Same sex marriage legalised in the United States

[Joecoolyo]

Today is a good day, ignoring all the other horrible crap that happened around the world.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Marriage has changed from a religious, social institution to a legal one. When we tie so many legal rights to being married like custody of children, spousal benefits, tax benefits, power of attorney, then I agree it is unconstitutional to deny those rights to other couples. I don't really get why it would be an attack on religion either, to me it seems like more religious freedom, separating the legal distinction from the religious distinction with regard to marriage.

I morally object to it but I morally object to tons of things that people still have legal rights to do if they want to. This isn't the middle east where stuff like adultery becomes an illegal crime. Governments shouldn't mandate moral issues aside from basic rights like don't kill people.

First, congratulations to all the same sex couples who can enjoy getting married now
(And later, divorced! )

As counsel for the respondents acknowledged at argument, if States are required by the Constitution to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, the justifications for refusing to recognize those marriages performed elsewhere are undermined. See Tr. of Oral Arg. on Question 2, p. 44. The Court, in this decision, holds same-sex couples may exercise the fundamental right to marry in all States. It follows that the Court also must hold—and it now does hold—that there is no lawful basis for a State to refuse to recognize a lawful same-sex marriage performed in another State on the ground of its same-sex character.

* * *​

No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they dorespect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed.
It is so ordered.

As to why today's decision might later become an attack on religion, read Chief Justice John Robert's dissent.

Hard questions arise when people of faith exercise religion in ways that may be seen to conflict with the new right to same-sex marriage—when, for example, a religious college provides married student housing only to opposite-sex married couples, or a religious adoption agency declines to place children with same-sex married couples. Indeed, the Solicitor General candidly acknowledged that the tax exemptions of some religious institutions would be in question if they opposed same-sex marriage. See Tr. of Oral Arg. on Question 1, at 36–38. There is little doubt that these and similar questions will soon be before this Court. Unfortunately, people of faith can take no comfort in the treatment they receive from the majority today.

Perhaps the most discouraging aspect of today’s decision is the extent to which the majority feels compelled to sully those on the other side of the debate. The majority offers a cursory assurance that it does not intend to disparage people who, as a matter of conscience, cannot accept same-sex marriage. Ante, at 19. That disclaimer is hard to square with the very next sentence, in which the majority explains that “the necessary consequence” of laws codifying the traditional definition of marriage is to “demea[n]or stigmatiz[e]” same-sex couples. Ante, at 19. The majority reiterates such characterizations over and over. By the majority’s account, Americans who did nothing more than follow the understanding of marriage that has existed for our entire history—in particular, the tens of millions of people who voted to reaffirm their States’ enduring definition of marriage—have acted to “lock . . . out,” “disparage,” “disrespect and subordinate,” and inflict “[d]ignitary wounds” upon their gay and lesbian neighbors. Ante, at 17, 19, 22, 25. These apparent assaults on the character of fairminded people will have an effect, in society and in court. See post, at 6–7 (ALITO, J., dissenting). Moreover, they are entirely gratuitous. It is one thing for the majority to conclude that the Constitution protects a right to same-sex marriage; it is something else to portray everyone who does not share the majority’s “better informed understanding” as bigoted. Ante, at 19.

The issue will revolve around the 1st amendment

"shall make no law . . . prohibiting the free exercise of religion."

Clearly removing all tax exemptions for religions that exercise (i.e. practice) their belief regarding same sex marriage isn't banning anything.
Merely taking away a benefit that was once bestowed.
So that will be the next thing to happen.


If you folks want to read the entire Supreme Court decision today, along with the 4! dissenting opinions (instead of just snarky snippets ), here is the full link:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf

 

[JollyRoger]

Attacks on bigotry may also be collateral attacks on religion, but I don't think conservatives welcome Sharia law, so why should they expect their own version to be honored?

 

[Samson]

First, congratulations to all the same sex couples who can enjoy getting married now
(And later, divorced! )

As to why today's decision might later become an attack on religion, read Chief Justice John Robert's dissent.

The issue will resolve around the 1st amendment

Clearly removing all tax exemptions for religions that exercise (i.e. practice) their belief regarding same sex marriage isn't banning anything.
Merely taking away a benefit that was once bestowed.
So that will be the next thing to happen.

If you folks want to read the entire Supreme Court decision today, along with the 4! dissenting opinions (instead of just snarky snippets ), here is the full link:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf

I really do not get this. The supreme court has just ruled that this is the law, and if you do not follow the law we will ... remove your tax exempt status? Does this mean that if you are not tax exempt then you can completely ignore the law? Why is the abidiing by a law in any way related to ones tax dealings? Are any other laws treated the same way?

