In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
On February 10 2015 07:21 xDaunt wrote: I'm for gay marriage, but even I can't deny that the jurisprudence that the Court is creating here is basically bullshit. Like abortion before it, this is what happens when such matters are decided by Courts rather than legislators.
I think your comment basically assumes working knowledge of the court system and how this issue was handled by them (I know you work in law, so this is understandable).
Could you by any chance explain in non-American layman's terms what the issue is?
It's really constructionist. There's nothing in the Constitution about marriage at all. Since the Supreme Court is all about interpreting the Constitution, its pretty shitty of them to even hear a case like this.
I'm fine with gay marriage, but this is a pretty heavy-handed way to get it approved.
On February 10 2015 07:00 farvacola wrote: State's Rights need to be curtailed. Commence the whining.
I thought democracy was all about self-determination? Isn't that one of the reasons we fought the revolution? And why we fought Nazi Germany?
On February 10 2015 09:26 GreenHorizons wrote: I was wondering who was being pandered to with the whole "choice on vaccine" stuff from Republicans recently, now I have an even better idea
On February 10 2015 07:21 xDaunt wrote: I'm for gay marriage, but even I can't deny that the jurisprudence that the Court is creating here is basically bullshit. Like abortion before it, this is what happens when such matters are decided by Courts rather than legislators.
I think your comment basically assumes working knowledge of the court system and how this issue was handled by them (I know you work in law, so this is understandable).
Could you by any chance explain in non-American layman's terms what the issue is?
The basic idea is that the rights afforded the people and the government should all be explicitly set forth in the Constitution or at least have a credible basis in the text of the Constitution. To the extent that something isn't there that should be there, then the Constitution should be amended. Instead, what has happened over the past 100 years is that the Supreme Court has has created entire lines of Constitutional law that have virtually no basis in the document itself. This may not sound problematic until you see how the bad jurisprudence continues to snowball into an unintelligible mess once created.
Again, the Constitution was never meant to be a plenary code of laws. It was merely there to set forth the relationship between the federal government and the states, and then guarantee certain minimum rights to the people at the federal level. The rest was to be left to the states for self-governance.
On February 10 2015 07:21 xDaunt wrote: I'm for gay marriage, but even I can't deny that the jurisprudence that the Court is creating here is basically bullshit. Like abortion before it, this is what happens when such matters are decided by Courts rather than legislators.
I think your comment basically assumes working knowledge of the court system and how this issue was handled by them (I know you work in law, so this is understandable).
Could you by any chance explain in non-American layman's terms what the issue is?
The basic idea is that the rights afforded the people and the government should all be explicitly set forth in the Constitution or at least have a credible basis in the text of the Constitution. To the extent that something isn't there that should be there, then the Constitution should be amended. Instead, what has happened over the past 100 years is that the Supreme Court has has created entire lines of Constitutional law that have virtually no basis in the document itself. This may not sound problematic until you see how the bad jurisprudence continues to snowball into an unintelligible mess once created.
Again, the Constitution was never meant to be a plenary code of laws. It was merely there to set forth the relationship between the federal government and the states, and then guarantee certain minimum rights to the people at the federal level. The rest was to be left to the states for self-governance.
On February 10 2015 07:21 xDaunt wrote: I'm for gay marriage, but even I can't deny that the jurisprudence that the Court is creating here is basically bullshit. Like abortion before it, this is what happens when such matters are decided by Courts rather than legislators.
I think your comment basically assumes working knowledge of the court system and how this issue was handled by them (I know you work in law, so this is understandable).
Could you by any chance explain in non-American layman's terms what the issue is?
The basic idea is that the rights afforded the people and the government should all be explicitly set forth in the Constitution or at least have a credible basis in the text of the Constitution. To the extent that something isn't there that should be there, then the Constitution should be amended. Instead, what has happened over the past 100 years is that the Supreme Court has has created entire lines of Constitutional law that have virtually no basis in the document itself. This may not sound problematic until you see how the bad jurisprudence continues to snowball into an unintelligible mess once created.
Again, the Constitution was never meant to be a plenary code of laws. It was merely there to set forth the relationship between the federal government and the states, and then guarantee certain minimum rights to the people at the federal level. The rest was to be left to the states for self-governance.
Marriage is federal.
Don't have my pocket constitution on me, but I'm calling bullshit on this. I'm fairly certain marriage is unmentioned in the constitution.
On February 10 2015 07:21 xDaunt wrote: I'm for gay marriage, but even I can't deny that the jurisprudence that the Court is creating here is basically bullshit. Like abortion before it, this is what happens when such matters are decided by Courts rather than legislators.
