Love Wins
Posted on June 26, 2015 Posted by John Scalzi 90 Comments
I’m traveling at the moment so I can’t add much more to this than: Hooray! Marriage for all!
Also: Hey, I’m an ordained minister in the Universal Life Church. I can marry people. I’m just saying.
Here’s the Supreme Court decision. Read it and enjoy.
I’m going to be in San Francisco this weekend. I suspect it’s going to be a hell of a party. I’m delighted I get to be there for it.
Oh! And! I wrote this eleven years ago, when Massachusetts became the first state to allow same sex marriage. I’m delighted to say that now it applies in every state.
It’s a great day. I’m glad to be here for it.
I am so full of joy. San Francisco is going to be wild this weekend!!!
What would your rates be for those looking to seek your services as minister? :)
I usually don’t charge for it, because I’ve generally officiated for friends and I was going to go to the wedding anyway.
Great news! Finally the Supreme Court has stepped in to let more people marry! A great day for love!
Heading to Christopher and Gay street for my lunch break today to bask.
Sometimes it’s a bitch having to live through times people are going to remember as historic. But sometimes it ain’t.
Imagine the US Supreme Court crusadin’ for Sodom.
Me too: ordained minister in the Universal Life Church.
As a Canadian, I feel smug that we were ten years ahead of the US on this issue.
On the other hand, I’m ashamed that you’re way ahead of us on marijuana legalization, so it all balances.
I realize that social progress is not supposed to be a contest, but…it’s a contest. ;-)
Seriously though, way to go USA! I’m an ally, and I share the joy of the LGBT community across the entire world at this triumph.
Good News!
Equality for the win. :)
Congratulations to the Supreme Court and the people of the USA!
Now us Aussies need to work harder to make it happen here as well.
I just want to give props to Babylon 5, which featured a gay marriage theme years and years before any other mainstream media show, to my knowledge. And it was very positively and sympathetically portrayed, between major characters, including one of the dashing rangers.
Don’t know where else to post that, but thought some people here would probably appreciate it.
Love wins!
Got all teary-eyed at the news this morning – I truly did not expect to live long enough to see this day come to pass. I knew it would happen eventually, but figured that it would be about mid-century, by which time I fully expect to be pushing up daisies.
My spouse’s and my 35th wedding anniversary is two days away. I’ve got to say that this beats anything anyone could ever come up with as an anniversary gift.
Love is love, and that’s all there is to say. Congratulations to all the happy soon-to-be newlyweds!
It’s a very happy day.
Also – doh! – Straczynski’s doing it again with Sense8 on Netflix, which is (no surprise, esp. since he’s doing it with the Wachowskis) outstanding and visionary on gender issues.
I read Justice Scalia’s dissent. I hope somebody calmed him down – it sounds like he’s teetering on the verge of a stroke. Maybe being a Supreme Court Justice just isn’t for him at this point in his life.
I was just explaining this ruling to my 5 year old. He announced he wants to marry Sandy (a squirrel) from Spongbob. OMG the Republicans were right, we already have children planning inter-species marriage!
My big brother’s marriage is recognized everywhere in the country today. I’m going out to buy some bubbles.
And Scalia is going to do himself an injury, if he doesn’t calm down. I want him to live a long and peaceful life, watching the world NOT fall apart after this decision. :-D
Fantastic :) ! And actually, eleven years to deliver a revolution really isn’t *that* long .. (I’m old enough to remember reports of ‘queer-bashing’ in London before the 1967 Act legalised homosexuality…)
My wife and I were married in August 2013 in Washington state, mostly because it’s lovely there and we had many friends and relatives to join in our celebration, but also because the state we live in wouldn’t allow us to marry at the time. I remember wondering then how long it would take for marriage equality to reach the entire Union — and it didn’t even take two full years!
May every couple who marries in the U.S.A., straight or gay, be as happy as we are! She is the best thing that ever happened to me.
I’ve always assumed Australia was ahead of the US on this. You guys just seem much more sophisticated.
Happy happy news! A good day for lovers of social justice :)
A good day! And I checked. My hetero-sexual marriage is still intact too.
More seriously, this happened at the start of Seattle Pride weekend; I suspect it is going to be a memorable weekend here in town.
