tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8820814198873126054.post1530690909546374636..comments2023-10-20T05:51:51.625-04:00Comments on The THINK 3 INSTITUTE: United States v. Windsor: Scalia in dissentSamuel Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00934870299522899944noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8820814198873126054.post-923013017561281122013-06-28T13:57:58.486-04:002013-06-28T13:57:58.486-04:00Which is part of the reason I feel we should at le...Which is part of the reason I feel we should at least consider trashing the Constitution and starting all over from scratch. We can always keep the good in the Constitution, update the language and specify exactly what rights are federally protected and anything else is up to each individual state.<br />Of course, I also feel at that point each state should be given the opportunity to leave the union. (or be kicked out by mutual consent of the other states.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8820814198873126054.post-424393133978779312013-06-27T22:48:08.830-04:002013-06-27T22:48:08.830-04:00There may not be a constitutional right to marriag...There may not be a constitutional right to marriage. It's understood that there isn't a "constitutional" (i.e. federal) right to vote, only rules saying the franchise can't be denied on the basis of race, gender, etc. Regarding marriage, we have a Court ruling (Loving v. Virginia) that repudiated laws against interracial marriage on 14th Amendment grounds, but the scope of the precedent depends on how one defines marriage in the first place. A conservative would say that Loving means only that you can't stop a man and woman of different races from marrying, without implying that any two people could marry regardless of gender. What right exists depends on definition, which is what everyone is fighting over.Samuel Wilsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00934870299522899944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8820814198873126054.post-75214380656144160562013-06-27T20:31:44.041-04:002013-06-27T20:31:44.041-04:00According to wikipedia, marriage, as a sacrament o...According to wikipedia, marriage, as a sacrament of the church didn't start until around the first century and the tradition as we know it only evolved around the sixteenth century. <br />Of course that doesn't mean we, in the 21st century, are beholden to those "traditions" and more than we ought to be beholden to a morality that came into being before we discovered iron.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8820814198873126054.post-23458803054882031182013-06-27T19:42:37.097-04:002013-06-27T19:42:37.097-04:00If marriage is a Constitutional right, then the su...If marriage is a Constitutional right, then the supreme court is obliged to find DOMA unconstitutional. If marriage is NOT a right, then DOMA has no real authority.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8820814198873126054.post-78794156706475096302013-06-27T19:40:34.130-04:002013-06-27T19:40:34.130-04:00Scalia isn't saying the Constitution obliges u...Scalia isn't saying the Constitution obliges us to uphold traditional values, but that it doesn't stop the country as a whole or individual localities from doing so. He would say that this generation <i>has</i> examined traditions regarding homosexuality, with mixed results: DOMA on one hand and gay-marriage laws on the other, but that the gay-rights activists want to preempt further generational examinations by saying that <i>their</i> definition of marriage can never be questioned. But I suppose that gay activists don't actually believe that their insistence on equality changes the essential definition of marriage. The ultimate constitutional question is whether anyone -- judges, politicians or the people -- has a right to define marriage exclusively as 1 man + 1 woman. Scalia accuses those who'd say no of being undemocratic. How we answer depends on how we define democracy and how much we value it.Samuel Wilsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00934870299522899944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8820814198873126054.post-41058881401898672532013-06-27T17:21:16.969-04:002013-06-27T17:21:16.969-04:00If his argument is based solely on the "tradi...If his argument is based solely on the "traditional" idea of marriage, it ought to have no legal standing. We are under NO LEGAL BINDING to hold to ancient traditions. Tradition is NOT law. It has no legal authority. It is (or ought to be) the perogative of every generation to examine the traditions handed down and decide whether that tradition still has any merit whatsoever. The sooner dinosaurs like Scalia go extinct, the sooner we can move into the 21st century.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com