**An interesting take on the gay marriage ruling
**No, it’s not interesting at all. I want my 2 minutes back.
This can be applied to every **Clothahump **post on this board.
I was discussing SSM with a Hassidic Jewish man, and he said he didn’t see the need for government to be involved in marriage at all. I said it’s for legal protection, and told him the tale of my sister losing everything after her partner of 14 years died. He thought about that, and said “You’re right. Nobody should have to go through that. They deserve that type of legal protection.” 
I think the OP has this backward. I see no reason for religion to be involved in marriage. Marriage is a civil contract. Religion can have some sort of rite if they like, so long as I am left out of it, but if marriage were separate from religion then there would never have been a bunch of people telling us who we could and could not have a civil contract with.
The impetus for the gay marriage movement goes back to a couple named Karen Thompson and Sharon Kowalski. I have met them. They were not political people before they were forced to be. Karen Thompson even admits that she voted for Ronald Reagan. Twice. But then one day on her way home from work in 1983, Sharon was involved in a car accident that left her severely disabled.
Neither Karen nor Sharon had come out to their families, and neither had made a power of attorney naming the other as guardian. When Sharon Kowalski’s parents learned of the relationship after the accident, they applied to become Sharon’s legal guardians, and forbade Karen from having any contact with her. They even went so far as to deny her recommended rehabilitation than might have allowed her to communicate her own wishes clearly.
Thompson sued to gain guardianship, and after a very long fight, finally won, mainly on two bases: one, that Sharon’s re-emerging communication skills seemed to indicate that she wanted to be with Thompson (there was controversy, as her nursing staff and her family gave conflicting testimony, and Kowalski herself was not competent to be sworn in), and the fact that Thompson could show that Kowalski’s parents were not following doctors’ recommendations, and had hampered Kowalsi’s potential recovery. (As one comic said, the Kowalskis think it’s better to be a vegetable than a fruit.)
Thompson gave lectures all over the country, seeking donations for her legal fund, and serving as a cautionary tale, encouraging all couples in committed relationships to have powers of attorney drawn up, even if they were young, and didn’t think they needed to worry about end-of-life decisions soon (the fact that Kowalski’s accident happened near the beginning of the AIDS crisis, when a lot of young gay men were facing end-of-life decisions made things even more urgent, though).
Anyway, after enough gay couples went to all the trouble to sign on the nth dotted line to make sure that they wouldn’t end up like Karen and Sharon, they began to think, if they could just get married it would be so much easier. And the gay marriage movement was born.
There were other reasons too-- wanting recognition, wanting celebration, and soforth-- but Karen Thompson and Sharon Kowalski were really why things happened when they did. You can’t have a gay marriage timeline without them and their landmark legal case in big bold letters.
So whatever else marriage may be about, for gays, this is a big part of it. Paying higher taxes in order for your parents not to lock your partner out of your hospital room during your last days is a small price to pay. Especially if it is part and parcel of all straight marriages, and the definition therefore of “equality.”
Immigrants as adults do have the advantage of having their educations paid for elsewhere, and so we get them “free,” so to speak. This is especially true if they come here speaking English, and have post-secondary education, which is true of a lot of them. In regards to the ones who don’t, they often take the crappiest jobs than a lot of citizens don’t actually want-- albeit, without them, the minimum wage would probably go up to make those crappy jobs more attractive, but then, many of those immigrants are illegal, and that is a problem of law enforcement, not immigration per se.
Some gay couples do procreate, they just don’t do it in the traditional way. My lesbian cousin and her girlfriend, for example, co-parented two children with a gay male couple; my cousin in the bio mother of both kids, because her girlfriend is diabetic, so pregnancy wasn’t a good idea for her, but she is legally the mother of one of them; the two men are each the bio and legal father of one of the kids, but all four of them consider themselves equal parents to the children, who are now healthy, happy, emotionally stable young adults. Many other gay couples adopt, and they adopt children who would otherwise be a drain on social services. Even when they adopt from overseas, they usually adopt children who are so young, that to all intents and purposes, they are “natural born”; they grow up perfectly assimilated, and speaking English as a native language.
But yeah, however you slice it, that analysis is incorrect. On that larger point, you and I totally agree, Construct.
