This is a fascinating mirror image of the claim made by opponents of SSM, that gay folks have rights equal to straight folk because both are allowed to marry a person of the opposite sex. The opponents’ argument is silly, and so is this one.
Gay folks gained the right to marry the person they love, a right they didn’t have before and that straight people did have before. Straight folks gained no such right through this decision. That’s why this decision was necessary, ferchrissakes.
Some gay folks who are ideologically opposed to marriage or who are certain they’ll never get married didn’t make any such gain, of course. But I think it’s fair to say that a huge number of gay folks did gain a relevant new right via this decision. It’d be interesting to see it broken down by percentages: what percentage of gay folks either are married, are engaged, or are interested in maybe getting married at some unspecified point in the future?
Bright and Shiny is on the mark. There are no ‘gay’ marriage laws, or ‘straight’ marriage laws. Nobody checks on the sexual preferences of people getting married. ‘Gay’ people having been getting married for years, they were just limited to members of the opposite sex. The laws in question are same sex laws. Not sexual orientation laws. That’s why this thread is based on a false assumption, and why the claim of bias based on sexual orientation is meaningless. Everybody gains exactly the same right with this new law. The right to marry a member of the same sex.
I agree that what I’ve written is fascinating, but it’s not a mirror image of the anti-SSM argument. Stoneburg seemed to be arguing that a new right is a personal gain whether or not you intend to use it. Since everyone can get SSM, regardless of sexual orientation, if I start with his argument, then the conclusion is that even straight people are getting a personal gain from SSM, because they now have a new right, whether or not they plan to use it.
We don’t check for “love” before we issue a marriage license. Straight people now have the ability to get married to the same gender, which they didn’t before (assuming the ruling holds up). That’s just the way it is. This isn’t really responsive to anything I’ve posted.
Look, if you’re going to respond to me, you have to actually take into account the original argument I was addressing. Of course, I never indicated or implied anywhere that nobody got a new right. I never indicated anything about percentages. What I am discussing is whether or not the definition Stoneburg is using for “bias” or “non-neutrality” is a correct one. Ferchrissakes.
You are trying to have it both ways. Even though I’m not planning to get an SSM, you’ve decided that I benefited from this new right. If a straight person isn’t planning to get an SSM, he’s doing the same thing I’m doing. Either people benefit from a new right, whether they plan to use it or not, or they don’t. You want to use one definition for my benefit and a separate definition for straight people’s benefits.
Maybe, maybe not. But now you seem to be hinging your definition of personal gain on whether or not you’ve already gotten an SSM. This is circular. You are saying that if you take advantage of SSM, then by definition, you were a homosexual, so only homosexual people get a personal gain from SSM.
But again, I think you are implying a different standard here (for gays and straights). Gay people get into opposite-sex marriages all the time. Would you tell a gay guy he must be straight by definition because he’s in an opposite-sex marriage? My guess is no. So, why should you tell a straight person he must be gay by definition if he’s in a same-sex marriage?
This is a new argument. If you want to argue indirect gains, I have no issue. But then, everyone, straight or gay, indirectly gains. That means that if we’re looking at indirect gains, everyone, gay or straight, is non-neutral.
And, finally, I’ll just address some other points for Stoneburg:
In the United States, the appointment and promotion of judges is a political issue, not a legal one. Once a judge is in place, he’s generally insulated from politics, but for hiring and appointment, his rulings will be examined thoroughly, and he is subject to political attack for his rulings. That’s not paranoia, that’s simply the way it is in the US. And, as previously pointed out, many states elect their judges, or use some combination of election and appointment. Which means that on a state level, judges face far more political pressure.
There are some really religious people in the US, and being really religious (in a certain way) is generally not something that can be used against someone as a political attack. If you went to the media and told them a judge belongs to a religious organization that will ostracize him, you will probably won’t get a reaction at all, since that kind of thing is common-place enough. If a judge believed he was going to hell for ruling a certain way, that’s probably not going to be enough either for the media, since again, that sort of belief is considered part of the mainstream discourse. Now, if the judge put out a ruling that said “I’m ruling this way because I’ll go to hell if I don’t,” that would cause an uproar. But as long as the judge is able to put out a legally coherent ruling, pointing out his religious beliefs isn’t going to gain much traction.
Which leads me to my next point. All judges (straight or gay) have personal biases. There’s not much you can do about that. But the vast majority of judges feel compelled to articulate well-thought out legal reasoning in their rulings. Now, there are a lot of judges that I can predict what their rulings are going to be based on their religious or political beliefs. But those judges will still make a ruling that has some minimum basis in legal reasoning. And that’s exactly what the judge in this case did. His ruling may be overturned or not, but he didn’t just put out a ruling that said, “I like gay marriage, so it’s legal.” He put out a very thorough reasoning that has a legal basis. What John Stewart is presumably making fun of is the idea that gay people are uniquely biased, when we all know that in the US system, judges are biased in a number of different ways–by their religion, or their politics, or their economics, or their social pressures. There’s no reason to single out a gay person for this, when straight people are just as likely to have their own biases on this issue.
Well I guess if you look at it that way, that straight and gay people both are biased, I have to admit that you’re right. If both sides are biased, you can’t make a point out of one side being biased. It just makes no sense to me that a straight person that isn’t a bigot could have a bias, and I would assume (or rather, did assume until now) that most judges are not bigots.
I thought it was the case of a slam dunk because there’s just no way to be against SSM without being a bigot. And why would you pick one of the few (I assume there aren’t a huge amount of openly gay judges) candidates to make the decision, that will actually have a personal gain from it. I also admit to being ignorant on how much homophobia there is in the US, I thought it was restricted mainly to the uneducated and the religious/political nutjobs. Sure, maybe that there could be a homophobe or two hiding somewhere in the higher structure of the judicial system, but not that they would saturate it as you are implying (if that is what you are implying).