Supreme Court: Same-sex couples can marry in all 50 states

Supreme Court: Same-sex couples can marry in all 50 states

Published June 26, 2015 FoxNews.com

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NOW PLAYINGUS Supreme Court rules in favor of same-sex marriage
The Supreme Court ruled Friday that same-sex couples have a right to marry nationwide, in a historic decision that invalidates gay marriage bans in more than a dozen states.

Gay and lesbian couples already can marry in 36 states and the District of Columbia. But in a 5-4 ruling, the court held that the 14th Amendment requires states to issue marriage licenses for same-sex couples and to recognize such marriages performed in other states.

The ruling means the remaining 14 states that did not allow such unions, in the South and Midwest, will have to stop enforcing their bans.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, just as he did in the court's previous three major gay rights cases dating back to 1996.

"No union is more profound than marriage," Kennedy wrote, joined by the court's four more liberal justices.

He continued: "Under the Constitution, same-sex couples seek in marriage the same legal treatment as opposite-sex couples, and it would disparage their choices and diminish their personhood to deny them this right."

The outcome is the culmination of two decades of Supreme Court litigation over marriage, and gay rights generally. Cheers broke out outside the Supreme Court when the decision was announced.

President Obama tweeted: "Today is a big step in our march toward equality."

But other justices argued that the court should not be able to order states to change their marriage definition. Chief Justice John Roberts, in a dissent joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, called the ruling an "extraordinary step."

"Many people will rejoice at this decision, and I begrudge none their celebration. But for those who believe in a government of laws, not of men, the majority's approach is deeply disheartening," they wrote.

"The majority's decision is an act of will, not legal judgment."

Each of the four dissenting justices also wrote a separate dissent.

The ruling will not take effect immediately because the court gives the losing side roughly three weeks to ask for reconsideration. But some state officials and county clerks might decide there is little risk in issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

The cases before the court involved laws from Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee that define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Those states have not allowed same-sex couples to marry within their borders and they also have refused to recognize valid marriages from elsewhere. They previously had their bans upheld by a federal appeals court.

Just two years ago, the Supreme Court struck down part of the federal anti-gay marriage law that denied a range of government benefits to legally married same-sex couples.

There are an estimated 390,000 married same-sex couples in the United States, according to UCLA's Williams Institute, which tracks the demographics of gay and lesbian Americans. Another 70,000 couples living in states that do not currently permit them to wed would get married in the next three years, the institute says. Roughly 1 million same-sex couples, married and unmarried, live together in the United States, the institute says.

The Obama administration backed the right of same-sex couples to marry. The Justice Department's decision to stop defending the federal anti-marriage law in 2011 was an important moment for gay rights and Obama declared his support for same-sex marriage in 2012.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015...all-50-states/

http://www.alipac.us/f9/supreme-cour...sidies-320682/

I'm so glad to see this ruling so that the divide between gay and straight can end once and for all. The religious folks who don't want to perform marriage ceremonies won't have to. Some people like Ronnie Floyd, President of the Southern Baptist Convention was quite confused about that. This just applies to government performed ceremonies and the issuance of marriage licenses. It of course overturns the state constitutional amendments banning gay marriage.

http://www.alipac.us/f19/christian-p...galize-320667/ SAME-SEX MARRIAGE​

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Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

http://www.alipac.us/f19/christian-p...galize-320667/ SAME-SEX MARRIAGE​

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Nothing in this ruling requires pastors to perform gay marriage ceremonies so this ruling has no impact at all of any kind on them, their church or their religious beliefs.

PREMATURE HONEYMOON

Gurl, it ain’t over: 10 LGBT fights the Supreme Court could hear next

by Jorge Rivas | June 26, 2015 11:47 AM

Gay marriage is great, but gay people are going to need jobs to pay for those wedding parties.

The U.S. Supreme Court made history today when it ruled same sex couples across the U.S. have a Constitutional right to marry. But it’s still perfectly legal in 29 states to fire or deny gay people promotions just because of their sexuality.

Take a look at other political fights that could one day reach the Supreme Court and determine whether LGBT people in the U.S. have access to equal rights.

Worker discrimination laws for LGBT workers

There is currently no federal law that protects LGBT individuals from employment discrimination. In more than half the country – 29 states – gay and lesbian employees are not protected against discrimination based on their sexual orientation. It’s even worse when it comes to transgender workers, 32 states don’t have any protections against discrimination at the workplace based on gender identity.

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a bill that would protect LGBT people from workplace discrimination has been proposed in Congress for over 20 years, but it’s gone nowhere.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, called the bill“unnecessary” and said it “would provide a basis for frivolous lawsuits.”

Housing discrimination laws

Seventeen states and the District of Columbia prohibit housing discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

That means that landlords in the remaining 33 states can deny housing or evict renters from their home just because they’re LGBT.

Adoption refusal laws

Same sex couples in Louisiana, Mississippi and Michigan face legal barriers to joint adoptions.

