[Deluge]

(05-22-2014 10:15 PM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote:  

This whole argument is completely f'ing absurd.

Gay "marriage" was completely incomprehensible as an idea a mere couple of decades ago. Now we're supposed to suddenly believe that a law banning it is "unconstitutional"? WTF?

The 14th amendment was passed in 1868. If you tried telling someone in 1868 that this amendment implies that two men must be allowed to "marry" each other, they would look at you like you had three heads. In the best case scenario.

The idea that an arrangement that has been completely incomprehensible throughout human history in general and US history in particular -- not homosexuality, which has always existed and been known to exist but the concept that two men or two women can "marry" each other -- is now suddenly mandated by the Constitution is an idea that I find insulting. It is the height of Year Zero arrogance.

Just because gay marriage wasn't conceivable back in 1868 doesn't make the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment any less valid. If you actually read the clause you'll see that it uses very broad terms for this very reason, to protect people from any and all discriminatory laws, not just the issues that were pressing in 1868.

Quote:

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

That's literally all there is to the clause, it's application here is completely valid.

(05-23-2014 12:15 AM)NY Digital Wrote:  

Arguably, what the majority wants, then they shall receive.

The majority doesn't want gay marriage.

Some asshat with power overturns the majority in an entire state.

So 1 person is more important than millions of people. Sounds like a dictatorship.

A clear cut majority of Pennsylvanians and Americans in general support same-sex marriage. Try to actually read threads before you jump in with lies and misinformation.

EDIT:
Worth noting that Texas may well be the next to legalize same-sex marriage due to the Fourteenth Amendment, and a plurality of Texans now support gay marriage at 48% according to a new Texas Tech poll, once Texas legalizes it it's game over for traditional conservatives. The symbolic defeat will have big repercussions.

[Handsome Creepy Eel]

I completely agree that what people believed in the past is not something that should determine current laws. However, I remain thoroughly unconvinced that there is any discrimination going on that needs to be fixed through this measure. This is not to mention the general hypocrisy surrounding this issue or the needlessly inflammatory and aggressive ways in which this measure is being implemented.

[Deluge]

(05-23-2014 01:33 AM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  

I completely agree that what people believed in the past is not something that should determine current laws. However, I remain thoroughly unconvinced that there is any discrimination going on that needs to be fixed through this measure.

Google is your friend HCE.

Civil unions are shoddy, separate but equal under the law, but glaringly wanting in practice.

Quote:

For Jean Csvihinka, 48, who works at a bank in Milford, getting a civil union meant paying tax on an additional $6,000 a year. Ms. Csvihinka said that adding her partner, Gina Bonfietti, 43, a self-employed piano technician, to her health insurance obligated her to pay a federal tax on the value of the additional coverage that married couples would not owe, and that since the civil union she has also had to pay tax on her daughters’ coverage even though the girls were on her plan, tax-free, before.

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Debra Milardo, Middletown’s personnel director, said the city would provide the same benefits to a gay partner in a civil union as to an officer’s husband or wife, but that such a partner would likely face federal taxes a married person would not. “That is something no municipality has any jurisdiction over,” Ms. Milardo said. “A federal tax burden is a federal tax burden. We can’t circumvent that in any shape or form.”

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As of right now (ed: 2007), five months after New Jersey's Civil Union Law took effect, at least 1 out of every 7 civil-union couples in New Jersey are not getting their civil unions recognized by their employers. One out of 7 is 14 percent. If 14 percent of married couples in New Jersey were being denied full, legally-guaranteed marriage benefits by their employers, there'd be outraged stories on every news source in the region, and quite possibly rioting in the streets. And actually, it's probably more than 1 out of 7. The 1 out of 7 figure comes from 191 complaints reported to Garden State Equality (out of 1,359 civil-union couples) -- and chances are excellent that not everyone who's having problems is reporting it.

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A United States citizen who is married can sponsor his or her non-American opposite-sex spouse for immigration into this country. Those with Civil Unions have no such privilege.

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On July 20, lesbian domestic partners Brittney Leon and Terri-Ann Simonelli checked Leon into the Spring Valley Hospital when she experienced complications with her pregnancy. Having entered into a domestic partnership agreement issued by the state of Nevada, Leon and Simonelli presumed Simonelli would be empowered to make medical decisions on Leon's behalf, should it become necessary... Not so, said hospital administrators, Simonelli would need a legal power of attorney to assume such responsibility.

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The General Accounting Office in 1997 released a list of 1,049 benefits and protections available to heterosexual married couples. These benefits range from federal benefits, such as survivor benefits through Social Security, sick leave to care for ailing partner, tax breaks, veterans benefits and insurance breaks. They also include things like family discounts, obtaining family insurance through your employer, visiting your spouse in the hospital and making medical decisions if your partner is unable to. Civil Unions protect some of these rights, but not all of them.

