Justice Alito: Why Not Let 4 Lawyers Marry One Another?

As irrelevant as consanguinity is for same-sex couple (as it is, of course, for all celibate, and all non-fertile heterosexual couples) equality dictates that the same strictures apply.

 

Not really. There's been quite a lot of polygamy throughout human history as well, including of course in ancient Israel. There's also no good reason to deny consenting adults to enter into polygamist marriages. They absolutely should be as free to do this as gays should be to marry one another.

Government should take a totally hands-off approach to this matter. Marriage is a personal matter first and foremost, and for many a religious matter as well, and definitely not something that needs to be licensed and regulated. I agree with having the law protect minors against sexual abuse by adults, and of course adults from sexual assault by others, but that's really about it.

 

That wouldn't be an issue if it weren't for marriage benefits. But when you include marriage benefits... therein lies the problem.

Nobody is stopping homosexuals from marrying. They can go out to any field, in any city, in any county, in any state in this country and have a little ceremony, say vows, have their "preacher" there, give each other rings and kiss in front of all their friends and family, go on a honeymoon and live together for the rest of their gay lives... and NOBODY will stop them from doing so.

The issue is they want the BENEFITS that come from marriage. And that's where we have the problem.

 

We don't regulate the institution of marriage. But our legal system is not fair to two people living as one couple. Which is why we created the legal status 'married' to accommodate such couples. Throughout the entirety of American law have embedded widespread dependencies on that status throughout our legal system.

If you want, go ahead and do the monumental work required to remove that status from all American laws and find another way not to be unreasonably burdensome to folks choosing to live a shared life (or deal with the inevitable lawsuits if you don't) and you can get that status out of government and law.

Or if you want, do the work to expand that legal status to accommodate multiple simultaneous marriages. I don't care which.

Until you do though, don't deny that existing legal status to couples on the basis of their gender, race, or religion. Nothing is gained by that prohibition, many are harmed by it unnecessarily, and almost no work is required to make the prohibition (which didn't even exist until recently) go away.




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The question you should be answering is why not?
Why are the rights of a gay couple so much more important than those of Muslims or Mormons favoring polygamy?

What about them? Prenuptial agreements can fix everything.

 

A Kentucky judge said it best.

 

There is NO,absolutely No Defense or Rational for Same Sex Marriage.
It is simply a Cause celebre.Like the Birther Movement.Then Trayvon Martin.
Now - Justice - and punishing Cops.
This is no different than a Klan { KKK } mindset INVERTED.
Which Pamela Geller Proved with her movement.That Free Speech should
not KOWTOW to those who Terrorize.Terrorist should have No voice or
Following.Just like the KKK eventually got the message.
Now there is a new form of KKK.
Blacks making Demands.Blacks calling the shots.
because as Valerie Jarrett was heard saying before the 2012 Election :
" It's Our Turn Now ".

 

This is merely what happens when Community Organizing has Gone Crazy.
Anything Goes.Ratioinal thought be damned.Ta hell with common sense
and the best interest of Society.Just like the now Ridiculous move to Blame
Cops for the troubles in Baltimore.Which hasn't had a Republican mayor since
the 1930's.Has been Run exclusively by democrats since the 60's.
Baltimore has gotten $ 1.8 BILLION the last 5 years to run the city.
And yet their schools rank at the bottom.
And we're being lectured by these democrats on how to create jobs and
better schools.And of course Gay Rights.

 

You clearly need a lesson in Constitutional Law. Equal Protection is just that. If nobody has the right to do X, equal protection is fulfilled. If SOME people are allowed to do X, then the state must show what it's compelling interest is to ban one category but not others.

Pure polygamy would FAIL equal protection tests. Plural marriage, in order to be Constitutional would be gender neutral. If a man can have multiple wives, and a woman can't have multiple husbands, FAIL. Regardless, the reason it is not germane to the current case that SCOTUS is mulling over is because there's a process. Multi-party marriage is NOT on the docket, and as such not, it will not be ruled on, even if behind closed doors all 9 Justices think banning it is Unconstitutional. Some future party would have to initiate a lawsuit and work it all the way to SCOTUS.

