In today’s Best of the Web, James Taranto focuses on a question asked by John Roberts:
“I’m not sure it’s necessary to get into sexual orientation to resolve the case. I mean, if Sue loves Joe and Tom loves Joe, Sue can marry him and Tom can’t. And the difference is based upon their different sex. Why isn’t that a straightforward question of sexual discrimination?’
This is a seductive argument, and Mr. Taranto seems persuaded:
The logic here seems inexorable: If the Constitution prohibits almost all sex discrimination, and if that prohibition applies to family law, then husbands and wives are, for legal purposes, already interchangeable.
But this seemingly compelling argument is mere question-begging. What’s being decided in this case isn’t whether homosexuals have the right to marry; of course they do. (It may seem facile to point this out, but any homosexual of either sex has the same right to marry as anyone else, as long as they marry someone of the opposite sex.) The correct response to Chief Justice Roberts’s question would be that what prevent’s Tom from ‘marrying’ Joe is the fact that such a union is, under all traditional law in every society that has ever existed throughout all of human history, not a marriage. It is not the right to marry that is being examined in this case, but the right to define what marriage is. And that is a very different thing.
31 Comments
Well.
Let’s just hope SCOTUS does whatever its gonna do without all that equivocating.
All this LGBTQEIEIO stuff is getting me plumb nauseous.
It’s about the right to force others to call your homo relationship a marriage. A shiny new cudgel for cultural marxists to hammer White Christians. Your black Muslim bakery will be left well alone.
Got me a lightbulb moment!
Kills three birds with two stones.
Get Barney Frank outta retirement and run him in the primary against Hillary.
Then … whatever the result there’ll be a First Dude[ette].
Bruce Jenner for VP.
For damn sure there’d be no more Middle East Apology Tours.
Kim Kardashian for Secretary of State.
Kanye Kardashian for I dunno, either Treasury Secretary or Attorney General.
@Bruce
JennerGender for VP.FTFW
Traci Lords at Commerce.
Thanks. Didn’t know the proper Intglish.
Semantics, Malcolm, possibly facile, because you are deliberately misunderstanding. And you know, I’m such a liberal thinker but I do agree with you on one level. Marriage is so bound up with religious beliefs, that I can’t see why the state should interfere.
Let homosexuals marry in civil ceremonies so that they have equal rights under the law. Let the churches say no.
If you force this idea onto people who don’t want it, there’s a whole load of trouble on it’s way.
Nobody needs that.
Hmm, gay marriage, same sex marriage, marriage equality. All 3 terms have been used in the campaign to virtually make marriage a meaningless term. The institution of marriage. The “long march” has as its goal the breaking down of ALL institutions. The family has always been society’s first building block institution. If it can be legally broken down, it can be legally replaced with a substitute.
And once a mere legalism …
Musey, the whole idea is to force those religious beliefs to change or have it deemed hate speech and not countenanced in society. That’s why the gay marriage movement insists that the definition of “marriage” must change. It’s not about gay rights, it’s about compelling religious organizations to conform to the gay agenda (taking away their right to freely practice their religion).
In America, the liberal/progressive norm appears to be silencing any opposing views – usually by the force of law and regulatory schemes. You can see this in play, especially on liberal college campuses with draconian speech codes, banishing speakers with opposing views, yelling micro-aggression at every turn, or shouting down those they oppose.
Libertybelle
Fine point there! The Right hopes for a world without threat while the Left is seeking a world without opposition.
LB. In future where you’re gonna be going with a second paragraph you simply must (betwixt the end of the first and the start of the second) insert the text;
Trigger Alert!
JK
ain’t it odd that in just a few decades, the college scene has gone from the Free Speech movement of the ’60s with the hair and tie dyes to today’s restricted speech with the hair and brown shirts?
Queer as a nine-bob.
And. Far as the hair goes.
Butch.
Libertybelle, I hear you, and to a large extent I agree with you. In Australia we have a big row at the moment, over whether Labor MP’s should be allowed a conscience vote on this issue. The deputy leader of the party proposed that gay marriage is a legal/human rights issue therefore MP’s should tow the party line. The backlash has been swift and she appears to have been taken by surprise.
The spiritual and religious beliefs of many preclude any consideration of gay marriage in Church. If we start locking up the priests and vicars because they refuse to fall into line then what next? It’s not going to happen. Apart from anything else, I don’t think that the Muslims would be too keen on the idea either.
Religious organizations have a lot of power which, most of the time, they are reluctant to use. That doesn’t mean that they won’t ever get their act together and say no.
State sanctioned gay marriage is coming. It’s inevitable, but I don’t think it will become compulsory for the churches to marry gay couples, nor should it.
A “[C]onscience [V]ote”?
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(And here I was going .. “I’ll manufacture some sort of something with me and Musey – she might/might not … I’ll not even do a look-back as it wouldn’t/doesn’t matter anyway.
She … and “Musey” … what kinda name is that? Quigley?
“The spiritual and religious beliefs … ”
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Appears to me Warrantied.
