DescentBB

Well, after listening to snippets of yesterday's arguments, it looks near-certain that the SCOTUS will strike down the Defense of Marriage Act, but I am still wondering if they will take a stand either way on the California's ban on gay marriage(might well just leave the lower court ruling to stand, killing the ban, but due to lack of standing of the party arguing the case). At any rate, how do my esteemed fellow members of THIS court of opinion feel about the matter of gay marriage, or the role of government in defining or sanctioning marriage in the first place.

I have no issues with gays getting married and having the same rights/benefits as opposite couples do. But sadly to many people like to live in the past.

A sanctioning body is the authority that gives something like an institution or sport legitimacy, and therefore must always be the highest authority relevant, in this case only the state has that position.

The problem as I see it is when people seem to think the sanctioning body also sets the rules, which is not the case…the owners of the institution or sport set the rules. It’s the sanctioning body’s role to enforce those rules.

So basically what I’m saying is…it’s still up to society to determine who can get married, not the government. An institution is an invented body, so of course that’s where the problems come in when trying to compare it to a human right.

(please note, this post makes no opinion either way on the issue of gay marriage)

noted......

People get married by the church because they want what ever validation the church lends their union and/or because they see their union under the auspices of the church as a part of belonging to, and supporting, the community of their fellow followers of the faith.

Outsiders, government and business, etc. have co-opted the distinction of marriage because it is convenient for them. For example insurance companies see certain behavior and calculate risk based on it, marriage being one of them, they and government also use it as a requirement for certain qualifications...tax brackets, beneficiary designations, etc.

All that extraneous usage of the "marriage designation" is just that, it is inessential to the people who entered into the marriage agreement. Their agreement/contract is all about devotion and love and possibly their religion. Those qualities are not under any outside entities jurisdiction. You can't legislate love, devotion, etc.
The only time a married couple 'needs' government with regard to their marriage is to satisfy some requirement government has established and forced onto the couple with no regard to the church or the people in the agreement. For example, when a couple divorces what is the legal division of the assets, etc.

So the only problems that arise from marriage taking place are those created by outsiders. Outsiders have added meaning to the marriage that is out of place and irrelevant to the purpose of marriage.
If the designation of marriage was left alone by government there could be no possible way that any church's choice on who they would perform a service for, or who they would recognize as being properly qualified to be married, could violate any ones rights or harm any one under the law.

If the outsiders would simply allow the couple to legally declare who their spouse is, the outsiders could do their calculations and machinations, and satisfy their requirements based off of that data just like they do now.

Government cant tell you who to marry, they cant tell you who to worship or that you must worship, they cant tell a religion what its fundamentals are or who may join the congregation. If government cant be the authority of those things then people and religions are free to marry or not as they see fit and no one is prevented from receiving benefits or otherwise harmed from their choices or they from the choices of others. No one is denied anything by another's choice to marry, gay or otherwise.

There is no problem with a religion refusing to honor a gay marriage. There is only a government problem with regards to gay marriage and sometimes the best solution to a government problem is for government to simply get out of the way.

I agree with Will. The only reason governments(or businesses, as he notes) are involved in marriage is to parse benefits based on some notion of the aspects of marriage/partnership that has been agreed upon. Thus, governmental definition of marriage is fundamentally unnecessary, and COMPLETELY different that the notion of the Sacrement of Marriage, or other religious definitions.

callmeslick wrote:Well, after listening to snippets of yesterday's arguments, it looks near-certain that the SCOTUS will strike down the Defense of Marriage Act, but I am still wondering if they will take a stand either way on the California's ban on gay marriage(might well just leave the lower court ruling to stand, killing the ban, but due to lack of standing of the party arguing the case). At any rate, how do my esteemed fellow members of THIS court of opinion feel about the matter of gay marriage, or the role of government in defining or sanctioning marriage in the first place.

I'm betting they're going to just walk away from California's ban. They do that sometimes when they don't want to render a decision. Most of the justices are old farts, and they seem uncomfortable getting mixed up in a new social movement like gay rights. The justices AND the lawyers did seem to forget that this issue isn't really that new though. There was a case concerning gay marriage in Minnesota clear back in 1970.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baker_v._Nelson

actually, the precedent most pertinent is the case where Virginia had a voter-sanctioned ban on interracial marriage.

Chief Justice Roberts kinda summed it when he referred to a example where if you force to make a child to call everyone a friend even when they are not, then you ultimately change the meaning of the word friend.

Justice Sotomayor went further by saying if we say gays to be married, how far do we have to go? In short will 2 men and 1 woman be a legitimate marriage? 1 man and 4 woman? So where would you on this board view as to how far should we allow the definition of marriage to be defined?

