http://legalinsurrection.com/2015/06/elena-kagan-2009-there-is-no-federal-constitutional-right-to-same-sex-marriage/

http://legalinsurrection.com/2015/06/elena-kagan-2009-there-is-no-federal-constitutional-right-to-same-sex-marriage/

Sorry link posted in the wrong topic before.

Hate the sin but love the sinner.

Not being shown by these loonies going crazy. Showing their ignorance and their sense of self-importance.

IMO SSM is simply legally recognizing the gov't's interest in ensuring everyone has the same access to gov't rights. Recognize that both sides say differently.

Just as with Roe I think an issue was created that would have resolved itself in time and probably w/in 5 years.

Looneys on both sides are having a field day but at the end of the day in the eyes of many it is a simple sin like all other sins.

Religious societies have always treated some sins worse than others but that has never been anything but a power move against those that are weaker.

We don't know it but the gov't is doing all of this to protect us from civil war caused by uncertainty of "how to load the dishwasher".

From a WSJ article this is evidently an issue that provokes extremely passionate POVs w/in families and is much more complicated than "do we rinse first?".

Whew! We dodged a bullet.

I don't have an issue with gay marriage. I really don't. Two consenting adults should be able to form whatever kind of union they want. The key word there is "two". The problem is that the steamroller, defame-the-opposition way the proponents have gone about it have opened the door to court mandates recognizing polygamy, which has been demonstrably harmful to every society that has tried it. This includes the subset of Mormans in Utah that practice it -- point your search engine at "Lost Boys of Utah" for a glimpse of what happens. Polygamy's proponents have been given the manual for how to use raw power politics to get what they want, and destroy the reputation of anyone who disagrees with them. It's now inevitable.

If the liberals are taking over, as so many claim, they won't be the ones pushing for polygamy. I mean, how often has anyone ever heard of a polygamous family in this country that weren't deeply religious in one way or another? (Someone else already said that, in effect, but I can't remember who it was.)

"how often has anyone ever heard of a polygamous family in this country that weren't deeply religious"

I have, back in the SCA there were several poly people, mostly train wrecks. I wouldn't call any of them religious except one who was pagan. As to whether any wanted marriage, no idea.

And of course, by far the largest practice of polygamy on the planet today is among Muslims, whom the Left regards as a superior culture / useful idiots.

If the liberals are taking over, as so many claim, they won't be the ones pushing for polygamy. I mean, how often has anyone ever heard of a polygamous family in this country that weren't deeply religious in one way or another? (Someone else already said that, in effect, but I can't remember who it was.)

Posted by: lenona at July 1, 2015 8:12 AM

It doesn't really matter who *pushes* for it.

As I have been trying to say here all along, it is now a matter of equal protection, and substantive due process.

If marriage, is a constitutional right, and it is based on *love* and not reproduction, and communal property, than Polygamy and most forms of incest are slam dunks, because there is no legal basis to restrict marriage to (only) two adult unrelated people.

If a polygamy case gets up to the court, the current conservative justices will be forced to grant polygamous couples the same constitutional rights that same sex couples now have, in order to remain philosophically and legally consistent with their legal views expressed in their dissenting opinions in Obergefell.

What you and I might think is *icky* or bad social policy doesn't enter into the discussion anymore.

To Joe j:
I said: "How often" not "have you ever."

In the meantime, Matt Walsh has an argument "Yes, Gay Marriage Hurts Me Personally."

http://themattwalshblog.com/2015/06/30/yes-gay-marriage-hurts-me-personally/

Not that I really agree with it, but I'd say he speaks for plenty of conservatives. In a nutshell, his argument seems to be that legal gay marriage is part of liberalism; all liberalism is destructive to society and family ties, therefore, gay marriage cannot help but do the same, regardless of intentions.

The problem is that the steamroller, defame-the-opposition way the proponents have gone about it have opened the door to court mandates recognizing polygamy

Hmmm, so opponents claiming "tradition" as a reason to oppose gay marriage bear no responsibility?

After all polygamy is far more traditional than gay marriage, as is incest for that matter.

