Patterico's Pontifications

Ding.

Patterico (e677b4) — 6/26/2015 @ 7:44 am

I expected this.

So, now, what happens when a homosexual couple goes into a Catholic Church and requests a nuptial Mass to get married. The priest, by his power to officiate over marriages, is effectively an agent of the state. When he refuses, as he must, doesn’t that mean that the couple can sue the Church?

the Catholic Dana (f6a568) — 6/26/2015 @ 7:50 am

Is this a surprise? I expected this assault.

Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/26/2015 @ 7:54 am

Greetings:

Oh, and how exquisite the timing as the sexual dysfunctionals are having their (formerly Gay, now) Pride parade this weekend. The dears will be over their moon.

11B40 (6abb5c) — 6/26/2015 @ 7:55 am

Well, is anyone honestly surprised at this? The fact that it was timed to coincide with Gay Pride didn’t raise any (rainbow) flags for you?

I did wonder if the Supremes would balk at issuing TWO radical leftist decisions in a row. But it appears they don’t care about the public’s perception of them. As unelected dictators, why would they?

Liz (da89b8) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:01 am

I wonder how many truly liberal fathers out there — certainly if they’re being honest with themselves — and are the type who’ll say “don’t discriminate!” and “if two guys or two women want to be married, who are we to say otherwise, and isn’t SSM wonderful!” — will wince if their 19-year-old son starts dating guys and says he wants to eventually have a husband?

Obama proclaimed that today was a great moment for equality, yet his verbiage makes a distinction between male homosexuals (“gay”) and females homosexuals (“lesbian”). Isn’t separating the two groups linguistically, in and of itself, a sign of discrimination, of making one different from the other?

I recall telling a very liberal gay guy about 2 years ago that Obama was bisexual. The guy sort of grimaced and — far from welcoming the idea of a US president having a boyfriend or male lovers — appeared to be disturbed by that bit of news.

Mark (a11af2) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:04 am

From Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion:

Finally, it must be emphasized that religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned. The First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths, and to their own deep aspirations to continue the family structure they have long revered. The same is true of those who oppose same-sex marriage for other reasons. In turn, those who believe allowing same-sex marriage is proper or indeed essential, whether as a matter of religious conviction or secular belief, may engage those who disagree with their view in an open and searching debate. The Constitution, however, does not permit the State to bar same-sex couples from marriage on the same terms as accorded to couples of the opposite sex.

That isn’t the kind of protection that churches require.

The Dana who read the opinion (f6a568) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:07 am

So, now, what happens when a homosexual couple goes into a Catholic Church and requests a nuptial Mass to get married. The priest, by his power to officiate over marriages, is effectively an agent of the state. When he refuses, as he must, doesn’t that mean that the couple can sue the Church?

The Catholic Church and other religious denominations will probably announce that they will no longer include the signing of the civil marriage license as part of the ceremony, making the wedding into a completely religious event. In that way, they can avoid having to marry couples that are outside of their church doctrine. From here on in Catholic couples will have to have a civil ceremony as well as a Church ceremony in order to be married in the eyes of the state. I think the countercultural thing to do will be to forego the civil ceremony and only be married in the eyes of God.

JVW (8278a3) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:08 am

What I found most interesting was Kennedy’s tendentious reading of history, how marriage is for “two people”, that that is the “nature of marriage”.

The problem is that historically and geographically polygamy is as widespread as monogamy, so no the “nature of marriage” is not restricted to a union of two people.

What that tells me is that he’s willing to make up stuff to get the desired result–legalize ssm without also legalizing polygamy.

Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:10 am

OK good, Dana, we can all feel better because Justice Kennedy is assuring us that gay marriage will go no further. I’ll bet we all feel much better now, don’t we? I’ll bet Brendon Eich is relieved to know that he won’t be bullied into jumping aboard the gay marriage bandwagon.

JVW (8278a3) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:10 am

Don’t be so sure that the Catholic Church won’t go along with gay marriage.

AZ Bob (34bb80) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:11 am

On the bright side, at least the SCOTUS obliterated every last bit of its credibility before imposing gay marriage.

That’s something.

It’s not like we have to pretend to respect this ruling.

Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:12 am

The priest, by his power to officiate over marriages, is effectively an agent of the state.

No, he isn’t.

Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:12 am

Painted Jaguar says it all depends on what they mean by “advocating” and “engaging”, and whatever it is they mean by it, they are free to reinterpret it on a whim according to their fancy.
So then it really doesn’t depend on what they mean by it, anyway.

The only thing that matters is what they say it means at the moment they say it means something,
until the moment when they say it means something else.

MD (Really!!) not in Philly (522abd) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:15 am

What I found most interesting was Kennedy’s tendentious reading of history, how marriage is for “two people”, that that is the “nature of marriage”.

The problem is that historically and geographically polygamy is as widespread as monogamy, so no the “nature of marriage” is not restricted to a union of two people.

Not true. Polygamy, as it actually existed in our history, and still does in Moslem countries, is not a marriage with more than two partners. It’s a legal system that allows a man to be in several marriages simultaneously, each with a single woman. A man’s wives are not married to each other.

Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:17 am

JVW (8278a3) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:08 am

That’s a thought. I guess the follow up thought is whether a “in the eyes of God (as understood by the historic apostolic Christian faith, or an alternative religious)” married couple will want to somehow claim the various legal provisions of civil marriage, and if so, how.

MD (Really!!) not in Philly (522abd) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:20 am

Kennedy’s four arguments why gay marriage is guaranteed in the Constitution:

“The right to personal choice regarding marriage is inherent in the concept of individual autonomy.”

“The right to marry is fundamental because it supports a two-person union unlike any other in its importance to the committed individuals.”

The right to marry “safeguards children and families and thus draws meaning from related rights of childrearing, procreation, and education.”

And the right is crucial because “this Court’s cases and the Nation’s traditions make clear that marriage is a keystone of the Nation’s social order.” (How reactionary of them.)

Dana (86e864) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:21 am

Various opinion polls indicate a larger percentage of Americans deem the country is headed in the wrong direction, and respect toward our various institutions (including the Supreme Court but also the Congress, etc) is lower today than ever before.

I wonder how many of those who feel that way align themselves ideologically, and, if they’re not of the left, I wonder how many of them have enough good sense to correlate the increasing liberalism throughout our culture with the negative trends they perceive as impacting this country?

Mark (a11af2) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:21 am

I think it’s time for those state legislatures who retain their sanity to declare that this decision is ultra vires, and instruct state employees to ignore it or be fired.

This isn’t an interpretation of law, it’s a false statement of fact. Marriage is a contract between a man and a woman, and no legislature or court can change that, any more than Canute could make the tide go back, or than Lincoln, by calling a tail a leg, could make a dog have five legs.

Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:22 am

It’s a legal system that allows a man to be in several marriages simultaneously, each with a single woman.

If only symbolically, that’s a distinction without a difference.

Mark (a11af2) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:23 am

Who needs laws? Let’s just have people dictate to us what we must buy. And believe. Screw them all. Hi, DOJ and NSA

JD (3b5483) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:25 am

Milhouse wrote:

The priest, by his power to officiate over marriages, is effectively an agent of the state.

No, he isn’t.

Yes, he really is, and it’s easy enough to see if said priest said he could not officiate over a marriage between an interracial couple.

If the priest isn’t an agent of the state, then anyone could sign the marriage license and it would be perfectly valid.

The practical Dana (f6a568) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:25 am

The only thing that matters is what they say it means at the moment they say it means something,
until the moment when they say it means something else.

And this the point I brought up in yesterday’s Burwell thread: If words don’t mean today what they meant yesterday, how will anyone know if they have broken any common laws? Because, if they do not mean what the writing says they mean and what there has been a universal understanding of them, one could break them without even knowing it. That is, until after the fact and after the offender has been updated on the new definition.

Dana (86e864) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:27 am

This is rich, the day after rescuing ObamaCare by divining the true intention of Congress, Chief Justice writes this in his dissent on this opinion:

But this Court is not a legislature. Whether same-sex marriage is a good idea should be of no concern to us. Under the Constitution, judges have the power to say what this law is, not what the law should be.

Way to be consistent there, Chief.

JVW (8278a3) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:30 am

Let’s avoid all the silly repercussions, ban marriage altogether. It’s an antique notion, no longer distinguishable from shacking up. Courage!

ropelight (d48c03) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:31 am

Exactly, JVW.

DRJ (1dff03) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:32 am

That’s a thought. I guess the follow up thought is whether a “in the eyes of God (as understood by the historic apostolic Christian faith, or an alternative religious)” married couple will want to somehow claim the various legal provisions of civil marriage, and if so, how.

The GOP and conservatives missed a golden opportunity about ten or twelve years ago to start to unravel all of this by extending some of the inheritance and property transfer benefits conferred upon married couples to any two people who were in some sort of cohabitation relationship, whether it was a gay couple, an elderly father living with his daughter, two siblings, or some other platonic partnership. William F. Buckley had forecast this and proposed it as a possible way of short-circuiting the demand of gays to have marriage rights.

JVW (8278a3) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:35 am

JVW,

About as consistent as the president has been on the issue.

Dana (86e864) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:35 am

The priest, by his power to officiate over marriages, is effectively an agent of the state.

No, he isn’t.

Yes, he really is, and it’s easy enough to see if said priest said he could not officiate over a marriage between an interracial couple.

Priests are free to do exactly that, provided their religious authorities allow it. E.g. if a Catholic priest were to say such a thing his bishop would fire him the same day; but the law would have nothing to say about it.

Or, for a more practical example, no rabbi will supervise a marriage between a Jew and a non-Jew, and that is perfectly legal. It doesn’t matter what the couple believe. Rabbis will happily oversee the marriage of two Jewish atheists (or, for that matter, of two non-Jewish atheists, if for some reason they want him to), but if two people who believe in and practise Judaism come to marry each other, and it turns out that one of them isn’t Jewish because his or her mother’s mother’s mother wasn’t, the marriage is off.

Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:38 am

No, he isn’t.

He will be.

egd (1ad898) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:38 am

And now the other shoe drops. Take it away Cole, you tried to tell us.

Times have changed
And we’ve often rewound the clock
Since the Puritans got a shock
When they landed on Plymouth Rock.
If today
Any shock they should try to stem
‘Stead of landing on Plymouth Rock,
Plymouth Rock would land on them.

In olden days, a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking.
But now, God knows,
Anything goes.

Read more: Cole Porter – Anything Goes Lyrics | MetroLyrics

felipe (56556d) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:38 am

More from the Roberts dissent. Again, it’s hard to reconcile this with the guy who wrote the ObamaCare opinion yesterday:

Many people will rejoice at this decision, and I begrudge none their celebration. But for those who believe in a government of laws, not of men, the majority’s approach is deeply disheartening. Supporters of same-sex marriage have achieved considerable success persuading their fellow citizens—through the democratic process—to adopt their view. That ends today. Five lawyers have closed the debate and enacted their own vision of marriage as a matter of constitutional law. Stealing this issue from the people will for many cast a cloud over same-sex marriage, making a dramatic social change that much more difficult to accept.

