Same sex marriage is a constitutional right for all USAians, regardless of the homophobic, religiously-motivated bigotry in 14 state legislatures.
Chief Justice Kennedy writing the 5-4 decision:
“The right to marry is a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of a person,
… under the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment, couples of the same sex may not be deprived of that right and that liberty.
.. The Court now holds that same-sex couples may exercise the fundamental right to marry,
… [They] ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right. </blockquote>
And Antonin Scalia displays his usual regressive Catholic assholishness: <blockquote>The opinion is couched in a style that is as pretentious as its content is egotistic,
Suck it, Popey-boy.
HT: Chris Clarke, image, and Ophelia Benson
Edit: Should have been Justice Kennedy, not Chief justice Kennedy. Thanks for the reminder, Kantian Naturalist :).
Excellent news.
This is excellent news.
By the way, hotshoe_, the Libertarian Party has been calling for marriage equality since its founding in 1971.
Just sayin’.
I’m happy about this result, but I really don’t like this “fundamental right inherent in the liberty of a person” talk. It’s libertarian gobbledygook, IMHO.
But now isn’t the time to quibble, I guess. It’s a time to celebrate!
I’m very proud of my country today. 🙂 It’s a victory for human dignity.
The only question is, why did it take so long? It has been legal in Canada for ten years (I think) and none of the horror stories predicted by the leligious nut jobs has materialized.
Let me correct myself. The one thing that has happened is that religious nut jobs in the service industries can no longer use religious freedom as an excuse to discriminate against homosexuals.
I can hardly wait until the inevitable Barry Arrington sermon. Not to mention another comments off FYI/FTR from KF.
From Mother Jones:
The 10 Most Wild Lines From Antonin Scalia’s Extreme Dissent Over Gay Marriage
This is excellent. How far we have come.
Yeah, but by their standards, Canada is a totalitarian socialist hellscape anyway — like North Korea with hockey and maple syrup.
For the religious right, not being permitted to impose their beliefs on others is a violation of their “religious liberty”. Let’s not forget that that’s what the Hobby Lobby case was all about from a few years ago. And it’s infinitely worse when it’s the government that deprives them of their right to impose their beliefs on other people.
And if you’re wondering if this is related to the Southern view that the federal government didn’t have the right to say that slave-owners didn’t have the right to treat others as slaves, you’re absolutely right. But the South went to war to defend that right, and they might be willing to go to war to defend this one. Governor Abbott of Texas has already declared:
This a major victory for civility and justice, but the fight is nowhere near over.
My take is that Abbott’s declaration means nothing at all. It’s political posturing entailing no concrete action whatever.
I don’t know. Abbott might be thinking that a county clerk can be directed to deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples if the majority of voters in that country are opposed to same-sex marriage on “religious” grounds.
KN: “Yeah, but by their standards, Canada is a totalitarian socialist hellscape anyway — like North Korea with hockey and maple syrup.”
Are you making fun of maple syrup? Them’s fight’n words. Eh.
Cheers U.S! Ya done good today!
Perhaps. But he used to be the attorney general for the state, and I think he knows better. I also doubt many elected officials are going to choose this hill to die on.
We can now expect an increase in tobacco consumption amongst US conservatives and fundies.
Lots of people like a cigarette after a good (if I may be so coarse) f***ing.
And they have been royally f***ed.
In Canada it was a whipped vote. It just means that Canada is socially ‘ahead’ (on the assumption to ‘progress’ in SSM ‘rights’) of the USA, I suppose.
Gregory:
I wasn’t familiar with that term, so I Googled it. For the sake of the other Mericans:
“In Canada it was a whipped vote.”
Actually, I don’t remember it coming to a government vote at all. In fact, the government at the time, and the same one we have now, we’re ultra conservative and completely homophobic. But they were smart enough not to fight the will (or apathy) of the people.
Why not check the historical facts instead of your faulty memory? Are you really Canadian?! (If so, please stop the outdated Eh? ‘humour’ as if you’d let a 1983 comedy film define your linguistic identity.)
It was not the current Conservative gov’t that introduced Bill C-38. It was first Jean Chrétien’s Liberal gov’t initiative (based on his claim that “There is an evolution of society”), then introduced by Paul Martin’s Liberal gov’t.
