Utah legalizes gay marriage, December 20, 2013

reply to post by Christian Voice


If you think Christians have been sitting idly by, you haven't been paying attention. They have been lobbying very heavily for years to deny civil rights to gay people and they're only getting more obsessed with it. But it's all in vain. They will not "win".

Christian Voice
reply to post by Aleister

 

I don't think this will change anything. Sooner or later the "Christians" that have been sitting idly by allowing this crap to happen will finally stand up. I have heard several of my friends and family over the past few weeks saying that their Churches are finally speaking out against homosexuality altogether. Finally people are getting their heads out of the sand and are standing up against this mess. Now the government is going to attempt to force it upon a people that clearly do not want it ? I don't think so.

You do realize how ridiculous you sound right? This is about allowing gays to have their marriages legally recognized. That's it. It has no impact on your nor any of your homophobic friends/family member's lives. You're not standing up for anything other than discrimination, which isn't really something you should be standing up for, but whatever.

There are probably better things to fight against than equality. Specifically, just about every other issue.

Christian Voice
reply to post by Aleister

 

I don't think this will change anything. Sooner or later the "Christians" that have been sitting idly by allowing this crap to happen will finally stand up. I have heard several of my friends and family over the past few weeks saying that their Churches are finally speaking out against homosexuality altogether. Finally people are getting their heads out of the sand and are standing up against this mess. Now the government is going to attempt to force it upon a people that clearly do not want it ? I don't think so.

It's fine to speak out against homosexuality, anybody can legally, in America, do that, and churches have a right to criticize both the government and the gay lifestyle as much as anyone. First amendment rules! But nothing is being forced on anyone, nobody has to marry a gay person if they don't want to. I would not marry a gay male, nor date one, but I've attended one gay wedding and it was very nice and loving. Great music too! But nobody forced me to attend it, nor is anyone telling any church that they have to perform gay weddings.

Saying all that, if the Supreme Court somehow ruled that Catholic churches had to marry gay couples then I'd be marching in the street against that ruling. Yet you know as well as I do that that will not happen, and that gay marriage will be allowed in civil courts all throughout the U.S. at some point soon. We both know that, on a knowing level. And so do the members of the U.S. Supreme Court, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if Justice Scalia voted for it this time and let it come down to an 8-1 or a 7-2 decision (Justice Thomas, for one, will never vote for it imnho). They may do this just to get the inevitable behind them, as well as having no real reason not to uphold the lower courts reading of the wording of the constitution in this pivotal Utah case.

Christian Voice
reply to post by Aleister

 

I don't think this will change anything. Sooner or later the "Christians" that have been sitting idly by allowing this crap to happen will finally stand up.

It's not a very Christian attitude to think that you have the authority to "let people" do anything. You don't control anything; you have zero power. A Christian is humble, understanding, and accepting. Saying that Christians need to stand up, "pull their heads out of the sand" and start controlling other peoples' lives via political activity is blasphemy -- plain and simple. As a Christian, it's not your job to decide who is allowed to marry eachother under legal confines, and it never will be.

I have heard several of my friends and family over the past few weeks saying that their Churches are finally speaking out against homosexuality altogether. Finally people are getting their heads out of the sand and are standing up against this mess.

You have failed as an intellectual human being if you think that this is anything new. People got sick of hearing the Church legislate against peoples' freedoms a long time ago -- that's why we have secular societies now.

Now the government is going to attempt to force it upon a people that clearly do not want it ? I don't think so.

Have you been hanging out in back alleys with Rob Ford?

Nobody is forcing anyone to do anything. Get a hold of yourself. Legal marriage is a simple contract between two consenting adults. How you could possibly think that a decision between two people -- which only affects those two people -- is "forcing" something on others is absolutely lost to me. You are advocating for bigotry that is centuries old and you are not going to win in your goal to provide unequal priveleges to people based on the gender of those people who are in a personal relationship.

This idea that you front is a call for primacy of the state to impede in peoples' personal lives. It's time to change your mind, fascist. Your ideas for control via religious legislature is dead to the developed world where nobody cares what Leviticus has to say about anything. If you have a problem with that, I'm sure you'll do just fine in Uganda.

Here's an ongoing thread about a guy who's starving himself, or holding his breath, or jumping up and down on one foot, until the Utah legislature reverses the court's decision. He's a little lax on the principal of constitutional government. I say feed him some of my lentils and rice, and he'll gladly eat.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

The Supreme Court has put gay marriage on hold in Utah, and the next Circuit Court hearing on the issue is February 25th. The decision to place a hold on the ruling came from the court as a whole, which issued a two-sentence decision which just put the stay on hold, with no judges writing individual decisions.

www.chicagotribune.com...