…
Reckon we’ll just have to defer to Corporate Wal-Mart.
JK, if we ever met it would be such fun. I don’t think we would understand a word that each other said. I’m guessing though, from what you just wrote, that you don’t agree with me?
I should warn you that I am not a fan of beards or long straggly bits of hair, so the minute you went to sleep my scissors would be out and your whiskers would be gone.
Then you could take me to the Court of Human Rights, where we could have a translator, or alternatively you could have me charged with assault.
You once asked me if my husband was a big guy and I answered, no. Let me ask you. Are you some hulking fellow that I should be careful not to annoy?
I love you really.
I do Musey and we’d despite what either’d insist “know” we’d be agreeing. You’d agree me strapping you me leaning over and you with scissors somewhat able to trim my moustache ends whispering, “Oh.”
“Oh!”
“I wouldn’t have done that had you not been so enthusiastic getting your face so intertwined with my .. uhm, Great Barrier Reef.”
“Great? !!”
Mmm Musey. I’m an unusually small butterfly guy which’d have to … regardless, decide we’d be suited me doing my proboscis whither your nectar.
Being Darwin I figure I’d go extinct. Figuring I’d likely but would – in extremis – go totorisee.
And I’d remain to – best I could – flip you. Maybe twice.
JK, I can’t stop laughing, even though I have no idea what you mean.
Once is enough. You need to take care of your proboscis.
Sorry Malcolm.
Obviously Musey, you’ve never had a probis cising your flower for as long as nexcter your’s took to get t’were flipping you over was … “Okie Dokie I’m [Musey. A Gymnasty anyway and you a braggadocious Arkansayer so] “I’m flipped, what was that you Arkie said?
“Oh heck Arkie, I Loves your probocis ‘n you mentioned a navel orange? Okay. Anything.”
Gee Aussie.
Haw Aussie.
Gee Musey .. Haw a little bit more maybe?
I promise you Forever Musey – UDMe2?
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/150317-seychelles-tortoise-chase
Heck Musey I am slow. I was thinking me ‘n you in the Sistine Chapel.
Turns out you do Bill in the Pristine Ciadow.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/140922-pristine-seas-expansion-ocean-marine-conservation/
Musey.
I didn’t know how much of this was going on in Australia but it seems to be uniform throughout the western world, or at least within the Anglosphere. “State sanctioned gay marriage is coming. It’s inevitable, but I don’t think it will become compulsory for the churches to marry gay couples, nor should it”. There is the next step for the Social Justice Warriors. Their utter contempt for Judeo Christian beliefs will continue to drive this Marriage issue well beyond to finally get at the ultimate enemy of the Left–the Church. I predict that within a few years, Sunday and even Sabbath services will be interrupted by these young Social Justice Warrior types. It will be a matter of barging in from the outside or more likely, SJWs already seated in the congregation who rise on que to disrupt.
In the US, mind you, no such action will be taken against a Mosque or a Christian black church.
Don’t whole brush Whitewall the black Christian Churches. Matter of opinion on my part of course but I think, those black Christian Churches will be allowed to hold far longer once it gets to what’s commonly held to be a “tipping point.”
Malcolm’ll only come on here very extremely rarely
The black churches anyway Whitewall in the USA at any rate will be some of the last bastions.
Very few Whitewall you’ll note (if you visit the congregations or even note – you do have weekly’s in North Carolina)?
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Feature Speecher: Rev’m Al
… if only the records of charitable contributions tend generally, to Hellfire when the IRS and the two terms; reconciliation of the books, charitable contributions and the two names, Lois Lerner and Al Sharpton figure strongly with some Arsonist of Biblical proportion.
(Hillary Clinton not mentioned in a Hotel 6 Gideon’s but by November 2016, a dozen eggs’ll be six-packed Forrest Gumped into a Bill’s Box of Chocolates and Chelsea’ll be Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates.)
And the white Baptists (even the deep-water Baptists, the Roman Catholics and probably by the time Hillary gets done whoever’s replaced Candy Crowley when, Hillary and Bernie meet up all’ll be talked about will be Bubba’s Shrimp Boxes of Chocolates and whether BP can be extorted more than Big Tobacco.
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Meantime … only the black Christian Churches’ll be able to call a Queer a Queer.
Some people think it’ll “naturally be” Justice Kennedy who’ll be writing For the Majority but I’m thinking – queer as it might sound like whatever the majority opinion comes down it’ll be, Justice Thomas.
That depends on how much time I have on my hands (not much these past few days), and whether I have something worthwhile to add.
As far as much of this thread is concerned, I didn’t.
I have an idea: Every so often I will post an “open thread” entry. Coming right up.
JK, if you want to continue the conversation you should go to “open thread”. I think that it is mostly for our benefit!
Whitewall, yes, the issue is everywhere and there is an agenda. There are ‘progressive’ churches that are agreeable to gay marriage so it’s not as though all doors are closed to those couples who want a religious ceremony. I still think that the traditional churches will refuse to countenance this and if they did would almost certainly lose their traditional supporters, that is, all those who fill up the pews every Sunday.