SCOTUS strikes down DOMA

[jmdrake]

Except that is has been involved for several thousand years.

Note: I agree it shouldn't, but it always has been and always will be.

No it hasn't. At least not in the way it is now.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_licence
For most of Western history, marriage was a private contract between two families. Until the 16th-century, Christian churches accepted the validity of a marriage on the basis of a couple’s declarations. If two people claimed that they had exchanged marital vows—even without witnesses—the Catholic Church accepted that they were validly married.
...
In the United States, until the mid-19th century, common-law marriages were recognized as valid, but thereafter some states began to invalidate common-law marriages. Common-law marriages, if recognized, are valid, notwithstanding the absence of a marriage license. The requirement for a marriage license was used as a mechanism to prohibit whites from marrying blacks, mulattos, Japanese, Chinese, Native Americans, Mongolians, Malays or Filipinos. By the 1920s, 38 states used the mechanism.

 

[jkob]

Government shouldn't involved in marriage, I think we all agree on that. Government also shouldn't discriminate against one group of peoples.

 

[Christian Liberty]

Title misleading. DOMA was struck down in part. Now, if conservatives have any sense they will work to disentangle the federal government from marriage. Let's take the estate tax issue at the heart of the DOMA case. Why should only married people be allowed to avoid estate taxes? Anyone should be able to have one designated beneficiary that they can leave money to without estate taxes. It shouldn't matter if that person is a spouse, a lover, or just a good friend.

Why only one person? Why couldn't I distribute my money between 30 people without a tax?

Its a start, yes, but still.

Gay marriage has in effect been "legal" everywhere since the sodomy laws were struck down in Lawrence v. Texas. But the result of this latest decision is that gays married in states that recognize gay marriage cannot be treated differently under the law at the federal level. That doesn't mean that a gay couple married in New York can move to Alabama and expect Alabama law to recognize their marriage any more than a doctor licensed to practice in New York can move to Alabama and automatically expect Alabama to recognize his license. A license (marriage or medicine) isn't a contract.

Much as I don't think homosexuality should be illegal, is there really any basis for the Lawrence v Texas decision or was it just an activist court? To me this still seems like a state thing, although I could be wrong about that.

That said, yeah, I pretty much agree, hence why I put "legal" in quotes.

Because them thar gays are immoral and must be punished.

How do you get that from his post?

 

[Nobexliberty]

Marrige should be something between a man and a women WITHOUT any goverment interferance.

 

[jllundqu]

Several thousand years? Really? I don't think so. And in MOST places on the planet government was not involved in the partnering of the sexes until the last couple hundred years.

I also don't accept that it "always will be". If you think tyranny will last forever, what are you doing here? Just bitching?

Wow... someone has their panties in a bunch! Strike a nerve, did I? lol

Government has been involved in Marriage for centuries... try reading "Principles of Community Property," by William Defuniak. Hell even in ancient Rome, the state was heaviliy involved in who was given the right to marry who, not to mention the screwed up political marraiges if the arab cultures...

I'm not here 'just bitching' as you put it. It would seem to me that you have an ax to grind with gay marriage and are spewing your venom on me. I suggest you get an education before blowing your gasket.

 

[jllundqu]

No it hasn't. At least not in the way it is now.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_licence
For most of Western history, marriage was a private contract between two families. Until the 16th-century, Christian churches accepted the validity of a marriage on the basis of a couple’s declarations. If two people claimed that they had exchanged marital vows—even without witnesses—the Catholic Church accepted that they were validly married.
...
In the United States, until the mid-19th century, common-law marriages were recognized as valid, but thereafter some states began to invalidate common-law marriages. Common-law marriages, if recognized, are valid, notwithstanding the absence of a marriage license. The requirement for a marriage license was used as a mechanism to prohibit whites from marrying blacks, mulattos, Japanese, Chinese, Native Americans, Mongolians, Malays or Filipinos. By the 1920s, 38 states used the mechanism.

To that I would answer: http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/marriage/a/RomanMarriage.htm

and this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_in_ancient_Rome

Following the collapse of the Republic and the rise of Augustus as sole ruler, moral legislation became part of the new political order. As Rome's first emperor, Augustus turned his attention in 18 BC to social reforms. Laws pertaining to marriage, parenting, and adultery were part of his program to restore the mos maiorum, traditional social norms, while consolidating his political authority and codifying a more rigid social hierarchy in the wake of the recent civil wars. The appeal to old-fashioned values cloaked the radical overthrow of the Republic's participatory political institutions by top-down, one-man rule.[13]

Among the upper classes, marriage was less frequent, and many couples who did marry failed to produce offspring. Augustus implemented a series of laws pertaining to marriage and family life, aimed at increasing the population of native Italians in Italy, encouraging marriage and having children, and punishing adultery as a crime (see Adultery below).[14] Heavier taxes were assessed on unmarried men and women without husbands, but privileges and recognition were granted for marriage and childbearing (see Jus trium liberorum).