JVW (8278a3) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:39 am

You may not believe it but I am actually an ordained minister. When My ordination was complete I was given forms by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to fill out and have approved to perform wedding ceremonies. Nothing about baptism, confirmation or funerals, only weddings so, yeah, at a wedding I am an agent of the state and it says so on the state form.

Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:39 am

As Dana suggested, the income tax exemption seems to be doomed for mainstream Judeo-Christian churches that will only perform opposite-sex weddings.

Bob Jones case + today’s Obergefell case = can’t deny gay weddings (if you perform opposite sex weddings) and still retain your tax exemption.

Mitch (341ca0) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:41 am

Or, for a more practical example, no rabbi will supervise a marriage between a Jew and a non-Jew, and that is perfectly legal.

In the same way, a Catholic priest will not preside at the wedding of a Catholic to a non-Catholic, unless the non-Catholic promises to convert to the faith. It’s on their word — there is no enforcement mechanism — and there have been lots of cases where an annulment is granted simply because the non-Catholic never made good on the promise.

JVW (8278a3) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:42 am

This is rich, the day after rescuing ObamaCare by divining the true intention of Congress, Chief Justice writes this in his dissent on this opinion: “But this Court is not a legislature.” […] Way to be consistent there, Chief.

There’s no inconsistency. On the contrary, Congress has made its view on the matter perfectly plain. It even hired a lawyer to argue its position, when the Solicitor General refused to do so. And there is no doubt what the legislators who passed and ratified the 14th amendment thought about the matter either. So he’s being perfectly consistent in saying that even if the language can be tortured into meaning that same-sex marriage must be allowed, we should reject it because their purpose was not to allow it.

Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:43 am

No, he isn’t.

He will be.

Not without his consent. Religious marriage celebrants aren’t agents of the state; they act in their religious capacity, and the state chooses to recognize their marriages. It can choose not to, if it likes, but that’s no skin off their noses.

Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:46 am

Still more from Roberts’ dissent. This is the guy we liked during the confirmation hearings:

Understand well what this dissent is about: It is not about whether, in my judgment, the institution of marriage should be changed to include same-sex couples. It is instead about whether, in our democratic republic, that decision should rest with the people acting through their elected representatives, or with five lawyers who happen to hold commissions authorizing them to resolve legal disputes according to law. The Constitution leaves no doubt about the answer.

JVW (8278a3) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:46 am

Does yesterday’s Obamacare vote and today’s gay marriage vote reinvigorate Republican voters who sat out the last election because of a lack of viable candidates (non-squish), a sense of futility after 4 years of Obama, or the setting in of apathy?

Dana (86e864) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:47 am

I find myself remarkably unmotivated to read Kennedy’s decision.

Would I learn something? I doubt it. I never have learned anything from what Kennedy writes.

Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:48 am

I have no idea what you are talking about, Milhouse, since my first wife was Jewish and I Episcopal (at the time)and we were married by a rabbi and my minister in a joint ceremony at my church, Trinity Memorial. And that was in 1973 long before all this liberal religious crap.

BTW, I should point out if I perform a marriage it is only an official state marriage if I fill out the papers and file them. If not, it’s strictly a religious and personal celebration.

Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:49 am

Sorry, Hoagie, but that was no rabbi.

Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:51 am

Roberts is just a total hypocrit. “Rule of law”, indeed

htom (210e22) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:51 am

1973 may have been before liberal religious crap hit the Episcopal church, but it had cut a swath through Judaism long before that.

Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:52 am

Roberts is just a total hypocrit. “Rule of law”, indeed

No, in each case he’s deferring to the legislators’ purpose, interpreting their words so as to fulfill that purpose, even if that means ignoring the actual words.

Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:53 am

Welcome to your fundamentally transformed Amerikkka.

A ~~government~~ people by the ~~people~~ government, for the ~~people~~ government, and of the ~~people~~ government…

Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:53 am

Milhouse @45, give it up. Roberts is doing no such thing.

Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:55 am

I’d bet a small amount that if you’d asked that so-called “rabbi” whether he (or as likely as not, she) believed in God, s/he would have hesitated before answering, and would not commit him/herself.

Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:55 am

Dana (86e864) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:27 am
I think this goes along with the problem of what is called “the administrative state”, everyone is guilty of any number of things, whether they know it or not, your only hope is to keep your head down and not draw attention to yourself, as in the Toledo plumber, because once you do, it will not simply be government workers doing unauthorized investigations, but government officials doing what they have been authorized to do, if not explicitly, implicitly, because who cares what some IG says.

MD (Really!!) not in Philly (522abd) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:57 am

Rev. Hoagie-
If I understand Milhouse correctly, what he means is that someone who might be called a “Reformed Jew” and a rabbi, is not really a (practicing?) Jew let alone a Rabbi, if they do not take the Torah as written seriously and seek to adhere to it.

MD (Really!!) not in Philly (522abd) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:01 am

We need a new amendment to limit the power of the judiciary, end the lifetime appointments and set mandatory qualifications for Supreme Court Judges

EPWJ (9f9671) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:02 am

51. We need a new amendment to limit the power of the judiciary, end the lifetime appointments and set mandatory qualifications for Supreme Court Judges

EPWJ (9f9671) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:02 am

We need to start over.

Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:06 am

I will have to research the exact language read aloud by the CBS reporter at the Court this morning but this is the paraphrase of Kennedy’s comment:

“Some issues are so important that the Constitution does not allow the time for legislatures to deal with an issue…”

Whoa Nelly! Gay marriage is such an existential threat to the nation or domestic tranquility that the Founding Fathers’ idea of citizen state legislators coping with an issue is untenable? Holy smokes! What else is of such grave and urgent important that the Court gets to by pass the legislative and states rights provisions of the Constitution???

in_awe (7c859a) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:08 am

Well, now that we have it I guess it will be my mission in life to demonstrate it wouldn’t have been a good idea even if we had voted on it.

I look forward to a target rich environment.

Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:13 am

Some Old Calendar (Julian, read Ultra-Orthodox) Orthodox Greeks don’t think priests ordained by non-Old Calendar bishops are priests either. There are no Reform Cohens, Milhouse?

nk (dbc370) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:14 am

At this point in our history, it seems not just possible, but even likely, that somehow, someway, there will be an allowance made for mosques from being affected by this ruling…

Dana (86e864) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:15 am

On the bright side-

While I would have never said the “US is/was a Christian nation”, I would have said it was largely based on Judeo-Christian principles, though with glaring inconsistencies at the founding for the sake of political expediency with the hope, at least of some, that things would be brought more in line with Scripture over time, (i.e., that slavery would be abolished).

Obama has said, I believe, that, “America is not a Christian nation”. That fundamental transformation has been obtained and made clear.
So now those who call themselves Christian, whatever they consider that to mean, are hereby notified that coasting in the mainstream of US culture is not an option (though in one way it has never really been a true option).

For those interested in political strategies to influence the culture it won’t be of help for people to reexamine what they believe, to see if it is consistent with Scripture, and be willing to gladly take up the identity of one who does not identify with the mainstream, but it will be of great help to the Church, that saying one is a Christian means something not respectable to many, if not most.
To claim that the Bible justifies same sex marriage is like the SCOTUS making up stuff as they have just done with US law.

MD (Really!!) not in Philly (522abd) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:16 am

O/T for your viewing pleasure.

Flying the Pilatus Porter in Papua New Guinea

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShymnrNbQuo

Flying the Porter in Nabire, Papua

Hijack off.

Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:17 am

All religious establishments, Dana. There might be some fooling around by places like Seattle, San Francisco or Aspen to force churches to perform mock marriages but even this Gang of Five would not consider it permissible under the First Amendment.

nk (dbc370) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:19 am

If states can not ban same-sex marriage, then they need to make it as easy to enter into such a union as it is to legally own a handgun in New York City.

Michael Ejercito (d9a893) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:20 am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXdn5nrzncc

Visiting Papuan Villages in the Porter

I’ll take up the whole gay marriage nonsense tomorrow. I’m taking a break.

Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:25 am

JVW wrote:

The GOP and conservatives missed a golden opportunity about ten or twelve years ago to start to unravel all of this by extending some of the inheritance and property transfer benefits conferred upon married couples to any two people who were in some sort of cohabitation relationship, whether it was a gay couple, an elderly father living with his daughter, two siblings, or some other platonic partnership. William F. Buckley had forecast this and proposed it as a possible way of short-circuiting the demand of gays to have marriage rights.

Nope, it never would have worked, because inheritance, hospital visitation and all of that stuff was just a smokescreen: the real goal was, and is, the name of marriage, because only by including homosexual relationships under the name of marriage could they claim that their relationships are just as good, just as wholesome and just as normal as heterosexual ones.

The clear-seeing Dana (f6a568) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:26 am

Our Windy City barrister wrote:

even this Gang of Five would not consider it permissible under the First Amendment.

Yeah, uh huh, right. Isn’t that what was said about homosexual “marriage” right after Lawrence v Texas?

The Dana who remembers (f6a568) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:31 am

Have you seen Steve Saint’s flying car (I-TEC, Maverick)?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PODSEaufQ-0

MD (Really!!) not in Philly (522abd) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:33 am

I find myself remarkably unmotivated to read Kennedy’s decision.

Would I learn something? I doubt it. I never have learned anything from what Kennedy writes.

Reading Kennedy’s opinion here is like watching a magician pull a rabbit out of a hat. You know what’s coming, you know it’s a trick, you know it relies upon slight-of-hand, so there is no need to waste your time with it.

JVW (8278a3) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:33 am

While the Constitution contemplates that democracy is the appropriate process for change, individuals who are harmed need not await legislative action before asserting a fundamental right.

page 5 of Kennedy’s ruling

in_awe (7c859a) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:34 am

Some Old Calendar (Julian, read Ultra-Orthodox) Orthodox Greeks don’t think priests ordained by non-Old Calendar bishops are priests either. There are no Reform Cohens, Milhouse?

Cohen status is strictly by birth, so not only are there Reform Cohanim, there are also Buddhist, Catholic, and atheist Cohanim. However, the Reform movement doesn’t believe in Cohanim, so a Reform Cohen would not believe in his own status.

“Reform Judaism” has less in common with actual Judaism than do Islam or most kinds of Christianity. Back in about 1971 a survey of Reform “rabbis” found that 48% identified as agnostic, and 2% as atheist. But back then almost all members of that movement were at least Jews by birth; nowadays that is no longer the case. Even many Reform “rabbis” are not Jewish. 20 years ago I was informed by the dean of a Progressive “rabbinical college” that half the students at the college were not Jewish. And that half were gay.

Being Jewish has nothing to do with what one believes. But being a rabbi does. Someone who doesn’t believe in Jewish law can hardly teach it. And Jewish law strictly bans any marriage between a Jew and a non-Jew.

Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:34 am

Yeah, uh huh, right. Isn’t that what was said about homosexual “marriage” right after Lawrence v Texas?

You beat me to the punch, Dana. I had the exact thought, and Roberts kind of alludes to this in his dissent.