Yeah? Picture this. 3 people are in a marriage. One of them has a health problem, and is not conscious, and therefore incapable of making their own medical decisions. If the other 2 disagree, and can't come to a resolution, whose opinion will win the day? And that's just one example of dozens of things that would have to be worked out from a legal perspective. I don't pretend to know what all of them are. I don't pretend to know if they're fixable or not. But it's much more complex than just simply lifting the gender requirements, where everything else has no reason to change.

Our laws deal with 2-party marriages. Could they be modified to reasonably deal with multi-party ones? I don't know. And neither do you.

 

Who said they were? Polygamist groups have the same rights as anyone else to challenge laws in court. The Brown family made some headway in Utah by getting the laws prohibiting cohabitation overturned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Buhman


This case before the USSC however has nothing to do with polygamy. The 14th amendment argument being made is that since the state already allows two heterosexual individuals to enter into a legal marriage, denying the same marriage to two homosexual individuals is violating their right to equal protection under the law. It's really not that difficult of a concept.

 

Otherwise you have a double standard, as you yourself admitted. Case closed.

 

There is no law that prohibits two "homosexual individuals", or allows two "heterosexuals individuals". Their sexual orientation is irrelevant to the requirements of entry of marriage laws. Two people of the "opposite sex" have the genders required for procreation, regardless of their sexual orientation. The fact that homosexuals generally don't want to marry somebody of the opposite sex, doesn't transform the limitation in marriage to opposite sex couples, into an intent to exclude "homosexual individuals"

 

Roger that.

Ironically, it's the SSM advocates who didn't have anything to worry about as states were gradually accommodating them as the people's will (which is meaningless according to you) turned in support of changing their definitions of marriage. But that wasn't good enough or fast enough or accommodating enough for the movement, so here we are, waiting for the Supreme Court to potentially say that yeah, the legal definition of marriage still resides with the states. Oops!

 

Rabble rabble rabble. Procreation is completely irrelevant. It has nothing to do with this case.

Denying two individuals of the same sex to marry when two members of the opposite sex are allowed to marry is not providing equal protection under the law. You are denying them marriage on the sole reason of their gender. That is discrimination any way you spin it.

 

The "people's will" does not trump the 14th amendment.

 

Correct, and the 14th Amendment has no application here.

 

Clearly you haven't read it. It's crystal clear.

 

The sheer volume of laws in this nation today is out of hand, anyway. Let's repurpose 0bama's presently non-functional reset button, do away with the current mess, and go from there, avoiding a legal institution of marriage in the process.

As a bonus, many lawyers might be forced into more socially and economically productive work as a consequence!

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I agree that marriage benefits (and the need for them) is a problem. With fewer taxes all-around, though, we could probably do away with that nonsense entirely.

 

Two people build one life. They work together to create a home, build a retirement, arrange for their medical needs. Our laws recognize that.

They don't force the couple to live like room mates, keeping their bank accounts separate, each paying half the electricity bill, each writing a separate check for half the mortgage, or each putting money into a separate retirement account so they can file a separate income return. Our laws don't strip all that away half the couples home, or all their medical insurance and retirement annuity simply because the wrong half of the couple dies first. That's not out of control or non-functional.

What's non-functional is denying that reasonable legal protection to another couple, because it has the wrong number of penises.



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Let's try to find the real issue behind all of this.
If marriage is not involved, then there is no issue.
If 5 women want to "be together forever", without being married, then there is no issue - they are free to do that.

So what makes is suddenly bad, or immoral (or whatever) if they want to get married?
Is it the tax breaks?
Is it religious beliefs?

Why does a bit of paper, technically a legal contract, make a difference to us in the way they were already living?

 

We talk as if marriage is strictly a private matter, but a "legal" marriage is in fact a public matter. The public agrees to devote resources to keeping that relationship together, the public endorses that relationship, the public absorbs the consequences of the marriage's breakup. So pro or con, reducing it to a technicality or a "piece of paper" fails to understand why states have a legal interest in marriage at all.

 

Just as you would deny couples being married on the sole reason that they are closely related. Not sure of your point. You simply advocate a different form of discrimination.

 

So with this public matter at hand, why does it matter that it's between a couple of dudes or man and woman? Honest question, looking for honest answers!

 

As do you. One for those permitted to marry and another for those who are prohibited. My standard is rationally related to serving asome legitimate governmental interest, yours is not.

 

So is smoking pot. Doesn't make it universaly accepted.

Possibly, we'll see how the ruling goes by the supreme court.