I stand by the idea that government shouldn't even be in the business of defining marriage. Equal rights for all, and let other institutions define marriage as they see fit, as long as(in the case of an employer or business) no one gets discriminated against.

woodchip wrote:Chief Justice Roberts kinda summed it when he referred to a example where if you force to make a child to call everyone a friend even when they are not, then you ultimately change the meaning of the word friend.

The government shouldn't be able to mandate friendship choice and they shouldn't be able to mandate spousal choice. Easy. Different religions define Jesus as different things and no one is allowed to get government into the Allah vs God or Jesus vs. Muhammed debate...churches and mosques are allowed to rage away on those subjects however without depriving anyone of their own interpretation of their faith or marriage etc.

woodchip wrote:Justice Sotomayor went further by saying if we say gays to be married, how far do we have to go? In short will 2 men and 1 woman be a legitimate marriage? 1 man and 4 woman? So where would you on this board view as to how far should we allow the definition of marriage to be defined?

I think if it isn't harmful to the public at large then feel free to go marry a goat for all I care....it wont be government sanctioning the marriage it will merely be the Kooky Church of Baaa Baaad Times doing it and that shouldn't devalue my Methodist upbringing or my children's agnostic status in the least. If two men and three women is a legitimate safety/health issue then pass the law based on the justification and the Church of Swingers will have to suck it up and deal with it.

So if religion is the only place left to get married where will non-religious people get married?

And if marriage is only sanctioned by some religious groups, how do you enforce discrimination laws against denying an apartment to a married couple for example, when the average person will no longer have to honor that marriage. (I suppose you could just force people to let others live in sin, within the walls of their home)

No, there are way too many problems with allowing a toothless institution sanction marriage.

The real problem began, as some here have touched on (I think) how government started to give benefits to married people without any intention of giving the same benefits to any couple. Tax breaks are the perfect example. (way back in the good ole days, government used these kinds of things for social engineering…yes a historical fact)

Government has no right to determine what marriage is or who can get married, but by the same hand, they also can’t give legal rights to one group, without putting in place the proper facilities to render those rights to everyone.

Of course with the election of Obama, those alternative solutions have disappeared from the table, and I doubt that is really going to help the situation.

Simple idea then. Get rid of all the special Federal AND State perks and tax breaks that go with being married. Problem solved.

Spidey wrote:So if religion is the only place left to get married where will non-religious married people get married?

Where do they get married now? Why must it change? It is just a ceremony...the presiding functionary is, and always has been, up to the couple to chose.

Spidey wrote:And if marriage is only sanctioned by some religious groups, how do you enforce discrimination laws against denying an apartment to a married couple for example, when the average person will no longer have to honor that marriage. (I suppose you could just force people to let others live in sin, within the walls of their home)

No, there are way too many problems with allowing a toothless institution sanction marriage.

...

Discrimination laws can still apply. If it is illegal to discriminate over something it is illegal whether or not government has any authority over that something. Government didn't make me white but they still can charge you if you discriminate against me for being white.

I guess that covers your point...not sure if I understood it though.

tunnelcat wrote:Simple idea then. Get rid of all the special Federal AND State perks and tax breaks that go with being married. Problem solved.

Or allow a person to declare a spouse and government can operate as usual with regard to tax etc. they simply don't get a say in who that spouse can be.

Why even declare that. We're all individual members of this nation. Treat us the same with all the same rights everyone else has equally. No special conditions or breaks.

This is funny!

Colbert vs O'Reilly on gay marriage

Will, I’m pretty sure you have wedding and marriage confused. Marriage is sanctioned by a legal body, a wedding can happen anywhere. People that are not religious can get married at the justice of the peace…remove that power, and you see what I’m saying.

Also, if a legal body doesn’t sanction marriage nobody has to recognize that marriage…hence the inability to enforce discrimination laws.

Spidey wrote:Will, I’m pretty sure you have wedding and marriage confused. Marriage is sanctioned by a legal body, a wedding can happen anywhere. People that are not religious can get married at the justice of the peace…remove that power, and you see what I’m saying.

Also, if a legal body doesn’t sanction marriage nobody has to recognize that marriage…hence the inability to enforce discrimination laws.

Ok, I get the distinction but it seems like we're entering into semantics in the context of my point anyway. If you have a wedding you are in a marriage....the wedding is over but the reason for it is to have a marriage not just the ceremony. I don't see why the government needs to sanction my marriage, other than for their own requirements that I've mentioned.

What illegal discrimination can one suffer that cant still be prosecuted if there is no government sanction for marriage? I guess that is where I am missing the importance of your point. I imagine government might need to reword a definition here and there but can't it still recognize a declared spouse in an unsanctioned marriage the same way it recognizes a spouse in a marriage that it currently sanctions?