JVW (8278a3) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:34 am

Nope, it never would have worked, because inheritance, hospital visitation and all of that stuff was just a smokescreen: the real goal was, and is, the name of marriage, because only by including homosexual relationships under the name of marriage could they claim that their relationships are just as good, just as wholesome and just as normal as heterosexual ones.

Yes. This is why they rejected civil unions, which could have given them all of htat.

Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:37 am

This is a mistake for gays. Add a couple conservatives to the court and *poof*. They would be much better off if they had let the legislative process run. They were winning there. Now it will be all or nothing.

Roe was 7-2 and has been refought for 4 decades. It is probably secure now, but has distorted the Court for all this time. This decision was 5-4 and will probably not be accepted quickly.

Rights should be based on sturdier stuff than the next appointment to the Court.

Kevin M (25bbee) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:37 am

Better link, sorry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiF9X8NRh-A

MD (Really!!) not in Philly (522abd) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:39 am

Can you stand a bit more from Roberts’ dissent?

The role of the Court envisioned by the majority today, however, is anything but humble or restrained. Over and over, the majority exalts the role of the judiciary in delivering social change. In the majority’s telling, it is the courts, not the people, who are responsible for making “new dimensions of freedom . . . apparent to new generations,” for providing “formal discourse” on social issues, and for ensuring “neutral discussions, without scornful or disparaging commentary.” Ante, at 7–9.

Nowhere is the majority’s extravagant conception of judicial supremacy more evident than in its description— and dismissal—of the public debate regarding same-sex marriage. Yes, the majority concedes, on one side are thousands of years of human history in every society known to have populated the planet. But on the other side, there has been “extensive litigation,” “many thoughtful District Court decisions,” “countless studies, papers, books, and other popular and scholarly writings,” and “more than 100” amicus briefs in these cases alone. Ante, at 9, 10, 23. What would be the point of allowing the democratic process to go on? It is high time for the Court to decide the meaning of marriage, based on five lawyers’ “better informed understanding” of “a liberty that remains urgent in our own era.” Ante, at 19. The answer is surely there in one of those amicus briefs or studies.

JVW (8278a3) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:42 am

“Cohanim”
never heard that before, thanks for edumacating me, makes sense

MD (Really!!) not in Philly (522abd) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:42 am

Also, states continue to restrict access to abortion and guns despite the Supreme Court’s rulings.

Why should same-sex marriage be any different?

Michael Ejercito (d9a893) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:43 am

Mind you, there aren’t that many Reform cohanim, because cohanim are very restricted in whom they can marry, and if a cohen marries someone he shouldn’t then his sons from that union don’t inherit his status. Since Reform and other non-Jewish religions don’t believe in these restrictions, cohanim who join them are likely to marry improperly, and thus not pass on their status to their sons. (For instance, William Cohen, Clinton’s defense secretary, is not a cohen, for the same reason that he’s not a Jew; his mother isn’t Jewish.)

Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:43 am

So, now, what happens when a homosexual couple goes into a Catholic Church and requests a nuptial Mass to get married. The priest, by his power to officiate over marriages, is effectively an agent of the state. When he refuses, as he must, doesn’t that mean that the couple can sue the Church?

I expect JVW is right, mainly because I have been saying that for about 5 years. The moment that the state requires all officiants to conduct same-sex marriages, those that object will stop being legal officiants and conduct only religious ceremonies.

At which point the state will try to pull the tax exemptions of those churches and do whatever they possibly can to coerce them. Some will comply. The Catholic Church will not, in the lifetimes of anyone now living.

Kevin M (25bbee) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:45 am

“Cohanim”

Plural of “cohen”

never heard that before, thanks for edumacating me, makes sense

Any time, MD. As the saying goes, “It’s a Jewish thing; if you’ve got some time I’ll explain it to you.”

Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:46 am

These various opinions by Roberts seemed to be clashing at a fundamental level to this onlooker.

MD (Really!!) not in Philly (522abd) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:46 am

And then finally:

Indeed, however heartened the proponents of same-sex marriage might be on this day, it is worth acknowledging what they have lost, and lost forever: the opportunity to win the true acceptance that comes from persuading their fellow citizens of the justice of their cause. And they lose this just when the winds of change were freshening at their backs. . . .

If you are among the many Americans—of whatever sexual orientation—who favor expanding same-sex marriage, by all means celebrate today’s decision. Celebrate the achievement of a desired goal. Celebrate the opportunity for a new expression of commitment to a partner. Celebrate the availability of new benefits. But do not celebrate the Constitution. It had nothing to do with it.

JVW (8278a3) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:48 am

Dear Justice Roberts:

I know you spent a lot of time on your dissent, but what I heard was “Blah blah blah Obamacare.”

Kevin M (25bbee) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:49 am

Well, it’s not that simple, Milhouse, as I can ask some people who say they are Jewish and get answers that don’t at all resemble yours.
Kind of like asking a Unitarian Universalist (should that be capitalized???) (like Hitchens debated with), “What is a Christian”.

MD (Really!!) not in Philly (522abd) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:50 am

These various opinions by Roberts seemed to be clashing at a fundamental level to this onlooker.

I’ve explained why they don’t. In both cases he’s deferring to the legislature, and interpreting its words in accord with its purpose and intent, even if that means ignoring what they actually say.

Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:50 am

Well, it’s not that simple, Milhouse, as I can ask some people who say they are Jewish and get answers that don’t at all resemble yours.

You can get all kinds of ignorant answers, from all kinds of people. That doesn’t make them right. Since all it takes to be Jewish is to be born to the right mother, it doesn’t give someone expertise.

Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:52 am

Dear Justice Roberts:

I know you spent a lot of time on your dissent, but what I heard was “Blah blah blah Obamacare.”

Kevin M (25bbee) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:49 am

Right on!

AZ Bob (7d2a2c) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:52 am

Reading’s Scalia’s dissent now. It too is excellent. This is from his second paragraph:

. . . Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. The opinion in these cases is the furthest extension in fact—and the furthest extension one can even imagine—of the Court’s claimed power to create “liberties” that the Constitution and its Amendments neglect to mention. This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves.

JVW (8278a3) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:53 am

Kind of like asking a Unitarian Universalist (should that be capitalized???) (like Hitchens debated with), “What is a Christian”.

Or like asking a homeopath “who is a doctor”.

Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:55 am

Not true. Polygamy, as it actually existed in our history, and still does in Moslem countries, is not a marriage with more than two partners. It’s a legal system that allows a man to be in several marriages simultaneously, each with a single woman. A man’s wives are not married to each other.

Good point, but polygamy, unlike SSM, has decided faults and tears at the social fabric of every society in which it has existed. Unless legions of disaffected young men with little hope of finding a partner seems like a good idea (it may if you need jihad-fodder), no society will accept it without a fight.

That isn’t the slippery slope that is coming, but rather the progression of the liberal idea:

1. Tolerance
2. Acceptance
3. Participation.
4. Celebration.

We are now moving from 2 to 3.

Kevin M (25bbee) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:56 am

I appreciate that perspective, Milhouse, which is why I said “seemed”.

But, even so, I think it could be argued that if Roberts so respected the legislature he could have alluded to the way the law was railroaded and rule the opposite way and told the legislature to get to work writing stuff that was thought through and made sense, not find ways to plow things through in a completely partisan way without due process.

MD (Really!!) not in Philly (522abd) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:56 am

A 5,000-year old ritual destroyed so that 2% of the population can pretend to be normal.

The American flag need a smelly, brown stripe smeared on it.

CrustyB (69f730) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:58 am

Wow, Scalia absolutely blisters the entire Court, pointing out something that we have discussed in the past at this very blog:

Take, for example, this Court, which consists of only nine men and women, all of them successful lawyers who studied at Harvard or Yale Law School. Four of the nine are natives of New York City. Eight of them grew up in east- and west-coast States. Only one hails from the vast expanse in-between. Not a single South-westerner or even, to tell the truth, a genuine Westerner (California does not count). Not a single evangelical Christian (a group that comprises about one quarter of Americans), or even a Protestant of any denomination.

The crack about Californians not counting at genuine Westerners is classic.

JVW (8278a3) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:59 am

2% of a an even smaller percent of people around the world. There are likely 6 billion people or so that find that 2% of 1/7th ridiculous.

MD (Really!!) not in Philly (522abd) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:59 am

Here, guys. The link says it all. http://krites.blogspot.com/2015/06/bad-boy-calvins-opinion-of-scotus.html

Michaels, and I’m sure Hobby Lobby, sells printable decal paper for inject printers if you want to put it on things like your rear window.

nk (dbc370) — 6/26/2015 @ 10:00 am

Thanks to JVW and other lawyers who read through the stuff and point things out to the rest of us.

MD (Really!!) not in Philly (522abd) — 6/26/2015 @ 10:01 am

t polygamy, unlike SSM, has decided faults and tears at the social fabric of every society in which it has existed.

Historically this hasn’t been the case, because 1) even in polygamous societies most men had only one wife; 2) men generally married later than women, so in every cohort of newly marriagable people there were more women than men; 3) men died in war and workplace accidents more often than women died in childbirth.

Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/26/2015 @ 10:02 am

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/371256/voter-id-and-gun-rights-charles-c-w-cooke

“In which case, perhaps we ought also to take a look at New York City’s gun-permitting process, which not only requires individuals who wish to buy a firearm to go through the apparently devastating process of obtaining an acceptable ID but also to provide separately a proof of residence, a proof of citizenship or permanent residency, and a Social Security card; to pay $431.50 plus the cost of two color photographs; to wait an average of eight months for the application to be processed, and then attend a lengthy in-person interview; and, if the applicant has not lived in the United States for seven years (and many immigrants can become citizens after just three years, remember), to provide a certificate of good conduct from their foreign government.”

Why should not states treat same-sex marriage the same way New York City tereats the Second Amendment? Should we not have “reasonable” regulations?

Michael Ejercito (d9a893) — 6/26/2015 @ 10:05 am

nk, send a letter to somebody to read in case you are disappeared.
I am going to quit fretting and do some praying, off for now.

MD (Really!!) not in Philly (522abd) — 6/26/2015 @ 10:05 am

Thanks to JVW and other lawyers who read through the stuff and point things out to the rest of us.

Damn you, MD, don’t you ever call me a lawyer again!

Kidding, kidding, but I have no legal training beyond a college class in Constitutional law.

JVW (8278a3) — 6/26/2015 @ 10:08 am

I’m descended from people who brought the vendetta to Corsica, MD.

nk (dbc370) — 6/26/2015 @ 10:09 am

Four of the nine are natives of New York City.

Actually only three. Roberts was born in Buffalo, which is about six times as far from NYC as Scalia’s own native city of Trenton NJ. Odder is that two of the nine are natives of Trenton, a city of less than 100,000 people.

Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/26/2015 @ 10:10 am

#94: I give you modern Islam, or any of the Mormon offshoots.

Kevin M (25bbee) — 6/26/2015 @ 10:16 am

Shorter Kennedy:

“Gays WERE being patient, but it took too long!”

Kevin M (25bbee) — 6/26/2015 @ 10:18 am

Well, thanks for reading I stuff whoever you are.