“[Gay marriage] provides innumerable protections, rights and responsibilities to married couples and parents raising children in a marriage. But it doesn’t come close to solving all of the legal and recognition issues that same-sex couples and their children face,” Emily Hecht-McGowan, director of public policy at the Family Equality Council told the New York Times.

A number of states have also authorized state-paid child placement agencies to turn away qualified prospective foster or adoptive parents based solely on the religious beliefs of the agencies, regardless of their ability to care for a child, according to anACLU analysis.

Earlier this month Michigan passed a law that allows state-funded child welfare agencies to deny services to same-sex couples who want to provide foster care or adopt. Virginia and North Dakota already have similar religious exemption laws, according to the Movement Advancement Project.

Gay conversion therapy

A day before the historic Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage a New Jersey jury unanimously decided offering gay conversion therapy is an act of consumer fraud.

All of the nation’s major mental health professional groups have questioned the ethics, efficacy and benefits of the so-called conversion therapy but still only three states have laws that prohibit the practice.

Even the White House has spoken out against the practice that is based on a view of homosexuality that has been rejected by all the major mental health professions.

The Obama administration “supports efforts to ban the use of conversion therapy for minors.”

“Often, this practice is used on minors, who lack the legal authority to make their own medical and mental health decisions. We share your concern about its potentially devastating effects on the lives of transgender as well as gay, lesbian, bisexual, and queer youth,” wrote Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to President Obama, in a response to a White House petition.


“Show Your Papers to Pee” bills

Laws that criminalize trans people for entering restrooms that correspond to their gender identity may turn into the nation’s next big LGBT legal fight.

Earlier this year in February Texas state Rep. Debbie Riddle filed legislation that would make it a misdemeanor for a trans person to use a restroom that doesn’t correspond to the sex “established at the individual’s birth.”

Keeping bias out of public schools

Nevada, Florida, and Texas have also proposed bills that would bar trans kids from using certain school bathrooms and locker rooms.

Rights for incarcerated LGBT people

Recently the Justice Department backed a lawsuit filed by a trans prisoner who claims Georgia prison officials terminated her female hormone therapy when she entered prison. In a “statement of interest” filed in Ashley Diamond’s case, the Justice Department noted denying “appropriate medical care” for inmates with gender dysphoria violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.”

In April, a federal judge in California ordered the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to provide gender-affirming surgery to a transgender woman being held in a men’s prison.

“From police profiling of trans women of color as sex workers to the violence LGBT people face in custody, criminal justice reform is critically important for the LGBT movement,” says the American Civil Liberties Union.

Laws that criminalize HIV

There are 13 states where people living with HIV can be charged with a felony for biting or spitting at someone, even though it has been years since the Center for Disease Control declared it’s not possible to transmit HIV via saliva.

The majority of these laws that criminalize HIV were passed decades ago before studies showed that antiretroviral therapy reduces HIV transmission risk and most do not account for HIV prevention measures that reduce transmission risk, such as condom use or pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), the daily pill which can lower the risk of HIV infection by 92 percent.

In June 2014 the Iowa Supreme Court reversed the conviction of a man living with HIV who had been sentenced to twenty-five years for allegedly exposing his sexual partner to HIV, even though he used a condom and did not transmit the disease.

Incarcerating LGBT immigrants


Jennicet Gutiérrez made national news this week when she interrupted President Obama’s speech to demand he release all LGBTQ immigrants from immigration detention centers.U.S. officials currently detain transgender immigrant women in men’s detention centers where the conditions are often humiliating, dangerous, and even deadly.

A 2014 Fusion investigation found U.S. immigration officials detain an average of 75 transgender detainees each night.

But even though Immigration and Customs enforcement (ICE) holds 34,000 immigrants each night, transgender detainees account for one out of five confirmed sexual abuse cases in detention, Fusion’s investigation found.

“Religious freedom” laws

Annnnd we’re back at where we started. There will undoubtedly be government employees who refuse to perform same-sex marriages because of claims that it would violate their religious beliefs.
States like North Carolina have passed laws that allow civil magistrates to refuse to marry any couple it conflicts with their “sincerely held religious” beliefs.

http://fusion.net/story/154378/gurl-...uld-hear-next/

Ted Cruz on Rulings: 'Some of the Darkest 24 Hours in Our Nation's History'

Jun 26, 2015 1:08 PM PDT

More than any other 2016 Republican presidential candidate, Cruz has made religious liberty and gay marriage the articles of his long shot bid.

Heidi Przybylat HeidiPrzybyla

More than any other 2016 Republican presidential candidate, Ted Cruz has made religious liberty and gay marriage the articles of his long shot bid. So it was baffling that the Texas senator too so long to respond to today's Supreme Court ruling affirming gay marriage.

After five hours, he finally emerged on Sean Hannity's show to declare this "some of the darkest 24 hours in our nation's history."

In the meantime, Cruz's top competitors for the evangelical Christian vote—including former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum—grabbed headlines with their criticism of the 5-4 ruling that brings gay weddings to the last 14 states where they were still banned.

With his response, guaranteed to reach his party's most conservative flock, Cruz did not disappoint those fuming over the decision.