The schadenfreude is rich and delicious over at you-know-who’s page this morning.
I found out as I was walking into work and cried my way to my desk. My home state of SD has not just a law but *also* a constitutional amendment banning it, and in the space of a few minutes it didn’t matter one bit.
Congrats to everyone who can get married in their home state now, and congrats to everyone who’s married already and is now married anew in SD and all the other states! I’m so happy for you.
At 10 AM I noticed that my marriage had some serious vapor lock, but then when I checked into it, it was just the phasing of the dilithium crystals inverting. So, noooope, apparently SSM does not affect the condition of my hetero marriage to any noticeable extent.
Seriously, congratulations to all of us!
Hey Scalzi, how’s your marriage doing today? Not on the brink of collapse thanks to this ruling, I hope. :)
This is such wonderful news.
And yet, there is still so much work ahead of us.
I am so happy I can’t contain the joy! I was looking forward to celebrating with people at work, but it’s a summer Friday, so I have the whole floor to myself so far. I had to go upstairs to find someone to cheer with :) Upside is I can blast some celebration music in my office without disturbing anyone. Congrats to everyone whose love can be legally acknowledged today!
“I heard a great disturbance in The Force – as though a thousand Sad Puppies and GamerGaters cried out as one…and then were silent.”
Big grin – THUMBS UP!
I feel like SCOTUS’s timing on this says “Alright, you crazy kids, go have fun.”
Friday. Pride Weekend, Payday (for many). Kindly drink safe, party safe, and drive safe (or not at all!).
Really pleased for all the people who will benefit from this decision, which is all but a tiny minority of US citizens. Once same sex marriage becomes ordinary, and it will pretty quickly, people get used to it.
They can realise that actually the couple next door seem to have the same problems they do, and that they have the same joys that they do, and in fact they seem pretty likeable, which makes it difficult to carry on believing that really, after all, they’re utterly loathsome.
They may even recall the bit about loving one’s neighbours, and discover that loving one’s neighbours is just so much more enjoyable than hating them, because hate corrodes the spirit. Looking at all the venom and bile being spewed by those who hate, it does not seem to me to be making the spewers happy, nor does it convince anyone watching that this is a good thing to do with your life.
So, as the years go by there will be a smaller and smaller number of people unable to stop hating and start living, and that is a shame because they are destroying themselves. But for the vast majority of people it will be a source of joy and happiness; congratulations!
Today is a very strange day for me. I’ve been riding around town listening to the funeral for Sen. Clementa Pinckney. This man–along with 8 memembers of his church–had his rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness stripped from him in the most heinous way possible.
At the same time, many of my fellow Americans just got their rights affirmed regarding their access to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
The joyous singing for the choirs celebrating the life of State Senator Pinckney and his murder are appropriate for the joyous news that many of my fellow humans have had a massive roadblock knocked out of their way. Sadly, while poking around the internet I’ve found just the opposite. Moaning, bitching, and hatred.
Despite the Supreme Court’s decision to actually say that the 14th Amendment means what it says, we all know that this fight is going to go on for a very long time, just as with the fight to do away with the kind of hatred that led to the funeral I’ve been listening to.
To all of you out there in the LGBTQ community: CONGRATULATIONS on a very historic moment.
To the hateful out there: PISS OFF! Seriously, you’ve lost another pedestal from which to look down on your fellow humans and feel superior. Trust me, You never were, are not now, nor ever will be. You are just a human. Deal with it.
Sincerely,
Scott
When I was a kid, my spooky great-uncle was a slumlord. My grandmother was so upset when my sister drank out of the wrong drinking fountain in the department store that she had to go lie down. Those days of awful Jim Crow are, thank heaven, long gone for decent people. (I’m afraid we’ll always have a minority of haters, alas.) I never thought things could change so much in my lifetime.
When my other grandmother grew up, she didn’t see an automobile until she was 19 years old, and yet she lived long enough to see men walk on the moon. She never thought something like that could occur in her lifetime.