That is to your advantage, nk,
but, still, you are considerably out-funded…

MD (Really!!) not in Philly (522abd) — 6/26/2015 @ 10:18 am

Oh God, everyone has to read Scalia’s dissent. It just drips with contempt. Try this:

If, even as the price to be paid for a fifth vote, I ever joined an opinion for the Court that began: “The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity,” I would hide my head in a bag. The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie.

And that, my friends, is a throwaway quote from a footnote. Scalia’s parenthetical thoughts are way more lively than anything you will read on Salon or Vox. For example:

Of course the opinion’s showy profundities are often profoundly incoherent. “The nature of marriage is that, through its enduring bond, two persons together can find other freedoms, such as expression, intimacy, and spirituality.” (Really? Who ever thought that intimacy and spirituality [whatever that means] were freedoms? And if intimacy is, one would think Freedom of Intimacy is abridged rather than expanded by marriage. Ask the nearest hippie. Expression, sure enough, is a freedom, but anyone in a long-lasting marriage will attest that that happy state constricts, rather than expands, what one can prudently say.)

What a national treasure he is!

JVW (8278a3) — 6/26/2015 @ 10:19 am

Meh. The takeaway for the Huffpo lefty types is that Scalia is an old fuddy-duddy aging himself – “hippies”…

This from Scalia:

The opinion is couched in a style that is as pretentious as its content is egotistic,” he writes. “If, even as the price to be paid for a fifth vote, I ever joined an opinion for the Court that began: ‘The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity,’ I would hide my head in a bag. The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie.”

Dana (86e864) — 6/26/2015 @ 10:28 am

#94: I give you modern Islam, or any of the Mormon offshoots.

Polygamy works well in most Moslem countries. Most men have only one wife, whether out of inclination or poverty. Mormons, especially modern ones, are different because 1) they regard having multiple wives as not merely permissible, but a religious duty, so every man wants to have many wives; 2) the difference in age at marriage isn’t that big; 3) they’re prosperous enough that each man could support more than one wife, if they could find them; 4) they don’t have the sort of mortality rate, on either side, that polygamous societies used to have.

Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/26/2015 @ 10:28 am

Don’t go MD, you’re one of the only regulars who reads my comments.

ropelight (d48c03) — 6/26/2015 @ 10:30 am

Polygamy works well in most Moslem countries

You’re going to need to either define “works well” and/or show some citations supporting this statement, because I think if you ask any number of Moselm women, they might disagree with you. Especially as there are Moslem women who fought against the practice.

Dana (86e864) — 6/26/2015 @ 10:37 am

You’re going to need to either define “works well”

It doesn’t produce the “decided faults and tears at the social fabric” that Kevin M alluded to, i.e. vast numbers of men without hope of ever marrying, and therefore no investment in the society’s future, that we see in some of these Mormon offshoots.

Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/26/2015 @ 10:48 am

Fun fact: Jews in countries where polygamy is the custom have been polygamous, up into modern times. Not so many left after 1948 though.

Polygamy existed in China up to modern times, so it worked for oh, about 5000 years. If you want to make the case that polygamy is unhealthy for a society and “doesn’t work”, you’ve got your work cut out.

And I would point out that if “women don’t like it” is the standard for “polygamy doesn’t work”; up until modern times women were more or less chattel. Eating meat is something I bet cows don’t like, but no one consults them, so it would be odd to say that a society where meat-eating is the norm “doesn’t work” based on the feelings of the cattle about it.

The point is not that I’m for polygamy. The point is that the Court, in the person of Kennedy, is willing to selectively distort history and engage in special pleading to find a basis for same-sex marriage that excludes polygamy, more-or-less because he says so, and so we WILL have it, since we’ve decided that “law” is to be replaced by “fairness”.

Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 6/26/2015 @ 10:51 am

Reality is a construct of the federal government.

And so are you.

Suckers.

Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/26/2015 @ 10:56 am

I wasn’t going far, just a brief hiatus from the active discussion. Back later.

MD (Really!!) not in Philly (522abd) — 6/26/2015 @ 10:58 am

From “Roughing It”, Mark Twain’s view of Mormon polygamy:

I had the will to do it [fight to abolish polygamy]. With the gushing self-sufficiency of youth I was feverish to plunge in headlong and achieve a great reform here—until I saw the Mormon women. Then I was touched. My heart was wiser than my head. It warmed toward these poor, ungainly and pathetically “homely” creatures, and as I turned to hide the generous moisture in my eyes, I said, “No—the man that marries one of them has done an act of Christian charity which entitles him to the kindly applause of mankind, not their harsh censure—and the man that marries sixty of them has done a deed of open-handed generosity so sublime that the nations should stand uncovered in his presence and worship in silence.”

nk (dbc370) — 6/26/2015 @ 11:00 am

Mr M wrote:

So, now, what happens when a homosexual couple goes into a Catholic Church and requests a nuptial Mass to get married. The priest, by his power to officiate over marriages, is effectively an agent of the state. When he refuses, as he must, doesn’t that mean that the couple can sue the Church?

I expect JVW is right, mainly because I have been saying that for about 5 years. The moment that the state requires all officiants to conduct same-sex marriages, those that object will stop being legal officiants and conduct only religious ceremonies.

And there’s the rub: I mentioned a lawsuit, not state action, so by the time that “the state requires all officiants to conduct same-sex marriages,” there is already an ‘injured’ party, and the lawsuit proceeds. Churches would have to take pre-emptive action, and disassociate themselves from the legal formalities before such an ‘injury’ could occur.

The very Catholic Dana (f6a568) — 6/26/2015 @ 11:02 am

“They” can decide if they want for the moment that while marriage can be between any two people, it can be between only two people, and that neither of them can be married to another at the same time,
but
that is really now an arbitrary decision, having no basis in history or any religious/moral/ethical/ or philosophical tradition prior to a the adoption of the belief by a small segment of “Western” thought in the later years of the 20th century.
It can be arbitrarily changed again whenever there is an adequate political/social power base to change it again.

MD (Really!!) not in Philly (522abd) — 6/26/2015 @ 11:05 am

Per Scalia’s quote, MD:

The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie.”

Dana (86e864) — 6/26/2015 @ 11:09 am

Mr Justice Scalia:

“The nature of marriage is that, through its enduring bond, two persons together can find other freedoms, such as expression, intimacy, and spirituality.” (Really? Who ever thought that intimacy and spirituality [whatever that means] were freedoms? And if intimacy is, one would think Freedom of Intimacy is abridged rather than expanded by marriage.

Given that we have decided that lawful marriage does not create a state of eternal consent, but that a husband really can rape his wife, it would seem to me that the learned Justice is behind the times. Marriage, legally, creates no more freedom of intimacy than shacking up, or even a drunken one night stand.

The extremely Catholic Dana (f6a568) — 6/26/2015 @ 11:11 am

I would like to believe that the Obamacare decision was 5-4, Kennedy deciding, and then Roberts switched his vote so he could do the writing.

Wish in one hand and crap in the other, but that’s what I would like to believe. He’s done it before.

luagha (e5bf64) — 6/26/2015 @ 11:11 am

The light at the end of his rope wrote:

Don’t go MD, you’re one of the only regulars who reads my comments.

I read ’em!

The literate Dana (f6a568) — 6/26/2015 @ 11:12 am

luagha, the Chief Justice had to vote to uphold Obysmalcare; not to have done so would have been to admit he made a horrible mistake in the previous Obaminablecare decision.

He could have voted with the minority, and upheld the plain words of the law, as long as it was a minority, but without Justice Kennedy, he would have had to have voted to uphold.

The practical Dana (f6a568) — 6/26/2015 @ 11:16 am

== It is instead about whether, in our democratic republic, that decision should rest with the people acting through their elected representatives, or with five lawyers who happen to hold commissions authorizing them to resolve legal disputes according to law. The Constitution leaves no doubt about the answer. (John Roberts)==

I don’t see quite the level of disconnect or non-reconcilable theory in Roberts’ statements that some of you seem to.

The Burwell decision was the Supreme Court being asked to clarify or interpret an actual piece of legislation that technically was created by a national legislature of the people. Many of us disagreed with the Obamacare law and especially with the shoddy underhanded process under which the legislation was passed. But nevertheless it was passed through congress and became law. In their districts many of those legislators lost their jobs (replaced or retired) as a result of it. My biggest complaint is that twice the SC should have sent the law back to congress to fix rather than opining themselves on what congress meant.

Today’s ruling, as both Roberts’ and Scalia’s dissents point out, is really something very different from yesterday’s and comes from a very different starting point. It is not settling a “dispute” over language or intent. Today’s ruling is creating new definitions and thereby granting rights –essentially amending the U.S. Constitution–without involving either the states, or coming as a result of national congressional legislation.

And Kennedy admitted it fully: “Some issues are so important that the Constitution does not allow the time for legislatures to deal with an issue.” Kennedy’s statement and endorsement of judicial activism is the one that should send chills.

elissa (ea46f3) — 6/26/2015 @ 11:20 am

All laws must be objective (and objectively justifiable): men must know clearly, and in advance of taking an action, what the law forbids them to do (and why), what constitutes a crime and what penalty they will incur if they commit it.

…

The retaliatory use of force requires objective rules of evidence to establish that a crime has been committed and to prove who committed it, as well as objective rules to define punishments and enforcement procedures. Men who attempt to prosecute crimes, without such rules, are a lynch mob. If a society left the retaliatory use of force in the hands of individual citizens, it would degenerate into mob rule, lynch law and an endless series of bloody private feuds or vendettas.

If physical force is to be barred from social relationships, men need an institution charged with the task of protecting their rights under an objective code of rules.

This is the task of a government—of a proper government—its basic task, its only moral justification and the reason why men do need a government.

A government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of physical force under objective control—i.e., under objectively defined laws.

…

When men are caught in the trap of non-objective law, when their work, future and livelihood are at the mercy of a bureaucrat’s whim, when they have no way of knowing what unknown “influence” will crack down on them for which unspecified offense, fear becomes their basic motive, if they remain in the industry at all—and compromise, conformity, staleness, dullness, the dismal grayness of the middle-of-the-road are all that can be expected of them. Independent thinking does not submit to bureaucratic edicts, originality does not follow “public policies,” integrity does not petition for a license, heroism is not fostered by fear, creative genius is not summoned forth at the point of a gun.

Non-objective law is the most effective weapon of human enslavement: its victims become its enforcers and enslave themselves.

…

That which cannot be formulated into an objective law, cannot be made the subject of legislation—not in a free country, not if we are to have “a government of laws and not of men.” An undefineable law is not a law, but merely a license for some men to rule others.

…

It is a grave error to suppose that a dictatorship rules a nation by means of strict, rigid laws which are obeyed and enforced with rigorous, military precision. Such a rule would be evil, but almost bearable; men could endure the harshest edicts, provided these edicts were known, specific and stable; it is not the known that breaks men’s spirits, but the unpredictable. A dictatorship has to be capricious; it has to rule by means of the unexpected, the incomprehensible, the wantonly irrational; it has to deal not in death, but in sudden death; a state of chronic uncertainty is what men are psychologically unable to bear.

