to you know where in a handbasket thnx SCOTUS

[Dave2]

FWIW, the divorce rate fell back below 50% years ago. I don't recall my source on that, but I'll look it up if anyone wants me to.

(Not commenting on anyone's position, I'd just rather see an argument succeed or fail based on its merits, rather than getting some detail wrong.)

[cb1000rider]

Beiruty,
I agree with most of your line items, although I don't think that transgender olympic athletes or unwed mothers with 4-6 fathers is common place, but clearly it does happen.
I do disagree: I don't think that granting legal status to a lifestyle that was going on anyway isn't really contributing to the downfall of society. It's not legitimizing what religious organizations have to say on the subject. It's just granting equal protection.. And perhaps equal hassle (in the case of divorce).

I can tell you that gay marriage impacts my life and my marriage about 0.00%. I choose who I associate with. Certain segments of society will always have habits that I don't agree with. I don't think that cleaning them all up and making them live the way that I do is necessarily the right way. To think that way - it's the way of groups like the Taliban. We're in a country that allows different people and different lifestyles. And even though I don't agree with all of them, I'm very thankful for where I live.

[Beiruty]

FWIW, the divorce rate fell back below 50% years ago. I don't recall my source on that, but I'll look it up if anyone wants me to.

(Not commenting on anyone's position, I'd just rather see an argument succeed or fail based on its merits, rather than getting some detail wrong.)

Maybe true. However, If divorce is getting lower so is % of those who are married. Maybe I should said "stable marriage are less than 50%"

[RoyGBiv]

Marriage = Secular
Civil Unions = Non-Secular

SCOUTS ruling applies to the latter.
It's not yet snowing in Hades

secular [ ˈsekyələr ]

ADJECTIVE

1.
denoting attitudes, activities, or other things that have no religious or spiritual basis: Contrasted with sacred.

"secular buildings"

synonyms: nonreligious · areligious · lay · temporal · worldly · earthly ·

It's backwards day.

[carlson1]

Quick question. Is there anyone here who thinks that the SCOTUS overreached into States who had already made the decision by votes thus ignoring the "election process" and the will of the people in those States?

[Dave2]

FWIW, the divorce rate fell back below 50% years ago. I don't recall my source on that, but I'll look it up if anyone wants me to.

(Not commenting on anyone's position, I'd just rather see an argument succeed or fail based on its merits, rather than getting some detail wrong.)

Maybe true. However, If divorce is getting lower so is % of those who are married. Maybe I should said "stable marriage are less than 50%"

That's part of it, yeah -- more people are just staying single... I think there was another reason, but I can't recall what it was.

[joe817]

Quick question. Is there anyone here who thinks that the SCOTUS overreached into States who had already made the decision by votes thus ignoring the "election process" and the will of the people in those States?

YES! I pray we do not continue along this Godless path.

[baldeagle]

I have yet to see a single post on how this directly effects anyone but the people getting married. The I dont like it excuse is completely non valid.
As far as the jews are concerned on the matter is was decided in 2006 for equal marrage rights for all with the exception of the orthdox jews
As far as the abortion statements the Talmud pretty much covers that clearly as well.
So many scream the constution but noone here will except the ruling Roe v Wade on the basis of the 9th and 14th amendments.
But boy we all go ape in support of the 2nd.

You ask how it directly affects anyone but the people getting married. That's easy to answer. Before the ruling the purpose of marriage was child rearing in a stable family situation. Marriage was expected to be a greater commitment than two people living together, with greater responsibilities, especially to the children. Now the purpose of marriage is to allow to people who love each other obtain the same benefits as marriage with regard to legalities such as rights of survivorship, medical power of attorney, etc.

Since the purpose of marriage has been changed, it will change society. For example, articulate a cogent legal argument against polygamy or incest or underage marriage. You can't. Under the old purpose, that was easy. (Shorthand is it was good for the children not to be in those relationships.)

I have no idea what you're talking about with regard to Jews, so I can't comment on that.

With regard to Roe v. Wade, the Court found "a penumbra of emanations" that compelled it to rule as it did. Sort of the same way they found that black people weren't really people or the words in the Obamacare law didn't really say what they said.

Everything has consequences. Just because you can't see them doesn't mean they don't affect you. For many years now our society has been going downhill. Adultery is now celebrated instead of frowned upon. Childhood out of wedlock is now celebrated rather than scorned. Cheating on exams, stealing music off the internet, lying on job applications all are acceptable behaviors to many.

It didn't get this way in an instant. It took many decisions over long periods of time, each of which people thought about and said, well, it doesn't affect me, so I guess it's OK. Now our society is sinking into the cesspool and America as we known is rapidly fading into the rear view mirror.

All in the name of "equal rights" and "privacy".

[gemini]

Quick question. Is there anyone here who thinks that the SCOTUS overreached into States who had already made the decision by votes thus ignoring the "election process" and the will of the people in those States?

Yes.

[b322da]

Quick question. Is there anyone here who thinks that the SCOTUS overreached into States who had already made the decision by votes thus ignoring the "election process" and the will of the people in those States?

When the "will of the people," as expressed in "the election process," results in the enactment of an unconstitutional law, our system of government makes it incumbent upon the judiciary, and ultimately the Supreme Court of the United States, to step in and correct what has been done. A majority of the electorate, or even a majority of the population, is not the "supreme law of the land" -- our Constitution is. To believe that in fulfilling this mandate the Supreme Court is "overreaching" quite arguably suggests either a gross misunderstanding of our constitutional system, a deliberate intent to ignore it, or perhaps a facetious troll.