My mom is 94 years old and has been an adopted grandma to a whole group of lovely younger gay and lesbian folks whose own parents and grandparents couldn’t cope with their sexual orientation. This morning I called her to celebrate the Supreme Court decision, and we agreed that the world is changing, in many ways for the better, faster than we’d ever believed possible. She never thought she’d see marriage equality for the whole country in her lifetime. (It’s helped that she’s had a nice long lifespan, of course!)
I am so happy today that love wins that it’s hard to describe. It’s yet another step forward to a more equal society. Today’s decision is one of the most momentous occasions of my lifetime; I’m thrilled that I, too, have been alive to see it. Congratulations to all the folks in Ohio and the other 13 states who can now get married, and to all the folks who are already married who will now be married everywhere in the country! It’s a good day to be a US citizen!
I’m not married and I have no wish to get married. (I’m single, so I am allowed to be very ‘I want/won’t’ on this one.)
I just don’t get it why people would want to be ‘white male golf club’ about marriage. I think it’s safe to say that most of the people who are against a more sharing approach are quite sure their God of choice is against it too – but if that is indeed true, they already live in the happy knowledge that gays and feminists and men with long hair and people who listen to pop music and read anything other than the Good Book and… well, 99% of the earth’s population will go to Hell. So in a way they should rejoice at the idea of gay weddings and even attend them, with beatific smiles on their born again faces, imagining all the others at this unholy do screaming & writhing forever in the flames.
People keep saying that we should calm Scalia down, but I say get him more het up than ever. There is still time for Obama to appoint a liberal replacement for him if he does himself a serious injury. For all the LGBQ folks in America, congratulations, this is a long overdue step forwards.
“Taunting the tauntable since 1998.” Well done sir, well done!
Have a great time in San Francisco this weekend. Maybe we’ll pass each other on the street. Could happen. Weather should be great.
Yay!
Low information voters threatening to move to Canada to escape the tyranny of same-sex marriage.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/its-legal-there?utm_term=.pg2Gnkdnz&fb_ref=click_share#.fiGnOwzbJ
Yay! Now I, a High Priest of Cthulhu (yes, with ULC certification), can marry ANY of my friends! AHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAAAA! Cthulhu ftagn!
Ahem. More seriously.
This is a good thing and we should all feel good.
Does this mean that the couple who pledged to get divorced if same sex marriage was legalized have to through with it now?
It’s wonderful to celebrate about this, amazing to see it in my lifetime.
Now what was all the big deal about it? That’s what I’ve never quite understood…
@whawhawhatsis: if you’d asked me 20 years ago, when DOMA had been passed and the WBC was everywhere and I was an anxious closeted kid in Conservativetown, I would have told you it wouldn’t happen in *my* lifetime. Thank you for proving me wrong, America, and giving me the boost to move on the next steps (after screaming my lungs out in the general vicinity of the Chicago Pride parade when the Stanley Cup goes by).
After some pretty awful things happening here in SC, which I will not repeat here, it’s really great to have something this good happen.
@Patrick V.: People never seem to keep those pledges, and if they do divorce, I think it probably says a lot more about their relationship than it does anything else.
I’d bet they spin not actually divorcing as “doing their part for ‘traditional’ marriage.”
I disagree with Scalia on almost everything, but he is a hell of a lawyer and writes very entertaining opinions. Section II of his dissent is LOL hilarious (though admittedly maybe only to lawyers).
My brother and his husband are now legal in all 50. That’s a BIG deal.
Agreed @JayDzed. Unfortunately we’ll have to work MUCH harder given how the current regime will drag their heels kicking and screaming all the way…
I am the nearest hippie!
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/files/2012/01/spartacus.jpg
Sometimes cool things happen and this is cool.
SCOTUS on a hell of a roll this week! Yeah! #LoveWins #SCOTUScare #SCOTUSmarriage #KeepHousingFair
Yeah health insurance! Yeah marriage for them that want it! Now if I could just get through my Hugo reading fast!
SF will be wild. I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve been in with people planning on attending this year. So awesome I am crying.
DN
Finally! Now everyone can have the same joys of being married! I truly feel proud of being alive during this time in history.
I am staying out of SF this weekend. Only because I don’t like big crowds. I will watch them on TV.
Notified husband of decision. He said “Great.” We are still legally and religiously married, and I’m still cooking dinner, all traditional and stuff.
