(06-26-2015, 05:28 PM)Bolty Wrote: I found Justice Alito's dissent particularly amazing. That this decision would marginalize "Americans who have traditional ideas." If I believe something that is wholly unfair and wrong to a sizeable portion of the population, and a law is passed that runs against that belief, I'm not being marginalized. I was wrong, because it was my beliefs that were marginalizing other people. This seems entirely basic and elementary.
Justice Thomas has Alito beat by a long shot in terms of sheer WTFery.
Justice Thomas Wrote:The corollary of that principle is that human dignity
cannot be taken away by the government. Slaves did not
lose their dignity (any more than they lost their humanity)
because the government allowed them to be enslaved.
Those held in internment camps did not lose their dignity
because the government confined them. And those denied
governmental benefits certainly do not lose their dignity
because the government denies them those benefits. The
government cannot bestow dignity, and it cannot take it
away.
Being treated in an undignified way does make you lose dignity. And over time, you do feel inferior. It becomes an undercurrent in your life. You fear that your image will be damaged by a detail about you, inconsequential to character, that others may learn about you. You fear that your safety will be imperiled if your parents know that detail. You fear that you'll be given a hard time in hospitals visiting your partner because you're not legally family, but those people who disowned your partner will have full-access. The very least the government can do is treat you with the very dignity your own family won't. Justice Thomas is just embarrassing here. Dignity isn't a status toggle. It's a meter, like health or mana, and that meter can have its maximum reduced or its contents depleted.
Ultimately, none of the Justices objected with anything that a particularly bright highschool student hasn't already refuted somewhere on the internet. Their objections are based entirely on either non-sequiturs, a willful disregard of precedent, religious Chicken Little, or a cherry-picked understanding of marriage through history. None of them reasonably explained why Loving v. Virginia failed to be a parallel. Oh, sure, they waived their straight pride flags and yelled "TRADITION!", but tradition doesn't justify a government restriction.
FireIceTalon Wrote:On the other hand, I generally dislike the institution of marriage in general, hopefully the next stop will be the abolition of marriage as a whole (but that is another topic)? While certainly a victory, it is still a hollow one, because the problems run so much deeper and more fundamental than this.
*FIT comes in and plants his "No fun allowed" sign.*
Quote:I guess the capitalists have decided though, that it is more profitable to allow same-sex couples to get married.
I'm reminded of the majority opinion in this case and this statement: "Respondents’ argument that allowing samesex
couples to wed will harm marriage as an institution rests on a
counterintuitive view of opposite-sex couples’ decisions about marriage
and parenthood." Because I feel, rather consistently, that you have a counterintuitive view of society and culture due to a blind spot where "theory of mind" ought be. To take an issue about personal security and spin it up into the machinations of The Invisible Hand, your tired old communist diatribe, is myopic in the extreme. Or maybe you just want attention. Gross.
Quote:Further, I fear that many right-wingers and KKK types may socially marginalize and even harass and assault gay/lesbian couples they see in public to express their outrage as a result of this decision. Lastly, I am not sure it does anything to help those in the transgender community, specifically.
As I said to you a few years back, your fears are largely based on a mechanical understanding of culture and not on what it's like to actually live in it. At the time you became hilariously offended and misconstrued what I was trying to say to you, but that's kinda expected because of the neckbeard I imagine you have, perhaps in homage to your philosophical forebears.
Yes, it does seem plausible that aggressors like the Klan could assault gay people. But does this make it likely? No. If you've kept up with the Klan at all, you'll notice they've been shying away from outright violence big time since America went all World Police on terrorism. They're still Pac-Man-ghost-cosplaying bigots, but they understand violence is bad PR. If you've kept up with major incidences of violence against LGBT people at all, or if you've lived in the American South as a gay person, or if you've even known any actual gay people in real life, you might have a better idea of how threatened they feel in public in general.
You know what, though? Right now the Klan has bigger problems: http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2015/06...rally.html
One of their most treasured symbols has become a shameful and embarrassing mark of racism (it already was to many people, fwiw) in the wake of Dylann Roof's murder tantrum. To them, their heritage is being attacked and that precious symbol they could casually bumpersticker on their mud-caked lifted pick-ups without it necessarily being read as "I H8 DARKIES" is losing ground in polite culture. They can't have that anymore without looking like they're halfway to putting on a pointy white dunce cap.
And you doubt that trans people are helped by this decision? Dude, really? Previously, a trans person may not have been able to marry BECAUSE their partner had the same legal gender. The mind boggles at your need to comment without content. But enough of comments unFIT for print.
If you guys want to watch a professional butt baby lose his mind over this issue, watch Roy Moore!
(1) http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2015/06...berly.html
(2) http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index....roy_m.html
Roy Moore has a storied career of being Chief Justice of Alabama's supreme court, and being removed from office for failing to comply with a court order to keep his religious monuments out of the state judicial building. Of course, he once again holds that office because Alabama voters elected him a second time since they're magnificent idiots. His ability to feel persecuted while holding high office and playing life on easy mode (white heterosexual christian male) is remarkable, but perhaps his earlier career as a personal injury lawyer helped with finding his inner victim.
Personally, I'm pretty stoked about this decision. I spent all day watching twitter explode in rainbows, and when evening fell I cooked out for a bunch of my friends and broke several of them with the spice level of my kebabs. My local friend group is (largely gay) internet weirdos, so it was high fives all around. And now maybe even I can get married! Alabama got gay marriage months ago, but Roy Moore demanded the county clerks refuse to issue licenses. Now I'm just waiting to see him go down as a martyr again.
-Lem