The court, said Cruz, will not have the final say and he cited "a number of recourses we have,'' including legislation he's sponsoring that would create a constitutional amendment shielding from legal action states that still bar gay marriage.

Even so, he acknowledged, "There aren't a whole lot of Republicans in Congress willing to stand and fight.'' Cruz's bill stands almost no chance of becoming law since he would also need Senate Democratic support to reach the 60-vote threshold needed to advance most legislation.

The fact that he planned a media strategy around his response—withholding it until his appearance on Hannity's show—speaks to the outsized role the gay marriage issue will continue to play in his bid for the White House. While Cruz is an underdog in the Republican field, his advisers see a path to the nomination if he can broaden his base supporters beyond limited-government, Tea Party-aligned conservatives to include evangelical voters, particularly in the early voting state of Iowa.

In a speech last week before a Washington gathering of faith activists, Cruz said the 2016 election would be the "religious liberty election'' and called on the audience to pray the Supreme Court rules against same-sex weddings. "Religious liberty has never been more threatened in America than right now today,'' said Cruz. And he hectored his opponents for their timidity on the issue.

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/ar...s-after-ruling

Hey Bubba, neither your religious liberty nor anyone else's has been threatened by gays, gay marriage, and most certainly not by this court ruling.

Oh by the way, 2016 is not going to be the "religious liberty election". It's going to be the "stop illegal immigration election".

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Originally Posted by Judy

Hey Bubba, neither your religious liberty nor anyone else's has been threatened by gays, gay marriage, and most certainly not by this court ruling.

Oh and by the way, 2016 is not going to be the "religious liberty election". It's going to be the "stop illegal immigration election".

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JUDY
I LOVE YOUR POST YOU TELL LIKE

Religious Groups Vow to Fight Gay Marriage Despite Supreme Court

New legal strategies for exemptions developed; new push for fundraising

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Pro and antigay rights protesters outside the U.S. Supreme Court in April. PHOTO: OLIVIER DOULIERY/GETTY IMAGES


By TAMARA AUDI And
JACOB GERSHMAN
Updated June 26, 2015 7:51 p.m. ET 82 COMMENTS

Religious and conservative leaders opposed to same-sex marriage say their fight over the issue won’t end with Friday’s Supreme Court ruling. But it is unclear how future battles might play out; religious conservatives say they fear major challenges and disruptions, and gay rights advocates said those worries are overblown.

“No church will be required to change any of its doctrine related to marriage. No priest or rabbi or other religious official will be required to officiate a gay marriage, and people of faith will be able to advocate in the public square any particular view of marriage,” saidDale Carpenter, a University of Minnesota law professor who supports gay marriage.

“All those things are a matter of constitutional law and they were reiterated today in Justice Kennedy’s opinion,” he said.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the majority ruling, said that “religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned.”

On Friday, a group of evangelical Protestant pastors released a declaration saying they wouldn’t “capitulate on marriage.”

“We will not allow the government to coerce or infringe upon the rights of institutions to live by the sacred belief that only men and women can enter into marriage,” says the statement, signed by dozens of faith leaders, including Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, as well as John Bradosky, Presiding Bishop of the North American Lutheran Church.

Some religious groups are pressing for legislation that would prevent the federal government from penalizing federal employees, contractors or religiously affiliated organizations that oppose gay marriage. And gay-rights advocates will press for workplace protections against discrimination based on sexual preference.

At a Supreme Court that has been broadly supportive both of religious expression and gay and lesbian equality, the ultimate resolution of such conflicts remained unclear.

Friday’s ruling, confined as it was to marriage, doesn’t resolve broader conflicts between religious liberty and discrimination laws.

Currently more than 20 states and the District of Columbia restrict discrimination against gays and lesbians in employment and housing. Almost nearly as many states have laws that also cover rights for transgender and transsexual people.

But in the rest of the country, it is still legal to fire someone or deny housing to someone on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

State legislatures, rather than the courts, are the most likely battleground for the gay-rights movement, legal experts said.

Battles over “religious-freedom laws,” such as the one that erupted in Indiana in March, could become more common, as conservatives push states to enact statutes shielding religious people, organizations and businesses from sanctions for refusing to participate in gay marriages or provide services for same-sex ceremonies, according to Mr. Carpenter.

MORE ON GAY MARRIAGE RULING

• Analysis and Reaction
• Obama Calls Ruling ‘Victory for America’
• Read Gay Marriage Ruling
• GOP Hopefuls Strike Different Tones
• Chief Justice Roberts Drops the L Word
• What the Supreme Court Same-Sex Marriage Ruling Means For Employers
• Gay Marriage Ruling: What’s Next?
• Inside the Supreme Court: Nervous Fidgeting, Then Tears
• Photos: The Path of Gay Marriage World-wide
• Religious Groups Vow to Fight Same-Sex Marriage
• Think Tank: Will Republicans Take Their Supreme Court Wins and Move on?
• Think Tank: In Fact, The Path to Marriage Equality Was Not Short
• Majority Ruling on Gay Marriage: Key Excerpts
• Gay Marriage Dissents: Key Excerpts

Conservative groups have been bracing for the ruling for months—developing legal strategies to carve out religious exemptions and ramping up fundraising to pay for them. Those groups said they expect to continue to fight for religious exemptions from legal mandates to accept same-sex marriage in courts, at the federal level, and state by state.