Isab: "If a polygamy case gets up to the court, the current conservative justices will be forced to grant polygamous couples the same constitutional rights that same sex couples now have..."

II think the court isn't granting the right; it's saying that the right exists and the government doesn't have the right to prohibit it. Rights precede the Constitution, Supreme Court and Declaration of Independence.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

Cousin Dave - exactly!

Funny, I used to be in favour of gay marriage. In fact, I was in favor of it back in 1979 when the DC city council first came up with domestic partnership as a way to get around laws as gay marriage was unheard of; but the city council wanted to do something.

However, I have listened to those opposed to gay marriage and realized that, despite the nut jobs among them (and what issue pro or con doesn't have nut jobs on either side?), there were some valid arguments against the process and changing the laws without thinking about ALL the repercussions changing a law will have.

Polygamy is one of those big repercussions and there have already been some cases supporting it based upon the interpretation of laws favouring gay marriage.

And, yea, we got rid of polygamy over a 100 years ago and now it might make a comeback. Jeez!

If the antis' real purpose is to reduce the number of children born and raised out of wedlock, why don't they put their efforts toward ending the tax-funded subsidy for poor people to breed?

@charles: And that would be bad, exactly why?

Chait: The movement owes its success to any number of things but surely preeminent among them is the clarity of its core rationale. Preventing gay people from marrying each other serves no coherent purpose.* Allowing them to marry harms nobody.**

* Coherent, of course, is the key word there. It certainly does serve a purpose, which is to make religious conservatives feel they are fighting a righteous battle to prevent the U.S. from slipping into decadence (because God punishes us for our decadence!...as in his orgy of wicked-human cleansing, the Great Flood.)

** Supporters and opponents of marriage equality can both agree that popular support for marriage equality grew rapidly (although opponents are probably loathe to acknowledge that, or else they believe all polls are conducted in New York and San Francisco.) And I believe that a huge reason for this speed is that, once gays and lesbians were allowed to get married in the early-adopter states -- and, gasp!, life went on as usual -- people saw through the preposterous (and faith-based) homos hitched = harm claim.

The same-sex-marriage ban was never a premeditated social policy. It simply reflected an age-old abhorrence of homosexuality, and the instinctive or religiously inspired impulse to treat same-sex romance as a sin to be stamped out.

Instinct may be the reason that some straight people who support marriage equality still get squicked-out by same-sex attraction itself. Perhaps there is some primal negative attitude toward same-sex attraction in all of us straight people; we see them as the "other" and can't understand them. But I think opposition to marriage equality -- and to same-sex-attraction itself -- is primarily religiously inspired. I believe that what you're taught -- and your willingness to accept it on faith vs. your ability to reject it based on reason (and belief as well) -- has much more to do with how you feel than any instinct.

Lawrence v. Texas was in 2003. As the piece notes, "By the time of the Lawrence decision, ten states—Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Michigan, Utah and Virginia—still banned consensual sodomy without respect to the sex of those involved, and four—Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri—prohibited same-sex couples from engaging in anal and oral sex."

This wasn't about gays and lesbians getting married. It was more invasive, criminalizing consensual sexual behavior in the privacy of your own home (God says it's BAD so you don't get a pass just because you're doing it in your own bedroom!) And where were most of those fourteen states? 2 in the West, 3 in the Midwest and 9 in the South, in arc from Virginia to Texas. Is religion a big deal in that southern arc? Guess.

And ten of those states (seven in the South) banned the sexy stuff for straights too. The holy hand of God had to be on your crotch (and mouth)!

If it wasn't for the First Amendment, if guys like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson had been influential founding fathers, would we have religious police today, like the Mutaween in Saudi Arabia, with the power to arrest unrelated males and females caught socializing? Perhaps.

Personally, if there is a "God" and this God is gonna get really pissed off -- like Great Flood pissed off -- about something, I don't think it's going to be unrelated males and females socializing (or women showing bare ankles) or people having oral or anal sex or two guys or two women saying "I Do." Instead, it's going to be about the wretched state of so many human beings, with a minority living extravagantly, and our rapaciousness regarding the only planet we have to live on.

