certain political agenda--e.g., we want to send a message to would-be anti-gay murderers that they should think twice before killing gay people., which seems sort of silly to me (do murderers really think about things like that before killing someone?).

Premeditated murder with an aggravating factor will normally get you life without parole or the death penalty.  What is the added value in calling it a "hate crime"?  If you say that it allows the Feds to prosecute the case, I would say that if we want to talk about things that are unconstitutional, I would say that all federal criminal law dealing with anything but interstate commerce clearly has no basis in the Constitution.

I would agree to most of your points MT. In this case, he murdered several black members of a congregation. It is good to recognize the context of his actions to ideally understand a motive.

Knowing a motive might be good for prosecution aspects but I think the point that gets lost in society is that we shouldn't be using the term hate crime just to say that this person didn't like a particular race, sex, creed, etc. We should be using it to understand why they don't like them and to understand the institutional/structural reasons for these. Only then can we really start fixing the basic beliefs to truly repair/heal our society.

I understand some people don't like the flag right now, but I also agree it seems very knee-jerk right now and that people are demonizing those that are sporting the flag, regardless of why that person is sporting it.

[Greg]

I banned NWODurruti. IMO, he's trolling.

This is the fastest I've ever seen someone get banned. He really dug himself deep quite quickly. I'm impressed and saddened by this.

[MediumTex]

I banned NWODurruti. He's trolling..

Sometimes I wish we had more thoughtful left-leaning members here but it seems to me that the ones who are actually open-minded often migrate to various flavors of libertarianism or conservatism instead of maintaining their beliefs.

there are only a few pieces of solid ground for the left to stand on... i like hearing from those that have the mental sharpness to find that solid ground and make good sound arguments from that position ... sadly to much on the left is not coming from solid ground or soundly made arguments the far-left medias talking points type argument get cut to mincemeat pretty quick around here.

I think that to make an effective argument, you need a nuanced understanding of the other side of the argument.

When I talk to liberals, I often find that they have simply never thought about things in the way that I think about them, probably because what we think of as "liberals" and "conservatives" in the U.S. are often just different varieties of people who think that a certain type of state action is all that is needed to improve society.

There aren't too many people who are truly skeptical of ALL government action because of its inherently coercive nature, partly because we are conditioned to believe that the history of the world is basically a history of government action.  If you instead socialized children to believe that the individual was the locus of society, then the true nature of government might be better understood, but when you socialize children to believe that the government is the locus of society, then their notions of success are often expressed in terms of how much of the power of the government they can harness for their own objectives.

What does the ambitious child say?  "One day I want to be President."  In the kind of world I am describing, that child might say: "One day I want to have a mind that is my own."

right on the mark..

[MediumTex]

I banned NWODurruti. IMO, he's trolling.

This is the fastest I've ever seen someone get banned. He really dug himself deep quite quickly. I'm impressed and saddened by this.

I believe that he is the third person to be banned in four years, and he has the other two beat by miles in terms of his efficiency.

[MediumTex]

I would agree to most of your points MT. In this case, he murdered several black members of a congregation. It is good to recognize the context of his actions to ideally understand a motive.

Knowing a motive might be good for prosecution aspects but I think the point that gets lost in society is that we shouldn't be using the term hate crime just to say that this person didn't like a particular race, sex, creed, etc. We should be using it to understand why they don't like them and to understand the institutional/structural reasons for these. Only then can we really start fixing the basic beliefs to truly repair/heal our society.

I understand some people don't like the flag right now, but I also agree it seems very knee-jerk right now and that people are demonizing those that are sporting the flag, regardless of why that person is sporting it.

In a nation of 320 million people, there will always be at least one psycho doing the most horrible thing that we could ever imagine.  If Confederate flag waving psychos were shooting up churches every day I might feel differently, but I am comfortable calling this kid a tragic one-off with few lessons to offer us other than to provide more family and community support to young people who seem to have lost their way in life, and of course to arrest people when they commit crimes.

If we want to find reasons for mass shootings, it's normally that a person has lost his way in life and come to believe that his own misfortune is due to the actions of some other group of people or organization in society.  It's hard to prevent that other than by helping people not get lost in the first place.