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Civil partners do not have the same pension rights as married couples. If one civil partner dies, the pension share that the surviving partner receives is often lower and lasts for less time than with married couples.

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marriage is recognized in every state and indeed every country, while civil unions aren't; so the rights and responsibilities don't necessarily travel with you when you leave the state that granted them.

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marriage is an institution/ ritual/ relationship that has existed for thousands of years, one that has tremendous resonance in our culture in a way that civil unions simply don't. And there are moral reasons -- as history has born out, separate but equal is pretty much by definition not equal.

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Then the Joint Labor/Management Insurance Committee in Springfield decided not to cover health benefits for the partners of city employees if the partnerships were civil unions.

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the Illinois Department of Revenue barred civil partners from filing jointly for their Illinois state taxes, confusingly arguing that the civil union law had not changed Illinois tax law. This is huge, folks, because filing jointly is one of the chief benefits of civil marriage.

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Maureen M. Murphy, a New Haven lawyer who has represented same-sex couples for 15 years, said it often takes civil union couples two or three times as long to prepare their taxes, because they need to fill out a dummy joint federal return in order to calculate figures they need for their Connecticut joint filing.

Quote:

Amy Pear, a 39-year-old police captain in Middletown, said she was reminded again this month of her own murky legal status when she returned home from an overseas trip with June Lockert, 46, her better half for the last 14 years. Arriving at Kennedy International Airport, the couple were asked whether they were one household. Captain Pear said she explained that they were, in Connecticut, because of their civil union. She said the customs officer sent them back to be processed separately since the federal government took a different view

[Handsome Creepy Eel]

Thanks for the examples.

And all of them could be fixed simply by writing "wherever an article of law refers to marriage, its constituents or effects, it automatically also applies to civil unions and its constituents or effects".

Bam. Problem solved.

Where's my Nobel Prize?

[Benoit]

Since it's no longer doing what it was created to do, I would rather see all the tax breaks and benefits removed from all marriages.

Far better that than attempting to prop up a dysfunctional system by adding further dysfunction.

[kosko]

(05-23-2014 03:12 AM)Benoit Wrote:  

Since it's no longer doing what it was created to do, I would rather see all the tax breaks and benefits removed from all marriages.

Far better that than attempting to prop up a dysfunctional system by adding further dysfunction.

Feminists would scream on how hat effects children.

It's funny since for my buddy since he is with a Aboriginal girl in Canada she gets massive at breaks and grants as a "single" mother. They have 3 kids together and are ride or die but have zero plans to make it legal/official and just keep enjoying the tax breaks. It helps the kids and for him or keeps his money his and under his control since they don't do joint finances for stuff.

[Deluge]

(05-23-2014 03:07 AM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  

Thanks for the examples.

And all of them could be fixed simply by writing "wherever an article of law refers to marriage, its constituents or effects, it automatically also applies to civil unions and its constituents or effects".

Bam. Problem solved.

Where's my Nobel Prize?

That's already in place, the entire point of those examples is that they may be the same in the eyes of the law but in practice they are not, for a wide variety of reasons. This is the third time I've had to say that, it seems like I've been wasting my time trying to make you connect the dots on this because we're on the same page on most issues. I'm bowing out of this thread.

[Handsome Creepy Eel]

No, obviously such a provision is not already in place. "Civil union" (where it exists) seems to be working as a separate institution with rights that may differ from those offered by "marriage". How can you possibly argue that it's the same? If it were the same, then

Quote:

at least 1 out of every 7 civil-union couples in New Jersey not getting their civil unions recognized by their employers

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such a partner likely facing federal taxes a married person would not

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barring civil partners from filing jointly for their Illinois state taxes

could and should result in the employers/government/hospitals/others being punished for discriminatory practices.

It is obvious that, if civil unions really were the legal equivalent of marriage in all respects, any and all of the examples listed would be prone to lawsuits in the same way that they would be prone to lawsuits if they denied these rights to married couples. But they're not.

Given that such lawsuits/punishments have not occurred in any of these examples, it is obvious that law is currently not defining the civil union as the legal equivalent of marriage in all respects as it should be defined. Thus, it needs to be amended by providing such a definition and enforcing it. This is a far simpler and more amiable solution than the expansion of marriage that is currently going on.

I'm also tired of arguing on this so let's agree to disagree.

[Deluge]

(05-23-2014 04:47 AM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  

it is obvious that law is currently not defining the civil union as the legal equivalent of marriage in all respects as it should be defined. Thus, it needs to be amended by providing such a definition and enforcing it. This is a far simpler and more amiable solution than the expansion of marriage that is currently going on.