Catholic bishops and Southern Baptists are throwing their support behind federal legislation introduced last week that would ban the federal government from revoking tax-exempt status or otherwise penalizing religiously affiliated organizations, like schools, over a refusal to accept same-sex couples.

“The decision makes it all the more important that Congress move to protect the religious liberty of those who believe in traditional marriage,” said U.S. Rep. Raul Labrador, a Republican from Idaho who introduced the legislation, known as the First Amendment Defense Act.


The Supreme Court's decision on gay marriage is much more conclusive than its Thursday ruling on the Affordable Care Act, explains WSJ’s Jerry Seib. Photo: AP


On Friday, some religious leaders said they would resist any government attempts to compel them to recognize same-sex unions through civil disobedience. “We are going to maintain our biblical faith and uphold our convictions regardless of the consequences,” said Rick Scarborough, a Southern Baptist pastor in Nacogdoches, Texas, and the president of Vision America, a group that trains ministers and advises them on legal rights.

Mr. Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention said on a call with reporters after the ruling that he didn’t interpret the ruling as potentially forcing clergy to perform same-sex weddings. But he said he feared the ruling could usher in other conflicts—like perhaps forcing military chaplains to perform same-sex weddings, or affecting the tax-exempt status or government contracts of religiously affiliated institutions. “We’re going to fight for religious liberty and this will be a major front in where we go in the future,” he said, adding, “you will see legal skirmishes” if the government tries to mandate acceptance of same-sex couples for religiously affiliated adoption agencies or other social-service institutions.

He and others have said they fear that religiously affiliated schools that refuse to hire people in same sex relationships will be penalized in light of the ruling. But he said those schools should not change their policies.

Mr. Scarborough said he has advised ministers to “continue to preach that God has forbidden such [same-sex] relations…If it means going to jail or facing fines or loss of [nonprofit] status, so be it. But don’t stop doing what you’re doing,” he said.

“The battlefield shifts to religious freedom,” said Richard Land, the president of the Southern Evangelical Seminary. Mr. Land said the form that battle takes will largely depend on supporters of gay marriage.

“Will the progressive, totalitarian and intolerant left weaponize the government and attempt to force or compel people to affirm same-sex behavior and relationships? Or will they respect the freedom of conscience guaranteed by the Constitution?” he said.

Gay rights advocates celebrating the ruling said Friday that religious conservatives opposing gay marriage were largely overreacting to perceived threats. The ruling, they said, wouldn’t impact how churches operate, or the daily lives of religious people who don’t support gay marriage.

“Questions I’ve heard about ‘Are we still going to be able to decide who we marry?’ Well, of course they are,” said James Esseks,director of the American Civil Liberty Union Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and HIV Project. “The constitution protects that fundamental liberty.”

Mr. Esseks noted that in the 37 states where gay marriage was already legal before the ruling, conflicts have been minimal.
Sarah Warbelow, of the Human Rights Campaign, said “nobody is seeking to force clergy to marry same-sex couples.” Ms. Warbelow said there will be “debates and questions around when a religious organization is operating in the public sphere accepting taxpayer dollars. There will be an expectation that those organizations provide equal treatment to LGBT people.”

However, she said gay rights advocates are concerned that religiously affiliated organizations, like hospitals, which receive federal support should not be able to discriminate against same-sex couples.
“We think it’s a very serious problem if you are accepting taxpayer funds, that LGBT people are contributing to, that you shouldn’t be able to accept those funds and then decline to admit students or fire someone based on sexual orientation or gender identity,” she said.

But she added “that’s very different than the school being able to continue its mission and teach its values.”

In recent months, religious opposition to gay marriage has played out under the concept of religious liberty as religious and conservative leaders have seen public opinion and law shift drastically in favor of same-sex marriage over the last decade.

The decision “serves as a de facto and legal catalyst for the marginalization of Americans who embrace a biblical worldview,” said Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. He said Americans must build “a firewall against intolerance and bigotry toward followers of Christ.”

Some religious groups have discussed the so-called “ Benedict Option”—strengthening congregations by withdrawing from the public sphere. But many reject that, saying Christians must be out in the world. “What makes you think the progressive left will leave you alone in your monastic communities? They’ll come after you there,” said Mr. Land of the Southern Evangelical Seminary.

Mr. Land said “one line of battle” will be drawn at religiously affiliated institutions. His seminary doesn't take federal grants, he said, but it is accredited by government agencies. The seminary refuses to hire or admit those who are in same-sex relationships.

He said his school has already undergone a legal review to make sure its policies are clearly stated.

“Unfortunately, today’s decision creates the scenario where our fellow Americans will likely be asked to cease to follow the dictates of their faith or else leave the public square and close up their schools and hospitals,” said Grazie Christie, of The Catholic Association.

