Defense of Marriage Act Ruled Unconstitutional

Thrasher

Wheeee!
Joined
August 18, 2008
Messages
15,679
Location
Studio City, CA
A historic day for civil rights advocates.

This 5-4 decision (which surprisingly is supported by Chief Justice Scalia) overturns the DOMA and tells the Mormon morons they have no good argument that gay marriage somehow damages them (duh!). So lower court's ruling that overturns California Proposition 8 (a ban on gay marriage) is upheld.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Aug 18, 2008
Messages
15,679
Location
Studio City, CA
This is a very complicated issue. I am all for equal rights but:
  • You are using the highest court in the land to dictate POLICY. This was never the intention of the Supreme Court.
  • You have a Puritan population electing Puritan officials. Progressive policies are enacted at a snail's pace in Congress not simply due to ineptitude and lobbyists, but based upon actual voters' feelings - ignorant or not.

What the country truly needs is a tax code slashed in half - one not reliant on marital status whatsoever. This would then negate the need for a court to police a country's sentiment towards marriage.
 
Joined
Nov 10, 2008
Messages
5,978
Location
Florida, USA
Enforcing the equal protection under the law clause of the constitution is absolutely not setting "policy"; the role of the SCOTUS is to rule on whether the constitution voids any shitty policy proposed by Congress, which includes DOMA.
 
Joined
Aug 18, 2008
Messages
15,679
Location
Studio City, CA
Enforcing the equal protection under the law clause of the constitution is absolutely not setting "policy"; the role of the SCOTUS is to rule on whether the constitution voids any shitty policy proposed by Congress, which includes DOMA.
Your unabiding love for the Constitution is noted. Appears you're a fickle lover, though.

For my part, more power to 'em. Equal misery for all. ;)
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
13,535
Location
Illinois, USA
No, not really love for constitution, just want to be clear on SCOTUS's responsibility and how the constitution applied in this case. There's still a lot of bogus out of date crap in the constitution. However, the "equal protection under the law" clause is not crap, and is gold in my mind.

Yeah, divorce court for all! ;)
 
Joined
Aug 18, 2008
Messages
15,679
Location
Studio City, CA
I'm really not sure what exactly is this about?

Human rights vs law or something like that?
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2009
Messages
23,459
So it's about marriage, not about rights of Mormons to live as they want?
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2009
Messages
23,459
Ah, so some minority wants everyone else to live by their standards, instead of respecting others?
IMO, such minority should be banned from this planet. Is a timemachine invented? If yes, send them to the stone age - try to make the arriving location some matriarchy village. Or better yet, send them to old Turkey in a harem. Perhaps they'd learn a thing or two.
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2009
Messages
23,459
While I am in no way a supporter of Mormonism, this site does not permit racist and other such comments. Please do not attack minority groups with vitriol; it is unwarranted and not appreciated. Some of our posters may even be Mormons.
 
Joined
Aug 31, 2006
Messages
12,806
Location
Australia
!?!? Prop 8 is not a Mormon law. They were big backers for sure but if they were the only backers that law would never have been passed.

You are using the highest court in the land to dictate POLICY. This was never the intention of the Supreme Court.
Huh? All they did was strike down a portion of a law that they see as unconstitutional. That's what they do.
You have a Puritan population electing Puritan officials. Progressive policies are enacted at a snail's pace in Congress not simply due to ineptitude and lobbyists, but based upon actual voters' feelings - ignorant or not.
To override the constitution of California (or any other state) you need a constitutional amendment, not a simple law passed by the majority at the time. That's why so many states went to the trouble to ban gay marriage in their own constitutions.

What the country truly needs is a tax code slashed in half - one not reliant on marital status whatsoever. This would then negate the need for a court to police a country's sentiment towards marriage.
Eh, sorta. Co-habitation is a pretty strong economic advantage as the couple gets to share so many things. Still, married people may not be living together and unmarried people may be living together so it's not as good an indicator as it was back in the 1950's.


So next on the list would be DOMA's law saying states don't have to recognize another state's marriage license when the couple is of the same gender. Given today's ruling, that doesn't sound too hard to crush. Then, after a mad flurry of out-of-state weddings, this game will be pretty much over.
 
Joined
Aug 3, 2008
Messages
8,238
Location
Kansas City
Oh I didn't mean to imply that Prop 8 is Mormon law, just they were the most determined backer. A lot of money came from out of state to get Prop 8 on the ballot and propagandized in commercials and finally defended in court (the state refused to defend it eventually). A big part (almost half) of the funding was pushed by the Mormon church. Nice separation of church and state there, eh? They were not only laughed out of court, but should have their tax exempt status removed.

In 2010, the California Fair Political Practices Commission fined the LDS church for failing to follow campaign disclosure policies during the last two weeks leading up to the election, which amounted to $37,000 in non-monetary contributions. They were fined $5,538
.
 
Joined
Aug 18, 2008
Messages
15,679
Location
Studio City, CA
Oh, nice! I need to look into Firefox automatically using it.
The disadvantage of Duckduckgo is it can't find images. StartPage can, I have no experience with the latter though, just learned about it after having found Prism-Break this evening. Prism-break provides a list of free alternatives to proprietary software if you want to opt out of Prism
 
What was interesting to me was that the ruling wasn't really based on equal protection (they specifically did not list homosexuals as a protected class), but rather that they fell back on a Federalism argument, which given the current makeup of the court and our elected officials, is surprising. I think if it had only been argued on the basis of Equal Protection, the ruling would have gone the other way.
 
Joined
Jan 10, 2008
Messages
4,353
Location
Austin, TX
No, not exclusively unless this wiki is wrong.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Windsor
Section 3 of DOMA was ruled unconstitutional "as a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment" on June 26, 2013.
Here is the ruling and quote from it:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-307_g2bh.pdf
By seeking to injure the very class New York seeks to protect,DOMA violates basic due process and equal protection principles applicable to the Federal Government.
Federalism is in the mix, but this statement says that due process in the Federal constitution has precedence over Federalism.
 
Joined
Aug 18, 2008
Messages
15,679
Location
Studio City, CA
Hmm, well what I first read (right after the ruling) was different than what you've posted, so maybe I was incorrect.
 
Joined
Jan 10, 2008
Messages
4,353
Location
Austin, TX
There is a lot of bad info posing as journalism. Another detail is that there are separate rulings/opinions on prop 8 vs doma. Different votes, rationale, briefs, etc. I think that's where we are crossing wires.
 
Joined
Aug 18, 2008
Messages
15,679
Location
Studio City, CA
Back
Top Bottom