Even as I note the popularity of something like Frolicon (apparently body fat is sexy), I have to wonder why it is automatically considered "better" to engage in sex with anything you can sneak up on (provided it can consent).

This is immediate gratification writ large, and such habits don't carry across to great and responsible citizenship.

We were founded by British Protestants eager to escape theocracy, but the sense of having a larger purpose than getting off is what built the country.

"This is immediate gratification writ large, and such habits don't carry across to great and responsible citizenship."

Exactly, it isn't that same sex marriage is harmful, the point is, that it is meaningless, and focuses societal attention on the least serious and most superficial aspect of marriage, which is who you like to bonk.

Sex has always been a poor and often temporary proxy for the kind of commitment you need to hold a marriage together.

It is a total triumph of optics over substance, much like the current administration.

jdgalt; "@charles: And that would be bad, exactly why?"

I assume you are referring to polygamy making a comeback?

I'd suggest that you read up on societies that have had polygamy and see how people fared under such a system.

Young women (often girls) are "sold" into marriage by their own parents in exchange for a business deal or simply to avoid a more powerful man destroying the weaker, less fortunate man. (Hey, Bud, I see your second oldest girl is looking mighty pretty! "Oh, BTW, we have job reviews coming up next month," says the boss, who is looking for another wife, to his employee. And, yes such crap does happen)

Young men are often chased out of the community because a young women dared to look at one of them rather than go along with a marriage to the older, richer, more powerful man. The richer, more powerful man will sometimes do anything to get rid of the competition. Think it doesn't happen? Read up on what Cousin Dave has suggested "The Lost Boys of Utah." And keep in mind that is just a small group of people on the fringe of our society. What will happen if polygamy becomes mainstream? And don't think it can't. Society norms can change within just a generation. (Often for the good, but, not always - just read a couple of Amy's posts on how the feds are using civil asset forfeiture. Something that was unheard of a generation ago.)

This is just the tip of the iceberg of what polygamy can do to a society.

As for the argument that people can do what they want - how about we bring back slavery too. After all, if people "willing" enter into a contract of indentured servitude shouldn't they be allowed to?

That's one of the problems with polygamy (and indentured servitude) "willingly" isn't always so willingly - often it is under duress. Those who worked tirelessly, and fought hard, to rid society of the twin scourges of polygamy and slavery (and indentured servitude) had a better handle of how damaging those institutions were to a society. We seemed to have forgotten since we haven't had to deal with them up close.

I do believe that the fear those who were against gay marriage had because it could bring back polygamy are right because they are often well-read in history - unfortunately their rational voices weren't heard (more likely, not repeated) by the news media. Instead the shrill voices were replayed or they were simply called names (bigot, ignorant, etc.) As with many issues in our society, the MSM pretends to be neutral while clearly taking a side. Such was the case with gay marriage.

To many of those in favour (and I was and still sort of am one) there is just their voice and their viewpoint; but, they aren't willing to listen to the other viewpoints. This is not only sad, but, also damaging to our society as a whole.

Liberalism, TRUE liberalism is dead and has been for a while.

While I have rambled on for too long - re-read what Cousin Dave said in his above post. He states it very clearly (better than I have). Gay marriage (between TWO people) isn't the problem. It is how this came about, and now those in favour of polygamy will use the same methods to bring polygamy back. And THAT is a problem.

P.S., my apologies, Amy, my rambling comment is longer than your original posting! Jeez, I do need to shut up now and again.

"But I think opposition to marriage equality -- and to same-sex-attraction itself -- is primarily religiously inspired. "

The first point I will grant you. However, the second one -- what people prefer or find icky in regard to their own sexual preferences -- is, as Amy has pointed out many times, determined by evolutionary psychology and is more or less hard-wired. Shaming people for their own sexual preferences is like shaming people for their race.

(And yes, I'm a Kinsey zero: The idea of sex with another man does absolutely nothing for me. Some gay men are Kinsey fives; they find the idea of sex with a woman equally repugnant. Neither is right or wrong. It's just what we prefer.)

Breaking News!

