Hulksmash wrote:
Why do tax benefits exist for something named specifically for what is 90% of the time a religious union...

 Janthkin wrote:

 Hulksmash wrote:
Why do tax benefits exist for something named specifically for what is 90% of the time a religious union...

Tax penalties. There's no way to do my taxes as a married individual that doesn't result in my paying more the IRS than my spouse & I would pay separately....

 DarkLink wrote:
Unless they artificially inseminate. Or adopt. But, y'know, that never happens.

 cincydooley wrote:

 DarkLink wrote:
Unless they artificially inseminate. Or adopt. But, y'know, that never happens.

Of course anyone can adopt. Homosexuals can't reproduce without a third party. Its impossible.

We were talking about reproduction, were we not?

 cincydooley wrote:

 DarkLink wrote:
Unless they artificially inseminate. Or adopt. But, y'know, that never happens.

Of course anyone can adopt. Homosexuals can't reproduce without a third party. Its impossible.

We were talking about reproduction, were we not?

 DarkLink wrote:


My point was, who cares. Which, I guess is a pretty crappy rhetorical question as there are obviously a lot of really, really, really gakky people out there who do care, but I digress.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Because those benefits are designed to be compensation for couples that can provide society with children. Gay couples can't do that. Plus marriage is also a sacred institution, one that the government recognizes because of its benefits to society.

Those two combine to be reasons for not allow them to be included.

I'm perfectly OK if you want to institute a secular equivalent, but you can't call it marriage.

 cincydooley wrote:
Doesn't change the fact that, like I said, a homosexual couple is physically incapable of reproduction.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Care to point out how that isn't treating everyone equally?

 Grey Templar wrote:
Plus marriage is also a sacred institution, one that the government recognizes because of its benefits to society.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Fertility treatments basically mean even someone who is totally infertile can have children. Besides, outliers shouldnt be considered in a general discussion.

The Supreme Court’s historic consideration Tuesday of whether the Constitution protects the right of same-sex couples nationwide to marry seemed to come down to a familiar arbiter: Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.

That’s normally a safe haven for gay rights activists — Kennedy has written each of the court’s major victories advancing their movement. But the question after the hearing seemed to be whether forcing reluctant states to allow same-sex unions was a logical extension of the court’s rulings or too much, too fast.

Kennedy seemed to be working it out. On the one hand, he pressed lawyer Mary L. Bonauto, representing gay couples challenging states’ bans, to explain why the court should change the tradition of marriage as only between a man and a woman when the concept of same-sex marriage is so new.

“This definition [of traditional marriage] has been with us for millennia,” Kennedy said. “And it’s very difficult for the court to say, ‘Oh, well, we know better.’ ”

But by the end of the arguments, questioning John Bursch, the attorney representing four states that want to keep restrictive laws, Kennedy sounded more like one of the lyrical passages in one of his opinions.

Same-sex marriage status in the U.S., state-by-state View Graphic Same-sex marriage status in the U.S., state-by-state
“Same­-sex couples say, of course, we understand the nobility and the sacredness of the marriage,” Kennedy told Bursch. “We know we can’t procreate, but we want the other attributes of it in order to show that we, too, have a dignity that can be fulfilled.”

The justices are considering two simple-sounding questions: whether the Constitution requires states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and, if not, whether states must recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states where they are legal.

But the arguments were filled with discussions of equal protection and fundamental liberties, how an understanding of the Constitution changes with society, and when majority rule must give way to minority rights.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the member of the court who most seemed during arguments to be searching for middle ground, said a decision finding a constitutional right at this time would mean radical change and would short-circuit public debate.

“You’re not seeking to join the institution — you’re seeking to change what the institution is,” Roberts told Bonauto. “The fundamental core of the institution is the opposite-sex relationship, and you want to introduce into it a same-sex relationship.”

Roberts added later: “If you prevail here, there will be no more debate. I mean, closing of debate can close minds, and it will have a consequence on how this new institution is accepted. People feel very differently about something if they have a chance to vote on it than if it’s imposed on them by the courts.”

“I mean, if Sue loves Joe and Tom loves Joe, Sue can marry him and Tom can’t,” Roberts said. “And the difference is based upon their different sex. Why isn’t that a straightforward question of sexual discrimination?”

Bonauto wanted a clear ruling on the constitutional question. She said it was the states that had closed the debate, by passing constitutional amendments defining marriage as only between a man and a woman. Amending state constitutions and relying on majority vote for rights is not what the Constitution anticipates, she said.

“If a legal commitment, responsibility and protection that is marriage is off limits to gay people as a class, the stain of unworthiness that follows on individuals and families contravenes the basic constitutional commitment to equal dignity,” Bonauto said.