I see no reason that religious people can ask for a blessing over any endeavor, marriage being one of them. Heck, when a Jew embarks on a journey, returns from one, has a child, gets a new job, finishes school, or does any number of things, he or she frequently says a blessing over the Torah in recognition of the event, and then the rabbi says a blessing over the person, and there is usually a very specific one; if not, there are lots of general ones.
If some religions want to say they won’t say blessings over certain unions, that is their business, but that doesn’t mean the unions can’t exist from a civil standpoint. In fact, I think that already goes on in that some religions don’t recognize a union between people of different faiths.
The only question I can see is whether we need to require everyone to have a civil ceremony, or if we will continue to allow people who perform religious ceremonies to double as civil authorities, for convenience (and to save money).
We basically have three choices: the marriage license itself can be a binding contract, so as soon as you pay for it, you are effectively married, and no further action is required; everyone can be required to be married by a civil authority, such as a judge, sheriff, justice of the peace, mayor (acceptable in Indiana currently), or other authorities vested with the power, because the courts will be backed up-- maybe notaries public, and certain other elected officials; or we can continue to allow religious figures (and leaders of non-religious communities-- my brother was married by an atheist “pastor”) to conduct marriages for the sake of expediency (people still need the license, though). Civil authorities will be required to marry anyone eligible for a license; religious authorities can discriminate, but since people have plenty of options, it doesn’t matter if the Church of Six Toes won’t marry a woman to a man who is shorter than she is, or someone with tonsils to someone without tonsils.
Instead of complaining about libertarians, you should be complaining about the IRS.
IRS nightmares :rolleyes:
Federally, but if their state did not recognize it then their headache was worse previously. Now they can file MFJ once instead of calculating the MFJ return, then separately making two single (or whatever) returns. And if both qualified for e.g. HoH, they’d have to calculate that one at least twice, and finally figure out the differences between each.
This isn’t an “interesting take.” It’s the same old stupid take and we have seen it on the SDMB numerous times.
Any person who thinks a flat tax is a “fair” tax immediately loses any chance of being considered interesting.
An incredible display of … (well, not in this forum).
I keep seeing wild ranting about “redefining marriage” and, well, of course they redefined civil marriage. Because defining civil marriage is entirely the job of the state, since civil marriage is an instrument of the state.
Right, and it’s a huge pain in the ass when there is no legal framework their relationship fits into.
I have a feeling that the purpose of combining the functions at this point is to prevent the opposite situation, people joining in holy matrimony without getting civilly married.
Nobody bothered to read the article, apparently. Especially you,** Lightnin’**. No sour grapes of any kind. He’s not arguing that the decision was wrong. He’s arguing that the decision weakened the Constitution and made for more government intrusion, and he’s absolutely right about that.
Whether you are for or against gay marriage is immaterial. This was a bad decision by SCOTUS. There was no basis in law for the decision. It was purely political and it was a horrible case of legislation from the bench. With the passage of time, it will rank up (or down) there with other decisions that damaged our society, like Dred Scott or Plessy v. Ferguson. But nobody cares about that apparently. Y’all are too busy prancing around and waving rainbow flags and thinking that you won something. You didn’t. We all lost on this one.
What part of equal protection do you not understand?
In what way did we all lose? Elaborate.
I read the article. I disagree that the decision “damaged oir society.” You can argue the reasoning was a bit soft, I suppose, but it certainly isn’t as disgraceful as gutting the Voting Rights Act, for gods sake. Now, back to my prancing and flag waiving.
14th amendment. QED.
That’s one of the most ridiculous and offensive things I’ve heard anyone say about this ruling. In what way is acknowledging the right of adults to get married at all comparable to declaring that segregation is legal or that blacks can’t be US citizens?
Jiggery-pokery?
It’s going to rank up there with Loving vs Virginia, which really terrifies the anti-progress crowd.
I suppose when one’s arguments are knee-deep in bullshit, the more subtle aroma of sour grapes is difficult to detect.
I was listening to Penn Jillette’s podcast this week and he actually discussed this. As many on the SDMB are aware, Penn is a libertarian and atheist who has long argued that government shouldn’t be in the marriage business. However, he said he realized right now was not the time to make this argument. Rather it was time to celebrate the happiness so many of his friends are experiencing because of the decision by SCOTUS. Of course, he’s been for equal rights for gay people all along, unlike some other folks. 
Oh, and as always Clothahump, comedy gold. Thanks for the laughs.
Anyone who talks about tenth amendment weakening as a bad thing should just junk the Constitution and go back to the Articles of Confederation.