US Supreme Court overturns gay marriage provision

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

The US Supreme Court has struck down a law that defines marriage as between a man and a woman only, in a landmark ruling.
The court's 5-4 vote said the Defense of Marriage Act, known as Doma, denied equal protection to same-sex couples.
The court also declined to rule on a California ban on same-sex marriage known as Proposition 8. The decision paves the way for gay unions there.
Opinion polls show that most Americans support gay marriage.
The Doma decision means that legally married gay men and women are entitled to claim the same federal benefits available to opposite-sex married couples.
Twelve US states and the District of Columbia recognise gay marriage, while more than 30 states ban it.

(BBC News)

[Soomie]

I think this is a great feat for the LGBT community, I really do. But I also see it as a waste of time and tax money for us to have to sit down and debate something as trivial as this in 2013. I also get a little disgruntled when people sit on pins and needles during the process and then get all excited afterwards. We have become a country where we are content that the government is *allowing* us to have civil liberties that should already be owed to us at birth. As if, "Oh, the government isn't screwing us as much as they could be. Let's celebrate!" Maybe it's just me. Maybe no one else gets frustrated with these types of things. But I personally stopped paying attention to bougie politics a long time ago. I personally just feel that the LGBT needs to become more radical and stop sitting around with halos over their heads waiting on the government to sort out their rights. It's time to fight for them, to take action. It has *been* time. I'm really just getting fed up with the lack of momentum in this country while things are getting done everywhere else in the world. It's just ridiculous that we have to be the last to do anything. As long as we have our wifi and our football, we can overlook "minor inconveniences," such as NSA spying or the inability to marry whomever we darn well please. Meanwhile, countries like Brazil have 200,000 people show up in the streets in protest. Here in the first world we can't get enough people to come together if we tried. It's all about "what's in it for me" or "the bible says." It's ridiculous. Sorry, but I had to blow off this steam. But, at any rate, congratulations to everyone on the overturning of this law. It's a start, at least.

[RadioRaheem84]

You took the words right out of my mouth. I'm really happy for the LGBT community and wouldn't want to sour this moment for them but you're right, gay marriage should be a given in 2013. We do allow the government to just dictate our lives way too much and cheer when they allow us any bit of liberty. The LGBT community has been pacified and now they wait for electoral politics to tell them they're legit.

The reason why Americans aren't out in the street is because a lot of Americans are scared of the consequences and do not want to give up the little they have, and a lot more Americans think they type of protesting done in other countries is vulgar.

[B5C]

Good news and bad. The bad news is that this decision never created an universal rule for gays getting married. It has been pushed back towards the states again. Gay marriage should not be a state's right issue. We are pointing towards a point where we are going to have the north and the south political battle again. It would not be about slavery, but gay rights.

Also the US congress is so divided. There is no way an constitutional amendment would pass.

[InvalidPacket]

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[B5C]

Scalia going on a hateful rant in his dissent:




Scalia Slams 'Legalistic Argle-Bargle,' Re-Argues 'Homosexual Sodomy' In Dissenting DOMA Rant


WASHINGTON -- A day after siding with four other conservative justices to overturn a portion of a nearly 50 year old civil rights law that maintained broad bipartisan support, Justice Antonin Scalia lashed out at the Supreme Court for intervening in the gay marriage debate.

When it came to protections for minority voters, Scalia had no patience for democracy, specifically noting that the court should overturn the law because it is too popular to overturn in Congress. But as far as protections for gay and lesbian couples are concerned, Scalia would prefer the court stay away.

The court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act on Wednesday in a 5-4 decision. In a dissent choked with rage, Scalia dismissed the majority's reasoning as "legalistic argle-bargle."

Scalia's dissent is less a legal argument and more a plea for recognition that there are "good people on all sides." In it, he repeatedly played the role of victim, complaining that it is unfair that his opposition to gay marriage is no longer considered legitimate.