See, I get that there's a good case for Roe v Wade being a "mistake" from the pro-choice POV (was on the road to gradual universal legalization, but the sudden snap galvanized opposition and got them incredibly well organized and powerful to fight back). But this fight seems a lot closer to the Civil RIghts fights (not taking a position on whether this is a Civil Rights issue) like integrated schoolrooms, misegenation, and the like. The opposition was already organized and powerful, but at peak power was never really expanding territory, only trying to stall for time. And in this issue the anti-marriage lobby seems to have really faded in power. Major mainstream churches are pro-gay. The majority of the population is pro gay marriage. If there were a mandatory-vote up/down referendum tomorrow, marriage would win. Half our anti-marriage legislators are thoroughly uninterested in the issue, or in some cases actually disingenuous about their position (see how Chris Christie shepherded gay marriage into NJ while allowing himself to veto it once to keep his cred).
The courts are supposed to address issues where one side has no good logical arguments and smack them down. The advantage of the unelected courts is that, by and large, they actually do work logically within each of their own ideological frameworks. So sure, they shouldn't legislate complicated things like tax law or foreign policy. But religious liberty, marriage, civil rights? That's well within their purview.
On February 10 2015 09:26 GreenHorizons wrote: I was wondering who was being pandered to with the whole "choice on vaccine" stuff from Republicans recently, now I have an even better idea
Watched it twice now and I can't even figure out what his point actually is. He goes like "644 cases in 2014. Now in 2015 the 102 cases in California...the two cases were someone from an Amish community and an immigrant child."
It's like, talk about a number...talk about a number...talk about two specific people, don't talk about the other 700+ you just mentioned. Is he trying to say the source is people that would never be unvaccinated, so the spread is irrelevant to the discussion?
It doesn't matter what the source of the disease is, the entire idea behind mass vaccination and "herd immunity" is that one person, or even a dozen people, catching a disease is not an issue if can't spread beyond that.
The problem in recent years, according to the CDC (http://www.cdc.gov/measles/cases-outbreaks.html), is that lack of vaccinations are causing Measles to spread, in much larger numbers than in the past.
On February 10 2015 07:21 xDaunt wrote: I'm for gay marriage, but even I can't deny that the jurisprudence that the Court is creating here is basically bullshit. Like abortion before it, this is what happens when such matters are decided by Courts rather than legislators.
I think your comment basically assumes working knowledge of the court system and how this issue was handled by them (I know you work in law, so this is understandable).
Could you by any chance explain in non-American layman's terms what the issue is?
The basic idea is that the rights afforded the people and the government should all be explicitly set forth in the Constitution or at least have a credible basis in the text of the Constitution. To the extent that something isn't there that should be there, then the Constitution should be amended. Instead, what has happened over the past 100 years is that the Supreme Court has has created entire lines of Constitutional law that have virtually no basis in the document itself. This may not sound problematic until you see how the bad jurisprudence continues to snowball into an unintelligible mess once created.
Again, the Constitution was never meant to be a plenary code of laws. It was merely there to set forth the relationship between the federal government and the states, and then guarantee certain minimum rights to the people at the federal level. The rest was to be left to the states for self-governance.
Marriage is federal.
Marriage licenses are issued by states.
Very little of American civic life deals with the federal government. It is pretty much just income tax and presidential elections. Almost everything else is controlled by your state or local government.
Alabama began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples Monday despite an 11th-hour attempt from the state's chief justice — an outspoken opponent — to block the weddings. But with most county judges reportedly refusing to issue marriage licenses, it appears the fight over gay marriage isn't over yet in the state.
The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday morning that it wouldn't stop the marriages, and shortly after, some probate judges began granting the licenses to couples, some of whom had been lined up for hours and exited courthouses to applause from supporters.
"It's about time," said Shante Wolfe, 21. She and Tori Sisson of Tuskegee had camped out in a blue and white tent and became the first in the county given a license.
But amid marriage rights supporters’ jubilation, judges in at least 50 of the state’s 67 counties refused to grant licenses, the New York Times reported, citing LGBT advocacy group Human Rights Campaign. Most of the defiant counties are in rural areas outside of major cities like Birmingham, Huntsville, and the capital Montgomery, where judges are granting licenses.
A federal judge's order overturning the state's ban on gay marriage went into effect, making Alabama the 37th state to allow gays and lesbians to wed after the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday morning denied the state attorney general's request to extend a hold on the order overturning the ban, paving the way for marriages to start.
"It's about time," Wolfe, 21, said of gay marriage being allowed in the Deep South state.