In the vote in the House of Commons that led to the Civil Marriage Act, the Liberal Cabinet was bound by Martin and the NDP was whipped. It is doubtful the bill would have passed without this.
The Liberal gov’t survived several ‘motion of confidence’ votes (which would have brought down the gov’t) in the days leading up to the vote and the gov’t prolonged the House of Commons into the summer strictly it could push through Bill C-38. Likewise, proposed amendments to the bill were cut short of debate by time restrictions in the House. Ironically, it was the separatist Bloc Quebecois party that enabled the bill to pass, even with the bound & whipped members.
The Martin Liberal gov’t fell 7 months later to a motion of confidence and the Conservatives won a minority gov’t and have been in power since then.
As for ‘the will of the people’ in 2005, several polls showed a split populace, with both contra and pro holding leads. By now, after 10 more years of (ahem) ‘evolution’, the numbers of pro-SSM in Canada are over 60%.
Gregory, I stand corrected. But the conservatives, the same ones we have now, were opposed. Even now, they are not happy with the idea of homosexuality. And they have had a majority for a number of years. They could have overturned this “evolution” which started with PET saying that “the government had no place in the bedrooms of the nation”, or something to that effect. But they haven’t.
Three cheers it is finally reality.
Quite. Rights are a human invention but that isn’t how the American civic religion worships them and it isn’t just libertarians who use that language.
Kantian Naturalist,
He can’t. And not even a public vote (at his level) can change that. The whole point of the lawsuit was to use the Supremacy Clause to apply the Equal Protection Clause to all the nation’s governing bodies at all levels for this one issue. And that can also answer why such as this took so long. Every issue has to be litigated individually. Over and over again. No one has ever woken up and decided to just honor the spirit of the Supremacy Clause or the Equal Protection Clause from the get go.
Random bigoted litigant #1: The Equal Protection Clause does not apply to Issue ABC because…reasons.
SCOTUS: No, it does apply because of the Supremacy Clause.
Random bigoted litigant #2: The Equal Protection Clause does not apply to Issue PQR because…reasons.
SCOTUS: No, it does apply because of the Supremacy Clause.
Random bigoted litigant #3: The Equal Protection Clause does not apply to Issue XYZ because…reasons.
SCOTUS: No, it does apply because of the Supremacy Clause.
We’ve been going through this ever since the 14th amendment was ratified. How much easier it would be if people would just accept that Supreme Law of the Land means just that.
It is not just wrong but illegal to take from a people the right to decide who marries. God made the male/female relationship called marriage. A people in its poltical entity alone decide who can marry.
This decision truies to take this historic obvious right of a nation.
It will be overturned withy new judges just as picking judges is meant to overturn the Roe decision and others.
Its silly justifications of the “liberal selected ” judges.
If it was a fundamental right to marry then one could demand anyone to marry you!
You can’t because its not a right to marry who you want.
The people/state decide who can marry and its not by coercion etc etc.
Silly use of words to deny mankind the right to decide what is moral and welcome in our society.
O f coarse this liberty wouldn’t include children marrying or adult/children or groups or between human/beast etc.
The liberty is denied there obviously. so the liberty is control by the people after all.
This is a terrible use of words and concepts to PLAIN REJECT the people deciding the great and beautiful institution called marriage.
Taking from the star of freedom the ancient freedom obviopus to all mankind.
Surely this, and other, decisions will fall with new selected judges. 5-4 is proof of contention and another one on the list.
Its judge dictation of a free people. The issue is secondary here.
The people are the origin of all law and only their consent gives it power.
Saying you have a right, nay a fundamental one, to marry who you would would make marriage being recognized by the law as redundant.
Why is marriage a legal thing unless it means the law must allow it and the law comes from the lawmakers. A fundy right nullifys the lawmakers legal/moral rules.
a fundy right like LIFE needs no law contract.
Marriage only exists because of law. It coyuldn’t be more not a fundy right.
Its only allowed by the law.
These liberal judges are not supported by thought out ideas but by establushmen desire and some public opinion.
Its bad these courts do this but iots good to teach America that her freedom and laws are being overthrown to get someones way where they can’t otherwise.
Its not surprising but shows a great need for judicial revolution by the people and leaders.