 

[Arwon]

I think this leaves Australia and Northern Ireland as the most backwards places in the (non-patois speaking) anglophone world on this issue?

 

[EgonSpengler]

I really do not get this. The supreme court has just ruled that this is the law, and if you do not follow the law we will ... remove your tax exempt status? Does this mean that if you are not tax exempt then you can completely ignore the law? Why is the abidiing by a law in any way related to ones tax dealings? Are any other laws treated the same way?

The government can't force a church to officiate a marriage. Likewise, the church cannot dictate to the government who can and cannot marry, which is a point the anti-religious freedom folks dispute.

 

[Arwon]

The government can't even force the Catholic Church to marry divorcees or protestants, after all.

 

[Kaitzilla]

... Why is the abidiing by a law in any way related to ones tax dealings? Are any other laws treated the same way?

Let me tell you about Obamacare.
If you don't obey, you pay a tax.

 

[JollyRoger]

Let me tell you about having children . . . if you don't have any, you pay a tax.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Quite interesting to see, and honestly this happened sooner than I thought it would. Good for all you gay and lesbian folks out there.

Now I wonder when cousins are allowed to get married in all US states. 'Cuz you still can't marry your gay cousin in some places.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I really do not get this. The supreme court has just ruled that this is the law, and if you do not follow the law we will ... remove your tax exempt status? Does this mean that if you are not tax exempt then you can completely ignore the law? Why is the abidiing by a law in any way related to ones tax dealings? Are any other laws treated the same way?

The reason you don't get it is because it is totally dissociated from the issue at hand.

In the US churches get all sorts of privileges...most notably being untaxed no matter how much revenue they generate. They are also pretty much exempt from laws, including this one. There is equal protection under law, so the state (now every state) will issue a license to any couple who wants to get married. But a church, being a church, is allowed to say "we will only allow people of our faith to marry in our building." That's why, as someone else already noted, you won't see anyone marrying a protestant in a Catholic church. No one has tried it, but the "church of god's people are all white" could open a lot of legal worm cans.

This is no more an attack on the tax exempt status of churches than it is an attack on their exemption from obeying the law. That is just the usual dog whistling. Any time anything happens that some of the religious fundies take offense to they immediately chant "What's next? Taxing the churches?" because absolutely nothing can create a unified front of outrage among religious leaders faster than a perceived threat to their money.

 

[Leifmk]

Fine news, more cake for everyone.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Ten years almost to the day behind Canada, but it's never too late to do good

Somebody on CBC.ca actually posted that it was Harper who brought in same-sex marriage.

Several of us promptly corrected him.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Scalia has me all fired up.
I might need to revive the Doom™ thread.
Have we fallen under judicial tyranny?

[June 26, 2015]
JUSTICE SCALIA, with whom JUSTICE THOMAS joins, dissenting.

I join THE CHIEF JUSTICE’s opinion in full. I write separately to call attention to this Court’s threat to American democracy.

The substance of today’s decree is not of immense personal importance to me. The law can recognize as marriage whatever sexual attachments and living arrangements it wishes, and can accord them favorable civil consequences, from tax treatment to rights of inheritance.

Those civil consequences—and the public approval that conferring the name of marriage evidences—can perhaps have adverse social effects, but no more adverse than the effects of many other controversial laws. 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. 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. The opinion in these cases is the furthest extension in fact—and the furthest extension one can even imagine—of the Court’s claimed power to create “liberties” that the Constitution and its Amendments neglect to mention. This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves.

Until the courts put a stop to it, public debate over same-sex marriage displayed American democracy at its best. Individuals on both sides of the issue passionately, but respectfully, attempted to persuade their fellow citizens to accept their views. Americans considered the arguments and put the question to a vote. The electorates of 11 States, either directly or through their representatives, chose to expand the traditional definition of marriage. Many more decided not to.1 Win or lose, advocates for both sides continued pressing their cases, secure in the knowledge that an electoral loss can be negated by a later electoral win. That is exactly how our system of government is supposed to work.2