Earlier decision on ACA caused no disruption to my medical care. Still gettin’ appointments and pills. No smoking crater where the medical complex is.
I am a bad person; I was hoping this week would cause Scalia to actually stroke out. Not to die, but to have to resign, so Obama could get another judge in there who’s left of Attila the Hun for a change. Nope, I want Scalia out of the government, but forced to live in this horrible dystopia of happily married people with adequate health insurance. Meanwhile, we can point and laugh at his pissy unhinged dissents.
This week is better than last week, for sure.
Getting there. Imagine what will happen in 20 years or so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bow1ZJTV4L4
May all those in love be free to bond, no matter what anyone else says.
I wonder if the people opposed on religious grounds now regret not accepting the compromise on civil unions prior to that Massachusetts decision that ‘broke the logjam.’ Had they been willing to give a single inch on civil unions (which is what gays were asking for at the time–marriage in everything but name), there might never have been any momentum to go beyond that to the “M” word.
Congratulations to the USA. Hopefully this will prompt our government here in Australia to pull the finger out and do something about making marriage legal for non-heterosexual pairings as well (or at the very least, just repealing the 2004 amendment to the Marriage Act).
Some of the Right Wing haters now want to make civil marriages illegal. I sort of agree with them.
The government should not be in the marriage business. People should be able to have the same Social Security benefits to whomever we please – without needing any type of sexual relationship.
Now, there would be a template for legal partnerships which people can use in conjunction with their marriages. But the state already enforces implied partnerships with palimony and child support.
The biggest problem is the one we already have – that is when people have multiple living serial spouses (the Religious Right illogically doesn’t believes doesn’t attack “traditional” marriages nearly as much as gay marriage does).
Ten years ago, I was convinced I wouldn’t live to see this day — I was 40 at the time, and wide acceptance of gay marriage seemed as likely as finding a dozen rainbow-striped unicorns dancing a pavane on my front lawn tomorrow morning.
As it turns out, there may be no quadrupeds processing upon my yard, come the sunrise — but a lot of folks I love dearly can finally have their marriages recognized across the land.
Today is a damn good day.
The government should not be in the marriage business. People should be able to have the same Social Security benefits to whomever we please – without needing any type of sexual relationship.
Sigh. Let’s imagine that the old argument that “stable couple” = “children” = government support is now defunct. (It isn’t).
What did that actually mean?
It meant that society, as a whole, viewed stable pairings of adults who were part of the normative pacts as a good thing, and expected them to pay taxes, get a house / mortgage, have friends, spend money, have jobs and so on. The IRS saw them as a safe bet: so did their creditors.
The Children issue could have been a game-breaker… about 30 years ago. Sadly, 2.1 birth rates are dropping all over the Western world, and it has nothing to do with gay marriage. (Japan: there you go).
The bottom line is that – Governments are supposed to help people in a society (LOL – yeah, ok, perfect world), and two people in love forging a bond creates a little bit more stability in a society – friends, jobs, location etc.
Now – The TTP etc is about to nuke that from orbit, but anyone arguing against marriage (gay, lesbian or other) is fundamentally misunderstanding what society does.
The American psychosis over Ayn Rand and an inability to process mutalism is fucking depressing btw.
YES: THE BIGGEST JOKE WE’VE EVER PLAYED IS THAT RAND WAS A SOVIET SPY SENT TO DESTROY THE FABRIC OF AMERICA CULTURE.
LOOK AT HER EYES IN THE INTERVIEWS: BLACK, BLACK, BLACK.
It was supposed to make things work: if you hamstring 1-5% of your populace then, wut? Oh, and… it’s only 5% max. Being outraged at it is like complaining that you’re not swinging a full 6″.
mrtoads, I hope no one did calm him down. I BATHE IN YOUR TEARS, inJUSTICE SCALIA.
Epiphyta, a good point about Scalia. I’ll still pick “Obama gets to appoint a SCOTUS Justice” though.
Lurkertype, that sounds like the ideal solution.
howardbrazee, around here that argument is known as The Libertarian Dismount. It’s not regarded favorably, has been demolished thoroughly in these pages, and Our Host has made it clear we’re not go get into it with anyone who brings it up. Hence this friendly note of caution to you, who may not be aware of this history.