“This would be pure tyranny. The impulse toward bullying religious institutions and men and women of conscience must be resisted.”

http://www.wsj.com/articles/religiou...urt-1435329751

Regardless of the U.S. Supreme Courts ruling, I will stick to my conviction that marriage, in God's eyes, is between one man and one woman. Additionally, I think the ruling is a ruse because Bader and Keegan should have recused themselves because they have made their bias on the issue well known. This was a political ruling and has absolutely nothing to do with the U.S. Constitution. Keegan herself even said, back in 2009, that gay marriage was not a constitutional right.

Okay, back to the issues of immigration and border security!

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Originally Posted by MW

Regardless of the U.S. Supreme Courts ruling, I will stick to my conviction that marriage, in God's eyes, is between one man and one woman. Additionally, I think the ruling is a ruse because Bader and Keegan should have recused themselves because they have made their bias on the issue well known. This was a political ruling and has absolutely nothing to do with the U.S. Constitution. Keegan herself even said, back in 2009, that gay marriage was not a constitutional right.

Okay, back to the issues of immigration and border security!

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Marriage is a natural right, an inalienable right, which makes it a constitutional right, like freedom, liberty, justice, and equality, and is not conditioned upon religious beliefs. State recognized marriage has nothing to do with religious beliefs or even other personal beliefs on the subject. It's a matter of law, not God. Some people believe God chooses their mate for the purpose of procreation, and that's fine and they are free to believe what they want and if they want live their lives accordingly, but state recognized marriage is not and has never been conditioned upon that, and rightly so, so there's nothing about this ruling that impacts anyone else's personal religious beliefs or liberty. It doesn't change marriage laws, which today have nothing to do with religion, it just adds gay couples to those protected by them in all 50 states, and rightly so.

Yes! Back to stopping illegal immigration, reducing legal immigration and securing our borders.

We need at least a 10 Year Moratorium on All Immigration and we need it now.

I have stayed neutral on this one, and I think I've done that fairly well. When I heard the Supremes' ruling using the Constitution to justify a narrow decision my thought was "Uh-huh, I can probably agree with that, but up until recently there were lots of very aged anti-sodomy laws on States law books." I cannot remember any attempts at enforcement other than rape and child molestation cases, but the laws existed. So, did the Supremes get it called as the Founders would have called it? I do not imagine we will know for sure, my belief is that they did not.

Are we repeating the Roman's history?

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Originally Posted by kevinssdad

I have stayed neutral on this one, and I think I've done that fairly well. When I heard the Supremes' ruling using the Constitution to justify a narrow decision my thought was "Uh-huh, I can probably agree with that, but up until recently there were lots of very aged anti-sodomy laws on States law books." I cannot remember any attempts at enforcement other than rape and child molestation cases, but the laws existed. So, did the Supremes get it called as the Founders would have called it? I do not imagine we will know for sure, my belief is that they did not.

Are we repeating the Roman's history?

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Well, this US Supreme Court Ruling isn't based upon the Original Constitution that was written by the Founders, it's based upon the 14th Amendment that was ratified in 1868 that guarantees every person under our jurisdiction, equal protection under the law and specifically prohibits laws by states that limit or restrict the immunities and privileges of citizens of the United States.

This case isn't about religion or churches or spiritual ceremonies. This case is about state marriage laws that recognize marriages for the purpose of state records and civil legal protections, which is the only purpose of a government-issued marriage license and a state-recognized marriage.

The reason most people want a state-recognized marriage is a) for the record b) legitimacy of children c) legal protections for marital property d) inheritances should a spouse pass away e) medical and death responsibilities, i. e. legal next of kin, none of which have anything at all to do with anyone's religious beliefs.

So, there are these laws pertaining to getting married in all the states. They're fairly simple. Age, license, fees, certificate of "I do", and in some states a gender requirement. Well, this is where it got messy. There is no gender exception in the 14th Amendment because such would defy the whole purpose of the 14th Amendment, the same as any other physical characteristic would do.

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Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

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Thus, the Supreme Court actually ruled in direct accordance with the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution today. And personally, I believe the Founders would be very proud of our Supreme Court today. Even though our original Constitution shouldn't have needed a 13th, 14th and 15th Amendment, the behavior of states expressed through their state legislative bodies and state courts proved certain matters could not be left up to common sense, intelligence or loyalty to the purpose and intent of our Declaration of Independence nor the wording of the Original Constitution, and thus had to be clarified with a picture drawn for them through these 3 Amendments to eliminate the lingering mis-notion of "freedom for me, but not for thee".

So surprisingly, the US Supreme Court did get it right today for the right reason, for the right purpose, based on the right clause of the right section of the right Amendment to the US Constitution. And shame, shame, shame on the other 4 silly tards who can't read a 3.5 line plain-language Equal Rights Amendment to the US Constitution and get it right.

And shame, shame, shame on all the political candidates and others who couldn't get it right either.