The Constitution places some constraints on self-rule—constraints adopted by the People themselves when they ratified the Constitution and its Amendments. Forbidden are laws “impairing the Obligation of Contracts,”3 denying “Full Faith and Credit” to the “public Acts” of other States,4 prohibiting the free exercise of religion,5 abridging the freedom of speech,6 infringing the right to keep and bear arms,7 authorizing unreasonable searches and seizures,8 and so forth. Aside from these limitations, those powers “reserved to the States respectively, or to the people”9 can be exercised as the States or the People desire. These cases ask us to decide whether the Fourteenth Amendment contains a limitation that requires the States to license and recognize marriages between two people of the same sex. Does it remove that issue from the political process?
Of course not. It would be surprising to find a prescription regarding marriage in the Federal Constitution since, as the author of today’s opinion reminded us only two years ago (in an opinion joined by the same Justices who join him today):

“[R]egulation of domestic relations is an area that has long been regarded as a virtually exclusive province of the States.”10

“[T]he Federal Government, through our history, has deferred to state-law policy decisions with respect to domestic relations.”11

But we need not speculate. When the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, every State limited marriage to one man and one woman, and no one doubted the constitutionality of doing so. That resolves these cases. When it comes to determining the meaning of a vague constitutional provision—such as “due process of law” or “equal protection of the laws”—it is unquestionable that the People who ratified that provision did not understand it to prohibit a practice that remained both universal and uncontroversial in the years after ratification.12 We have no basis for striking down a practice that is not expressly prohibited by the Fourteenth Amendment’s text, and that bears the endorsement of a long tradition of open, widespread, and unchallenged use dating back to the Amendment’s ratification. Since there is no doubt whatever that the People never decided to prohibit the limitation of marriage to opposite-sex couples, the public debate over same-sex marriage must be allowed to continue.

But the Court ends this debate, in an opinion lacking even a thin veneer of law. Buried beneath the mummeries and straining-to-be-memorable passages of the opinion is a candid and startling assertion: No matter what it was the People ratified, the Fourteenth Amendment protects those rights that the Judiciary, in its “reasoned judgment,” thinks the Fourteenth Amendment ought to protect.13 That is so because “[t]he generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions . . . . ”14 One would think that sentence would continue: “. . . and therefore they provided for a means by which the People could amend the Constitution,” or perhaps “. . . and therefore they left the creation of additional liberties, such as the freedom to marry someone of the same sex, to the People, through the never-ending process of legislation.” But no. What logically follows, in the majority’s judge-empowering estimation, is: “and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning.”15 The “we,” needless to say, is the nine of us. “History and tradition guide and discipline [our] inquiry but do not set its outer boundaries.”16 Thus, rather than focusing on the People’s understanding of “liberty”—at the time of ratification or even today—the majority focuses on four “principles and traditions” that, in the majority’s view, prohibit States from defining marriage as an institution consisting of one man and one woman.17

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.

But what really astounds is the hubris reflected in today’s judicial Putsch. The five Justices who compose today’s majority are entirely comfortable concluding that every State violated the Constitution for all of the 135 years between the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification and Massachusetts’ permitting of same-sex marriages in2003.20 They have discovered in the Fourteenth Amendment a “fundamental right” overlooked by every person alive at the time of ratification, and almost everyone else in the time since. They see what lesser legal minds—minds like Thomas Cooley, John Marshall Harlan, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Learned Hand, Louis Brandeis, William Howard Taft, Benjamin Cardozo, Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter, Robert Jackson, and Henry Friendly—could not. They are certain that the People ratified the Fourteenth Amendment to bestow on them the power to remove questions from the democratic process when that is called for by their “reasoned judgment.” These Justices know that limiting marriage to one man and one woman is contrary to reason; they know that an institution as old as government itself, and accepted by every nation in history until 15 years ago,21 cannot possibly be supported by anything other than ignorance or bigotry. And they are willing to say that any citizen who does not agree with that, who adheres to what was, until 15 years ago, the unanimous judgment of all generations and all societies, stands against the Constitution.