"It is one thing for a society to elect change; it is another for a court of law to impose change by adjudging those who oppose it hostes humani generis, enemies of the human race," Scalia wrote, accusing the majority of "declaring anyone opposed to same-sex marriage an enemy of human decency ... In the majority’s telling, this story is black-and-white: Hate your neighbor or come along with us."

"To hurl such accusations so casually demeans this institution," said Scalia, before using his dissent to re-argue the legality of sodomy. Wednesday's decision was inevitable, he said, when the court sanctioned "homosexual sodomy," and striking down the Defense of Marriage Act will inevitably lead to fully legal same-sex marriages.

"When the Court declared a constitutional right to homosexual sodomy, we were assured that the case had nothing, nothing at all to do with 'whether the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter,'" he wrote. "Now we are told that DOMA is invalid because it 'demeans the couple, whose moral and sexual choices the Constitution protects,' ante, at 23 -- with an accompanying citation of Lawrence.

"It takes real cheek for today’s majority to assure us, as it is going out the door, that a constitutional requirement to give formal recognition to same-sex marriage is not at issue here — when what has preceded that assurance is a lecture on how superior the majority’s moral judgment in favor of same-sex marriage is to the Congress’s hateful moral judgment against it. I promise you this: The only thing that will 'confine' the Court’s holding is its sense of what it can get away with."

Along with debating sodomy, Scalia drew a connection to polygamy, noting "the Constitution neither requires nor forbids our society to approve of same-sex marriage, much as it neither requires nor forbids us to approve of no-fault divorce, polygamy, or the consumption of alcohol."

Scalia argued that the question of same-sex marriage should be left to Congress and the states.

"We might have let the People decide," he said. "But that the majority will not do. Some will rejoice in today’s decision, and some will despair at it; that is the nature of a controversy that matters so much to so many. But the Court has cheated both sides, robbing the winners of an honest victory, and the losers of the peace that comes from a fair defeat. We owed both of them better. I dissent."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/26/doma-scalia_n_3503706.html

[RadioRaheem84]

Just how pacified and co-opted is the LGBT community though, and as a community just how entrenched are the notions of economic development, focusing on the niche market and electoral politics as being the only way for LGBT advancement?

It seems really that the A-Gay types have steered the project for LGBT rights by playing on the political of acceptability. What I mean by this is that they think that if gay America wants acceptance and entrance into the main, it has to prove to straight America that they are "normal" and not the "freaks" outlined by homophobic cultural stereotypes. They want to promote pictures of monogamy, families, and upper middle class success. They also want to gain acceptability by luring straight America into the gay subculture surrounding the market niche.

But what about the issues that still affect the LGBT community? When will those get addressed? Homophobia at work, hate crimes, 40% of the homeless youth consist of gay LGBT teens who were refused space at shelters because of a lack of funding or the inability to find affordable housing in gay neighborhoods, places they travel to from afar in seek of acceptance. Working class gays, many of whom are still in the closet because they face discrimination not only in their working class communities but at work.

Issues of gentrification of former gay neighborhoods that pushed out working class and gay youth. Corruption abounds in these areas too with many local representatives being in bed with local developers and business interests. They're instrumental forces in siphoning away fund to local clinics, homeless shelters and affordable housing initiatives.

[Red Nightmare]

It's a shame that for now, the fate recognition of LGBT rights in America is at the mercy of nine people.

[RadioRaheem84]

It's a shame that for now, the fate recognition of LGBT rights in America is at the mercy of nine people.

It actually rests on the LGBT community who are allowing for nine people to decide the recognition of LGBT rights in America.

Could it have been said that the fate of the Civil Rights Movement rested on the Supreme Court, or how long and effective a battle the movement put up against the established order?

I get what you mean though. Passively, yes, it rests on the SC.

[Paul Pott]

I bet Scalia fucks boys.

[Rugged Collectivist]

I love how Scalia basically condemned the supreme court as an unelected body that forces it's decisions on the masses.