You keep missing the point entirely, civil unions according to the letter of the law already have/had the same benefits as marriage. It's just that in practice this has not been the case. The law books can say civil unions are the same as marriages all they want, but that doesn't mean businesses and institutions and even the Federal government (remember civil unions are the states responsibility) will actually treat them as such. Are you a second language English speaker? I think things are getting lost in translation here.

It's a moot point anyway, even if civil unions did in practice have the same benefits as marriage it wouldn't stop gays from wanting to get married, and denying gays access to the institution of marriage would still be held to be unconstitutional anyway. A marriage is a marriage, and that name and the tradition behind it ("tradition" referred to ironically in the case of gay marriage) are still of great importance and life milestone to most people, and denying this to institution to gays is the overarching reason why same-sex marriage bans violate the Fourteenth Amendment, more-so than the total failure of civil union systems.

[Parlay44]

Marriage has a legal aspect to it and a religious aspect. It has 2 definitions. They may win the legal argument and have civil unions but they'll never win the religious argument. Religions will never bless the concept of two men or two women marrying. Gays are trying to win an argument with god by trying to win an argument with the state. It'll never happen. It's a joke if not an epic troll by the gay community.

[Deluge]

(05-23-2014 08:46 AM)Parlay44 Wrote:  

Marriage has a legal aspect to it and a religious aspect. It has 2 definitions. They may win the legal argument and have civil unions but they'll never win the religious argument. Religions will never bless the concept of two men or two women marrying. Gays are trying to win an argument with god by trying to win an argument with the state. It'll never happen. It's a joke if not an epic troll by the gay community.

Surprisingly enough the big mainline Protestant denominations in America now actually perform same-sex marriages or are planning to soon. Gays don't give a shit about the religious aspect of marriage anyway, what they care about is getting to play house just like straight couples with the weddings and calling each other husband and wife, God has nothing to do with it.

[Samseau]

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

^ Nothing in this clause supports faggots as faggots, just faggots as regular citizens. So if the laws say people can get married, and the laws define marriage as something between a man and a woman, then fags can get married to their respective opposite gender.

The fact that fag marriage can only be passed via Judicial fiat proves it's a joke and against the will of the people. Poll after poll shows majority of regular Americans are against fag marriage, the only places it gains traction are in liberal cities with brainwashed youths.

Support for fag marriage only increased after laws were forced upon the people to recognize fag marriage, then once it become legalized the average American liberal decided "Well hey, since it's legal I guess I should accept it now."

Typical rule by tyranny.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opi...ted_States

[Dr. Howard]

(05-23-2014 03:21 AM)kosko Wrote:  

(05-23-2014 03:12 AM)Benoit Wrote:  

Since it's no longer doing what it was created to do, I would rather see all the tax breaks and benefits removed from all marriages.

Far better that than attempting to prop up a dysfunctional system by adding further dysfunction.

Feminists would scream on how hat effects children.

It's funny since for my buddy since he is with a Aboriginal girl in Canada she gets massive at breaks and grants as a "single" mother. They have 3 kids together and are ride or die but have zero plans to make it legal/official and just keep enjoying the tax breaks. It helps the kids and for him or keeps his money his and under his control since they don't do joint finances for stuff.

In his case he should move her and establish a residence on reserve for the purpose of receiving mail only. No tax at all, no income or sales. Gift her his paychecks and have her buy everything, zero sales tax. If he can start a business, that employs her on reserve, no income tax.

[lurker]

(05-23-2014 09:33 AM)Samseau Wrote:  

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

^ Nothing in this clause supports faggots as faggots, just faggots as regular citizens. So if the laws say people can get married, and the laws define marriage as something between a man and a woman, then fags can get married to their respective opposite gender.

The fact that fag marriage can only be passed via Judicial fiat proves it's a joke and against the will of the people. Poll after poll shows majority of regular Americans are against fag marriage, the only places it gains traction are in liberal cities with brainwashed youths.

Support for fag marriage only increased after laws were forced upon the people to recognize fag marriage, then once it become legalized the average American liberal decided "Well hey, since it's legal I guess I should accept it now."

Typical rule by tyranny.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opi...ted_States

That's like saying that a law requiring everybody to wear a bra and panties while in public equally protects the men and women it applies to.

[Samseau]

(05-23-2014 10:21 AM)lurker Wrote:  

That's like saying that a law requiring everybody to wear a bra and panties while in public equally protects the men and women it applies to.

No, it's like saying a law that gave tax benefits those who wear bra and briefs is unconstitutional because it also does not protect those who wear panties.

The idea that the government must protect all classes of individuals is ludicrous. Should the government ban windows in order to protect the candle industry?

[Wutang]

(05-22-2014 03:24 PM)Benoit Wrote:  

(05-22-2014 02:29 PM)Wutang Wrote:  

most of the points that are talked about in the pamphlet relate to "oh it makes us feel bad that we can't call our relationships a marriage and people won't give us the same respect unless we can say we are married to our mate" but I seriously doubt people who would discriminate against you because you have a partner of the same gender would alter their opinion of you if your relationship with your partner is called a marriage.