I trust it is understood here that I am talking about the power to do something, not the rightness or wrongness of what has been done by the one having that power. There can be no better demonstration of the exercise of this power than the case of District of Columbia v. Heller.

Jim

[The Annoyed Man]

The libertarian in me says that gay people have rights, no less equal than my own, and they should be afforded all the same legal benefits that marriage affords me. The pragmatist in me says that this was totally doable without redefining anything.

In my opinion, the only thing that the state should have any control over is civil union, whether that be same-sex or hetero. Marriage, on the other hand, is and always was primarily a religious matter. Common Law has always recognized the union of two people as husband and wife, even without a ceremony, as having certain legal benefits not available to single people (joint tax returns and parental rights, for instance). Hetero couples have also always had the option of state sanctioned civil union. A marriage officiated by a JP is not a religious ceremony, and any church has the first amendment protected right to disregard the validity of that union in spiritual terms. The fact that churches DO tend to recognize them as valid is a mere courtesy. This ruling merely extends the same civil union rights to gays. That's is the only way I can rationalize it.

I DO NOT believe that Almighty God recognizes the validity of gay marriage, and I believe that at least nominally Christian churches that condone and celebrate gay unions have strayed very far from what scripture very clearly says, and that those congregants will have to face God some day for their stiff necks. Most especially, their leaders are going to face God's justice for having led their flocks (HIS flocks) astray. I believe that the Bible is the Word of God, and that it is not for God to make Himself smaller and more convenient whenever our sinful hearts are convicted by His Word. Rather, it is for us to try and live up to His expectations for us, and to seek His face in all things. When we fail at it.....and we will....we are to seek His grace and mercy, while we also seek His strength to overcome the things to which He has called us.

Justice Scalia said this in his dissent:

"This is a naked judicial claim to legislative—indeed, super-legislative—power; a claim fundamentally at odds with our system of government. Except as limited by a constitutional prohibition agreed to by the People, the States are free to adopt whatever laws they like, even those that offend the esteemed Justices’ “reasoned judgment.” A system of government that makes the People subordinate to a committee of nine unelected lawyers does not deserve to be called a democracy. Judges are selected precisely for their skill as lawyers; whether they reflect the policy views of a particular constituency is not (or should not be) relevant. Not surprisingly then, the Federal Judiciary is hardly a cross section of America. Take, for example, this Court, which consists of only nine men and women, all of them successful lawyers18 who studied at Harvard or Yale Law School. Four of the nine are natives of New York City. Eight of them grew up in east- and west-coast States. Only one hails from the vast expanse in-between. Not a single South- westerner or even, to tell the truth, a genuine Westerner (California does not count). Not a single evangelical Christian (a group that comprises about one quarter of Americans19), or even a Protestant of any denomination. The strikingly unrepresentative character of the body voting on today’s social upheaval would be irrelevant if they were functioning as judges, answering the legal question whether the American people had ever ratified a constitutional provision that was understood to proscribe the traditional definition of marriage. But of course the Justices in today’s majority are not voting on that basis; they say they are not. And to allow the policy question of same-sex marriage to be considered and resolved by a select, patrician, highly unrepresentative panel of nine is to violate a principle even more fundamental than no taxation without representation: no social transformation without representation."

....and....

"So it is not of special importance to me what the law says about marriage. It is of overwhelming importance, however, who it is that rules me," Scalia wrote. "Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court."

These are not religious objections, but they ARE very sound Constitutional objections.

There was a better way to extend equal rights to gays, and the court did not take it. More importantly ....to me, anyway.... Is that the majority opinion did not balance its ruling by positively affirming a right to conscientious objection for religious institutions. In failing to do so, they have opened the door for actual invalidation of the first amendment.

The decisions handed down by the court this week have pushed the nation beyond a point of no return. Our Constitution requires virtuous people to uphold it, or it dies. We are no longer a people collectively concerned with virtue, and this WILL come home to roost. America, meet Rome.

[Beiruty]

Can the OP fix the cryptic subject line?

[The Annoyed Man]

Can the OP fix the cryptic subject line?

Beiruty, see my PM to you.

[Glockster]

Quick question. Is there anyone here who thinks that the SCOTUS overreached into States who had already made the decision by votes thus ignoring the "election process" and the will of the people in those States?

When the "will of the people," as expressed in "the election process," results in the enactment of an unconstitutional law, our system of government makes it incumbent upon the judiciary, and ultimately the Supreme Court of the United States, to step in and correct what has been done. A majority of the electorate, or even a majority of the population, is not the "supreme law of the land" -- our Constitution is. To believe that in fulfilling this mandate the Supreme Court is "overreaching" quite arguably suggests either a gross misunderstanding of our constitutional system, a deliberate intent to ignore it, or perhaps a facetious troll.

I trust it is understood here that I am talking about the power to do something, not the rightness or wrongness of what has been done by the one having that power. There can be no better demonstration of the exercise of this power than the case of District of Columbia v. Heller.

Jim

Exactly, thank you. Just because a "at one time" majority managed to pass discriminatory laws doesn't make them right; and because the judiciary has to ultimately step in to correct that because a legisltative body won't, doesn't make that wrong or overreaching.

And added to that, every valid poll taken in Texas over the past year indicated that the majority polled in fact support marriage equality (the number is usually about 46% for vs about 41% against).

[Glockster]

How about when more of the population turn gay and the rate of kids per family is less than 1. Surely enough we would be like Canada, that means 10,000,000 new immigrants per year. I just hope they do arrive the legal way.

What??? Did you actually say, "turn gay" and believe that someone just "turns" gay? Seriously?