US Supreme Court to Take on Gay Marriage

a reply to: Benevolent Heretic
But that is what they are trying to do. If you look at what is going on in Oklahoma and in Virginia, and some of the other states, it is a can of worms that was opened up by the legislatures, that they are going to regret for a very long time.

originally posted by: sdcigarpig
If a marriage is no longer about children, or religion, or wealth, or sex, then what exactly is a marriage?

It has never been strictly defined. People marry to have kids, for companionship, friendship, for money or for love. Or for all of them. Or for other reasons.

I guarantee my marriage is fundamentally pretty different from the average marriage, because WE define it. No one else can tell me what marriage is, because each couple defines their own marriage. There simply is no one definition. And I don't think there should be.

If the state wants to offer a legal contract called "marriage", people can take advantage of it and define it however they choose. Just as a business would define itself.

a reply to: Benevolent Heretic
And as it has never been defined in a strict sense, there in lies the problem that the court is having to sort out.

The courts will ultimately, for legal purposes, have to figure out what exactly is a marriage, in the eyes of the law. They will have to figure out what is and is not in it, and ultimately have to take the time to see that it is equal in all aspects.

Some people take their marriages very seriously, they take the time to honor the promises that they made to the other person, and some treat it like it is the flavor of the day, not very seriously and tend to jump from one relationship to the other.

In any case the opinions of the justices should be interesting to read.

a reply to: sdcigarpig

I would say the basics of marriage is the contract.

In all my readings, whether indigenous tribes or European society ---- the matriarch/patriarch negotiated the contract before any marriage was allowed.

What can I say, I read a lot. I would have been a "social" anthropologist if I had known such existed. I was not into bones and dinosaurs. But, I am into how societies began, evolved, etc.

a reply to: Annee
If it is a contract, then why deny the right of consenting adults to engage in a lawful contract?

I ask these kinds of questions, cause I can see these are the kinds of questions that the justices are going to be asking the attorneys on both sides of the issue. And it is from these questions that they will make a determination if such is valid and under the constitution, and protected by federal law.

Side note, things in Alabama keep getting more and more interesting, as the lines are being drawn down there. I hope that they post and announce who all is backing the judge, cause that will just add in more fuel to the fire. It seems as though the KKK are throwing their hat in the ring in support of Judge Moore, while the press is against him. This is turning out to be more entertaining than what many are saying about Kanye's performance during the Grammy's.

originally posted by: sdcigarpig
I ask these kinds of questions, cause I can see these are the kinds of questions that the justices are going to be asking the attorneys on both sides of the issue. And it is from these questions that they will make a determination if such is valid and under the constitution, and protected by federal law.

They are only deciding in the context of THIS case (marriage equality for gay people) although there may be some discussion and consideration for future challenges (plural marriage, incestual marriage). In the current case, though, I think they would just remove the arbitrary limit some states have that require the gender of the participants to be opposite. It could be seen as gender discrimination.

If two women, two men, or a man and a woman wanted to enter into a business contract with the state, the gender of the participants would not even be an issue. Secular marriage should be the same way.

We live in exciting times!

Side note, things in Alabama keep getting more and more interesting, as the lines are being drawn down there.

No kidding! A minister was arrested for agreeing to perform a wedding for two women:

Gay Marriage Ceremony Results In Arrest Of Minister Anne Susan Diprizio

The battle in the courts has already caused casualties on the sidelines. Courtney Cannon and Morgan Plunkett said they went to the Autauga County Probate Office to be married but they had stopped performing all marriage ceremonies on Friday. That’s when a female minister named Anne Susan Diprizio offered to perform the gay marriage ceremony on the spot.
...
After Diprizio posted her bond of $1,000, she walked right out of the jail and headed back to the probate office. She claims to be an ordained non-denominational minister, but did not clarify what religion she represents.

If she's non-denominational, she doesn't represent a specific religion...

Source

Marriage establishes familial rights where otherwise there would be none.

Like, for example, in the case of emergency medical care for one of the partners.

My partner has been in ICU before and I was not "allowed" to visit. Not being family or nothin' you know.

I went in anyway, and dared them to do something about it, expressing my willingness to appear on television at their front doors.

Suddenly, they made a "reasonable accommodation" in my case.

Aside from simply a matter of equal rights and equal protection before the laws, marriage also carries other important rights ...

a reply to: Benevolent Heretic

Where is the public outcry about the government overreach in this matter?

A minister can't enact the holy sacrament of marriage by state decree???

a reply to: Gryphon66

Exactly. I'm really pretty shocked at this. What about the government worker who issued the license? Or was there a license? Did the minister just offer a non-legal ceremony and that got the probate judge's panties in a bunch? I'm looking into it more.

I'm suspecting the minister is offering to marry (not legally) people who are turned away from getting a license.

a reply to: Benevolent Heretic

Oh, OK. The couple did have a license, but the Judge wasn't allowing marriages... (???)

The minister was trying to perform the marriage IN the probate office and was arrested for disorderly conduct.

"I was trying to marry a nice couple and that wasn't going to happen today because Judge Booth explained that if he let one couple be married he would have to let everybody be married and he was not going to allow us to have a ceremony there. I told him I would not leave on my own volition. I was very respectful. I was not disorderly."

Source

Why she insisted on performing it there is beyond me. Probably to bring attention to the issue.

a reply to: Benevolent Heretic

How is celebrating a religious ceremony disorderly?

It seems clear this case is about religious freedom.

Are they really saying that no minister has ever "spoken words of the rite" in the Probate office before?

I'm sure our Christian friends will be in here in a minute in support of this minister.