Polygamists apply for marriage license in Montana; Will sue if denied, based on rationale expressed in Roberts' dissent!

Didn't take long for the other shoe to drop.

Next up? Incest. Prohibiting two brothers or sisters from marrying -- or a brother and sister, for that matter, in a world of contraception and abortion -- makes a lot less sense than the laws against polygamy.

The camel's nose, people, the camel's nose.

IMHO, the reason polygamy (actually polygyny - many wives) appears in really messed-up societies is that it is only going to be popular in a society that already has severe problems. That is, as I see it the two causes of polygyny are:

1. A gross power and wealth imbalance, not only between men and women, but also between elite men and all the other men. E.g., in polygamous Mormon groups, a few men hog everything, not just the women, and the rest can FOAD. It was even worse when polygamy was official; if Brigham Young wanted your wife, you'd better divorce her fast, and if a woman wanted to keep her family fed, 1/30th of what Brigham Young spent on family would serve much better than the entire income of the average man. The same seems to be true of the Middle Eastern societies where polygamy is common.

2. Or a death rate among young men so high that something must be done about the excess women. E.g., in Native American tribes like the Cheyenne in the 18th-19th centuries, every man who proved himself a man and lived long enough could marry, but so many died in war, hunting, and the ordeals of manhood that often a man's wife would insist he marry her sisters just to get them married.

But the excess number of women was aggravated by another custom: Women married right after puberty (14 or 15), while men were close to 25 before they were judged ready to marry. Maybe that's also due to a power imbalance, but it could be due simply to the requirements of the different roles; women worked harder than the men, but they worked side by side so a girl who hadn't learned how to do the work would be instructed by the older women with her. A boy had to learn hunting and war well enough to do it solo, and to be someone the older men could trust to cover their backs even silence was necessary.

The first point ["opposition to marriage equality -- and to same-sex-attraction itself -- is primarily religiously inspired"] I will grant you.

Dave, glad to see that you agree with me (and Amy "In other words, the problem was that -- as anybody with three brain cells to rub together could understand -- their objection was on religious grounds.") on that.

However, the second one -- what people prefer or find icky in regard to their own sexual preferences -- is, as Amy has pointed out many times, determined by evolutionary psychology and is more or less hard-wired. Shaming people for their own sexual preferences is like shaming people for their race.

I'm in complete agreement with you and Amy on this too. I believe that sexual attraction is innate, not a choice (which is what most, if not all, religious conservatives think...and, of course, they do shame gays and lesbians for their sexual preferences, considering them an abomination.) I was addressing Chait's comment "The The same-sex-marriage ban . . . reflected an age-old abhorrence of homosexuality, and the instinctive or religiously inspired impulse to treat same-sex romance as a sin to be stamped out." Who you're attracted to is one thing; the desire to stamp out the particular attraction you don't have is something else. The former is innate; I don't believe the latter is.

Isab: Exactly, it isn't that same sex marriage is harmful, the point is, that it is meaningless...

It's meaningless to you, Isab. Using your "logic" -- which is "whatever I feel personally about something applies to other people" -- I can pronounce that going to church is meaningless and that praying to God is meaningless.

the least serious and most superficial aspect of marriage, which is who you like to bonk.

Least serious? Indeed. Married couples should focus on serious matters like earning a living and, if they have children, raising them, instead of indulging in fun and enjoyable things like sex.

Radwaste: ...I have to wonder why it is automatically considered "better" to engage in sex with anything you can sneak up on (provided it can consent).

And, in turn, I have to wonder why you feel it is "automatically" considered 'better' to engage in sex with anything you can sneak up on (provided it can consent).

This is immediate gratification writ large, and such habits don't carry across to great and responsible citizenship.

And other choices people make for pleasure and gratification -- like eating fast food, smoking, shopping or going to Las Vegas and Cancun -- do?

If the antis' real purpose is to reduce the number of children born and raised out of wedlock, why don't they put their efforts toward ending the tax-funded subsidy for poor people to breed?

And the tax-funded subsidy for rich people and middle-class people to breed as well. I'm on board with that!

Kevin: And the tax-funded subsidy for rich people and middle-class people to breed as well.