And all those "pastors", "ministers", "men of God", "messengers of God", and so on and so forth who think civil disobedience to violate the Equal Rights Amendment to the US Constitution is appropriate ... to hell with all of you stupid hypocrites that howl daily on protecting your own "religious" liberty under God to line your pockets, while cackling like a bunch of old hens to deny someone else their equal protection under the law.

Our Constitution is a beautiful thing, so magnificent in fact, that for some it's more than they bargained for, and those are the people who believe in "freedom for me, but not for thee." Sometimes this group rises to a level of power that enables them to use their positions to violate this beautiful document and through their stupidity and self-interest jeopardize their own liberty, and that of the rest of us, by trying to limit someone else's.

Perhaps our nation is evolving to more of what it was supposed to be. This week has been an important week, freedom for gay couples to marry so all the ugly hoopla against these really nice people will no longer be fashionable or profitable, and the initiative by South Carolina that triggered a multi-state effort to end the "flag thing" as at least one step to improving the lives of black Americans, and with that, all our lives.

Also, what a relief it is, as we head into the 2016 Elections, that the issue of gay marriage is off the table already covered by the highest rule of law in our land.

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Originally Posted by Judy

Marriage is a natural right, an inalienable right, which makes it a constitutional right, like freedom, liberty, justice, and equality, and is not conditioned upon religious beliefs. State recognized marriage has nothing to do with religious beliefs or even other personal beliefs on the subject. It's a matter of law, not God. Some people believe God chooses their mate for the purpose of procreation, and that's fine and they are free to believe what they want and if they want live their lives accordingly, but state recognized marriage is not and has never been conditioned upon that, and rightly so, so there's nothing about this ruling that impacts anyone else's personal religious beliefs or liberty. It doesn't change marriage laws, which today have nothing to do with religion, it just adds gay couples to those protected by them in all 50 states, and rightly so.

Yes! Back to stopping illegal immigration, reducing legal immigration and securing our borders.

We need at least a 10 Year Moratorium on All Immigration and we need it now.

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Elena Kagan 2009: “There is no federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage”

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Posted by William A. Jacobson Wednesday, June 24, 2015 at 4:00pm
That was then, this is now.

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Possibly as soon as Thursday morning, but certainly by early next week, we will know how the Supreme Court rules on the issue of whether denying same-sex couples the ability to marry violates the U.S. Constitution.
Lyle Denniston at ScotusBlog summarized the case as follows:

Taking on a historic constitutional challenge with wide cultural impact, the Supreme Court on Friday afternoon [January 16, 2015] agreed to hear four new cases on same-sex marriage. The Court said it would rule on the power of the states to ban same-sex marriages and to refuse to recognize such marriages performed in another state….
The Court fashioned the specific questions it is prepared to answer, but they closely tracked the two core constitutional issues that have led to a lengthy string of lower-court rulings striking down state bans. As of now, same-sex marriages are allowed in thirty-six states, with bans remaining in the other fourteen but all are under court challenge.
Although the Court said explicitly that it was limiting review to the two basic issues, along the way the Justices may have to consider what constitutional tests they are going to apply to state bans, and what weight to give to policies that states will claim to justify one or the other of the bans….

I hate trying to predict court rulings, but the political winds have changed dramatically the past few years, so if I had to bet, I’d bet that the ruling is 5-4 for gay marriage. [Warning – my bets tend to be counter-indicators.] Don’t think for a second that politics and public opinion doesn’t influence such historic cases.
I also expect Elena Kagan to be one of the five, based on her comments during oral argument, viaNY Times:

Justice Elena Kagan said allowing same-sex marriage would benefit children. “More adopted children and more marital households, whether same-sex or other-sex, seems to be a good thing,” she said.
Mr. Bursch said the bans he was defending did not discriminate based on sexual orientation, which left Justice Kagan puzzled.
“If you prevent people from wearing yarmulkes,” she said, “you know, that’s discrimination against Jews.”…
Near the conclusion of the first argument, Justice Kagan indicated that she hoped the Supreme Court would find a right to same-sex marriage. She said the court has a role in protecting minorities even when majorities made their views known at the polls.
“We don’t live in a pure democracy,” she said. “We live in a constitutional democracy.”

So, before the decision is released, it’s worth revisiting Kagan’s 2009 testimony before the Senate during confirmation hearings on her nomination to be Solicitor General.
In the course of that testimony, Kagan stated:

“There is no federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage”

I came under some criticism in May 2010, when Kagan was nominated for the Supreme Court, for taking Kagan at her word. Claims were made that I took the sentence out of context, was naive, or shamefully deceptive. I’ll plead guilty to being naive, but I didn’t take her sentence out of context, shamefully or otherwise. Matt Vespa’s 2013 post at PJ Media summarizes the back and forth.
Here is the first part of Kagan’s testimony, with context by me:

In response to a question from Sen. John Cornyn (at page 28 of her Senate Judiciary Questionnaire), Kagan stated flat out that there was no constitutional right for same sex couples to marry (emphasis mine):

1. As Solicitor General, you would be charged with defending the Defense of Marriage Act. That law, as you may know, was enacted by overwhelming majorities of both houses of Congress (85-14 in the Senate and 342-67 in the House) in 1996 and signed into law by President Clinton.
a. Given your rhetoric about the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy—you called it “a profound wrong—a moral injustice of the first order”—let me ask this basic question: Do you believe that there is a federal constitutional right to samesex marriage?
Answer: There is no federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage.
b. Have you ever expressed your opinion whether the federal Constitution should be read to confer a right to same-sex marriage? If so, please provide details.
Answer: I do not recall ever expressing an opinion on this question.

