Washington to Legalize Gay Marriage

[loinburger]

Even if the Constitution explicitly said "thou shalt not secede" or whatever, who gives a ****? Should Southern Sudan not have been permitted to secede, or Eritrea, or the various former Yugoslav republics, or for that matter the various former Soviet republics, or the numerous former colonies? Even if all of these nations had been under a "thou shalt not secede" Constitution, that Constitution would not matter one whit when determining whether secession was moral.

If slavery were taken out of the equation and the South had only seceded to escape economic oppression, then they'd have been in the right regardless of what the Constitution has to say about secession. But slavery was the main part of the equation, and slaveowners were immoral *******s, so morally the North was justified in preventing secession (even if "to end slavery" was in large part an after the fact justification for the war - none of the allies joined WWII to end the Holocaust either, but this doesn't suddenly render the Holocaust irrelevant when judging the various sides in the war).

[Al B. Sure!]

When was a marriage contact between any two people?

It still isn't, even with this law.

And it shouldn't be.

JM

1996 Defense of Marriage Act. There was nothing federal before that, as far as I can tell, that stipulated marriages were between a man and a woman.

[regexcellent]

Why does everything on this website get threadjacked to Israel/Palestine or the American Civil War? I'm so curious.

[Al B. Sure!]

Why does everything on this website get threadjacked to Israel/Palestine or the American Civil War? I'm so curious.

We don't like ethnic injustice?

[Aeson]

If you favor the Libertarian approach than you should be against gay marriage and heterosexual marriage.

I have posted many times over the years that I'm in favor of government having nothing to do with marriage. (I'm pretty sure even in discussion with you at least once.)

Marriage is fundamentally a societal construct. Society chooses to give it out, just like society can choose to give out property.

You are conflating government and society.

You still don't realize that marriage isn't something that government gives. It is something that those being married give to each other, or in some cases where the wedding isn't consensual by those being married, what the governing authority (which could be government, "God", or their parents) gives. All government (or the rest of society) has to give in most cases is it's recognition. Which is why the proper analogy is to government recognition of X agreement. Not government giving X.

We can clearly see that government doesn't have a monopoly on marriage. At best it's wrongly tried to co-opt the arrangement. Marriages occurred before the US (or any currently existing) government was even conceived. Marriages occur outside it's jurisdiction. Marriages can occur in it's jurisdiction which it does not recognize, but are recognized by other entities (whether religious, personal, or social).

[giblets]

Why does everything on this website get threadjacked to Israel/Palestine or the American Civil War? I'm so curious.

It's sickening that people would defend people who defended the enslavement of human beings.

[MrFun]

This was decided purely by the courts?

JM

No, but the legislation came from the federal government. THE TRAVESTY!

[MrFun]

If slavery were taken out of the equation and the South had only seceded to escape economic oppression, then they'd have been in the right regardless of what the Constitution has to say about secession. But slavery was the main part of the equation, and slaveowners were immoral *******s, so morally the North was justified in preventing secession (even if "to end slavery" was in large part an after the fact justification for the war - none of the allies joined WWII to end the Holocaust either, but this doesn't suddenly render the Holocaust irrelevant when judging the various sides in the war).

[regexcellent]

It's sickening that people would defend people who defended the enslavement of human beings.

I have not once defended slavery in this thread, on this board, or ever.

[Imran Siddiqui]

It's sickening that people would defend people who defended the enslavement of human beings.

I think the main problem is people who think that defending, say, the right of secession under the US Constitution get tarred with supporting all the aims of the people who were doing to seceeding. One does not follow from the other - whatever happened to "I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"? gribbler would tar you with supporting what that person was saying.

[Tupac Shakur]

The right way to do it.

Doing it by courts is wrong.

QFT

[Tupac Shakur]

1. It's not "new thing" reasoning, it's "there's lots of stuff the FF didn't anticipate for various reasons" reasoning. The Constitution and Bill of Rights are a short rulebook and a list of general principles, not the Hitchhiker's Guide to Democracy.

If only the Founding Fathers had forseen that changes to the Constitution would be needed and had included a process for amending it!

[Boris Godunov]

I should be more clear. I'm completely in favor of civil unions, I just don't give a **** whether we call it "marriage" or not. It's just a name. If you're going to tell me that being forced to have a "civil union" instead of a "marriage" constitutes some sort of gross violation of human rights, you're not going to elicit anything other than laughter from me.

So while you're laughing at these folks, we can safely call you a total dick, right?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-gaymarriage-newjerseytre81b10j-20120212,0,3955078.story

http://www.gardenstateequality.org/civilunionsdontwork/mess.html

Those were just some quickly-obtained examples. There are plenty of cases of gay couples being treated like dirt, despite their civil union status, because companies, hospitals, judges, social workers, etc. didn't give a **** because it wasn't a marriage.

And there's also the point that relying on "civil unions" doesn't protect couples when they cross state lines to a place that doesn't recognize any legal relationship between them.

And then there's that whole "separate but equal" thing. If they only called it "marriage" for white people and had a different name for non-whites, would you laugh at that, too?

[MrFun]

Which rolls off the tongue easier:

"We got married!"

"We got civil unionized!"

[MrFun]

So while you're laughing at these folks, we can safely call you a total dick, right?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-gaymarriage-newjerseytre81b10j-20120212,0,3955078.story

http://www.gardenstateequality.org/civilunionsdontwork/mess.html

Those were just some quickly-obtained examples. There are plenty of cases of gay couples being treated like dirt, despite their civil union status, because companies, hospitals, judges, social workers, etc. didn't give a **** because it wasn't a marriage.

And there's also the point that relying on "civil unions" doesn't protect couples when they cross state lines to a place that doesn't recognize any legal relationship between them.

And then there's that whole "separate but equal" thing. If they only called it "marriage" for white people and had a different name for non-whites, would you laugh at that, too?

But we don't count as people, Boris.