…

An objective law protects a country’s freedom; only a non-objective law can give a statist the chance he seeks: a chance to impose his arbitrary will—his policies, his decisions, his interpretations, his enforcement, his punishment or favor—on disarmed, defenseless victims.

…

The threat of sudden destruction, of unpredictable retaliation for unnamed offenses, is a much more potent means of enslavement than explicit dictatorial laws. It demands more than mere obedience; it leaves men no policy save one: to please the authorities; to please—blindly, uncritically, without standards or principles; to please—in any issue, matter or circumstance, for fear of an unknowable, unprovable vengeance.

Sound familiar? If it doesn’t, it will.

It’s Rand, of course. Man, I hate it when she’s right.

J.P. (cc46f4) — 6/26/2015 @ 11:22 am

It’s enough to drive someone to drink, drugs and promiscuous adultery.

nk (dbc370) — 6/26/2015 @ 11:33 am

“… freedoms, such as expression, intimacy, and spirituality.”

Yes-means-Yes laws infringe on my Freedom of Intimacy.

Xmas (35fdcf) — 6/26/2015 @ 11:52 am

George W. Bush gave us John Roberts, though he also gave us Samuel Alito.
George H.W. Bush gave us David Souter, though he also gave us Clarence Thomas.
Ronald Reagan gave us Anthony Kennedy (and Sandra Day O’Connor), though he also gave us Antonin Scalia.

I’m beginning to think the best that a conservative President can do is roughly 50% on judicial appointments.

JVW (8278a3) — 6/26/2015 @ 12:04 pm

Oh, I promised to tell you the story behind Reagan appointing Kennedy:

Reagan hated the Soviet Union because, after seing “Dr. Zhivago”, he had recurring nightmares about Communists taking over his father-in-law’s mansion, and sending the KGB to tell him that “Bedtime for Bonzo” was decadent, petit bourgeois and self-indulgent.

So when he was interviewing Kennedy, he asked him straight out: “Judge Kennedy, do you hate the Soviet Union?” And without blinking, Kennedy said: “With a passion, Mr. President.” That clinched the deal for Reagan. What poor Reagan didn’t know was that Kennedy hated the Soviet Union because it locked up homosexuals and executed child molesters. And now America is paying for that little misunderstanding.

nk (dbc370) — 6/26/2015 @ 12:17 pm

Um, for those of you on Facebook who have a bunch of progressive friends, I suggest not reading your wall today. Remember what GW Bush used to say about not spiking the ball in the endzone? The Facebook lefties are not paying any heed. I have an old high school buddy, a warm and funny guy, now a college professor (naturally), who says that only “hillbilles, rednecks, and slack-jawed yokels” are angered by this ruling. I started to type a response, but it’s just not worth it so I am retiring from Facebook for the rest of the day. The low-information voters get their day.

JVW (8278a3) — 6/26/2015 @ 12:26 pm

oh my goodness

happyfeet (831175) — 6/26/2015 @ 12:31 pm

Good call, JVW. I retired from facebook entirely and permanently some time ago. Amazingly I continue to stay informed, am happy, and definitely less stressed.

elissa (ea46f3) — 6/26/2015 @ 12:31 pm

#FistFest

Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 6/26/2015 @ 12:51 pm

#WhenHarryMetTelly… #ThelmaandLouise… #ScenesFromaGayMarriage… #SoIMarriedaGayAxeMurderer

Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 6/26/2015 @ 12:56 pm

luagha, the Chief Justice had to vote to uphold Obysmalcare; not to have done so would have been to admit he made a horrible mistake in the previous Obaminablecare decision.

I disagree. His decision in Sebelius was loyal to the text, it didn’t pretend the law meant something other than what it said, it simply said that the court should look at what Congress actually did, not at what it said it was doing. Whether Congress passes a penalty and calls it a tax, or a tax and calls it a penalty, the court should look at what the thing actually is, and ignore what Congress chose to call it. That’s a perfectly reasonable attitude to take, in fact a refreshing one, since it recognizes that politicians lie. There was nothing in Sibelius that would have forced Roberts to decide as he did in King.

Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/26/2015 @ 12:56 pm

#theGayWeddingPlanner… #GayLoveGayWeddingGayMarriage… #MyBigFatGayGreekWedding

Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 6/26/2015 @ 1:03 pm

Milhouse, it could be argued that “established by the State” could include the federal government, since national governments are “the state” in a lot of definitions, while “established by the states” would have been more exclusive.

I am not surprised in the least by this ruling. The Court let stand a piece of legislation it had previously said was constitutional, and which was duly passed by the Congress and signed into law by the President. It found a bit of sloppy language was not enough to overturn it.

The nit-picking Dana (f6a568) — 6/26/2015 @ 1:21 pm

The problem is that we lost the 2008 elections so badly that the Democrats were able to force through horrible legislation.

And now it’s over. Republicans can run on repealing Obysmalcare, but that will never be done, unless they have a replacement plan, and a replacement plan would be just as bad as the original legislation. The option of returning to 2008, where there was no national plan to insure that everyone has health care coverage is now off the table: too many people have gotten health insurance thanks to Obaminablecare for the government to now take it away.

We have a stark choice: either the government can guarantee that everyone has health care coverage (something Obamacare does not quite do), or the government can say no, there is no guarantee of health care coverage. Considering that we require hospitals to treat emergency cases regardless of whether they can pay or not, that second option didn’t really exist even before 2008.

I have said many times previously that I am perfectly willing to see a system in which there is no guarantee of health care, even if that means people who cannot afford insurance will die in the street; I have yet to see anyone else make that stark a statement. And if there might be a few denizens of Patterico who would say that, you will never, never! find a congressman or senator with the balls to say it.

The argument now isn’t whether we should have universal health care coverage, but simply how to provide it.

The brutally honest Dana (f6a568) — 6/26/2015 @ 1:22 pm

well if you consider one election lost through fraudulent conviction, another through voter fraud, and one through blatant irresponsibility, they would have been two votes short from the get go,

narciso (ee1f88) — 6/26/2015 @ 1:26 pm

I’m beginning to think the best that a conservative President can do is roughly 50% on judicial appointments.
JVW (8278a3) — 6/26/2015 @ 12:04 pm

That may be true, but that’s why I think voting in the next election will be critical for Republicans and why I mentioned both yesterday and upthread today. 50% is still 50%. Therefore, if this doesn’t compel voters to get off their asses and stop waiting for this nonsensical purity of essence and vote a conservative in (there are a few to choose from), then the right gets what it deserves. Think 8 years of Obama, and 4 years (at least) of Hillary or Bernie. What shape will the country be in then?

Dana (86e864) — 6/26/2015 @ 1:27 pm

elissa,

You imply the Supreme Court is only dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s on ObamaCare, but that’s not what Roberts has done done in his decisions. These weren’t typos. Thus, for example, he legislated by redefining penalties as taxes and by inverting the federal and state exchanges — the opposite of what the actually legislation says.

I think Obama, the Democrats, and even Roberts are counting on Americans to think these are little changes — just a few words here and there — but legislation is all about words. The words are what inform us about the laws we must obey. When the Court “interprets” the laws to mean something illogical or the opposite of what people reasonably understand it to mean, then democracy and the rule of law won’t work. People have to understand laws for our system to work, and no one can understand random, arbitrary decisions like this as anything other than partisanship.

DRJ (1dff03) — 6/26/2015 @ 1:30 pm

the law doesn’t mean anything at all, gruber’s admissions were ignored, this is the hallmarks of a corrupt court, which occasionally does throw us a bone with Heller, but in the big things, they are handmaids of statism,

narciso (ee1f88) — 6/26/2015 @ 1:34 pm

I think Republican Presidents can do better by not letting Democrats, the Beltway pundits andeven Republicans (myself included – I objected to Miers and liked Roberts, who is clearly smarter but not as conservative) intimidate them into nominating “acceptable” nominees. Democrats never do that.

DRJ (1dff03) — 6/26/2015 @ 1:35 pm

I am not surprised in the least by this ruling. The Court let stand a piece of legislation it had previously said was constitutional, and which was duly passed by the Congress and signed into law by the President. It found a bit of sloppy language was not enough to overturn it.

Nobody was asking the court to overturn it; they were being asked to make the government obey it as written.

Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/26/2015 @ 1:35 pm

When republicans move lips
lying is the result
win an election
lose your mind

mg (31009b) — 6/26/2015 @ 1:37 pm

Thus, for example, he legislated by redefining penalties as taxes

No, he pointed out that what the act called a penalty was in fact a tax. He was asked to strike down the mandate; but on looking at the act he couldn’t find a mandate in there to strike down.

Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/26/2015 @ 1:43 pm

I objected to Miers and liked Roberts, who is clearly smarter but not as conservative

Miers was not conservative.

Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/26/2015 @ 1:44 pm

On the very day Roberts said legislative intent is what matters (in the ObamaCare/King v Burwell case), the Court ruled disparate impact is enough to show discrimination in housing — even though the clear intent of Congress when it passed the Fair Housing Act was that disparate treatment was required and disparate impact is not enough. Apart from the partisanship, this is pathetic legal scholarship.

DRJ (1dff03) — 6/26/2015 @ 1:47 pm

Do you know Harriet Miers, Milhouse?

DRJ (1dff03) — 6/26/2015 @ 1:48 pm

The legislative intent was that ObamaCare had penalties, not taxes, and Roberts says intent is what matters.

DRJ (1dff03) — 6/26/2015 @ 1:49 pm

DRJ–I don’t think I was implying what you claim. And I certainly do not support either decision. What I was hoping to convey is that there are significant differences in the origins of the cases that came out yesterday and today and Roberts’ opinion especially today shines a light on those differences. I think he suggests the court’s process of looking at the two cases from a legal standpoint was, and should have been different. That does not mask the obvious activism nor change the fact that many of us believe the end conclusion of the majority in both cases was a mistake.

elissa (ea46f3) — 6/26/2015 @ 1:54 pm

Hey there is a silver lining — National Concealed Carry Reciprocity is coming thanks to Obergefell!

By using the Constitution in such a manner, the Court argues that the Due Process Clause extends “certain personal choices central to individual dignity and autonomy” accepted in a majority of states across the state lines of a handful of states that still banned the practice.

The vast majority of states are “shall issue” on the matter of issuing concealed carry permits, and enjoy reciprocity with a large number of other states.

Obergefell (along with McDonald and Heller) should apply across the United States in recognizing a right to concealed carry irregardless of local or state laws prohibiting it. Hopefully, those arguing Peruta cite Obergefell and the new powers SCOTUS had granted.

Nevyan (1bb013) — 6/26/2015 @ 3:02 pm

The mistake I, and other supporters made when Roberts was nominated, was taking the umpire metaphor improperly. He didn’t mean he would be impartial. He was referring to the age-old aphorism that a Ball or Strike is what HE says it is.

Question – Can a state now choose to refuse licensing of any marriage? Does this decision compel licensing where none might exist?

Ed from SFV (3400a5) — 6/26/2015 @ 3:26 pm

Do you know Harriet Miers, Milhouse?