Patrick V.: Nope, that couple is Australian and they swore to divorce if marriage equality comes to Australia, not the U.S. (Which it will of course. Come on Australia, you don’t want to lag behind the U.S., of all things, do you?) Of course, they also swore to continue living together (in sin for them,) with their children. In order to actually get a divorce in Australia, you have to be separated, living apart for at least a year, and show that the marriage is irrevocably over. None of which they would be able to do under their plan, so they couldn’t even divorce anyway.
And the reason that they would have to do all those requirements to actually dissolve their marriage contract, howardbrazeetroll, is that marriage is a secular legal and financial contract for the merger and disposal of property. It was invented by governments. It is designated, administered and monitored for tax and legal purposes by governments, which make the LAWS, and regulate legal contracts through the courts. Governments have always done this with marriage, since long before Christianity and even Judaism ever existed. ALL marriages are civil marriages, whether any regulated officiate is a member of a clergy or not; that’s why they are legal. That’s why you have to get a license from the government and you have to go to court in the country that issued the marriage contract to legally dissolve them.
I was married by a judge and entered into a legal contract of marriage administered by the government and giving us as a married partnership various rights and requirements in legal areas from taxes to property rights — because my husband and I are in a partnership, making us one financial unit, the equivalent of a business. And anyone who wants to make my marriage contract illegal and dissolve it can go jump off a short pier.
When we heard this morning, my spousal and I jumped around and cheered some, made some quick “We Won!” calls, and reflected on the small part we played in the Massachusetts victory and the hope we had at the time that our victory would spread.
The moral arc of the universe is long, but if you get enough of the right people pulling together you can really put a bend in that sucker.
Keep pulling!
@Bearpaw may you and the Spousal half have a great life. Also a big thanks to MA for getting the ball rolling towards my fellow Americans being recognized as equals.
Andrea, it’s okay to marry squirrels. Just don’t try to beat them at dog polo.
Poor Nino Scalia is having a very bad week. I keep hoping he’ll throw his hands up in disgust and say, “That it! I am out of here.” I doubt we’ll be that lucky, however.
Worse, much worse IMHO, is the behavior of “Christian” Presidential candidate Bobby Jindal and next-door moron Governor Greg Abbott of Texas, both of whom have made noises about fighting/ignoring/nullifying the decision because, well, they don’t like it, see? Texas is talk, period, as licenses are already being issued in many counties. But when you read the crap Jindal is spewing about what “God” has created (marriage between a man and a woman, period) – I guess he got that message directly – and that the only answer is to get rid of SCOTUS, it’s a little scary to think this man is a Governor and Presidential candidate.
So yes, there is still work to do.
But boy, is New York’s Pride Parade going to be a blast tomorrow! By the way, co-Grand Marshals include Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi. Be there!
LOL Scalia. He and Clarence Thomas are going to be the villains in a very famous, Oscar-winning, and “thought-provoking” movie someday.
And it will be GLORIOUS! Even with the inevitable cinema snobbery.
The interesting thing I noticed about the dissents is that Roberts and Scalia, at least (I didn’t read Alito or Thomas) seemed to retreat from making any argument whatsoever about homosexuality or the purpose of marriage, to a process complaint about how the Court was overruling legislative acts on the subject. And conservative pundits and anti-SSM advocates seem to be doing the same thing.
It’s as if they know they’ve already lost on the merits.
As for the process complaint itself, I sometimes feel a twinge of sympathy for it and then I remember Loving v. Virginia, which went down several decades before interracial marriage could ever have had majority popular support in the affected states. All of these arguments that focus on unelected imperial judges are arguments against Loving as well.
There are so many time when I look at the world, and think that there is no hope for humanity.
And, then, out of nowhere, we have a week like this one! Congratulations to all the newlywed couples out there after this decision!
And, to the GOP leadership of Texas: Don’t worry, your butthurt is coverd by Obamacare!
@Matt, yes Roberts and Scalia seem to say the decision is not rooted in constitutional law when clearly it is and clearly there are SC marriage precedents like Loving (allowed interracial marriage) and Griswald (references the 9th amendment and tells the state they have no business in involving themselves in contraception prohibitions) as marriage is a fundamental right. What is interesting about Scalia is that he seems not to root his objection to the constitution.