The U.S. Supreme Court this morning halted gay marriage in Utah, at least temporarily, by granting a request from state officials appealing a lower-court ruling that had allowed same-sex weddings to go ahead in the heavily Mormon state.

The decision by the court means that gay weddings in the state are now on hold while the case is appealed to the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Hundreds of gay couples in Utah have received marriage licenses since the December 20 ruling by U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby.

The long delay has allowed many couple to marry, likely one of the reasons for the interval between the first court ruling and this hold on the process. I thought they may have let the marriages continue, and was wrong in this instance. The 10th Circuit Court, I would think, will allow marriages to go forward again, but it will take until after the next hearing on Feb. 25, so everyone gets a cooling off period and that guy starving himself gets some speaking gigs.

Although Utah's governor says the state won't recognize the marriages of gays who were married during the time before the ruling making it legal was put on hold. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder says the federal government will recognize the couple as being married if any of them are eligible for federal benefits. This also means couples married in December can file joint federal tax returns. This is a big deal, and adds another issue into the deliberations of the 10th Circuit Court during and after the case is brought up on February 25.

The US Supreme court does not want to hear another court case of where it is going to have to make a far fetching decision when it comes to same sex marriages in individual states. Ultimately what its original plan had been, before Utah, would be to hear individual court cases, where it was some parts and pieces that would have led to a better decision, and have the precedents to back it up.

For example, if you look at the current court cases going through, when it comes to same sex marriages, the one that it would prefer to here would be the one with Ohio, the entire case is based all around one part, not the marriage itself, but rather things like having the partners name as a survivor on the death certificate, or a case where one couple was married legally in one state and another state refusing to recognize such under the eyes of the law
That way it would have a clear cut picture as to making a final ruling that would affect all. What has happened is what I believed was going to happen when it comes to the Utah case, and that is that it was sent back to the lower court, and not wanting to deal with this case at all, until more cases and that deals with the different aspects and parts come up before it and rulings are there for them to use as precedents in all other rulings when it comes to making a final ruling.

An Oklahoma federal judge has overturned that state's ban on gay marriages, but has put the decision on hold thinking that the state will appeal.

If appealed, which is likely, the case goes before the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, the same one ruling on the Utah case.

This just adds more weight to the prospect of gay marriages being upheld in Utah, and now in Oklahoma.

www.nytimes.com...

The state’s ban on marriage by gay and lesbian couples is “an arbitrary, irrational exclusion of just one class of Oklahoma citizens from a governmental benefit,” wrote Judge Terence C. Kern of United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma, in Tulsa, deciding a case that had languished for nine years. The amendment, he said, is based on “moral disapproval” and does not advance the state’s asserted interests in promoting heterosexual marriage or the welfare of children.

reply to post by sdcigarpig


The U.S. Supreme Court may not want to hear these cases, but if federal judges keep on ruling that state bans are unconstitutional, I don't see how they can help but take the case on appeal. Utah, and now Oklahoma, are covered by the same circuit court, the 10th Circuit.

reply to post by Aleister

What the Supreme Court of the USA will do is the following: It will first look at each individual case, and the reasoning that the judge used in the ruling. If it finds that the reasoning is sound and that there really are no legal arguments that would sway its decision, it will then refuse to issue a writ of Centori and refuse the case.

Now here is what most tend to forget, there has to be some small legal precedent that the court has overlooked for the Supreme Court to make a decision. Ultimately, it is going to make a decision, however, on a state by state case, chances are it will either refuse or send it back to the lower courts, affirming the lower courts decisions, thus not having to make any sort of decision.

This will go on for a few years, till the court has decided it is time to make one ruling and then make a ruling that all of the individual cases will be decided by one case and verdict, and then issue a ruling one way or the other at that time frame, but not before.

As with all court cases it receives, the Supreme Court has 3 options, one is to hear, the other is not to hear and the third is to shift it back to a lower court, either to retry or to stand.

There will be 2 court cases to watch in the upcoming year, and they will be deciding factors in the entire same sex marriage debate. The first will be the Ohio case, where it delves into more of the specifics of marriage in general, in this case a same sex couple, married moved to Ohio, and one of the persons died. The state does not believe it should put on the death certificate the surviving partners name. The Supreme Court will take up this case as it is one that would have far reaching ramifications and be more on a national level.

The other case that should catch the interest of the nation, will come from Indiana, where it is now considered a felony for same sex persons to apply for a marriage liscence, and a misdemeanor offense for those who either provide such services, lisences to or even does the ceremony. That will be another Supreme court case that will be fought and ultimately be something that will add to the national debate.

reply to post by sdcigarpig


Those two cases are interesting, as are the cases from the western U.S. You may be right that the Supreme Court will allow each state or Circuit Court to rule, yet the question that's shaping up in Utah and Oklahoma (and with those two rulings more "liberal" states might end up with the same type of ruling) is "Can a state's constitution ban same-sex marriage". That seems the type of question that the Supreme Court will have to rule upon, due to the state constitutional banning which occurred in election cycles during the last ten years being picked apart state by state.