I guarantee you that the LGBT lobby will not stop with gay marriage. There are already people out there who will say you're a bad person for refusing to date a transsexual.

Pretty much - plenty of examples of this forum, wasn't there a thread about how gays were pissed about how there's not enough gay video games out there?

The fact that even in a forum like this you have so many people defending gay marriage says something about the amount of success the LGBT hobby is having.

[Virtus]

Something that makes my blood boil about this thread is that I don't care. Like simply at all to even bother to think about why it should or not upset me if two guys I don't care about get married or two other people of opposite genders that I also don't care about should. + if semantically one should be marriage and the other one should not. I don't care about any of them, or their ugly children. At all

[Deluge]

(05-23-2014 09:33 AM)Samseau Wrote:  

The fact that fag marriage can only be passed via Judicial fiat proves it's a joke and against the will of the people. Poll after poll shows majority of regular Americans are against fag marriage, the only places it gains traction are in liberal cities with brainwashed youths.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opi...ted_States

The very second sentence of the page you linked says "Majority public support for same-sex marriage has solidified, as polls since 2010 consistently indicate support above 50%." It also says that

Quote:

A Gallup poll conducted in May 2014 found that 55% of Americans support allowing marriage for same-sex couples,

and

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A Washington Post/ABC News poll from February–March 2014 found a record high of 59% of Americans approve of same-sex marriage

At least try actually reading the things you link before you say things that are completely untrue. If 49% of Texans now support same-sex marriage vs 47% opposed, it's pretty clear that for better or worse it's become a mainstream position. I don't care if you disagree with gay marriage on traditionalist grounds, but what you said is completely intellectually dishonest, and intellectual dishonesty is a consistent problem with you. I said before I was bowing out, I'll actually do so now.

[Samseau]

^ reread my post before posting, thanks

[demolition]

(05-23-2014 10:21 AM)lurker Wrote:  

That's like saying that a law requiring everybody to wear a bra and panties while in public equally protects the men and women it applies to.

Human law is not like a computer language that must be interpreted with mathematical logic. That kind of thinking, if you're consistent with it, quickly leads to the understanding that human laws are all illogical and contradictory bullshit. Which might be correct from a certain perspective but it's not a very useful perspective either.

Also, FWIW: Asking people polls is not that great for actually judging their thoughts, but it's great for telling what's fashionable.

[Samseau]

(05-23-2014 08:26 PM)demolition Wrote:  

(05-23-2014 10:21 AM)lurker Wrote:  

That's like saying that a law requiring everybody to wear a bra and panties while in public equally protects the men and women it applies to.

Human law is not like a computer language that must be interpreted with mathematical logic. That kind of thinking, if you're consistent with it, quickly leads to the understanding that human laws are all illogical and contradictory bullshit. Which might be correct from a certain perspective but it's not a very useful perspective either.

Also, FWIW: Asking people polls is not that great for actually judging their thoughts, but it's great for telling what's fashionable.

I'm not sure you can make that claim. Laws are based on logic and without keeping laws logically consistent, you allow the law enforcers to arbitrarily enforce them however they please in whatever tyrannical fashion.

The arguments made to support fag marriage make no sense, and are not based out of anything in the Constitution.

[The Father]

(05-23-2014 03:12 AM)Benoit Wrote:  

Since it's no longer doing what it was created to do, I would rather see all the tax breaks and benefits removed from all marriages.

Far better that than attempting to prop up a dysfunctional system by adding further dysfunction.

I agree. Gays didn't ruin marriage; divorce lawyers did. "Marriage", as it exists today, is a pale imitation of what it was for thousands of years. Divorce didn't exist in many cultures and where it did, it was largely confined to the elites (who, as in other areas of life, purchased exemptions from rules applied to the masses). But today, it is easier to get out of a marriage than a car lease!!


I'm not saying this is good, or bad - elements of both, probably. I'm just saying that there is no point in excluding gays from "marriage" because what used to be known as marriage died a long time ago.

The best answer, then, is for the government to get OUT of the marriage business: Recognize NO marriages, civil unions, etc. Every individual is what they are under the law: An individual! Return marriage to where it came from: The religions. No fault divorce would become a thing of the past. You'd be surprised how much healthier our culture would become. Women will still want to get married - but if there are severe penalties for slutting around like a Kardashian, you'll see less of them breaking up their marriages and leaving their broken-home kids an emotional wreck. Men may find that, with a rules-based, moral, ethical framework around marriage (as opposed to the one-sided "fuck the man" reality that exists in family courts today), more men may actually want to get married and be fathers.

But, none of that will happen. There is simply too much MONEY at stake in the current system for the government to recuse itself from it.