This doesn’t mean that Kagan opposes gay marriage. But she clearly believes it is a matter for the political process, not a constitutional right.

More context was provided by a letter from Kagan to the Senate Judiciary Committee, again with context by me:

In a March 18, 2009 letter (embedded below, at pp. 11-12), which is not publicly available but which Whelan kindly provided to me, Kagan supplemented her written answers at the request of Arlen Specter. Here is the language in the letter seized upon by my critics to show that Kagan really didn’t mean what she said, and really just was opining as to the current state of the law:

Constitutional rights are a product of constitutional text as interpreted by courts and understood by the nation’s citizenry and its elected representatives. By this measure, which is the best measure I know for determining whether a constitutional right exists, there is no federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

These sentences do make it seem as if Kagan walked away from her prior written statement that “[t]here is no federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage.”
But these sentences are not the full supplemental response. Immediately preceding these sentences was the following language:

I previously answered this question briefly, but (I had hoped) clearly, saying that “[t]here is no federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage.” I meant for this statement to bear its natural meaning.

When the full supplemental statement by Kagan is read in context, there is nothing to suggest that Kagan was walking away from her written statement that there is no federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

In further defense of my reading of her testimony, I wrote:

The question, unlike many other questions in the questionnaire, was not focused on the current state of the law. The question was what Kagan believed.
The unambiguous nature of the answer also was clear because Kagan did not decline to answer, as she did in the following question seeking her opinion as to Massachusetts law; in that latter question Kagan said “I have never studied the Massachusetts Constitution, judicial interpretations of that document, or the SJC’s decision, so I do not have an informed view.”
For Kagan to take the position that her answer left open the possibility that she merely was making a statement as to the present state of the law as to gay marriage, and not what she believed, would represent a clear deception.
A more innocent explanation could be excused if this answer was given at a live hearing, in which the specific wording of the question may not have been clear in the context of the hearing room.
But these were written answers to written questions, and Kagan was extremely careful in each and every one of her answers. Kagan could have couched her answer in terms of the current state of the law, but she did not.
If Kagan pulls an “it depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is” in explaining her answer, that would tell us far more about whether she should be confirmed than the substance of her position on gay marriage.
I prefer to believe that Kagan understood the plain wording of the question, and that the plain wording of her answer was what it was.
I look forward to the hearings on this issue.

Unfortunately, the issue never came up during Kagan’s confirmation hearings to be a Supreme Court Justice.
I know, 2009 was then, this is now.
Then she was a nominee for Solicitor General, now she is an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Then she was bound to follow the law, now she gets to make it.
Then supporting gay marriage may have sunk her nomination, now public opinion has shifted.
As the Bob Dylan song goes, “for the times, they are evolving.”
All that being said, it is difficult to reconcile Kagan’s full testimony on the issue during her 2009 confirmation hearings for Solicitor General with what we all expect to happen in the next few days, a vote by Kagan to find a “federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage.”

http://legalinsurrection.com/2015/06...-sex-marriage/

Analysis Antonin Scalia's dissent in same-sex marriage ruling even more scornful than usual


http://www.trbimg.com/img-558db75e/t.../1100/1100x619In his dissent in the Supreme Court's same-sex marriage decision, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, seen here in 2011, showed contempt for his colleagues.
(Manuel Balce Ceneta / Associated Press)



By TIMOTHY M. PHELPS contact the reporter

• Same-Sex Marriage
• Antonin Scalia
• U.S. Supreme Court
• Anthony Kennedy

The legal world may have become inured to wildly rhetorical opinions by Justice Antonin Scalia, but his dissent in the Supreme Court's same-sex marriage decision Friday reaches new heights for its expression of utter contempt for the majority of his colleagues.
In the course of just nine pages, Scalia calls the opinion of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, with whom he has served on the court for 28 years, “a judicial Putsch,” “pretentious,” “egotistic,” “silly,” and filled with “straining-to-be-memorable passages.”
http://www.trbimg.com/img-558dff68/t...ve/300/300x169Supreme Court rules on same-sex marriage: Joy, defiance and questions result

“This is a naked judicial claim to legislative — indeed, super-legislative — power; a claim fundamentally at odds with our system of government,” Scalia wrote. “A system of government that makes the people subordinate to a committee of nine unelected lawyers does not deserve to be called a democracy.”
In unusually personal terms, even for Scalia, he mocked Kennedy’s opening sentence.