Chief Justice Roy Moore sent his order to state probate judges Sunday night. He argued that judges are not bound by the ruling of a federal judge that the gay marriage ban is unconstitutional.
It was a dramatic return to defiance for Moore, who was removed as chief justice in 2003 for refusing to obey a federal court order to remove a washing machine-sized Ten Commandments from the state judicial building. Critics lashed out that Moore had no authority to tell county probate judges to enforce a law that a federal judge already ruled unconstitutional. He's been one of the state's most outspoken critics of gay marriage; in 2002, he called homosexuality an "evil" in a custody ruling.
"This is a pathetic, last-ditch attempt at judicial fiat by an Alabama Supreme Court justice — a man who should respect the rule of law rather than advance his personal beliefs," said Sarah Warbelow, legal director of the Human Rights Campaign.
Warbelow urged probate judges to issue the licenses in compliance with ruling of U.S. District Judge Callie Granade.
Susan Watson, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, predicted that "we will see marriage equality in Alabama" on Monday.
"I don't think the probate judges in Alabama are going to defy a federal court judge's order," she said.
On Jan. 23, Granade ruled that the state's statutory and constitutional bans on gay marriage were unconstitutional but put her order on hold until Feb. 9 to let the state prepare for the change.
Moore said Granade had no authority to order the change and that Alabama courts could do as their judges saw fit until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled. Last week, Moore sent a letter urging probate judges to reject the licenses. The head of the judges' association on Friday predicted most would issue the licenses. Moore upped the ante Sunday night by sending the directive.
"Effective immediately, no probate judge of the state of Alabama nor any agent or employee of any Alabama probate judge shall issue or recognize a marriage license that is inconsistent with [the Alabama Constitution]," Moore, who serves as head of the court system, wrote in the letter sent Sunday night.
Gay couples are expected to still line up at courthouses across Alabama on Monday seeking to get married. It was unknown how many of the state's probate judges would follow Moore.
Granade has said while judges were not a party in the lawsuit, they have a legal duty under the U.S. Constitution to issue the licenses.
I don't really get why marriage is even a governmental issue at all. The state has no interest in marriage, gay or straight. What does the state get out of people living together?
Now, I know what you're going to say. "But Millitron, the state has an interest because marriages provide families for children, and the state has an interest in seeing children raised in a healthy environment." To which I'd reply marriage has nothing to do with children. Single parents are a thing and are capable of providing a healthy environment for a child. Further, not even all heterosexual marriages result in children. Marriage is wholly unrelated to children.
Forget regulating homosexual or heterosexual marriage, the state shouldn't regulate marriage period.
On February 10 2015 07:21 xDaunt wrote: I'm for gay marriage, but even I can't deny that the jurisprudence that the Court is creating here is basically bullshit. Like abortion before it, this is what happens when such matters are decided by Courts rather than legislators.
I think your comment basically assumes working knowledge of the court system and how this issue was handled by them (I know you work in law, so this is understandable).
Could you by any chance explain in non-American layman's terms what the issue is?
The basic idea is that the rights afforded the people and the government should all be explicitly set forth in the Constitution or at least have a credible basis in the text of the Constitution. To the extent that something isn't there that should be there, then the Constitution should be amended. Instead, what has happened over the past 100 years is that the Supreme Court has has created entire lines of Constitutional law that have virtually no basis in the document itself. This may not sound problematic until you see how the bad jurisprudence continues to snowball into an unintelligible mess once created.
Again, the Constitution was never meant to be a plenary code of laws. It was merely there to set forth the relationship between the federal government and the states, and then guarantee certain minimum rights to the people at the federal level. The rest was to be left to the states for self-governance.
Marriage is federal.
Marriage licenses are issued by states.
Very little of American civic life deals with the federal government. It is pretty much just income tax and presidential elections. Almost everything else is controlled by your state or local government.
What the fuck are you talking about? Yes the state issues a marriage license. Without the legal benefits bestowed by the federal government that paper is meaningless.
On February 10 2015 10:19 Millitron wrote: I don't really get why marriage is even a governmental issue at all. The state has no interest in marriage, gay or straight. What does the state get out of people living together?
Now, I know what you're going to say. "But Millitron, the state has an interest because marriages provide families for children, and the state has an interest in seeing children raised in a healthy environment." To which I'd reply marriage has nothing to do with children. Single parents are a thing and are capable of providing a healthy environment for a child. Further, not even all heterosexual marriages result in children. Marriage is wholly unrelated to children.
Forget regulating homosexual or heterosexual marriage, the state shouldn't regulate marriage period.