It is estimated that the world population reached one billion for the first time in 1804. It was another 123 years before it reached two billion in 1927, but it took only 33 years to reach three billion in 1960.[70] Thereafter, the global population reached four billion in 1974, five billion in 1987, six billion in 1999 and, according to the United States Census Bureau, seven billion in March 2012.

With the world now having more than seven billion people -- seven billion mouths to feed, seven billion people shitting on the planet -- I think the people we should be celebrating (even if we don't give them special tax breaks) are those couples -- straight or gay -- who choose to not breed.

*

jdgalt: If the antis' real purpose is to reduce the number of children born and raised out of wedlock, why don't they put their efforts toward ending the tax-funded subsidy for poor people to breed?

First that, of course, is not the real purpose of the anti-marriage-equality mob. Their real purpose is simply to prevent gays and lesbians from getting married because they don't like them (because their God doesn't like them.)

Second, there's little we can do about taxes going to subsidize breeding by poor people. It's blatantly unfair to not provide support to the children when the children had no say whatsoever in being born. And civil libertarians would scream, rightfully so, if the state tried to take any coercive measures to prevent poor people from breeding. All that can be done is to try to persuade poor people from having children they can't support and/or provide free contraception to them (but religious conservatives would likely be opposed to the latter because...God.)

I think that one thing that MIGHT make pro-polygyny people think twice is, they might not like the idea that, soon after polygamy becomes legal, polyandry might, as well.

BTW, not that most people give this much of a thought these days:

http://www.uexpress.com/dearabby/2015/7/2/readers-defend-parents-who-disapprove-of

It's about a Dear Abby column on parental disapproval of their adult child's cohabitation - and the response from readers.

Some things she could have said - but didn't:

1. Would the same parents shun a child who converted to another religion, since that would be likely to be permanent - just as living together sometimes is? (Not to mention that the parental taboo on living together is usually religious.)

2. There's a big difference between expressing harsh disapproval of a child's behavior while the child is still living off the parent and when the child is independent. (Abby ALMOST says this, but she didn't mention the financial factor.)

I like the commentator who signed as "Online Dear Abby Reader" and made a great point in the first paragraph.

Just stumbled on this, from 2012 - adorable!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2012/12/07/the-unlikely-faces-of-same-sex-marriage/?tid=trending_strip_5

An excellent piece by Stephen Macedo at Slate (though it surely won't change the mind of anyone agreeing with Roberts' dissent): John Roberts’ Gay Marriage Dissent Is Wrong About Polygamy—and the Constitution

As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has observed, marriage as it now exists is egalitarian: The spouses have become equal under law. Coverture, the old doctrine that a wife’s legal personality was merged with that of the husband, who was recognized as head of the household, has been consigned to history. This is indeed a revolution in the law, and a recent one at that: Full spousal equality was achieved as a matter of law only in the 1970s. As a matter of fact, it is still a work in progress.

Marriage is only appealing to same-sex couples because marriage under our Constitution is now equal. As a union of equal spouses, marriage is very well suited to same-sex couples. And because the older pattern of gender-differentiated roles makes a lot less sense in same-sex marriages, the extension of marriage to gays entrenches its egalitarian aspect.

In other words, from a constitutional perspective that takes as its lodestar an ordered system of equal liberty, same-sex marriage is a very important but not a radical reform that builds on, extends, and further entrenches marriage’s egalitarian and constitutional character. This is why women’s groups have so long championed the cause of same-sex marriage. It is why patriarchal societies despise gay rights and know nothing of same-sex marriage.

The striking fact, as I explain in my recently published book Just Married: Same-Sex Couples, Monogamy, and the Future of Marriage, is that gender equality and same-sex marriage, on the one hand, and polygamy, on the other, are on completely different historical trajectories. Nowhere in the world where women are equal is there any broad social movement in favor of plural marriage. Where women are becoming equal but plural marriage continues to exist, as in Africa, women’s groups are typically seeking to end it, or limit and regulate it.

Great photo...thanks lenona. I never saw that in the papers (or online) back when Washington legalized same-sex marriage.