# Legalize Gay Marriage? Please read and comment. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 30, 2003, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legalize-gay-marriage-please-read-and-comment/216088 "2003-11-30T18:43:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Joe\_Random](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Joe\_Random](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joe_Random)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2003, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legalize-gay-marriage-please-read-and-comment/216088/61 "2003-12-02T00:20:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by whuckfistle \* > **What ever … Bite me…** > [@](#): > > **I’m sorry, but I get upset.** Then maybe you should refrain from posting when upset. > [@](#): > > \*\*You see I want to marry my sister, but she won’t marry me because she says it is against the law. Now if I can get the law change to legalize brother / sister marriages, well maybe, just maybe she will marry me… \*\* Maybe so. Good luck with that. I say that if you want to marry your sister, and it is deemed legal, then you should be able to do so. Not that I’d marry _my_ sister (if I had one); in fact, I find the thought a bit . . . icky. Nevertheless, my feeling of ickyness shouldn’t be enough make it illegal, and if the law were modified to allow sibling marriage, I’d have no problem with it. I’d just not take advantage of the law myself. Honestly, what rational basis can you _possibly_ have for denying two rational adults from marrying? It’s their life, and, as long as it doesn’t harm anyone, it should be their choice to make. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2003, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legalize-gay-marriage-please-read-and-comment/216088/62 "2003-12-02T00:53:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Loopydude \* > \*\*At any rate, the MA SC has hardly “legalized” gay marriage. They have simply said, as of yet, there is no reason to regard gay marriage as illegal. They have given the state legislature a clear mandate to clean up the language and decide once and for all what it’s going to do about the present state of affairs. Since an expeditious state referendum is almost a certainty, a popular vote will decide the issue within three years or less. The courts have hardly usurped the democratic process. They have also not changed the definition of marriage. They have precipitated a crisis, out of which a legal definition is likely to emerge; but, given the steady increase in societal tolerance for homosexual behavior, such a crisis was likely inevitable. \*\* ## Quibble quibble. Call it what you will but it doesn’t change the fact that something has changed. Before gays couldn’t get married in Mass but six months they will be able to because of this ruling and the majority in Mass can’t stop it. I call that legislating from the bench. The judges clearly have circumvented democracy. Everyone in the state should have an equal say in such changes. This shouldn’t be decided by some magistrates that are supposed to work for the people not do their thinking for them. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by magog \* > \*\*Yes, but the state Constitution clearly states that there cannot be second-class citizens - this was agreed upon (presumably) by the citizens of that state. \*\* Presuming you are right did the people know that denying gay marriage equaled second-class citizenship? No, they didn’t. Does anyone care to provide some hard info on how the Massachusetts Constitution does work, gets amended, that sort of thing? I’d rather not presume if we don’t have to. They aren’t still using the counterrevolutionary constitution of 1780 are they? > [@](#): > > \*\*And, finally, if the Constitution does need to be changed, there’s the ability to change it. It’s tedious, but the process is there. They do have recourse. \*\* Would you take this position if, for instance, the court had ruled that all redheads must be imprisoned. Would the process still be acceptable while people rotted away in jail for years while this was hashed out? Somehow I doubt it. > [@](#): > > \*\*It’s the balance between “majority rule” and “equal rights for all.” It’s not perfect, and they may have overstepped their bounds, but overall I think the system works. \*\* Without majority rule there can be no equal rights for all because people are denied an equal say in how they are governed. Political rights aren’t equal under minority rule. The minority, in this case the judges, have a disproportionate say in government. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2003, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legalize-gay-marriage-please-read-and-comment/216088/63 "2003-12-02T02:01:10Z")
I’m surprised that no one has noted that the Supreme Court did basically the same thing in Brown vs Board of Education. I don’t know the feelings of the country as a whole, but certainly most southern states would have voted strongly against school desegregation at the time. Certainly much of the opposition to the ruling was stated in the same terms as in the OP. Opponents of school desegregation predicted that various horrible things would happen. I fail to see how Brown is different in substance from this ruling, at least in terms of the mechanism. In fact Brown would have direct impact on the children of the affected states, while I don’t see how this ruling has a direct impact on anyone not now eligible for marriage. Can someone enlighten me about how this is different from Brown? I don’t think the pros and cons are particularly relevant to the OP. ---
**Author:** ![spectrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc29f/32.png) [@spectrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spectrum)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2003, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legalize-gay-marriage-please-read-and-comment/216088/64 "2003-12-02T06:22:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by whuckfistle \* > That`s what happens when I forget to lock my computer at work… > > \*\*Ignore the previous two posts \*\* Okay. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2003, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legalize-gay-marriage-please-read-and-comment/216088/65 "2003-12-02T08:22:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by emarkp \* > \*\*:eek: > > This is perhaps the most racist, bigoted statement I have ever read on this message board. I’m appalled. \*\* You’re appalled by what? People who are \*\*not \*\*straight, white, able-bodied, middle-class, Christian males of a certain age are like the canaries in a coal mine. When their rights are violated, it’s a warning to the majority that \*\*their \*\*rights may also be violated. When totalitarians take control of a country, they don’t just start violating everyone’s rights equally; they start with the minorities, who are the most vulnerable. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2003, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legalize-gay-marriage-please-read-and-comment/216088/66 "2003-12-02T08:37:39Z")
**Moderator’s Note:** Yes, well, do please be more careful in the future **whuckfistle**. In addition to locking your computer, it might also be a good idea to log out of the SDMB when you go home for the day. ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2003, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legalize-gay-marriage-please-read-and-comment/216088/67 "2003-12-02T13:34:26Z")
\>People who are not straight, white, able-bodied, middle-class, \>Christian males of a certain age are like the canaries in a coal \>mine. When their rights are violated, it’s a warning to the \>majority that their rights may also be violated. Right…so whenever they start claiming that their rights are violated, everyone should accept their claim without opposition. Yeah. Sure. \>You’re appalled by what? Maybe “If rights were determined by the “majority,” only straight, white, able-bodied, middle-class, Christian males\* of a certain age would have rights. And we wouldn’t need laws, since everything would be decided by a lynch mob.”? That is an extremely bigoted statement. We have become desensitized to racism against whites, so a good rule of thumb is to replace “white” with “black” and see how it sounds. Imagine if it read "straight, BLACK, able-bodied…[insert applicable stereotype here]. Hey, what are you so offended about? ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2003, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legalize-gay-marriage-please-read-and-comment/216088/68 "2003-12-02T16:27:58Z")
> [@](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by athelas \* > > _Originally posted by panache45_ > > People who are not straight, white, able-bodied, middle-class, Christian males of a certain age are like the canaries in a coal mine. When their rights are violated, it’s a warning to the majority that their rights may also be violated. > > Right…so whenever they start claiming that their rights are violated, everyone should accept their claim without opposition. Yeah. Sure. To the contrary, **athelas**. It’s a **claim** , a complaint that they have rights X which have been violated. A case from a few miles from here, 32 years ago: a power and lights company had a really nice program, where you got raises every few years, and were considered for promotion if you’d worked at a given job title satisfactorily for X years. So what’s the problem? Well, it just so happens that all the employees in the bottom job classification were black, and their maximum pay rate was below the beginning pay rate for the other low level position, all of whom by sheer coincidence happened to be white – and the latter one was the one you needed to work at to be considered for a supervisory position. Racial discrimination? Oh, no. The blacks, you see, did not have the necessary qualifications to be hired at the second-lowest job title, the one with the higher pay and the chance for promotion. For some strange reason, SCOTUS did not buy this explanation, and found that there was pervasive racial discrimination going on. (I gather the company has changed significantly over the three decades since that case.) The _ideal_ of course, is laws that give equal treatment, without reference to extraneous conditions and traits, not merely of some generic standard, but of what people might wish to do in the pursuit of happiness. For all any of us know, as certitude, there may well be a God who finds oral and anal sex disgusting and unnatural, and Who thinks that marriage should be between one man and one woman. But your beliefs or mine as to whether there is such a God, and if so, if he actually holds those views, should not be legally binding on people who believe otherwise. Nor are your tastes or mine as to what one finds gross or disgusting to be taken as standards that compel people to refrain from things that we find gross or disgusting. At least in private – and there’s a “reasonable man” standard for public actions. It’s that “equal treatment in the pursuit of happiness” concept that defeats the argument that everybody has the same rights – to, being presently unmarried and at or beyond the age of consent, be able to marry someone of the opposite sex who is not a close relative and who has attained the age of consent. This works just fine for non-incestuous adult heterosexuals – but the right to marry the person with whom you fall in love is present only for them. For a gay person who feels about his/her intended exactly as you felt or feel about your bride/bridegroom-to-be, the right to marry the one you love is absent. That he or she has “exactly the same rights as you” becomes a canard – he or she does **not** have the right to marry for love, to legalize his/her desire to marry the person to whom he/she is sexually and romantically attracted in a binding, socially recognized institution. Now, theoretically legislatures exist to pass laws needed for fair governance of the body politic. But I can introduce you to a perceptive 11-year-old girl who can give you chaper and verse on how that theoretical ideal does not work out in practice. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, a legislator will do what he thinks will get him the most votes, not examine the arguments searchingly for which is most just. The courts, on the other hand, are isolated from the whim of the voter specifically so that they may dispense justice – and most importantly, so that the rights of the individual will be protected. Joe Perp may be self-evidently guilty as Hell, but our traditions, enshrined in the Constitution, is that he gets a fair trial first. Ron Rabblerouser may have the stupidest ideas since the Anti-Masonic Party went out of business – but he has the freedom to speak them to anyone he can get to hold still to listen to him. Suzi Crystalshaman may believe that aliens from Zeta Reticuli have told the Ultimate Secrets of the Universe to an illiterate goatherder in Bhutan – but she has the same right to those beliefs as the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church does to his. **If** in America there is the right to marry the person you love, subject only to age and anti-incest restrictions, then two gay people have the right to marry. If the U.S. Constitution or a State constitution states a glittering generality about freedom and liberty, then the courts are honor-bound to enforce it. Freedom of speach means nothing if it merely the freedom to engage in socially acceptable speech; freedom of religion means nothing if one can be compelled to follow one religion’s standards. Prior to 1967, it was the public policy of the Commonwealth of Virginia that one could contract marriage only with a member of the opposite sex of the same race as oneself. SCOTUS declared that unconstitutional. It’s interesting to note that the Commonwealth’s attorneys advanced the argument above – that the law did not contravene the Fourteenth Amendment since it applied to all people equally. Earl Warren wrote that “Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry … resides with the individual and cannot be abridged by the State.” (388 U.S. 12) ---
**Author:** ![Uncommon\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Uncommon\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncommon_Sense)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2003, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legalize-gay-marriage-please-read-and-comment/216088/69 "2003-12-02T18:34:39Z")
I think we can all agree that Same Sex Marriage should be allowed/legalized. This would be the ideal situation; _The process by which the powers that be use to cement this decision should not be called into question in the future nor should it be looked upon with disaproval by the other states or by the majority of US residents._ That is all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legalize-gay-marriage-please-read-and-comment/216088.md?page=3)