But then that’s Scalia. This case was decided on June 26th. A prior June 26th saw the Lawrence decision which was about two gay people in Texas arrested for sodomy. Scalia there argues in his dissent. “State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers’ validation of laws based on moral choices. Every single one of these laws is called into question by today’s decision”. That is absurd on its face but I find it interesting that the small government people think the state should regulate things like “masturbation”.
Where are the supposed “libertarians”? They should be celebrating. A callous government who says in oral argument that they have no interest in affection and intimacy, just got slapped down for arbitrary interference in the private lives of the people. Conservative Libertarians… where is your celebration?
BTW, June 26th was also the opinion date for “United States v. Windsor” which found the Defense of Marriage Act to be unconstitutional. June 26th should be some sort of holiday. Maybe we could call it “Liberty Day”.
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair, department.
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Re: 6/26/15 – Obergefell v. Hodges
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The dissent of Antonin Scalia, Associate Justice, is a paroxysm of rage against the hippie movement, and condemns California to the 10th circle of Hell. Really a hoot!
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Antonin Scalia was born in Trenton, New Jersey, 11 March 1936. He married Maureen McCarthy and has nine children – Ann Forrest, Eugene, John Francis, Catherine Elisabeth, Mary Clare, Paul David, Matthew, Christopher James, and Margaret Jane. He received his A.B. from Georgetown University and the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, and his LL.B. from Harvard Law School, and was a Sheldon Fellow of Harvard University from 1960–1961. He was in private practice in Cleveland, Ohio from 1961–1967, a Professor of Law at the University of Virginia from 1967–1971, and a Professor of Law at the University of Chicago from 1977–1982, and a Visiting Professor of Law at Georgetown University and Stanford University. He was chairman of the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law, 1981–1982, and its Conference of Section Chairmen, 1982–1983. He served the federal government as General Counsel of the Office of Telecommunications Policy from 1971–1972, Chairman of the Administrative Conference of the United States from 1972–1974, and Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel from 1974–1977. He was appointed Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1982. President Reagan nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat 26 September 1986.
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http://www.supremecourt.gov/about/biographies.aspx
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Oh, and I have been for 4 decades an ordained minister in the Universal Life Church. Three of my most profound wedding ceremonies performed were at the Caltech campus, for Caltech and JPL friends, in which I read from a laser-printed cooperatively written script held in a Red-Covered Feynman Lecture Notes on Physics.
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“I don’t recognize that bible edition,” said once puzzled parent, “what denomination are you?”
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You know the wedding scene in Jules Feiffer’s “Little Murders”?
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Once, in a Jewish wedding, I had the script on a music stand, in English and Hebrew. I told my assistant to turn the page, then had to say: “No, the OTHER way…”
JVP: Who cares? Seriously, who cares what the names of Scalia’s kids are? Well, other than their families and friends, anyway?
Meanwhile, I looked to see the puppy response to “Obergefell v. Hodges”. It appears to have made them sadder. VD has a post up lamenting the decision and linking a post about Isis tossing 4 gay men off the roof. And in the comments there are the same conspiracy about the “elites”. You remember the “elites”? The “elites” are behind SJW Hugo nominations. Says one commentator:
“The elites want to reduce population levels. They are literally waging a culture war on the masses. They are waging war on the family. They are using the homosexuals (among others).
They will literally PROMOTE sodomy in the government school system in the future. They don’t want too many roaches on THEIR planet using THEIR resources.
The Jaffe Memo, written over forty years ago. outlines what has happened and is happening.”
And then we have:
“I think the elites just want power, and the family is their direct competitor. Recall Goering’s quote about political authority, and how those who wield it con their citizens into the King’s wars.”
There are some seriously sick puppies.
Looking at the MonsterHunter nation site, the reaction is much better. There as some red herrings but generally the “real” libertarian view of “it isn’t the government’s business in the first place” seems predominant. Good for them.