She was making her first argument before the Supreme Court but has been a pioneer in the legal movement to secure same-sex marriage, winning the first major case that found a right to same-sex marriage, in Massachusetts in 2003.

Bonauto received a boost from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who pointed out that definitions of marriage had already changed. “Marriage was a relationship of a dominant male to a subordinate female,” she said.

But there was resistance from the conservative justices, and a bit from one of the liberals, Justice Stephen G. Breyer. “Suddenly, you want nine people outside the ballot box to require states that don’t want to do it to change.”

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. asked that if the definition of marriage was simply a commitment between loving consenting adults, how could a state withhold that from siblings, or two women and two men who decided to marry. “Would there be any ground for denying them a license?” Alito asked.

Justice Antonin Scalia said that if the decisions on marriage continue to be made democratically by the states, those states could make religious accommodations that would not be possible if there was a decision that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right.

“Is it conceivable that a minister who is authorized by the state to conduct marriage can decline to marry two men if indeed this court holds that they have a constitutional right to marry?” he asked.

Bonauto said it was well established that clergy are not forced to perform actions that violate their religious beliefs.

The Obama administration weighed in on behalf of the couples, and Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. argued that withholding marriage violates equal-protection guarantees.

“In a world in which gay and lesbian couples live openly as our neighbors, they raise their children side by side with the rest of us, they contribute fully as members of the community . . . it is simply untenable — untenable — to suggest that they can be denied the right of equal participation in an institution of marriage, or that they can be required to wait until the majority decides that it is ready to treat gay and lesbian people as equals,” he said.

Bursch, a former Michigan solicitor general representing that state along with Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee, pleaded with the justices to allow the democratic debate over same-sex marriage to continue.

“This case isn’t about how to define marriage,” he said. “It’s about who gets to decide that question. Is it the people acting through the democratic process or is it the federal courts? And we’re asking you to affirm every individual’s fundamental liberty interest in deciding the meaning of marriage.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor stopped him there. “Nobody is taking that away from anybody,” she said. “Every single individual in this society chooses, if they can, their sexual orientation or who to marry or not marry.”

Bursch said that the states’ interest in marriage was not to “deny dignity or to give second-class status to anyone. It developed to serve purposes that, by their nature, arise from biology.”

He said the states’ interest in marriage was keeping together men and women to care for the children that they intentionally or accidentally create.

Justice Elena Kagan asked Bursch if he believes that “if one allowed same-sex marriage, one would be announcing to the world that marriage and children have nothing to do with each other.”

He said the state has a child-centric interest in marriage, not to legitimize the relationships of committed adults.

Roberts dominated the second argument, about whether states could be forced to recognize marriages performed in states where they were legal.

The question would be moot if the court declares a constitutional right, but the second argument lent force to the idea that it might be the chief justice’s preferred path and could perhaps win a wider majority.

If states are forced to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere, Roberts suggested, it would be “only a matter of time” before same-sex marriage settled in as a national norm. It would effectively allow “one state” or a minority of states to “set policy for the nation.”

At the same time, the Roberts line of questioning suggested he did not view that possibility with great alarm, at least as an alternative to a court decision holding that all states must permit same-sex marriages within their borders.

Isn’t it “quite rare for a state not to recognize” a marriage performed elsewhere? he asked.

The recognition of a constitutional right would mark the culmination of an unprecedented upheaval in public opinion about gay rights and a dramatic change in the nation’s jurisprudence. Same-sex marriages were practically unheard of in the nation until a Massachusetts court decision cleared the way for unions there just a dozen years ago.

Now, more than 70 percent of Americans live in states where same-sex couples are allowed to marry, according to estimates.

The questions raised in the cases that the court will consider were left unanswered in 2013, when the justices last confronted the issue of same-sex marriage. A slim majority of the court said at the time that a key portion of the federal Defense of Marriage Act — withholding recognition of same-sex marriages — was unconstitutional and in a separate case allowed same-sex marriages to resume in California.

Since then, courts across the nation — with the notable exception of the Cincinnati-based federal appeals court that left intact the restrictions in the four states at issue — have struck down a string of state prohibitions on same-sex marriage, many of them passed by voters in referendums.

When the Supreme Court declined to review a clutch of those court decisions in October, same-sex marriage proliferated across the country.

Couples may now marry in 37 states and the District of Columbia.

Public attitudes toward such unions have undergone a remarkable change as well. A recent Washington Post-ABC poll showed a record 61 percent of Americans say they support same-sex marriage. The acceptance is driven by higher margins among the young.

When the justices declined in October to review the string of victories same-sex marriage proponents had won in other parts of the country, it meant the number of states required to allow gay marriages grew dramatically, offering the kind of cultural shift the court often likes to see before approving a fundamental change.

