SCOTUS Steps In It, Part 2 (Gay Marriage)

None of you who have turned your avatar "rainbow" on Facebook appear to have actually read the Supreme Court opinion.

Why are you celebrating without understanding what you are celebrating? Are you a thinking individual or are you a member of a mob? If the latter, get the hell away from me; you're dangerous, to be blunt, and I want you nowhere near my person or property. To the extent I can do so I will distance myself from your person and behavior as both are destructive to both self and others.

Incidentally, if it matters, I don't care who you sleep with. Not only do I have many associates and people I like a great deal who are gay, I also have several friends who are polyamorous.

But let's look at first the holding, and then the argument the court accepted in issuing it:

Held: The Fourteenth Amendment requires a State to license a marriage between two people of the same sex and to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-State. Pp. 3–28.

A third basis for protecting the right to marry is that it safeguards children and families and thus draws meaning from related rights of childrearing, procreation, and education.

(3) The right of same-sex couples to marry is also derived from the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection. The Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause are connected in a profound way.

The new and widespread discussion of the subject led other States to a different conclusion. In 2003, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held the State’s Constitution guaranteed same-sex couples the right to marry. See Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, 440 Mass. 309, 798 N. E. 2d 941 (2003). After that ruling, some additional States granted marriage rights to samesex couples, either through judicial or legislative processes.

Under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, no State shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The fundamental liberties protected by this Clause include most of the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights. See Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145, 147–149 (1968). In addition these liberties extend to certain personal choices central to individual dignity and autonomy, including intimate choices that define personal identity and beliefs.

Applying these established tenets, the Court has long held the right to marry is protected by the Constitution.

In Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1, 12 (1967), which invalidated bans on interracial unions, a unanimous Court held marriage is “one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.”

I could easily write the longest Ticker of my career as a writer simply by quoting these passages. If you wish to go and look you will find 86 cited examples of the word "rights" in the opinion (and dissents.)

I need not do so; these are illustrative of the fact that the Opinion itself, and thus the court itself, lied, and you're lapping it up.

A right is a thing that you inherently possess as a consequence of being human. You have the right to free speech. You have the right to freedom of religion. You have the right to keep personal effects, such as papers and property, free from unreasonable search and seizure. You have the right to personal property which may not be taken from you by the government without compensation at its fair market value.

At the moment any entity requires you to obtain a license you no longer have a right -- you have a privilege.

The States assert that you may exercise the privilege of operating a vehicle upon the roads if you obtain a driver license. The States assert that you may exercise the privilege of operating a business if you obtain a business license. You may exercise the privilege of carrying a firearm in some states if you obtain a concealed carry permit (a blatantly unconstitutional requirement as the right to keep and bear arms is delineated in the Second Amendment.) I may exercise the privilege of using many of the range lands around Eglin Air Force Base for recreational purposes if I first obtain a permit from Jackson Guard. There are literally thousands of privileges that are all predicated on obtaining a license or permit and none of them are in fact rights, as a right requires no permission from anyone to exercise.

Note carefully that list of cites above. You need no license to engage in sexual activity (such would be deemed outrageous on its face); that is one of your rights. You also need no license to produce a child (unless you live in China, which recognizes no right to procreation!)

The Supreme Court had two options that would have actually addressed the complaints before it without doing what it did. It could have responded to the second part of its holding only, specifically:

to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-State.

That is Federalism. It is also well within the Supreme Court's remit and would address the issue in full as put before the court. If you desired to get married as a gay person then you could travel to a state that allows same (much as many people do when they elope to Vegas) and the state you reside in, no matter which one it was, would have to recognize the lawfulness of your act. This, incidentally, is why if you commit a crime in one state and go somewhere else that the act you undertook isn't illegal the first state can demand (and will win) your extradition to stand trial; this is what Article IV Section 1 of the Constitution explicitly provides:

Full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state. And the Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.

Respect for the laws of one State, however, does not compel the other State to pass the same laws. This is why income and sales tax rates (and items to be taxed) vary, it is why speed limits vary among states, it is why building codes vary, it is why zoning varies, and it is why business license requirements vary. So long as they do not implicate rights the States are free to form their own legislation, but they must respect enforcement of laws in other States where the conduct in question takes place within that other State, despite someone attempting to evade enforcement by fleeing the jurisdiction.

The other legitimate (and indeed logical) option before the Court was to find that since marriage is a conflation of and implicates a whole list of other rights that the entire process of "licensing" is facially invalid, striking "marriage laws" across the entire country.

Instead what the Supreme Court has legislated is the complete destruction of the entire list of alleged rights they have cited in their opinion! They have reduced your right to cohabitate with, sleep with, procreate with and be intimate with to a privilege, and then have mandated that the States issue licenses to you in order to practice this privilege -- but only to the extent that this privilege is extended to everyone else!

For this -- the destruction by judicial fiat of fundamental human rights that have resided in each human being for thousands of years, reducing them to mere privilege which now can be revoked or limited, provided that everyone has to live under the same revocation, a huge part of this country cheers?

Government never arrogates to itself power it does not intend to use. If you want examples of what turning marriage into a privilege, along with all the other "rights" attached that the USSC cited will turn into, look toward China where you need a license (permission) to have a child and will be denied permission for a second one, with varying sanctions applied if you do it anyway. Interference of this sort in marriage and everything associated with it, so long as it is equally applied to everyone, was just made legal by this Supreme Court decision since we now have acceded to fundamental human rights being turned into privileges with their associated license.

Excellent post. Rights vs privileges is the ONLY issue.

And that’s why churches, explicitly protected in the 1st Amendment, should NEVER incorporate.

Because “privileges” apply ONLY to incorporation.

Thanks, SatinDoll, for posting this!

ping to this one!

SCOTUS HAS ABOLISHED A GREAT MANY, IF NOT ALL, CIVIL RIGHTS IN THIS NATION.

posted on ‎6‎/‎28‎/‎2015‎ ‎11‎:‎27‎:‎34‎ ‎AM by SatinDoll

SCOTUS Steps In It, Part 2 (Gay Marriage)

Check out article.

Thanks to WildHighlander57 and SatinDoll.

SCOTUS has morphed from a judicial branch of government into a political tool of government. This disgusting light treatment of our once respected White House didn't just get thrown together last night. It was well planned and rehearsed. They knew the decision before hand.

Thanks for the article. I am so depressed over this. Some people I know think it’s about “love”. and “if it feels good, do it”. That I should mind my own business. They don’t realize how this is going to impact everyone, mostly negatively.

If you are one of the people cheering this crap here is my response to you and your blatant and outrageous stupidity -- indeed, your acceptance of and cheering for the largest single destruction of civil rights ever undertaken in the history of this nation...exactly so - insisting that something for which the government requires you to get a license is a right is a joke - and a government "marriage" which is the only thing SCOTUS can actually regulate is an exercise in exploitation (you get to pay the government for your license) and regimentation (you get to file under different tax laws and inheritance rules, for example) - anyone who finds anything spiritual and holy in such an exercise is indeed and in fact to be pitied.....

anyone who finds anything spiritual and holy in such an exercise is indeed and in fact to be pitied.....

I say scorned, not pitied!

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