@Steve: YMMV, I guess. We all like the idea of judges breaking out of dry legal jargon, but that wasn’t a dissent, it was a childish tantrum that would be unbecoming from the pen of the lowliest trial judge. As has been pointed out much more eloquently by others, but praise of Scalia’s “wit” seems more like applause at a bar association amateur night; we pretend to be very impressed because it’s at least different from the usual, and not because it’s objectively any good.
@Matt McIrvin: the ‘process’ argument is nonsense; striking down unconstitutional laws is the job of judges. I find it very telling that “but it’s ALWAYS been marriage and OMG END OF THE WORLD” is not being derided, by marriage equality haters, as the judicial activist garbage that it is.
Mythago: speaking as someone with a background in history, I have always been amazed at people who think Scalia has any real grasp of it or are overawed by his intellectual immenseness. Maybe he should have taken a leaf from the baseball antitrust opinion and started his dissent with a comprehensive list of his favorite moments in homophobia. There are a few drawbacks in making someone untouchable, even when it’s necessary for the proper functioning of the Court.
Gingsberg must really have a hard time finding anyone else who likes opera.
Ginsberg, d’oh.
I wanna be The Notorious RBG when I grow up. She is teh awesome.
I finally remembered (after remembering, forgetting, etc.) to go listen to Vienna Teng’s beautiful “City Hall” in celebration. It was written in 2006, but there’s lots of love shining at City Hall today too.
I will give a ton of credit. You’re one of the very few people who I’ve read, either in the blog world or Facebook, that hasn’t acted like a sore winner by rubbing everyone’s face into it or stooping down to the (alleged) level of those who they don’t like (i.e. having a different viewpoint) and spewing vitriol hate towards them.
Matt McIrvin:
As many others have pointed out, if Scalia and Roberts sincerely think they’ve been infected with judicial activist cooties, they’re perfectly free to have a hot shower (together or separately, I’m not judging) after submitting their resignations. But they better be ready to throw a large proportion of their own decisions on the fire as well, or admit they’re flat out hypocrites who have no problem with courts “overruling legislative acts” when they’re in the majority.
As for the rest of Scalia’s dissent? Well, at least Roberts, Alito and Thomas made an honest effort to construct an internally coherent argument; Scalia just power-chucked up a load of bug-ridden word salad. And he’s what passes for a jurisprudential scholar among the American right these days?
I am intrigued by the concept of ‘rubbing everyone’s face into it’. How do I do that, please? I mean, I’m not as nice a person as Scalzi.
mythago: Well, you could start by getting a Universal Life Church ordination and marrying two gay friends in the name of Hellboy over Fred Phelps’s grave…
Actually, that’d be pretty funny. I should do that.
Reblogged this on Dealing With Aces.
A great day!
Yeah, J.B. Miller nobody should show any degree of disdain towards (to take a random example) Ted Cruz — who, ICYMI, would really like to be President of the United States — opining that this decision was “the darkest 24 hours in our nation’s history,” Unlike a racist domestic terrorist murdering nine people in a historically black church in Charleston, Teddy?
I will defend to the death Mr Cruz’s constitutionally protected right to be a callous and tone-deaf drama queen in public. I value freedom of speech; but what I do not accept is some fictitious right to freedom from criticism or consequence, or those who relentlessly spew contempt and hatred on LGBT folks playing Miss Manners on anyone.
G.B. Miller:
Are you trying to say that people’s lives and civil rights are a sports competition of different opinions? And you want those same people who’ve managed to defeat discrimination and repression that among other things threatened them and their children to tell you that your cheering for that repression to continue was a “too bad you lost, at least you tried hard” moment?
This is not a sports competition. And they don’t have to be gracious to people who were trying to hurt them, physically, legally and emotionally. They are going to be happy that you failed to hurt them, take away their humanity and criminalize their basic civil rights. That this decision not only grants them marriage equality but to be legally viewed as human beings with equal rights that are protected by the Constitution. Not secondary citizens, inferior, sub-human. Not a ward of the state incapable of making their own decisions. Not sinners, perverts, criminals or pedophiles. Human beings with equal civil rights.
And if you don’t like that “viewpoint,” why should any of us give a shit what you feel?
Dear Straight People:
Stop being so damn lazy, and keep destroying your own marriages. We’re busy.
Thanks in advance,
LGBT Folks.