The opinion is couched in a style that is as pretentious as its content is egotistic. It is one thing for separate concurring or dissenting opinions to contain extravagances, even silly extravagances, of thought and expression; it is something else for the official opinion of the Court to do so.22 Of course the opinion’s showy profundities are often profoundly incoherent. “The nature of marriage is that, through its enduring bond, two persons together can find other freedoms, such as expression, intimacy, and spirituality.”23 (Really? Who ever thought that intimacy and spirituality [whatever that means] were freedoms? And if intimacy is, one would think Freedom of Intimacy is abridged rather than expanded by marriage. Ask the nearest hippie. Expression, sure enough, is a freedom, but anyone in a long-lasting marriage will attest that that happy state constricts, rather than expands, what one can prudently say.) Rights, we are told, can “rise . . . from a better informed understanding of how constitutional imperatives define a liberty that remains urgent in our own era.”24 (Huh? How can a better informed understanding of how constitutional imperatives [whatever that means] define [whatever that means] an urgent liberty [never mind], give birth to a right?) And we are told that, “n any particular case,” either the Equal Protection or Due Process Clause “may be thought to capture the essence of [a] right in a more accurate and comprehensive way,” than the other, “even as the two Clauses may converge in the identification and definition of the right.”25 (What say? What possible “essence” does substantive due process “capture” in an “accurate and comprehensive way”? It stands for nothing whatever, except those freedoms and entitlements that this Court really likes. And the Equal Protection Clause, as employed today, identifies nothing except a difference in treatment that this Court really dislikes. Hardly a distillation of essence. If the opinion is correct that the two clauses “converge in the identification and definition of [a] right,” that is only because the majority’s likes and dislikes are predictably compatible.) I could go on. The world does not expect logic and precision in poetry or inspirational pop-philosophy; it demands them in the law. The stuff contained in today’s opinion has to diminish this Court’s reputation for clear thinking and sober analysis.

* * *​

Hubris is sometimes defined as o’erweening pride; and pride, we know, goeth before a fall. The Judiciary is the “least dangerous” of the federal branches because it has “neither Force nor Will, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm” and the States, “even for the efficacy of its judgments.”26 With each decision of ours that takes from the People a question properly left to them—with each decision that is unabashedly based not on law, but on the “reasoned judgment” of a bare majority of this Court—we move one step closer to being reminded of our impotence.

judicial Putsch? uh oh! Very nearly Godwin'd the whole thing!

Talk radio will be booked SOLID for the next month once you add in the Obamacare ruling.
I'm almost scared to read the other 2 dissents now.

 

[.Shane.]

And no, American society is not going to disintegrate, heterosexual married couples' wedding documents and photos and videos will not spontaneously combust, and their children's birth certificates will not suddenly become invalid.

I wouldn't be so sure.

Look what has happened to Massachusetts, which has had legal gay marriage for over 10 years!

That place has ... um... it, well, you see, it has... ah... the thing is they... err...

Yeah, so...

TAKE THAT GAYS

 

[Samson]

The government can't force a church to officiate a marriage. Likewise, the church cannot dictate to the government who can and cannot marry, which is a point the anti-religious freedom folks dispute.

I am not certain what you are saying. Is it that the government can't force a church to officiate a marriage, but they can take away their tax free status?

 

[Kaitzilla]

The reason you don't get it is because it is totally dissociated from the issue at hand.

In the US churches get all sorts of privileges...most notably being untaxed no matter how much revenue they generate. They are also pretty much exempt from laws, including this one. There is equal protection under law, so the state (now every state) will issue a license to any couple who wants to get married. But a church, being a church, is allowed to say "we will only allow people of our faith to marry in our building." That's why, as someone else already noted, you won't see anyone marrying a protestant. No one has tried it, but the "church of god's people are all white" could open a lot of legal worm cans.

This is no more an attack on the tax exempt status of churches than it is an attack on their exemption from obeying the law. That is just the usual dog whistling. Any time anything happens that some of the religious fundies take offense to they immediately chant "What's next? Taxing the churches?" because absolutely nothing can create a unified front of outrage among religious leaders faster than a perceived threat to their money.

This is a nice post.

I am not certain what you are saying. Is it that the government can't force a church to officiate a marriage, but they can take away their tax free status?

That sounds right to me.

How firm is the tax free status thing?
Is there a board or something that decides which churches get it?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Scalia has me all fired up.
I might need to revive the Doom™ thread.
Have we fallen under judicial tyranny?

In a word, no.

Scalia may have you all fired up, but at the end of the day the absolutely most fundamental requirement for freedom to flourish is equal protection under the law, and that is really the only thing the court needed to concern itself with. The justices that feel the need to pander to the fundamentalists will blather about threats to freedom of religion, and Scalia will pander to the usual crowd of fascists who want to stir up fear of justice, but ultimately this was among the most simple issues the court is likely to face.

 

[warpus]

In the US churches get all sorts of privileges...most notably being untaxed no matter how much revenue they generate.

Really? I thought only not-for-profit organizations were tax exempt.

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

If Scalia says the 14th doesn't cover gay marriage because it didn't exist, does that mean the 2nd amendment doesn't cover automatic rifles?