Just like in Canada.
Only God or the people can vote up or down gay marriage.
Why is origin blogs used for left wing passions? Hmmmm.
damitall2:
Robert, do you smoke?
Acartia,
Are you really Canadian!?! The Conservatives tried. There was another vote in the HoC in 2006 on the motion: “That this House call on the government to introduce legislation to restore the traditional definition of marriage without affecting civil unions and while respecting existing same-sex marriages.” The vote was part of their election campaign platform (a promise they kept after winning). They didn’t win the vote, while holding only a minority gov’t (though now, in their 3rd try they have a majority).
PM Harper considers the issue now settled in Canada, he did not use the ‘notwithstanding clause’ to overturn the Liberals’ SSM ‘evolutionary’ parade, and a vote on SSM won’t happen again in the Canadian Parliament. It’s a done deal, extending specifically from those politically ‘democratic’ (even if whipped, not juridical) votes.
Notably, the ‘civil union’ solution proposed by the Conservatives would have given LGBT couples the same ‘rights’ as married couples, but without changing the 1000s year-old definition of marriage as between ‘one man and one woman.’ I haven’t followed the ‘debate’ in the USA about this topic, but from what I’ve seen it appears to be mainly about ‘rights.’ (Underlined by ‘dignitarian’ jurisprudence.)
If you’re really Canadian, please do some reading about your country’s history before spouting out nonsense, simply based on anti-Conservative bias.
I’d like to know what people who think they have had their rights “removed” think those rights were?
Robert? What right have you lost by this ruling?
Definitions aren’t static, Gregory, as you, being a social scientist and all, should know. Definitions are descriptive, not prescriptive. Just as well, seeing as the under old definitions of marriage women were the property of their husbands. And under others, indissoluble. Both those definitions have changed, as we have become a more humane and more equal society.
This is just the latest welcome change. If you want to reserve some special word for a special kind of religiously sanctioned marriage, feel free. But it won’t even be shared by all religions.
Hey, I know – give it a capital letter!
Somebody could devise a special colored, maybe sparkly ring, for “proper” xtian weddings, the kind wherein only souls are wed (or whatever happens). Then people could proudly display their church wedding rings. And one could make these available only through proper church channels.
Sadly, there would probably be knock-offs and a few non-church wedding types will wear them too, but, lets face it, a lot of the brides (female only) and grooms (male only) as well as the priests or ministers who married them, were not actually sincere in their beliefs. Some of the participants were probably in love with someone else, even when reciting their vows; some of the priests and ministers have been atheists since their mid-twenties. So the rings wouldn’t be sure-fire indicators of the holiness of the union, but…what can you do?
Have the Justices fashioned a slippery slope? Will there soon be marriages between people and llamas? I’m guessing the corporations will get in there pushing their rights as persons before the ruminants, BWTHDIK?
Elizabeth,
Hold nothing sacred, penguin elizabeth, don’t properly capitalise anything, blame (credit) it all on atheist ideology that has swallowed your fluffy corrupted relativistic soul (trans: ‘self’)! Don’t even believe in your heart on your conscience that Quakers do (in the published words of their founder) capitalise their divine creator’s Name because you personally simply cannot be (proven) wrong, even when the empirical facts go against you. And make a joke out of it simply because you are stubborn (or in your words, “too damn old”) to change. That’s funny stuff! : ))))
Do you have a point, Gregory?
Seems odd to me that “name” is capitalized there and not “creator”, but what do I know.
They can continue to call it “Holy Matrimony”.
I think the point is a general expression of butthurt.
A beautiful sight.
Yes! I put that on my facebook page!
And the wedding invitations keep rolling in! I know I’m not in America, but the lovely thing is that every time a country does this, it seems to increase the confidence of gay couples everywhere. As one of my friends (about to be married herself) says: “to be less lonely and more loved”.
I can not strip naked and have sex on top of the Lincoln memorial.
Should I have that right? Am I being discriminated against?
phoodoo,
Depends. Are you an entertaining enough practitioner that people would want to watch?
phoodoo,
Are there people who have that right and you don’t? No? Then you are not being discriminated against.