So you don't see the disintegration of the family as a problem? What is marriage related to?
On February 10 2015 10:19 Millitron wrote: I don't really get why marriage is even a governmental issue at all. The state has no interest in marriage, gay or straight. What does the state get out of people living together?
Now, I know what you're going to say. "But Millitron, the state has an interest because marriages provide families for children, and the state has an interest in seeing children raised in a healthy environment." To which I'd reply marriage has nothing to do with children. Single parents are a thing and are capable of providing a healthy environment for a child. Further, not even all heterosexual marriages result in children. Marriage is wholly unrelated to children.
Forget regulating homosexual or heterosexual marriage, the state shouldn't regulate marriage period.
Person A - We should probably fix up the house so it doesn't fall down on Person B Libertarian Pseudo-intellectual B - Why don't we all just live in the forest?!?!?
The US government will come under intense pressure this week to explain what action it took after receiving a massive cache of leaked data that revealed how the Swiss banking arm of HSBC, the world’s second-largest bank, helped wealthy customers conceal billions of dollars of assets.
The leaked files, which reveal how HSBC advised some clients on how to circumvent domestic tax authorities, were obtained through an international collaboration of news outlets, including the Guardian, the French daily Le Monde, CBS 60 Minutes and the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
The files reveal how HSBC’s Swiss private bank colluded with some clients to conceal undeclared “black” accounts from domestic tax authorities across the world and provided services to international criminals and other high-risk individuals.
The disclosure amounts to one of the biggest banking leaks in history shedding light on some 30,000 accounts holding almost $120bn (£78bn) of assets. Of those, around 2,900 clients were connected to the US, providing the IRS with a trail of evidence of potential American taxpayers who may have been hiding assets in Geneva.
The US government will come under intense pressure this week to explain what action it took after receiving a massive cache of leaked data that revealed how the Swiss banking arm of HSBC, the world’s second-largest bank, helped wealthy customers conceal billions of dollars of assets.
The leaked files, which reveal how HSBC advised some clients on how to circumvent domestic tax authorities, were obtained through an international collaboration of news outlets, including the Guardian, the French daily Le Monde, CBS 60 Minutes and the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
The files reveal how HSBC’s Swiss private bank colluded with some clients to conceal undeclared “black” accounts from domestic tax authorities across the world and provided services to international criminals and other high-risk individuals.
The disclosure amounts to one of the biggest banking leaks in history shedding light on some 30,000 accounts holding almost $120bn (£78bn) of assets. Of those, around 2,900 clients were connected to the US, providing the IRS with a trail of evidence of potential American taxpayers who may have been hiding assets in Geneva.
Billions of dollars in circumvented tax loopholes and billions in laundering drug money. How in the hell do we still have people doing facing 20+ for cannabis possession yet being involved in shit like HSBC gets you fine where you only pay some of the money you made from doing it?
On February 10 2015 10:19 Millitron wrote: I don't really get why marriage is even a governmental issue at all. The state has no interest in marriage, gay or straight. What does the state get out of people living together?
Now, I know what you're going to say. "But Millitron, the state has an interest because marriages provide families for children, and the state has an interest in seeing children raised in a healthy environment." To which I'd reply marriage has nothing to do with children. Single parents are a thing and are capable of providing a healthy environment for a child. Further, not even all heterosexual marriages result in children. Marriage is wholly unrelated to children.
Forget regulating homosexual or heterosexual marriage, the state shouldn't regulate marriage period.
So you don't see the disintegration of the family as a problem? What is marriage related to?
I only see the disintegration of the family as a problem if it leads to children being raised in harmful environments. Single parents are often capable of raising healthy well-adjusted children, and marriage has no guarantee of producing a child, nor does it guarantee the child is raised to be healthy and well-adjusted.
On February 10 2015 07:21 xDaunt wrote: I'm for gay marriage, but even I can't deny that the jurisprudence that the Court is creating here is basically bullshit. Like abortion before it, this is what happens when such matters are decided by Courts rather than legislators.
I think your comment basically assumes working knowledge of the court system and how this issue was handled by them (I know you work in law, so this is understandable).
Could you by any chance explain in non-American layman's terms what the issue is?
The basic idea is that the rights afforded the people and the government should all be explicitly set forth in the Constitution or at least have a credible basis in the text of the Constitution. To the extent that something isn't there that should be there, then the Constitution should be amended. Instead, what has happened over the past 100 years is that the Supreme Court has has created entire lines of Constitutional law that have virtually no basis in the document itself. This may not sound problematic until you see how the bad jurisprudence continues to snowball into an unintelligible mess once created.