What is the purpose of people marrying? Why does the government recognize a marriage between two people? What function does it serve?

IMHO, traditional marriage between a man and a woman is tied to the children. Only a man and a woman can have a child. However, it may be soon that a woman can have a child with another woman by inserting her dna in donar sperm or something of that nature. Either way, RIGHT NOW a man and a woman are needed to produce a child. There're various benefits given to people who marry and the thinking I believe is to help the children they may or may not have. It was a means to strengthen the family unit. So if this is about the children then why is it suddenly now about homosexuals? Can a man and a man produce a baby? No.

Just why not add something new like "Consensual Partners" and give them some minor benefits and hte respect they deserve. Giving gay marriages full benefits is mistaking what those benefits were meant for: children.

I'm not a christian and have a gay close friend, so don't judge me.

reply to post by jonnywhite


Will respond once as that is way off topic of the legal cases from Utah and the other western U.S. states which are now in the court system.

Children can be born and raised outside or inside of a marriage. And a 55 year old man and 55 year old woman can legally marry anywhere in the U.S., even though she is past her child-bearing years, and that fact removes the "marriage = children" discussion from the legal arguments in these cases.

Aleister
reply to post by jonnywhite

 

Will respond once as that is way off topic of the legal cases from Utah and the other western U.S. states which are now in the court system.

Children can be born and raised outside or inside of a marriage. And a 55 year old man and 55 year old woman can legally marry anywhere in the U.S., even though she is past her child-bearing years, and that fact removes the "marriage = children" discussion from the legal arguments in these cases.

I'd be perfectly fine with all of this as long as I knew the benefits weren't given to families if they don't have children or don't adopt them. Either way, I still feel uncomfortable with homosexuals adopting kids. I may be somewhat liberal, but I believe a child has a better future if htey have both a man and a woman to learn from in their family unit or at least a close adult mentor of both sexes.

This is just us experimenting with nature which we're fond of doing.

Like I said, don't judge me. Not a christian. I'm agnostic atheist. I don't believe homosexuality is wrong. I'm not sure whether it's a choice or not, but I suspect it's not. AS I stated, I have a homosexual friend. I respect him. I just don't fit the mold I'm supposed to fit. Maybe this means I'm more conservative than I thought.

reply to post by jonnywhite


As for adopting children, homosexuals are not pedophiles in a higher percentage than straight people, so that worry would be taken out of the equation if it's a concern. I wasn't raised in a gay family (Aleister has two mommy's?) so I don't know what that is like. To me it too seems odd, but that is solely my brain patterns reacting to a situation with which they don't have experience. And apparently homosexuality isn't a choice, but a biological hard-wiring.

That's why most people's "gaydar" works, because when you meet someone who "seems" gay they usually are, and the characteristics we sense (which make up the gaydar) are those hard-wired characteristics. And yes, gay people are hard-wired to fall in love with each other, the same as anyone else. Thus the marriage argument and legal rulings which take all of these factors into consideration and which will, sooner more than later, allow legal and governmentally sanctioned marriages to occur within all the states in the U.S. - as well as in most nations in due time. Australia is an odd exception to this, and it only seems odd because of the speed with which gay marriage has been accepted and then legalized in many different areas of the world.

There is speculation that a gay marriage lawsuit in Texas may be affected by the recent Federal Court rulings in Utah and Oklahoma:

www.ktrh.com...

Just like Oklahoma, the Lone Star State has a voter-approved ban on gay marriage. That's why Chuck Smith at Equality Texas believes a similar court ruling is on the horizon here.

“It very well opens the possibility that within the next month, the case pending in San Antonio on this issue, we could likely have a similar outcome,” Smith tells KTRH News.

If this occurs then there will be such a Texas uproar that people in cowboy hats may be marching on the Supreme Court demanding the ruling to be overturned. By the way, Texas is under the jurisdiction of the 5th Circuit Court, unlike Oklahoma and Utah, which are under the 10th Circuit.

reply to post by Aleister


I'm telling you, it is just not going to go down the way you think it will. The feds are going to get fed up with it and wash their hands of it entirely and leave it in the states hands. I would imagine that the feds like the rest of us are tired of hearing the pissing and moaning all for freaking monetary benefits. YES that is what this crap all boils down to is money.

reply to post by Christian Voice


So, naturally, your stance is that you should be allowed to have these monetary benefits, and gay people shouldn't.

How to spot a bad Christian.