These new laws from Augustus were badly received and were modified in AD 9 by the Lex Papia Poppaea, named after the two bachelor consuls of that year. The earlier and later laws are often referred to in juristic sources as the lex Julia et Papia. In part as a result of Christian opposition to such policies, the laws were eventually nearly all repealed or fell into disuse under Constantine and later emperors, including Justinian.[14]




We derive a great deal of our culture and history from greece/rome.. at least legally.

All I'm saying is that government and marriage have been hand in hand for thousands of years.

 

[ravedown]

looking at all of the headlines i've read today, it seems the government just gave the lucky serf's a wonderful gift.....all hail the state! what a benevolent and equitable system we belong to. society has turned a corner. the people hated the gays until government came along.

 

[jmdrake]

Why only one person? Why couldn't I distribute my money between 30 people without a tax?

Its a start, yes, but still.

Well....ultimately I don't think there should be taxes. I think there should be "chip-ins". If I agree with something whether it's food for hungry kids or natural disaster relief or money for mercenaries to secure oil fields in the middle east, I should be able to "chip-in" to pay for the stuff I agree with, and not fund the stuff I don't agree with. But....that's a long way off.

Much as I don't think homosexuality should be illegal, is there really any basis for the Lawrence v Texas decision or was it just an activist court? To me this still seems like a state thing, although I could be wrong about that.

That said, yeah, I pretty much agree, hence why I put "legal" in quotes.

You know, years later I thought about it and came to the conclusion that the SCOTUS could have decided Lawrence in a different way that expanded freedom for everyone. The facts of Lawrence is that one can man had been jilted by another and so he called the police and told them he heard gunshots at his ex lover's home. When the police got there they found two men who had been engaged in sodomy and arrested and charged both. Now, say if the two men had instead been smoking marijuana? The case wouldn't have gone to the SCOTUS, but it should have. If the police are called to your house for one reason (public safety) and they get there and find that's a false alarm, but there's another "crime" being committed that does not involve public safety the police should not be able to act. No more "plain view" exception for drugs or sexual crimes (no longer sodomy, but now prostitution) or anything else that doesn't involve public safety. (Child prostitution should fall under public safety as prostitute is presumably being used against his/her will).

How do you get that from his post?

I think he was reacting to my question of why don't conservatives do the right think and work to disentangle marriage from religion and attacking those conservatives for not doing the obvious as responding to my comment directly. Really it's funny that Ann Coulter, when talking to young libertarians, used the same "We can't get the government out of marriage" argument that (some) proponents of gay marriage are making.

 

[phill4paul]

Title misleading. DOMA was struck down in part. Now, if conservatives have any sense they will work to disentangle the federal government from marriage. Let's take the estate tax issue at the heart of the DOMA case. Why should only married people be allowed to avoid estate taxes? Anyone should be able to have one designated beneficiary that they can leave money to without estate taxes. It shouldn't matter if that person is a spouse, a lover, or just a good friend.

Yep. All benefits should be afforded simply by stating a "Benefit Designee."

 

[jmdrake]

To that I would answer: http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/marriage/a/RomanMarriage.htm

and this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_in_ancient_Rome

Following the collapse of the Republic and the rise of Augustus as sole ruler, moral legislation became part of the new political order. As Rome's first emperor, Augustus turned his attention in 18 BC to social reforms. Laws pertaining to marriage, parenting, and adultery were part of his program to restore the mos maiorum, traditional social norms, while consolidating his political authority and codifying a more rigid social hierarchy in the wake of the recent civil wars. The appeal to old-fashioned values cloaked the radical overthrow of the Republic's participatory political institutions by top-down, one-man rule.[13]

Among the upper classes, marriage was less frequent, and many couples who did marry failed to produce offspring. Augustus implemented a series of laws pertaining to marriage and family life, aimed at increasing the population of native Italians in Italy, encouraging marriage and having children, and punishing adultery as a crime (see Adultery below).[14] Heavier taxes were assessed on unmarried men and women without husbands, but privileges and recognition were granted for marriage and childbearing (see Jus trium liberorum).

These new laws from Augustus were badly received and were modified in AD 9 by the Lex Papia Poppaea, named after the two bachelor consuls of that year. The earlier and later laws are often referred to in juristic sources as the lex Julia et Papia. In part as a result of Christian opposition to such policies, the laws were eventually nearly all repealed or fell into disuse under Constantine and later emperors, including Justinian.[14]




We derive a great deal of our culture and history from greece/rome.. at least legally.