The combined cases now before the Supreme Court are Obergefell v. Hodges.

“This definition [of traditional marriage] has been with us for millennia,” Kennedy said

“You’re not seeking to join the institution — you’re seeking to change what the institution is,” Roberts told Bonauto. “The fundamental core of the institution is the opposite-sex relationship, and you want to introduce into it a same-sex relationship.”

 Frazzled wrote:
Please show the nation that had same sex marriages prior.

While I'm ok (as in don't care at all) you need to defeat the argument.

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Please show the nation that had same sex marriages prior.

While I'm ok (as in don't care at all) you need to defeat the argument.

That is not required in order to demonstrate that the "traditional definition" is not as well defined, or defined in the way that Kennedy suggests. At its most fundamental level, "traditional" marriage can be defined as I described. After that you need to start more carefully defining what "tradition" you are using to narrow your world view in order to justify discriminating against people.

 Frazzled wrote:
Please show the nation that had same sex marriages prior.

PhantomViper wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Please show the nation that had same sex marriages prior.

http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/1504/
http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2503&context=fss_papers

Quotes spoilered due to size:

Spoiler:

XIJ'WHA was a key cultural and political leader in the Zuni
VIcommunity in the late nineteenth century, at one point serving
as an emissary from that southwestern Native American nation to
Washington, D.C.' He was the strongest, wisest, and most esteemed
member of his community. And he was a berdache, a male who
dressed in female garb. Such men were revered in Zuni circles for
their supposed connection to the supernatural, the most gifted of
them called lhamana, spiritual leader. We'wha was the most celebrated
Zuni lhamana of the nineteenth century. He was married to a
man.

Ifeyinwa Olinke lived in the nineteenth century as well.2 She was a
wealthy woman of the Igbo tribe, situated in what is now Eastern
Nigeria. She was an industrious woman in a community where most
of the entrepreneurial opportunities were seized by women, who
thereby came to control much of the Igbo tribe's wealth. Ifeyinwa
socially overshadowed her less prosperous male husband. As a sign of her prosperity and social standing, Ifeyinwa herself became a female
husband to other women. Her epithet "Olinke" referred to the fact
that she had nine wives.

Sergius and Bacchus were Roman soldiers who lived in the fourth
century. They were male lovers. Yet it was for their Christian faith
that they were persecuted by the Romans. Ultimately, Bacchus was
tortured to death by the intolerant Romans. According to Christian
tradition, Sergius' faith faltered with the death of his lover, only to
return when Bacchus appeared to him in a vision and implored,
"Your reward will be me," meaning that the couple would be reunited
in heaven should Sergius maintain his faith. Sergius kept faith and,
like his mate, died a martyr. During the Middle Ages, the relationship
of Sergius and Bacchus was considered an exemplar of companionate
marriage, or marriage based upon agapic love and mutual
respect.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
I'm not sure it will hold up to all justices though. It only works if you want to base stuff on tradition, and I certainly don't. A lot of the arguments for and against gay marriage tend to have people arguing past each other, with reasons the other side will never fully understand.

 Frazzled wrote:


Not seeing countries there.

 Frazzled wrote:
Please show the nation that had same sex marriages prior.

While I'm ok (as in don't care at all) you need to defeat the argument.

I'm thinking SCOTUS may actually go NO on this, that states should be able to decide, but that marriages that are legally enacted in one state must be accepted in other states.

 Frazzled wrote:
Often the questions the justices ask are a klieg light into what they are thinking.

Separating the two is creating a whole set of laws. They won't go that route.

 whembly wrote:
This is a prime example of how "Separation of Church and State" can be strengthen by ruling that the word "marriages and it's religious connotation" are disbarred from public documents, and henthforth called simply "civil unions". PRIVATELY, call it a "marriage" if you want... but, on the legal documents, it's a civil union.

 Frazzled wrote:
The question before the court is not whether civil unions are legal.

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 whembly wrote:
This is a prime example of how "Separation of Church and State" can be strengthen by ruling that the word "marriages and it's religious connotation" are disbarred from public documents, and henthforth called simply "civil unions". PRIVATELY, call it a "marriage" if you want... but, on the legal documents, it's a civil union.

I'm failing to see why it can't be called "marriage" everywhere, since that is what it is. After all, plenty of religious followers of "traditional" religions believe their religion is perfectly compatible with same sex marriage...

You know, since this is apparently all about "tradition" and not straight up discrimination...

 Frazzled wrote:
Its not going to happen. There's no part of that before the court.

Issue: 1) Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to license a marriage between two people of the same sex? 2) Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-state?