Why does anyone need to recognize a marriage anyway. Other than to meet a requirement that an outsider to the marriage has established for the outsiders own purposes I can't think of a reason why I would need a government approved marriage.
So why care if anyone recognizes it. They should have to use some other benchmark to satisfy their requirements rather than assume authority in defining what my marriage should and should not be just to make their job easier!

Marriage is a social and legal status within the society, if people don’t recognize that status then marriage is in fact meaningless.

Some authority has to sanction marriage, back in the day it was the church, because the church was the legal authority, now the state has that role.

If you think it’s alright to just jump over a broom and consider yourself married, that’s perfectly ok with me…but don’t expect most people to accept it any time soon.

tunnelcat wrote:Simple idea then. Get rid of all the special Federal AND State perks and tax breaks that go with being married. Problem solved.

Gee... wasn't there a reason that perks/breaks were associated with marriage? I suppose it doesn't matter anymore because you say it doesn't....

Spidey wrote:

If you think it’s alright to just jump over a broom and consider yourself married, that’s perfectly ok with me…but don’t expect most people to accept it any time soon.

Looking at the rate of divorce, they might just of well had jumped over a broom.

Spidey wrote:Marriage is a social and legal status within the society, if people don’t recognize that status then marriage is in fact meaningless.

I disagree with that. If government lost its sanctioning authority over it I doubt society would immediately say my marriage has lost meaning...or that their own marriages had.
My marriage has plenty of meaning and none of it comes from governments sanction of it and I honestly don't care who outside of my wife and children think differently.

Spidey wrote:Some authority has to sanction marriage, back in the day it was the church, because the church was the legal authority, now the state has that role.

If you think it’s alright to just jump over a broom and consider yourself married, that’s perfectly ok with me…but don’t expect most people to accept it any time soon.

Set aside how many people you figure do, or do not, "accept" it for a minute because there are lots of things people will say they don't accept. Infidelity, bad table manners, inter racial marriage, pre-marital sex, that Jesus is the son of god, that Muhammad is a prophet, that there is a god, corporal punishment for children, atheism, Mormonism, etc. etc. yet those things are allowed by government and not sanctioned by government. People may say they don't accept those things....but they do recognize those things happen and/or have meaning to others.

There are plenty of people who don't believe in a number of those things and yet they support governments protection of the right for others to believe in them. Not sanctioned yet protected...by people who don't even believe in it....

Can you think of any violation of someones constitutional rights or other harm/hardship that would occur if government gave up sanctioning marriage and people had weddings and called themselves married based on guidelines from a religious organization or their own ad lib agreement between the couple?

I can't think of a single one.

I can’t really think of any constitutional problems with what you suggest, but the example I already gave comes back to mind…

As an employer the government requires me to hire the first qualified person to apply for an open position, as a former landlord I was also required by law to rent my available apartments to the first qualified applicants…I was within my legal rights of religious freedom to reject any unmarried couples as being “un-qualified” without any legal status connected to marriage I could have rejected every single couple that “claimed” to be married, and cherry picked the one I wanted. (which is exactly what the law was designed to eliminate)

But all of that aside, I believe the most likely “harm” would be the social incohesion that would result, from not having single uniform concept of marriage, as dare I point out...is exactly what is going on right here and now.

Marriage has gone from having some actual purpose to being a celebration of a love affair, and a vehicle for personal gratification, as if society has any obligation to celebrate something as mundane as a simple love affair.

Spidey wrote:...
I was within my legal rights of religious freedom to reject any unmarried couples as being “un-qualified” without any legal status connected to marriage I could have rejected every single couple that “claimed” to be married, and cherry picked the one I wanted. (which is exactly what the law was designed to eliminate)..

You were rejecting unmarried tenants based on your religious freedom...your faith....not based on some law that says unmarried can't rent? Am I correct?

If I am then that IS cherry picking. You wanted married tenants, they were the cherry you wanted to pick.
You apparently had a legal right to limit your rentals to married couples and so you did so. And your use of governments definition of marriage was letting you discriminate against all the gay couples who would gladly be married, and thus qualify for renting from you, if not for the governments laws against gay marriage!


If government didn't sanction marriages I imagine you would still be allowed to limit tenants to married couples. If you used to ask for proof of marriage before and only accepted a license from the government you would have to come up with new criteria to satisfy your proof.

Yes you would be able to reject people under false premise but that really isn't a new possibility, you could have done so a number of ways without using the marriage angle anyway so we haven't created a new avenue for discrimination we just made one form of verifying marriage unavailable to you.

