That’s more than fair, and no complaints here (to you, too, Bricker, thanks for your answer). You can see that she, too, would be banging her head on a brick wall and screaming “Oh, thank you God! Thank you so very much, I really needed that!” One of the reasons I don’t date anymore—I’m damned if I tell and damned if I don’t.
(Well, I also don’t date anymore because I’m pushing 50 and look more and more like Marie Dressler every day, but that’s another story . . .)
I’d like to say I sympathize, but I cringe at how banal that sounds.
It’s unfortunate indeed, but there are many people who have truths about themselves that may discourage potential suitors, but which they are nonetheless honor-bound to reveal. Some of them have to do with the physical safety of the partner – the herpes sufferer and the Mafia chieftan’s daughter are both in this boat – and some have to do simply with the expectations of the partner.
It’s got to be frustrating in the extreme. So if it’s not TOO banal… I sympathize.
On the whole I’m relieved not to have to walk that mile in your shoes, largely because I suspect they would play merry hell with my fallen arches, and you should be relieved because they would never be the same shoes when you got them back.
However, I have it on the say-so of a number of Dopers that (a) as for pushing 50, you can carry on pushing for a while yet, and (b) there are a surprising number of people bearing torches for Marie Dressler lookalikes, and on the views extended by a number of people in this thread, I’m the one whose views are in both a minority and a violation of right thinking. It’s a shame that some of 'em couldn’t actually extend this wonderful acceptance to the point of waking up in bed with an anatomical female regardless of her birth-gender, but I’m prepared to accept the lesson nonetheless. :dubious:
All of which, Eve, ought to add up to grounds for not giving up hope. But strictly IMHO, you’d be less damned in the telling. (Easy for me to say, I know.)
I’ll stand you a virtual sherry if you promise not to get giggly. 
See, who says we couldn’t play nice?
Oh, I forgot, this is the Pit . . .
See, who the fuck says we couldn’t play nice?
Quite. And if Otto feels up to noticing that there wasn’t any need for you to put down the thread and back away slowly, I’m prepared graciously to accept his apology, be it never so humble. Dry or cream, Eve?
Oh, well, Otto remembers the trainwreck with They Who Shall Not Be Named, who said all kinds of ghastly and impolite things to me.
I remember it. Still doesn’t keep me from resenting being lumped in with a douchebag like that, though. Ah, well.
Of course not, and as far as I know, there’s no jurisdiction in the US where she could, unless she lied outright about what happened. Not that I don’t think there are some women who wouldn’t do just that, in that circumstance. Those women are idiots.
Hyperbole or not, I think my point is a valid one; the GLBT community are second class citizens. While SSM is the current hot topic of debate, the over arching point is that we are not gauranteeed the same rights and responsibities that other recognized minorities and protected classes have. At the federal level, the only right we have gauranteed is the right to have consensual sex in privacy. I don’t think sexual orientation is protected in any other way at the federal level. I’m sure you’ll correct me if I’m wrong.
At the state and local level, it’s a conflicting morass of legal jargon. I’m fairly well protected as a citizen of California, but should I move back to Texas, most, if not all of those protections would disappear. Can you name any other recognized minority that has to cope with similar situations? To me, this shows that the GLBT community are second class citizens.
Yet, our legal system is based on the idea that all people before the law are to be treated equally. We’ve even go so far as to engrave a similar set of words on the tablature of the Supreme Court building in DC. If you were to take a poll of the average person on the street and ask them, “should we have the right to marry the person we love?” what do you think their response would be? I’d be willing to bet it would be overwhelmingly “Yes!” Yet, 18 states have passed amendments to their constitutions stating exactly the opposite. That’s why I think most people in this country mouth platitudes about “equality before the law.” To paraphrase George Orwell, it seems some people are more equal than others.
Sexual orientation is not a protected class for purposes of federal civil rights statutes, true enough, nor is it sufficient to trigger equal protection review on either strict scrutiny or heightened review bases. And I’ll go one further and note that the right to private, consensual sex is one founded entirely in “substantive due process,” e.g., entirely made up from whole cloth.
So, riddle me this. You seem to accept that there’s nothing in the actual law as written – nothing in the statutes, nothing in the text or history of the constitution – that would demand recognition of same-sex marriage. That being the case, you surely realize that what you’re agitating for is for judges to craft a law independent of the actual constitution – to essentially make his own policy preferences into constitutional mandates.
Well, where does that all end? Is there any limit on the power of the judiciary under that theory? What is to stop a judge in, say, the Schiavo case from simply requiring her indefinite feeding independently of what the law actually says, solely on the basis of his own moral code?
Different states have different social policies, different levels of benefits, and so forth. Anyone moving from one state to another will be affected by changes in those benefits they regularly avail themselves of. This doesn’t make one a second-class citizen; it means federalism is at work.
It’s a cute platitude, but it isn’t true. Children are treated differently than adults. Convicted felons are treated differently than the law-abiding. Those with high incomes are treated differently than those with low incomes at tax time.
The constitution does not demand absolute equality. It only demands what the 14th amendment demands, most narrowly equal treatment on racial matters (although even then, it apparently allows affirmative action programs at federally-funded universities).
You can get any answer by slanting the poll language. A poll asking “should the government take strong steps to prevent criminality?” could be used to justify Naziism (Godwin! yay!).
Let’s take your example. Most states prohibit brother and sister from marrying. Does that make the answer to your poll question hypocritical? Why?