All I'm saying is that government and marriage have been hand in hand for thousands of years.

Important part in bold. So a Roman tyrant decided the state should take over marriage and later less tyrannical emperors undermined his laws. Kind of kills your argument doesn't it?

 

[EBounding]

looking at all of the headlines i've read today, it seems the government just gave the lucky serf's a wonderful gift.....all hail the state! what a benevolent and equitable system we belong to. society has turned a corner. the people hated the gays until government came along.

No matter what the SC ruled, it was going to be a great day for the statists, because both sides glorify the State.

 

[angelatc]

I don't think anybody should have to pay estate taxes, but the problem is that liberals think that nobody should be allowed to inherit anything. THey'd rather live in a world where your possessions pass to the state when you die.

That's where this is more likely to lead, I think. Because why should married people have more rights than single people?

 

[jllundqu]

The death tax is something that really freaks me out. My family is not rich, but we have some land that is worth a lot of money. When the tax man comes.... man I don't know.

 

[Brett85]

How crazy our politics are when the left grabs for states rights to further their agenda while the right rebukes states rights for their agenda.

It's not like the liberal justices ruled that all of the federal marriage benefits are unconstitutional. They simply ruled that DOMA violates the equal protection clause. It had nothing to do with states' rights.

 

[jllundqu]

And then there's this too:

The ancient Greek legislators considered the relation of marriage a matter not merely of private, but also of public or general interest. This was particularly the case at Sparta, where the subordination of private interests and happiness to the public was strongly exemplified in the regulations. For instance, by the laws of Lycurgus, criminal proceedings might be taken against those who married too late (graphe opsigamiou) or unsuitably (graphe kakogamiou), as well as against those who did not marry at all (graphe agamiou).[1][2][3] These regulations were founded on the generally recognised principle that it was the duty of every citizen to raise up a strong and healthy progeny of legitimate children to the state.[4]

So entirely, in fact, did the Spartans consider the teknopoioia (childbearing) as the main object of marriage, which the state was bound to promote, that whenever a woman had no children by her own husband, she was not only allowed, but even required by the laws, to cohabit with another man.[5] On the same principle, and for the purpose of preventing the extinction of his family, the Spartan king Anaxandridas II was allowed to cohabit with two wives, for whom he kept two separate establishments: a case of bigamy, which, as Herodotus[6] observes, was not at all consistent with Spartan nor indeed with Hellenic customs. Thus the heroes of Homer appear never to have had more than one kouridie alochos: lawfully wedded wife;[7] though they are frequently represented as living in concubinage with one or more.

Solon also seems to have viewed marriage as a matter in which the state had a right to interfere, for we are told that his laws allowed agamiou graphe, though the regulation seems to have grown obsolete in later times; at any rate there is no instance on record of its application.[8] Plato too may be quoted to prove how general was this feeling, for according to his laws,[9] any one who did not marry before he was thirty-five was punishable not only with atimia (loss of civil rights), but also with pecuniary penalties, and he expressly states that in choosing a wife everyone ought to consult the interests of the state, and not his own pleasure.[10


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_marriage_law

 

[angelatc]

The death tax is something that really freaks me out. My family is not rich, but we have some land that is worth a lot of money. When the tax man comes.... man I don't know.

Your family needs to do some estate planning. Death is just the end of it. If (and I assume we're talking about your parents) your parents end up in a nursing home, Meidcare will seize all their assets to cover the cost of their care. If your parent don't start transferring property years before that, you can indeed lose it all.

No parents want to talk about end of life planning, but a lawyer now can save everything later.

 

[jllundqu]

I hate lawyers. My dad is a lawyer. He has an estate plan and plans on leaving the land to me, but it more complicated (as it always is) than that

 

[Southron]

This will lead to the end of tax-exempt status for many churches in the future I think. It is just a matter of time before the federal government starts revoking it for churches who refuse to marry homosexuals.

 

[angelatc]

This will lead to the end of tax-exempt status for many churches in the future I think. It is just a matter of time before the federal government starts revoking it for churches who refuse to marry homosexuals.

They have to amend the Constitution. Churches are automatically tax exempt - they don't need to apply, and the IRS doesn't grant it. Additionally, the church ceremony doesn't legally mean anything without the government certificate.

 

[Contumacious]

Gov't shouldn't be involved in marriage at any level.

Correct.

Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer, had the absolute right to marry.

It is not the government’s job to say who gets married – it’s their job to passively record it when it happens,

Same-sex couples should certainly have the right to form any kind of legal arrangement they choose whereby medical and financial decisions by one party on behalf of another could be made.

Please see the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.

.