(And I'm not merely being facetious. This *is* a clear-cut, state-sponsored abridgment of religious freedom, little different than the state going into a church and telling a minister that he or she HAD to perform a marriage.)

originally posted by: Gryphon66
How is celebrating a religious ceremony disorderly?

They asked her to leave and she refused. That's what they consider the disorderly part. She didn't follow orders.

Are they really saying that no minister has ever "spoken words of the rite" in the Probate office before?

No, the judge stopped all marriages in the probate office on Friday, saying that they were too busy to marry people.

I'm sure our Christian friends will be in here in a minute in support of this minister.

Don't hold your breath.

Well, the minister should probably have cleared out of the Probate Office when asked, and I guess technically, since this was government property, the judge was technically right in forbidding religious use of public facilities, sadly, that was not their action, but instead they arrested her for what was likely the equivalent of praying over the couple to "bless" their union. (or whatever).

I'm sure Alabama is scrupulous about separation of church and State though ... as a rule.

Some counties were issuing licenses to comply with the Federal ruling. But, were refusing to allow marriage, per Roy Moore. In other words, they were being sneaky.

The Human Rights organization has a hot line and representatives at every courthouse monitoring and reporting on each.

originally posted by: Gryphon66
Well, the minister should probably have cleared out of the Probate Office when asked, . .

Go quietly into the night?

"I was trying to marry a nice couple and that wasn't going to happen today because Judge Booth explained that if he let one couple be married he would have to let everybody be married," Diprizio said. "So he was not going to allow us to have ceremony there and he had me arrested. "I told him I wasn't going to leave on my own volition and I was very respectful.

These are intimidation tactics and we have the federal government on our side. It's bad for Judge Booth because he is on the wrong side of history." www.montgomeryadvertiser.com... 127/

originally posted by: sdcigarpig
a reply to: Annee
If it is a contract, then why deny the right of consenting adults to engage in a lawful contract?

IMO -- The moral majority, in other words Christian dominance.

As I've said before, over the years I've watched the emergence of non-religious and the more liberal Spirituality challenge the stranglehold Fundamental Christianity had on this country.

There is no logical reason to deny "poly" marriages.

Is an incestual marriage with intent to procreate any different then a marriage of someone with a known genetic disorder with intent to procreate?

a reply to: Annee

... or rage, rage against the dying of the light?

(and no, I didn't have to Google it, LOL)

I just expected someone by now to have talked about the religious freedoms being violated here.

This is an official of a state government denying a religious official from practicing their religion.

He didn't say "take it off the property" ... I could actually see that. If, you know, Alabama gave a hoot about separation of church and state (hint: they don't so long as it's mainstream Christianity and State).

Since there is usually a cavalcade of folks who come into these threads talking about how religious freedoms are being violated, I just hoped we'd see that here.

I guess I was wrong and their beliefs really are one-way only.

Alabama needs to wake up and smell the coffee. Marriage equality is going to be a fact in this country.

And I just believe those in power in AL need to concentrate on other matters, like, being 45-46th in the nation in education, or 43rd in overall public health, being well in the bottom half of the country economically, wouldn't you think their leaders would be working on that?

Naw. Let's uniformly ruin business for the state's wedding industry, florists, photographers, et. al.

"So's we can pretend we's standin' up to the Revenuers."

(Don't start, I'm from GA; we have reciprocal insult rights with AL.)

/eyeroll
/big eyeroll
/sad sigh

originally posted by: Gryphon66

I just expected someone by now to have talked about the religious freedoms being violated here.

I don't consider marriage religious, so didn't even occur to me.

Why does anyone need to officiate a wedding in the first place? Why can't you simultaneously get your license and just sign a marriage contract?

a reply to: Annee
Excellent questions, though one might say in answer to that, there is historical precedent to that aspect, where 2 people closely related were wed at one time. But that is all speculation and hopefully the better legal minds of the day and age can make sense of it all.

The court ultimately has to take the question and look at it from the most simplest terms, and then see how the constitution of the USA would apply to such. In these aspects, they would require tests that would have to be answered. Other cases in the past, where issues of a constitutional nature came up, they put forth a series of questions, usually three, and then applied the basic aspects of the arguments to those questions. If the answer to all three were one way or the other it was what they used to state if something was or was not covered under the constitution of the United States of America.

Right now the one thing that we call all hope for is that the court will make sense of the mess of laws that have come up with in the past few years and give a clear and concise definition, along with a test to go along with such that other courts can use in answering such questions. The ruling in this case, will have some profound ripples in the legal sense for the country for years to come. And something tells me that there will be challenges down the road.

a reply to: Benevolent Heretic
I keep thinking on your answer and am shocked by it and at the same time it does hold true to what some would say. The problem being that plural and incest have already been discussed and talked about, thought and debated over long before any of the current people in the country have been alive. In the case of plural marriage, this case will have little bearing on, cause it is a different argument and the problem is that it is not a new concept. Plural marriage, has been around before in the USA. In the late 1800's is when the issue was discussed, and ruled on, and laws were pass, to halt its practice and end it.

And interesting side note of that ruling, and it is an interesting ruling non the less, it was the first time the court ever limited on what any religion could do in the United States of America. In short, apart from up holding a federal law that banned bigmay (plural) marriage, it also upheld that a church or religious practice, could not operate if it violated criminal law in the persuit of said practice. The court considered that if polygamy was allowed, someone might eventually argue that human sacrifice was a necessary part of their religion, and "to permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself." The Court believed the First Amendment forbade Congress from legislating against opinion, but allowed it to legislate against action.