Of course, Orwell was talking about the tendency of authoritarian elites to elect for themselves special privileges. I hardly think it applicable here – here it’s the opposite, with elites preferring to legalize gay marriage, and the mass hoi polloi supporting changes to prevent it. These changes aren’t coming from Napoleon; they’re coming from Boxer.
None of which is responsive to the claim that gays are second class citizens in the United States. We are. In most states, we don’t have the legal protections granted other minorities. The idea that we should be granted these protections is fiercely contested. When we try to get the same rights accorded everyone else in this country, we are accused of seeking “special treatment.” Politicians on both sides of the aisle make significant capital out of politicizing our private lives and publically insulting us in the most vile terms, and the voting public laps it up. State after state pass laws specifically disenfranching us, out of no better reason than simple spite. And the idea that there is absolutely no law against doing any of this only makes it that much more unjust. You will, I hope, excuse us for wanting to believe that we have some recourse in this country, some protection against this constant assault against our dignity, our privacy, and our lives. You’re the lawyer, you know more about this than I do, so if you say we’re wrong about that, I guess we’re wrong about that.
But you don’t have to be so fucking smug about it.
Oh, shut up! What was the reason why the mass. decision was that the state constion supported marriage? Oh yeah! The fact that the consitution said the words “people”, instead of a man and a women." Now, what is the working legal definition in the last while? A legal contract binding together two people. The fact that the lawmakers never thought that a man and a man would want to be marriede never enters into it. For a judge to say othwise would require " judges to craft a law independent of the actual constitution – to essentially make his own policy preferences into constitutional mandates."
I am sorry if this has been said before, but I last read the thread awhile ago, and it’s getting late.
Dewey is hunting so hard for ghostly evidences of “substantive due process” that he seems to have completely forgotten the actual opinion written by Justice Kennedy. As well as the equal protection clause.
People in Virginia might consider looking into placing a turbine underground at Montpelier for generating electric power; Mr. Madison must be turning quite a few RPM by now.
I’m not asking that SSM law be created whole cloth from judicial action. I’m asking that the same laws that apply to heterosexuals be applied to homosexuals, including laws that govern marriage. Can you show me why such laws shouldn’t be applied equally?
This is something of a strawman, since as I said above, I’m not asking for judges to create new laws based on their own moral code, I’m asking that the existing laws be equally applied to all people. Is that such a radical concept?
Yet heterosexuals don’t have any problem moving from state to state, their marriage is recognized in all 50 states. Their inheritance, powers of attorney, etc. are carried with them, no questions asked. Why can’t homosexuals have those same rights and priviledges?
This is the crux of my argument. Can the government give one good reason why homosexuals should be treated different than heterosexuals other than “because we’ve always done it this way!” or “because God says so!” I really want to know the legal justification for discriminating against homosexuals. They pose no threat to society so why the discrimination?
You know more about the law and legal history that I do, so I’ll grant you this point. But I think it also proves my general argument; the GLBT community are second-class citizens in this country. They have no right to any of the standard legal protections that are given to other minorities in the US. The various legislatures, on the federal, state and local level and make any law that would discriminate against them and they have no recourse thru the court system. My biggest worry is that some bright boy from with the conservative Christians will realize that sexual orientation is not a protected group under the Voting Rights Act and start passing of laws in the various state legistlatures that will disenfranchise the GLBT community. All of which will be perfectly legal. Given their success with passing state constitutional amendments, it would be all too easy.
I think it’s perfectly acceptable analogy here. The problem is you’re part of the ruling heterosexual elite, the ones who want to reserve their special privlidges for themselves and continue to discriminate against the GLBT community. Oh, not you, personally, but your compatriots in power.
Cool. I’d like to get an endorsement of this from a lesbian or two, just to be sure that this is both the legal position and one they’re happy with, but on the understanding that’s so, my entire argument collapses and I’ve no more to add.
Your analogy breaks down with the second part of Dewey’s point: the mass hoi polloi supporting these amendments. Regardless of who you characterize as “elite” (although after the election much hay was made of how the blue states are smarter and more educated than the red states, etc) the fact is that in every state that has put a constitutional amendment before the people, that amendment has passed. That’s not “the elite” - that’s the great unwashed masses.
I grant that lesbians may offer insight as to whether they’re happy with this state of affairs, but they cannot offer any unique legal insight.
Thanks for educating me, Bricker. By the way, can you tell me whether I should apply my lips to the small end of the egg, or the large? 
Find yourself someone who looks like Wallace Beery and you’re set.
In other words, there is no such thing as an inalienable right, because a majority can decide not to allow some people to have that right? I can see how that’s true in essence politically, since all the rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution could be repealed by an amendment properly adopted and ratified. But it’s far more totalitarianly statist a statement than I would have expected from you, Rick, and I don’t say that insultingly.
While the issue here is that some of us see “gay rights” (the application of equal rights to gay citizens) as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, and others, adopting what they term “strict constructionism,” do not, at bottom it reduces to an issue of social and political philosophy: does the majority have the right to run roughshod over the minority if they so choose? And it appears that you’re saying, yes, if they’re determined enough and can muster the votes to do it legally, they have every right to do so, and you’ll consider it legally and morally right for them to do so.
I need not explain why this bothers me. And I’d be grateful if we could address what I sincerely hope is my misreading of your position without conservative/liberal snideness-fests, warfare over appropriateness of philosophies of constitutional construction, or other extraneities. I bluntly feel that there’s a major moral and philosophical error underlying the admittedly pragmatically-valid legal position you’re asserting here, and I’d welcome the opportunity to arrive at a consensus on the subject.