And if there rises up a great many landlords using questionable interpretations of alternative documentation to prove marriage then government can step in and rule on those landlords intent to illegally discriminate based on governments interpretation of the documentation the landlords failed/refused to accept. At that point the landlords could be forced to suffer the consequence of rejecting under false pretense and the government doesn't need to be in the marriage sanctioning business to make such a judgement....

So in your case you would have to learn new ways to verify peoples marital status if you want to continue cherry picking married tenants.
I see your inconvenience as a much lesser evil compared to the number of gay people who would be discriminated against.

If government is in the marriage sanctioning business they have no choice but to sanction all peoples request equally which means government must force religions to accept a new paradigm counter to their core. On the other hand, if government gets out of the marriage sanctioning business, those landlords who chose to reject unmarried tenants, have a much much lesser of a hardship and suffer no infringement of constitutional rights. They are still free to reject unmarried tenants... and to do so they still can use the sanctioning body overseeing marriage to get verification.

Spidey wrote:...
But all of that aside, I believe the most likely “harm” would be the social incohesion that would result, from not having single uniform concept of marriage, as dare I point out...is exactly what is going on right here and now.

Marriage has gone from having some actual purpose to being a celebration of a love affair, and a vehicle for personal gratification, as if society has any obligation to celebrate something as mundane as a simple love affair.

society has no obligation to sanction a marriage either...nor any right to. Governments intrusion into the religions authority to sanction marriage has given society at large the false impression that it's group think opinion on the matter is relevant or important. Society will have to adjust. Women vote now.....black men and women are free now....adjustments aren't always bad.

“And if there rises up a great many landlords using questionable interpretations of alternative documentation to prove marriage then government can step in and rule on those landlords intent to illegally discriminate based on governments interpretation of the documentation the landlords failed/refused to accept. At that point the landlords could be forced to suffer the consequence of rejecting under false pretense and the government doesn't need to be in the marriage sanctioning business to make such a judgement....”

WOW just WOW…that is part of what a sanctioning body does. That is one of the exact duties of a sanctioning body…to enforce the rules.

This has become pointless……….society can’t sanction its own institutions, that’s like letting the cops make the laws.

Religion doesn’t own or didn’t invent marriage!

Pointless…

Spidey wrote:“And if there rises up a great many landlords using questionable interpretations of alternative documentation to prove marriage then government can step in and rule on those landlords intent to illegally discriminate based on governments interpretation of the documentation the landlords failed/refused to accept. At that point the landlords could be forced to suffer the consequence of rejecting under false pretense and the government doesn't need to be in the marriage sanctioning business to make such a judgement....”

WOW just WOW…that is part of what a sanctioning body does. That is one of the exact duties of a sanctioning body…to enforce the rules.

This has become pointless……….society can’t sanction its own institutions, that’s like letting the cops make the laws.

I think you are misrepresenting what I propose. Government can still be the teeth in the law regarding illegal discrimination without having a say in which human can marry which other human.
I described how that will work and you restated it incorrectly to imply that society is in charge of both aspects. Clearly that isn't what I had stated.

Spidey wrote:Religion doesn’t own or didn’t invent marriage!

Pointless…

Just a few posts back you told me that religion was originally the sanctioning authority and that the state then took it over. So how does/did government become a more deserving shepard of the definition of marriage? All I see they have done is to borrow the distinction for their own social machinations, not contributing anything to the substance of marriage itself as an institution.

Here is another example of how the federal government can be the teeth in one aspect and yet not be the sanctioning authority.

Contrary to popular belief, there is no "right to vote" in the constitution or at the federal level (the territory of Washington DC not withstanding).

The only entity to guarantee and rule over your 'right to vote' , if they have established one, is your State. Only your State can decide how its citizens will vote...when, where, etc. Only they can define a 'voter'.

The federal government however does have laws regarding illegal discrimination in election law and they can be used to prevent discrimination in elections even though the State has sole authority over all election procedure, or even if there will be an election at all. In theory the state could simply cast its electoral votes without even having a presidential ballot for the citizens to vote on. If, however they do have an election, and if they also reject certain voters based on some suspect criteria to try and suppress the vote the federal government can step in, examine the States reason for the rejection and cause the State to change its practice. Alabama has been under this federal intervention for decades.

So I don't understand your contention that there can't be a separate sanctioning body to define marriage and an otherwise not involved government can step in to maintain equality based on its own rules only when the two events clash.

callmeslick wrote:actually, the precedent most pertinent is the case where Virginia had a voter-sanctioned ban on interracial marriage.

Not just that. Also modern technology happened along about 50 years ago.

http://news.yahoo.com/gay-marriages-fat ... 00037.html