No, do you? I formed my opinion based o the information made available at the time, particularly on Beldar’s blog.

Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/26/2015 @ 4:02 pm

Dana, I think it is more likely that Roberts was going to vote for Obamacare, 5-4 and Kennedy switched sides to get more strokes from the media. It’s all about his legacy, you know.

Kevin M (25bbee) — 6/26/2015 @ 4:45 pm

Yes-means-Yes laws infringe on my Freedom of Intimacy.

And No-means-No rules aren’t so far behind.

Kevin M (25bbee) — 6/26/2015 @ 4:46 pm

What states must do is raise the age of consent for marriage to eighteen across the board — no exceptions. It’s sixteen in many states with either parental consent or a court order, and this was meant for shotgun weddings when the girl was pregnant. But now it’s more important to protect teen boys from old pederasts. Because Anthony Kennedy would issue a court order for David Souter to marry a sixteen-year old boy despite his parents’ lack of consent, and David Souter would do the same for Kennedy.

nk (dbc370) — 6/26/2015 @ 4:56 pm

It would be nice to see Walker or Cruz appointing justices to replace Kennedy or any of the other liberals given a GOP Senate. Just as it would be terrible to see Hillary replace Scalia and Kennedy with SJWs.

Kevin M (25bbee) — 6/26/2015 @ 5:03 pm

The fight continues in Texas

Here is some immediate information Texans need to know about the case and its impact on Texas:

1. Texas County Clerks must follow state law in issuing marriage licenses. Yesterday, Texas Values alerted County Clerks that altering Texas’ marriage license form is a criminal offense and encouraged them to follow guidance from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Paxton has instructed County Clerks and Justices of the Peace to wait for direction from his office after the Court’s decision. Attorney General Ken Paxton will also provide guidance to County Clerks and Justices of the Peace who have religious objections to participating in a same-sex ‘marriage.’ Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick requested the guidance from the Attorney General today and we commend him for his leadership on this issue. Citizens do not surrender their First Amendment rights just because they work for the government.

2. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has issued an order today regarding “preserving religious liberty for all Texans.” The order states, in part, that “The government must never pressure a person to abandon or violate his or her sincerely held religious beliefs regarding a topic such as marriage” and it directs all state agencies to “prioritize compliance with the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, Article I of the Texas Constitution, and the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act.” Read the full order here.

felipe (56556d) — 6/26/2015 @ 5:22 pm

Oops, the body of comment #155 should have been block quoted: I did not write that.

felipe (56556d) — 6/26/2015 @ 5:23 pm

nk (dbc370) — 6/26/2015 @ 4:56 pm

That is frightening to me, nk.

felipe (56556d) — 6/26/2015 @ 5:25 pm

what we’re really dealing with:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/420376/marriage-christians-religion-love

narciso (ee1f88) — 6/26/2015 @ 5:28 pm

What is even more frightening is the second part of the decision, where a NAMBLAperv could marry a sixteen-year old boy in Massachusetts and Texas would have to recognize it. Because not to would be demeaning to pederasts.

nk (dbc370) — 6/26/2015 @ 5:31 pm

64. Have you seen Steve Saint’s flying car (I-TEC, Maverick)?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PODSEaufQ-0
MD (Really!!) not in Philly (522abd) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:33 am

They kind of like have a 1940 Ford look to them with the radiator.

Which I like.

Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/26/2015 @ 5:37 pm

doesn’t look very aerodynamical,

narciso (ee1f88) — 6/26/2015 @ 5:47 pm

Beldar believed Bush had reasons to have confidence in Miers. He also wrote several posts outlining her qualifications.

DRJ (1dff03) — 6/26/2015 @ 6:16 pm

No actual moving footage of it flying, I might add.

Gazzer (be559b) — 6/26/2015 @ 6:48 pm

now a college professor (naturally), who says that only “hillbilles, rednecks, and slack-jawed yokels” are angered by this ruling.

A fascinating, yet typical, response from a modern-day liberal, mirroring the reaction of the famous Greek philosopher Plato, who originally scoffed that opponents of homosexuality were (to paraphrase) country bumpkins. Actually, Plato’s opinion was perhaps more extreme than that of the professor since Plato wasn’t narrowing his criticism to the idea of same-sex marriages (which presumably wasn’t up for debate in ancient Greece), but just same-sex activity in general. Which makes his eventual strong, harsh condemnation of homosexuality even more fascinating.

Again, Plato lived and wrote before the era of Christ and, as far as I know (unless he had invented a time machine), was not influenced by the Bible or the New Testament, or a modern-day liberal bisexual like Barack Obama.

Mark (a11af2) — 6/26/2015 @ 6:56 pm

My biggest complaint is that twice the SC should have sent the law back to congress to fix rather than opining themselves on what congress meant.

What is that supposed to mean?

Courts have to interpret language. There is no “sending it back.”

Patterico (e677b4) — 6/27/2015 @ 12:12 am

The Supreme Court selects the cases it will hear. They don’t “have” to do anything. That’s what “that’s” supposed to mean.

elissa (ea46f3) — 6/27/2015 @ 12:27 am

What would have happened had the Court declined to hear King v. Burwell, elissa?

And how would that have amounted to “sending the law back to Congress to fix” (a concept that makes no sense to me whatsoever)?

Patterico (e677b4) — 6/27/2015 @ 12:32 am

The lefties were pushing hard for the Court not to hear the case. That would have made you happy too?

Patterico (e677b4) — 6/27/2015 @ 12:34 am

Beldar believed Bush had reasons to have confidence in Miers. He also wrote several posts outlining her qualifications.

I did not care for her. But obviously Roberts has proven to be a disappointment, which I will admit I find very surprising.

Patterico (e677b4) — 6/27/2015 @ 12:44 am

Gee. I don’t know what would have happened to ACA, Patterico. But the SC declines to hear approx 6000 of the cases it is petitioned to consider each year. What happens to them?. I’m sorry, I did not mean for my use of the words “sending it back” to be taken quite so literally — as in justices delivering the thousands of pages of the law back to the doors of the Capitol in a huff! I do think (and this is only my opinion as a layman and a citizen ) that it would have been both reasonable and possible for the SC to decline to take Burwell. They could have forced ACA to cripple along as written and let it fail/die of its own weaknesses and stupidity until congress finally decided to do its job and legislate necessary changes to make it implementable.

elissa (ea46f3) — 6/27/2015 @ 1:00 am

Let me ask you some questions. Do you think the nation is better or worse off because the court heard Burwell? Do you think the application and sanctity of the rule of law and separation of powers have been strengthened or weakened because the court heard and ruled on Burwell?

ACA is not a 50 year old law that needed to be reinterpreted for modern times. It’s a new law. Many of its prime movers are still occupying seats in congress.

elissa (ea46f3) — 6/27/2015 @ 1:15 am

We are no better or worse off because we had lost in the lower courts. The one good decision had been vacated by a partisan en banc court looking to match the lefty decision in King and leave the subsidies in place despite clear language showing they should not be given.

I’ve heard others use the “send it back to Congress” rallying cry before and always found it utterly incoherent. I thought maybe you could explain what that is supposed to mean.

Patterico (e677b4) — 6/27/2015 @ 1:19 am

ACA is not a 50 year old law that needed to be reinterpreted for modern times. It’s a new law. Many of its prime movers are still occupying seats in congress.

A case needed to be brought because the IRS rewrote the law. It had to go to the USSC because the IRS rewriting was being upheld by partisan lefty lower courts. Now it has been upheld by what we now realize is a partisan lefty high court.

Patterico (e677b4) — 6/27/2015 @ 1:22 am

Supreme court justices need to be elected not appointed by progressive republicans.

mg (31009b) — 6/27/2015 @ 2:39 am

Too bad that R.R. picked a booosh for v.p.

mg (31009b) — 6/27/2015 @ 2:50 am

Rummy or Laxalt?

mg (31009b) — 6/27/2015 @ 2:57 am

20. It’s a legal system that allows a man to be in several marriages simultaneously, each with a single woman.

If only symbolically, that’s a distinction without a difference.

Mark (a11af2) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:23 am

No, it makes a difference, as you will see as the various polyamorous arrangements vie for the SCOTUS tramp stamp of approval.

http://nypost.com/2014/04/23/married-lesbian-threesome-expecting-first-child/

You see, not all will get the tramp stamp of approval as some will smack of heteronormative patriarchy. But some will defy that categorization, and thus the court will be hard bent to deny its approval.

Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/27/2015 @ 4:27 am

90. …The crack about Californians not counting at genuine Westerners is classic.

JVW (8278a3) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:59 am

It also is legitimate from Scalia’s perspective as Stanford or Berkeley or UCLA law school grads might as well be from Harvard or Yale.

But it kind of hurts as when you get away from the coastal strip from Marin to Los Angeles counties there’s a lot of ranch land that is just as western and populated (thinly) by by people just as western as anything you’ll find in Utah or (gasp!) Texas.

Scalia is a treasure. Let’s quote from him at length. (Sorry, no link, the decision I downloaded is a PDF file. Search on OBERGEFELL ET AL. v. HODGES, DIRECTOR, OHIO DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, ET AL.) Beginning on page 69 of the diktat (I prefer Power Line’s characterization of these imperious decrees rather than the traditional words “ruling” or “decision”):

I join THE CHIEF JUSTICE’s opinion in full. I write separately to call attention to this Court’s threat to American democracy.

The substance of today’s decree is not of immense personal importance to me. The law can recognize as marriage whatever sexual attachments and living arrangements it wishes, and can accord them favorable civil consequences, from tax treatment to rights of inheritance.

Those civil consequences—and the public approval that conferring the name of marriage evidences—can perhaps have adverse social effects, but no more adverse than the effects of many other controversial laws. So it is not of special importance to me what the law says about marriage. It is of overwhelming importance, however, who it is that rules me. Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. The opinion in these cases is the furthest extension in fact—and the furthest extension one can even imagine—of theCourt’s claimed power to create “liberties” that the Constitution and its Amendments neglect to mention. This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves.

Until the courts put a stop to it, public debate oversame-sex marriage displayed American democracy at its best. Individuals on both sides of the issue passionately, but respectfully, attempted to persuade their fellow citizens to accept their views. Americans considered the arguments and put the question to a vote. The electorates of 11 States, either directly or through their representatives, chose to expand the traditional definition of marriage. Many more decided not to.1 Win or lose, advocates for both sides continued pressing their cases, secure in the knowledge that an electoral loss can be negated by a later electoral win. That is exactly how our system of government is supposed to work.

…But we need not speculate. When the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, every State limited marriage to one man and one woman, and no one doubted the constitutionality of doing so. That resolves these cases. When it comes to determining the meaning of a vague constitutional provision—such as “due process of law” or “equal protection of the laws”—it is unquestionable that the People who ratified that provision did not understand it to prohibit a practice that remained both universal and uncontroversial in the years after ratification.12 We have no basis for striking down a practice that is not expressly prohibited by the Fourteenth Amendment’s text, and that bears the endorsement of a long tradition of open, widespread, and unchallenged use dating back to the Amendment’s ratification. Since there is no doubt whatever that the People never decided to prohibit the limitation of marriage to opposite-sex couples, the public debate over same-sex marriage must be allowed to continue.