Really? Marriage between a ‘man and a woman’ that is ‘sacred’ *is* shared by the doctrines and teachings of the Abrahamic faiths. Do you disagree, Lizzie? (A simple, direct yes or no without extrapolation into other issues will do just fine. Sadly, I have to ask because Lizzie has proven her waffling, distractive tendencies time & again. Just a short ‘straight’ answer please [pun intended].) That’s of course not “all religions”, but it is nevertheless significant. And the supreme court ruling doesn’t in any way change that.
The term ‘civil union’ would have been sufficient to give same-sex couples the ‘legal rights’ they sought & desired, which is what the Obergefell case was initially (supposed to be) about. ‘Spouse’ can be covered by ‘civil union’. Does anyone disagree?
Following this judicial decision in the USA, of course, it also means that the ‘legalisation’ of group ‘marriages’ is next on the table. Why can’t there be ‘marriages’ between other ‘combinations’ than just the (only) 3 different ones now legalised? This sense of ‘justice’ is ironically not far from the ‘anything goes’ method that Paul Feyerabend suggested in ‘sciences’! The meaning of ‘marriage’ has thus been widened (and also lowered) by the court’s ruling.
What I find interesting are people like Stephen Colbert, apparently religiously Catholic, joining in to ‘celebrate pride’ (in his case, to boost his show’s ratings). The populism of this reflects the same refusal to let go of YECism in mainly far right-wing evangelical churches. They both simply can’t seem to find any other option socially than to try to ‘be popular’ among others by following the status quo (read: Colbert celebrating ‘pride’ & SSM, not the 5-4 judicial decision itself).
Of course, this is only about USA. ‘Americo-centrism’ as some call it. The USA is a land of the ‘free flow’ (not ‘freedom’, e.g. for the world record # of incarcerated), home of the spiritually jaded (e.g. YECism & reactionary, nihilistic ‘new atheism’) & philosophically empty (except for ‘pragmatist’ ideology). Now it legalistically makes homo = hetero!
Again, even louder, just listen to the ‘evolutionary’ rhetoric of the argument for SSM, though in this case, as a sociologist, I agree with the conclusion for a ‘civil union’ rather than a ‘marriage’ (nevertheless, that man, just like Colbert, has changed his tune for populism):
The real loser in this case is not Abrahamic religion in postmodern societies, which still lives strong. We have long known about the ‘secularisation’ myth since David Martin and Charles Taylor (http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2007/10/19/secularism-of-a-new-kind/), wherein secular societies are still ‘religious’ (even according to ‘evolutionary anthropology’ religion is a ‘universal’) in their own way. The real loser is specifically far right wing religious fundamentalism (which sadly, but realistically makes up most of the IDM). It is the lack of education, barely travelled, bigoted, xenophobic, spiritually condescending and ‘hate both the sinner and the sin’ types of people, who sadly still do exist mainly in ‘red states’ USA, who lost BIG with this ruling.
That there apparently is nothing sacred (or religious) left in Lizzie’s unanchored atheist sense of life today of course doesn’t change any of this, nor does her opinion to not (know if sometimes she should and sometimes she shouldn’t properly) capitalise words really matter. Penguins are slippery critters, after all! But let her make irrelevant ‘capitalisation’ jokes more often at her blog; it just shows her irrelevance, shallowness and wrongness, e.g. when trying to deny religious unity as in the Abrahamic agreement surrounding the (husband and wife) definition of ‘marriage’.
The last I heard was that Islam counts as an Abrahamic religion. And Muslim men are allowed to have more than one wife.
That would require changing every law to use “civil union” rather than “marriage”. And for no good reason that I can tell. Marriage does not belong the the churches, and it never has. If they want to distinguish, they can continue their use of “holy matrimony” and differentiate that from marriage.
No, that doesn’t follow.
Let’s note a few things here:
(1) There is a long precedent in the US of taking the First Amendment to entail that religious considerations have no place in federal law. We also hold that the opinions of the majority do not have more priority than the rights of the minority, regardless of how deeply-held those opinions are. That’s precisely why the whole debate has been couched in terms of rights in the first place.