Again, the Constitution was never meant to be a plenary code of laws. It was merely there to set forth the relationship between the federal government and the states, and then guarantee certain minimum rights to the people at the federal level. The rest was to be left to the states for self-governance.
Marriage is federal.
Don't have my pocket constitution on me, but I'm calling bullshit on this. I'm fairly certain marriage is unmentioned in the constitution.
On February 10 2015 07:21 xDaunt wrote: I'm for gay marriage, but even I can't deny that the jurisprudence that the Court is creating here is basically bullshit. Like abortion before it, this is what happens when such matters are decided by Courts rather than legislators.
See, I get that there's a good case for Roe v Wade being a "mistake" from the pro-choice POV (was on the road to gradual universal legalization, but the sudden snap galvanized opposition and got them incredibly well organized and powerful to fight back). But this fight seems a lot closer to the Civil RIghts fights (not taking a position on whether this is a Civil Rights issue) like integrated schoolrooms, misegenation, and the like. The opposition was already organized and powerful, but at peak power was never really expanding territory, only trying to stall for time. And in this issue the anti-marriage lobby seems to have really faded in power. Major mainstream churches are pro-gay. The majority of the population is pro gay marriage. If there were a mandatory-vote up/down referendum tomorrow, marriage would win. Half our anti-marriage legislators are thoroughly uninterested in the issue, or in some cases actually disingenuous about their position (see how Chris Christie shepherded gay marriage into NJ while allowing himself to veto it once to keep his cred).
The courts are supposed to address issues where one side has no good logical arguments and smack them down. The advantage of the unelected courts is that, by and large, they actually do work logically within each of their own ideological frameworks. So sure, they shouldn't legislate complicated things like tax law or foreign policy. But religious liberty, marriage, civil rights? That's well within their purview.
Marriage is unmentioned and yet you gain certain benefits from the federal and state governments for being married, and when certain people aren't allowed to be married, it's discrimination, which is definitely addressed in the Constitution.
And this line from XDaunt about "leaving it to the legislators" is crap. The courts are there precisely because we can't always trust the legislative branch to make the right decision. They clearly made the wrong decision with gay marriage and there's no way in hell any sane person could expect Congress to pass a federal law allowing gay marriage any time in the next decade.
I don't really get why marriage is even a governmental issue at all. The state has no interest in marriage, gay or straight. What does the state get out of people living together?
Now, I know what you're going to say. "But Millitron, the state has an interest because marriages provide families for children, and the state has an interest in seeing children raised in a healthy environment." To which I'd reply marriage has nothing to do with children. Single parents are a thing and are capable of providing a healthy environment for a child. Further, not even all heterosexual marriages result in children. Marriage is wholly unrelated to children.
Forget regulating homosexual or heterosexual marriage, the state shouldn't regulate marriage period.
1) It's obviously a product of western Judeo-Christian culture.
2) It's very, very, very well-known in the fields of psychology and sociology that children raised in single-parent households are not nearly as well off as those in a complete family.
3) Several legal issues are based on marriage, and removing the government's hand in marriage would cause a lot of problems, like a lack of tax breaks, next of kin, etc.
On February 10 2015 07:21 xDaunt wrote: I'm for gay marriage, but even I can't deny that the jurisprudence that the Court is creating here is basically bullshit. Like abortion before it, this is what happens when such matters are decided by Courts rather than legislators.
I think your comment basically assumes working knowledge of the court system and how this issue was handled by them (I know you work in law, so this is understandable).
Could you by any chance explain in non-American layman's terms what the issue is?
The basic idea is that the rights afforded the people and the government should all be explicitly set forth in the Constitution or at least have a credible basis in the text of the Constitution. To the extent that something isn't there that should be there, then the Constitution should be amended. Instead, what has happened over the past 100 years is that the Supreme Court has has created entire lines of Constitutional law that have virtually no basis in the document itself. This may not sound problematic until you see how the bad jurisprudence continues to snowball into an unintelligible mess once created.
Again, the Constitution was never meant to be a plenary code of laws. It was merely there to set forth the relationship between the federal government and the states, and then guarantee certain minimum rights to the people at the federal level. The rest was to be left to the states for self-governance.
Marriage is federal.
Marriage licenses are issued by states.
Very little of American civic life deals with the federal government. It is pretty much just income tax and presidential elections. Almost everything else is controlled by your state or local government.
What the fuck are you talking about? Yes the state issues a marriage license. Without the legal benefits bestowed by the federal government that paper is meaningless.
? How do you figure? And how do you get there from the one liner "marriage is federal"?
EPT