It needs to be said, this decision no more ends debate than Roe v. Wade. Indeed, the SSM movement has likely made enemies of people who could have been allies had they not short circuited debate.

…This is a naked judicial claim to legislative—indeed, super-legislative—power; a claim fundamentally at odds with our system of government. Except as limited by a constitutional prohibition agreed to by the People, the States are free to adopt whatever laws they like, eventhose that offend the esteemed Justices’ “reasoned judgment.” A system of government that makes the Peoplesubordinate to a committee of nine unelected lawyers does not deserve to be called a democracy…

This echoes what I said r.e. the Burwell decision. That the court had embraced its super-legislative role. The Obama/Reid/Pelosi strategy of lawgiving has proven sound. It doesn’t matter who you elect. You’ve been disenfranchised. It matters who they hire and appoint. Your elected legislators can write any law they like. Then the self-sustaining permanent and parasitic leftist cabal can amend it or even reverse it in the bureaucracy, and the SCOTUS will rubber tramp stamp it into law.

This dissent (and Roberts’) needs to be read in full, along with the only really interesting footnote:

22 If, even as the price to be paid for a fifth vote, I ever joined an opinion for the Court that began: “The Constitution promises liberty to allwithin its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity,” I would hide my head in a bag. The Supreme Court of theUnited States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning ofJohn Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie.

Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/27/2015 @ 5:01 am

PSA: How you know that you’re in a gay bar. http://i.imgur.com/YWT8fRO.jpg NSFW but worth it!

nk (dbc370) — 6/27/2015 @ 5:06 am

I would not click on that link if my life depended on it, nk.

I don’t trust your sense of humor.

Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/27/2015 @ 5:08 am

No problem, Steve. That’s why I labelled it NSFW. According to Instapundit, “Trigger Warning” is now a trigger. http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/209495/

nk (dbc370) — 6/27/2015 @ 5:32 am

Last night I watched Noah on DVD. I noticed it’s full of indefensible hate speech.

Like when Ila walks up to Noah, and tells him that Shem needs a woman, a real woman. Not a barren girl. And that she’s not going to deny him that (the chance to repopulate the Earth). And then runs off crying.

How do you unpeel the layers of thoughtcrime and wrongthink in that?

How does Emma Watson hold up her head in Hollywood.

The little hussy. Acknowledging biological reality. Why, there ought to be a law against that!

Oh, wait, we have a SCOTUS decision. Just as good.

Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/27/2015 @ 5:47 am

biological reality

I denounce myself. There is no such thing as “biological reality.”

There is just reality.

By the same token there is no such thing as “traditional marriage” or “gay marriage.”

There is just marriage.

And marriage that is not about child birth is not marriage. This is not my opinion. It will prove to be a fact that this idiotic country apparently has to relearn the hard way.

Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/27/2015 @ 5:51 am

Look on the positive side, Steve. Next term they might rule that old age, illness and death are unconstitutional.

nk (dbc370) — 6/27/2015 @ 6:00 am

well that gnostic idiocy was bad enough,

crimethink is hard to eradicate, Steve,

narciso (ee1f88) — 6/27/2015 @ 6:26 am

On the positive side, nk, I’ve incorporated kettle bells into my workouts.

It used to be just body weight exercises like dands and beethaks and dive bomber pushups and the back bridge. Then I incorporated the sledge hammer and the Indian clubs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1LdlS1_kdg

THE BEST 15 CLUBBELLS EXERCISES

Please do not hold me responsible for the choice of music.

I use my Northern Tool & Equipment sledgehammer for no.s 8 (the Gamma cast) and 10 (the Barbarian squat) as it’s more cost effective vs. specialized exercise equipment. I can still use the sledge to drive wedges and split wood.

Actually I combine 8 and 10. I do a right and left cast, then a squat. Wash, rinse, repeat.

So now, kettlebells. I do something like a sit up. Except I have an off hand pushing me up. On the other side, I have a kettlebell near my head. And my arm is folded back so while my right or left hand is pushing me up, the other hand is driving the weight straight up toward the sky.

So far I only use the 15 lb kettlebell. I’m over 50. I get to use the chick weights, to start.

Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/27/2015 @ 6:45 am

This is kind of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo-1lD55_Dk

Video: How to Do Kettlebell Get Up Sit Up

Except the way I learned it the kettlebell stays on the floor until you start the sit up, then as you do the sit up you drive it up straight. You don’t start with the arm straight.

But I’ll have to try it this way too.

Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/27/2015 @ 6:53 am

185. …crimethink is hard to eradicate, Steve,
narciso (ee1f88) — 6/27/2015 @ 6:26 am

Da, tovarisch.

We must redouble our efforts ~~comrade~~ gay pride ally.

Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/27/2015 @ 7:04 am

It will prove to be a fact that this idiotic country apparently has to relearn the hard way.

Beyond that, I hope that people who originally assumed SSM is somehow appropriate because, hey, gay people can’t help but be the way they are, begin to get a clue. That, btw, is the approach that Patterico gave a few years ago when explaining why he supported SSM. So I hope that more people stop being naive (or foolish) about human nature—and, to be honest about myself, and in that regards, mea culpa.

I too once had a sense that self-described gay people, particularly males, were so intrinsically the way they are, that their condition perhaps could be analogized to color blindness, height, baldness or stuttering. But the leftism of GLBT over the past few years and the growing number of stories involving GLBT people — with an emphasis on the “B” of GLBT — forced me to realize that the human condition is far more complex and contradictory than simple-minded liberals in particular want us to believe.

When Patterico implied that gays were pretty much forced to be the way they are, and (to paraphrase) that SSM therefore was to such people what a black guy marrying a white woman was to black America, etc, I now realize one could just as easily conclude that a guy absolutely has to be allowed to wear tattoos, metal tongue studs and earrings because, hey, that’s who he is innately and intrinsically, and who are we to deny him his preferences and pleasures—and the legal rights thereof?

The history of the current US president (and his reported sexual activities as a youth and certainly more recently as a US senator based in Chicago) is merely Example One Million why naivete about human nature is no longer acceptable.

Mark (a11af2) — 6/27/2015 @ 7:06 am

what we’re talking about is license for certain behaviors, it’s not biological

narciso (ee1f88) — 6/27/2015 @ 7:11 am

The Supreme Court of theUnited States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning ofJohn Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie.

I read recently that the invention and common use of the cell phone have forced fiction writers to modify concepts that their predecessors (or they themselves) would have had no problem with over 15 to 20 years ago. Also, older movies on crime and espionage, in particular, but made before the advent of cell-phone technology, now seem oddly quaint or somehow lacking in logic due to the framework of everyone in the 21st century being accustomed to easily reaching one another through a cell phone.

In a similar way — but in the reverse order — the truly nonsensical recent history of the Supreme Court and politicians like Barack Obama now make it hard to perceive the US in the 21st century as a serious, noble, mature place. The notion that American entities like the US presidency, Congress and other branches of government are worthy of respect and signify dignity now seems oddly quaint, even laughable.

Mark (a11af2) — 6/27/2015 @ 7:23 am

190. what we’re talking about is license for certain behaviors, it’s not biological

narciso (ee1f88) — 6/27/2015 @ 7:11 am

Yes, I know. That’s not why marriage exists and since that’s what it’s being turned into that’s why it will die.

As planned.

Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/27/2015 @ 8:03 am

“…From here on in Catholic couples will have to have a civil ceremony as well as a Church ceremony in order to be married in the eyes of the state. I think the countercultural thing to do will be to forego the civil ceremony and only be married in the eyes of God.”
JVW (8278a3) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:08 am

We have become a Jacobin Republic circa 1795.

askeptic (efcf22) — 6/27/2015 @ 9:08 am

“The right to personal choice regarding marriage is inherent in the concept of individual autonomy.”

But, is “personal choice” restricted to just marriage, or are other aspects of day-to-day life open to individual autonomy?
Do we get to redefine other state commands because of our autonomy, and isn’t this opening society to petit-anarchy?
Can I cite J. Kennedy in traffic court to explain why I was going 150mph on I-5?

askeptic (efcf22) — 6/27/2015 @ 9:15 am

JVW (8278a3) — 6/26/2015 @ 8:35 am

In CA, gays had Civil-Union, but demanded “Marriage”….that was what Prop-8 was all about.

askeptic (efcf22) — 6/27/2015 @ 9:20 am

We need to start over.
Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:06 am

I think that’s where Rule-7.62 comes in.

askeptic (efcf22) — 6/27/2015 @ 9:25 am

Michael Ejercito (d9a893) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:20 am

I like your thinking there.

askeptic (efcf22) — 6/27/2015 @ 9:28 am

Rule .303, askeptic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaAQsxAQYHg

Breaker Morant

As an argument it didn’t work out well for him.

Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/27/2015 @ 9:31 am

Rights should be based on sturdier stuff than the next appointment to the Court.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:37 am

Which is why people lay awake at night worrying about RKBA.

askeptic (efcf22) — 6/27/2015 @ 9:31 am

At which point the state will try to pull the tax exemptions of those churches and do whatever they possibly can to coerce them. Some will comply. The Catholic Church will not, in the lifetimes of anyone now living.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:45 am

And, as that would be a direct confrontation with the Free Exercise Clause, and also (probably) Equal Protection, a great conflagration (or at least confrontation) may be created – depending on what else is going on in the once-Republic.

askeptic (efcf22) — 6/27/2015 @ 9:35 am

The crack about Californians not counting at genuine Westerners is classic.
JVW (8278a3) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:59 am

WW2 changed the face of CA as so many who shipped out of our ports came here to stay after “the Duration”; and then Moonbeam attracted a whole new group of “Easties” in the 70’s.

askeptic (efcf22) — 6/27/2015 @ 9:41 am

The practical Dana (f6a568) — 6/26/2015 @ 11:16 am

He made his bed, I hope he enjoys the bugs.

askeptic (efcf22) — 6/27/2015 @ 9:48 am

elissa (ea46f3) — 6/26/2015 @ 11:20 am

SCOTUS normally passes on “political questions” but some are too important to be left to politicians, and must be divined by the Oracles in their black-robes, reading goat entrails.

askeptic (efcf22) — 6/27/2015 @ 9:52 am

JVW (8278a3) — 6/26/2015 @ 12:04 pm

Poor Ike: He gave us both Earl Warren, and William Brennan.

askeptic (efcf22) — 6/27/2015 @ 9:53 am

The nit-picking Dana (f6a568) — 6/26/2015 @ 1:21 pm

Except: The Congress included a whole list of definitions that applied to the PPACA, among which is that “state” means the governments of the fifty (50) states, plus the District of Columbia.
Oops!

askeptic (efcf22) — 6/27/2015 @ 9:57 am

The brutally honest Dana (f6a568) — 6/26/2015 @ 1:22 pm

And most of those new to the Health-Care Insurance game have been forced onto Medicaid which is not much better than being uninsured seeing as how scarce providers for that service are.

askeptic (efcf22) — 6/27/2015 @ 10:00 am

201. The crack about Californians not counting at genuine Westerners is classic.
JVW (8278a3) — 6/26/2015 @ 9:59 am

WW2 changed the face of CA as so many who shipped out of our ports came here to stay after “the Duration”; and then Moonbeam attracted a whole new group of “Easties” in the 70’s.

askeptic (efcf22) — 6/27/2015 @ 9:41 am

Yes. But the old californios aren’t to blame for what happened later.

Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/27/2015 @ 10:04 am

Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/26/2015 @ 1:43 pm

What other “in-activities” in America are we taxed for?
If I don’t buy property, do I have to pay a tax on that property that I don’t buy?
If I don’t buy a car, must I pay a registration tax on that car?
In fact, the entire concept of a “mandate” is unconstitutional:
If the US Government requires a State Government to do something, but fails to compensate the State for its labor, the mandate is Un-Constitutional (Prinze, et al).
Why does that not also apply to a Sovereign People?
We have become so wrapped up in “good vibrations” that we have warped the entire concept of a Republic.

askeptic (efcf22) — 6/27/2015 @ 10:07 am

Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/27/2015 @ 9:31 am

All my Enfield’s are in the “collector rack” now, not to be shot.
Anyway, 7.62 is the Proper NATO Caliber.

askeptic (efcf22) — 6/27/2015 @ 10:20 am

209…more….
Yes, Breaker lost that argument, but that only showed that the political winds are fickle.
Rule-.303 was an effective tool against the Boer.

askeptic (efcf22) — 6/27/2015 @ 10:24 am

Yes. But the old californios aren’t to blame for what happened later.
Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/27/2015 @ 10:04 am

Thank You for that.

askeptic (efcf22) — 6/27/2015 @ 10:26 am

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2015/06/bye-bye-glucksberg.html

Obergefell will have implications even beyond sodomite rights. For example, take Walker v. Sons of Confederate Veterans, No. 14-144 (June 18, 2015) It upheld a state’s refusal to offer Confederate license plates, on the basis that the speech in question was not speech by the license plate owner. I believe this ruling is correct, though Justice Kennedy did not.

However, Walker did not deal with SDP. It leaves open a question of whether there was an SDP right to specialized license plates wholly apart from the First Amendment. Under a Glucksberg analysis, this answer must be no, but with the Obergefell analysis…

(NOTE: I take no position on whether making available specialty license plates that commemorate the Confederacy is proper state policy.)

Michael Ejercito (d9a893) — 6/27/2015 @ 11:32 am

WW2 changed the face of CA as so many who shipped out of our ports came here to stay after “the Duration”; and then Moonbeam attracted a whole new group of “Easties” in the 70’s.

When the politics and government of a society are crummy (and generally and often of the left), the demographics of such a place take on even greater importance. In that respect, California (the “Golden State”) is facing the double whammy of a now probably indefinitely lazy-liberal political-ideological framework combined with an increasingly second-rate, semi-literate population. Throw in the ongoing, severe drought, and it’s a hat trick of bad news.

But a footnote is required regarding demographics and politics: Even though Argentina is one of the most racially/ethnically non-diverse countries in the Americas — in which 95-plus percent of its people are listed as being of European extraction — that society is a perennial economic backwater and, most crucially, is full of street crime. So, in a way, politics/governance do trump demographics.

Mark (a11af2) — 6/27/2015 @ 12:15 pm

An analogy to understand how this will play out.

Billy and Bobby didn’t like the softball rules that the kids used on the playground. So they went to teacher and complained. Teacher made the kids change the rules to suit Billy and Bobby’s preferences. Question: How will the kids react when teacher goes away?

Kevin M (25bbee) — 6/27/2015 @ 12:23 pm

Which is why people lay awake at night worrying about RKBA.

Well, short of a sterner amendment, I don’t know what one could do. It is ironic that the unwritten parts of the constitution (abortion, ssm) are created as absolute, while the parts that are written are limited by the text.

Kevin M (25bbee) — 6/27/2015 @ 12:27 pm

A constitution is a set of rules about rules. It’s very meta.

The British don’t have a written constitution — which, I submit, means they don’t really have a constitution at all. Their lack of one is very much part of what led to the American Revolution: The Crown was doing things in the Colonies — quartering troops in private homes, seizing stocks of gunpowder, cannon, and munitions, suspending habeas corpus, restricting trial by jury, etc. — that the Crown was not doing in Great Britain. That proved to our forefathers that we needed to actually write down — and enforce as written — the rules about rules. Otherwise there really aren’t any permanent rules, any reliable rules. Otherwise we’re all subject to the whims of the current government, and to the tyranny of a temporary (and often mob-dominated) majority — even in the second-most liberty-minded nation in the history of the world.

If the SCOTUS is free to ignore the written-down version of the rules, and especially if it’s free to ignore the written-down version of the rules about rules, then we no longer have a constitutional government with the distribution of power and the checks and balances crafted by our Founding Fathers. Instead, we have, effectively, a tripartite legislature: The only difference between the SCOTUS and the Congress is that the former has fewer members, each of whom has life tenure.

Thus we have Mr. Justice Kennedy, who’d “cut down every law in England” to get to thwart the Devil. Thus we have Mr. Chief Justice Roberts, who (I believe) is so focused upon protecting the political leverage of the SCOTUS that he’d bend the rules and even the rules about rules to avoid a constitutional confrontation.

It hasn’t been a good week for the Rule of Law.

Beldar (fa637a) — 6/27/2015 @ 5:49 pm

Hmm. Sorry, forgot to close that html tag, which ought have stopped at “‘… England.'”

[Fixed — Ed.]

Beldar (fa637a) — 6/27/2015 @ 5:51 pm

elissa, if you’re still reading this thread, I am still interested in what you mean by the (to me nonsensical) notion that the court is supposed to send back legislation to Congress to “fix.” Usually by the time legislation reaches the courts, the legislative body has changed. Obviously, any time a problem arises, Congress has the *option* to pass a fix — if they can get it past both houses and get the President’s signature on it. But that almost never happens, and in the real world, courts must interpret language. They must do so according to the text and not vague and impossible-to-determine notions of “intent” or “purpose.”

Laws provisions are unclear all the time. The answer is not to give some meaningless talk about sending it back to Congress. The answer is to reject appeals to nonexistent legislative intent and apply the law as written.

Patterico (3cc0c1) — 6/27/2015 @ 9:25 pm

What other “in-activities” in America are we taxed for? If I don’t buy property, do I have to pay a tax on that property that I don’t buy? If I don’t buy a car, must I pay a registration tax on that car?

Congress can tax you simply for existing. But this tax is levied as a percentage of income (within certain limits), so it’s a tax on income. Which is how it gets out of being a direct tax, which would be complicated.

In fact, the entire concept of a “mandate” is unconstitutional:

Yes, that’s exactly what the Court said in Sibelius: if there were a mandate in the law it would have been unconstitutional, but there isn’t one.

If the US Government requires a State Government to do something, but fails to compensate the State for its labor, the mandate is Un-Constitutional (Prinze, et al). Why does that not also apply to a Sovereign People?

Because individual people are not sovereigns. You are not a sovereign; if you are sued and try claiming sovereign immunity, you will be laughed out of court. Congress can certainly mandate that you do things, so long as it’s acting within one of its enumerated powers. But it can’t use the interstate commerce clause to order you to engage in interstate commerce.

Milhouse (a04cc3) — 6/27/2015 @ 10:38 pm

However, Walker did not deal with SDP. It leaves open a question of whether there was an SDP right to specialized license plates wholly apart from the First Amendment.

Why would there be? What possible argument could be made for it?

Milhouse (a04cc3) — 6/27/2015 @ 10:41 pm

Patterico, in this context the meaning of “sending it back to Congress to fix” seems obvious to me. If the court had ruled in Sibelius that PPACA contained an unconstitutional mandate, or, having found that it actually imposed a tax, if it had ruled that it was a direct tax, or, in King, if it had found that “established by a state” means what it says, then it would have been sending the act back to Congress to fix, because it was generally agreed that such a decision would render the act unworkable.

Milhouse (a04cc3) — 6/27/2015 @ 10:47 pm

8, 124. On target.

http://thecampofthesaints.org/2015/06/27/on-justice-thomass-dissent-in-obergefell/

Thomas is as reliable as the morning.

DNF (208255) — 6/28/2015 @ 5:39 am

What was said about this case in church today?

DRJ (1dff03) — 6/28/2015 @ 8:15 am

Great link, DNF. Thanks.

Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27) — 6/28/2015 @ 8:30 am

R.I.P. Chris Squire, bass player for Yes

Icy (9aba5a) — 6/28/2015 @ 8:42 am

211. Yes. But the old californios aren’t to blame for what happened later.
Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/27/2015 @ 10:04 am

Thank You for that.

askeptic (efcf22) — 6/27/2015 @ 10:26 am

You’re welcome.

Steve57. Acknowledging reality since, like, forever.

Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/28/2015 @ 11:13 am

Alveda King says “No!”

felipe (56556d) — 6/28/2015 @ 6:20 pm

DRJ–I am not Catholic but apparently there’s a variety of reactions from church hierarchy to the supreme court’s rulings. According to the Tribune this is what Chicago’s Archbishop Cupich said in a statement issued today:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-archbishop-cupich-supreme-court-met-20150628-story.html

elissa (65d577) — 6/28/2015 @ 6:33 pm

To complicate matters further, some of the spotting gene patterns can be combined to produce a horse with multiple color traits, such as the Tovero. The genetics of pinto spotting patterns are still being researched and are not fully understood. Some patterns may be polygenic, dominant, or incomplete dominants, and spoting can be so minimally expressed on an individual that the animal is mistaken for a “solid” colored horse. The sabino pattern is one of the most complex, as there has been one gene identified, SB-1, that creates one type of sabino patterning, but not all sabino-patterned horses carry it. There is a DNA test for the allele associated with the frame overo pattern, which causes the controversial lethal white syndrome, and there is a DNA test for three mutations, SW-1, SW-2, and SW-3, associated with splashed white.[3]

Basically I can not figure out WTF horse I’m riding.

I think that figures into the SSM debate.

Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/28/2015 @ 6:59 pm

Assuming my gelding identifies as a he, he’s a paint horse of quarter horse ancestry.

On the other hand, he could be a black chick and president of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP.

Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/28/2015 @ 7:08 pm

We raised rabbits and when they inbred too much, all looking alike, they became infertile through teratogenesis. Non-viable embryos. It’s probably the same thing with horses. The more diverse they are genetically, the more likely they are to survive gestation.

nk (dbc370) — 6/28/2015 @ 7:19 pm

I just know my gelding isn’t going to be producing any inbreds anytime soon.

Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/28/2015 @ 7:30 pm

He’s a stout horse. As he must be, if he’s going to haul my fat arse around.

I could be misgendering, though, calling him a him.

I denounce myself.

Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/28/2015 @ 7:32 pm

My horse has had more surgery than ~~Bruce~~ Caitlyn Jenner has.

Steve57 (ec1eac) — 6/28/2015 @ 7:49 pm

6/26/2015

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