(2) The goal of the LBGT civil rights movement is the de-institutionalization of heterosexual privilege. Same-sex marriage is a strategy for achieving that goal. It would have been a different and perhaps more effective strategy to argue for a radical expansion of civil unions, such that civil unions would confer all of the federal benefits of marriage. I do not know why this strategy was not pursued, but I suspect it smelled to some people as a version of “separate but equal”. In related news, the de-institutionalization of heterosexual privilege still has a long way to go — in many states, one can be fired for being LBGT, and some states are moving quickly to make sure that LBGT couples cannot adopt. (Ironically, the politicians who want to prevent LBGT couples from adopting unwanted children are the same ones who urge adoption over abortion for unwanted children.)
(3) In fact, civil unions in the US are not federal classifications, so none of the federal benefits of marriage are conferred on civil unions. Civil unions are a matter of the individual states, and no state has the obligation to recognize a civil union performed in another state (which is not the case with marriages). It would take a massive overhaul at the federal level to create an entirely separate category for taxes, social security benefits, immigration, military service, spousal confidentiality in legal proceedings, etc. that is just for homosexual couples.
(4) One bit of analysis I found striking is that the SCOTUS majority opinion was framed in terms of individual liberty. (I share some but not all of Gregory’s misgivings about the ideology of “freedom”, but that’s a different topic.) I myself would have preferred an argument in terms of the goods of intimacy and their relation with both individual and communal flourishing.
I’m curious, Gregory. Do the Abrahamic religions agree as to what constitutes a divorce? A simple, direct yes or no without extrapolation into other issues will do just fine.
Right, husband and wife. Man and woman.
It would require simply acknowledging (as any school kid can do) that unequal really does = unequal. And that hetero by definition does not = homo and vice versa. New laws are going to be required either way. Stop hiding from that.
What’s to stop it? The long traditional definition of ‘marriage’ has just been blown up by scotus. ‘Group marriage’ is just a matter of time in the USA’s pre-atheist culture. And then marriage to robots (cybernetic organisms). Etc.
DNA_Jock,
Fine for your curiosity. Answer my question first. Don’t expect priority otherwise.
Gregory:
Now imagine Gregory as a polygamist:
Gregory,
Some biblical scholars disagree, as noted by The Friendly Atheist.
Why not indeed? I have a few friends who are polyamorous. Only one triad has had a wedding (albeit not recognized by the state), but why shouldn’t it be an option?
Personally, I think the state shouldn’t be in the marriage business at all. These are voluntary contracts. As long as it intrudes by affecting hospital visitation, inheritance, and other areas of life, the laws should respect who people love.
Now, there is one sense in which polyamory is wrong:
Oh, ok. So you’re one of the few atheists at TSZ who is against the supreme court SSM decision (which means “being in the marriage business”) in the Obergefell v. hodges case?
Yes, I disagree.
You fail to understand that not all questions have yes or no answers, Gregory, for instance “have you stopped beating your wife?” If someone does not give you a yes or no question, it may not be that they are “waffling” but that you have asked an incoherent question. However, in this case, the answer is simple: yes, I disagree. Polygamy is defined as marriage in the Abrahamic religions.
No indeed. Religions can continue to define it however they like.
Why? I mean, there may be good arguments for allowing polyandry and polygamy (with the Abrahamic endorsement and all), but there’s no reason to suppose that such arguments are “next on the table”. Gay people have simply asked for the same rights as straight people – to marry the partner of their choice. Right now, nobody has the right to marry more than one person, so nobody is been treated differently from anyone else. Until Friday, gay people were.
But I certainly don’t buy the idea that just because marriage was defined in a certain way in the past, it must always be defined that way. It’s not even true – divorce is now illegal, and wives are no longer defined as the property of their husbands. The principle of couverture has been abandoned, thankfully. Now the principle of exclusive heterosexuality has also been dropped. Good. Equality grinds slowly but it grinds exceeding sure.
Gregory,
Do try to read the entire comment before responding. Here’s the rest of what I wrote:
Clear now?
Right. And clearly a gay person who is barred from marrying his/her partner does not have equal rights to those of a straight person. As you say, any school kid can see this. And interestingly, they do. Support for gay marriage has come overwhelmingly from the young, bless ’em.
Just realized there’s a factual error in the OP: Kennedy wrote the majority decision but he’s not the Chief Justice. The Chief Justice is Roberts, who voted with the minority.