“If, even as the price to be paid for a fifth vote, I ever joined an opinion for the court that began: ‘The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity,’ I would hide my head in a bag,” Scalia wrote in a footnote. “The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of [legendary former Chief Justice] John Marshall and [former Justice] Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie.”
In arguing that the court had usurped the right of states and citizens to decide the matter themselves, Scalia said the decision eroded the nation’s very democracy.
http://www.trbimg.com/img-558d9229/t...26/300/300x169Gay marriage affirmed amid an eloquent battle of words and visions

“Today’s decree says that my ruler, and the ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. The opinion in these cases is the furthest extension in fact — and the furthest extension one can even imagine — of the court’s claimed power to create 'liberties' that the Constitution and its amendments neglect to mention.”
In what seems like an attack on the very institution of the court, Scalia derides its makeup, including where the justices studied, where they go to church, where they come from — all by way of saying they have no right to make social decisions for the population.
cComments

• "Scalia said the decision eroded the nation’s very democracy." From a guy who decided that dark money meant to buy presidential elections is "free speech."
  MICK SNYDER
  AT 11:24 PM JUNE 26, 2015

ADD A COMMENTSEE ALL COMMENTS

27




“Take, for example, this court, which consists of only nine men and women, all of them successful lawyers who studied at Harvard or Yale Law School. Four of the nine are natives of New York City. Eight of them grew up in east- and west-coast States. Only one hails from the vast expanse in-between. Not a single south-westerner or even, to tell the truth, a genuine Westerner (California [where Kennedy hails from] does not count). Not a single evangelical Christian (a group that comprises about one quarter of Americans), or even a Protestant of any denomination. The strikingly unrepresentative character of the body voting on today’s social upheaval would be irrelevant if they were functioning as judges .... But of course the justices in today’s majority are not voting on that basis.”
http://www.trbimg.com/img-558dbf4f/t...26/300/300x169Same-sex marriage ruling creates new constitutional liberty

Scalia does not let personal relationships get in the way of a barbed zinger when he is upset. His closest friend on the court is Ruth Bader Ginsburg, with whom he has served as a judge for 33 years. They often vacation and celebrate holidays together. It mattered not that she too joined Kennedy’s much derided opinion.
“To allow the policy question of same-sex marriage to be considered and resolved by a select, patrician, highly unrepresentative panel of nine is to violate a principle even more fundamental than no taxation without representation: no social transformation without representation,” Scalia wrote.


“The opinion is couched in a style that is as pretentious as its content is egotistic. It is one thing for separate concurring or dissenting opinions to contain extravagances, even silly extravagances, of thought and expression; it is something else for the official opinion of the court to do so. Of course the opinion’s showy profundities are often profoundly incoherent.”
At the end of his opinion Scalia warns darkly that such opinions could somehow bring the court down.
“Hubris is sometimes defined as o’erweening pride; and pride, we know, goeth before a fall. With each decision of ours that takes from the people a question properly left to them ... we move one step closer to being reminded of our impotence,” Scalia wrote.



http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-...626-story.html

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“Today’s decree says that my ruler, and the ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. The opinion in these cases is the furthest extension in fact — and the furthest extension one can even imagine — of the court’s claimed power to create 'liberties' that the Constitution and its amendments neglect to mention.”
In what seems like an attack on the very institution of the court, Scalia derides its makeup, including where the justices studied, where they go to church, where they come from — all by way of saying they have no right to make social decisions for the population.

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Quote:

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“To allow the policy question of same-sex marriage to be considered and resolved by a select, patrician, highly unrepresentative panel of nine is to violate a principle even more fundamental than no taxation without representation: no social transformation without representation,” Scalia wrote.

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At the end of his opinion Scalia warns darkly that such opinions could somehow bring the court down.
“Hubris is sometimes defined as o’erweening pride; and pride, we know, goeth before a fall. With each decision of ours that takes from the people a question properly left to them ... we move one step closer to being reminded of our impotence,” Scalia wrote.

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Poor Scalia. To write such a dissenting opinion with words like this, clearly shows something besides his job propelled him.

"social" issues include the basic rights of Americans. "social" issues are the fundamental reason for our Constitution to have a Bill of Rights, the 13th, 14th, 15th and 19th Amendments. We are a free nation of free people based on our Declaration of Independence. Government doesn't hand out freedom, because we are born with it, government only takes it away. States have been renowned for taking it away from enslaving blacks to discriminating against them, and women and yes, gays.

The US Supreme Court has rarely understood this for American citizens. And it's a tragedy that will long be remembered, because to use Scalia's term, their impotence in protecting the freedom and rights of our citizens has usually fallen to the Court's overwhelming loyalty to government instead of to the people they're paid to protect. Scalia, an old authoritarian fart tat this point, believes the Constitution "creates liberties". No, the purpose of the Constitution is to protect liberties that already exist. He's under the illusion that the only rights we have are those specifically stated in the document, overlooking one of the most important, crucial clauses in the 9th and 10th Amendments:

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Amendment IX


The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

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Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

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This time they got it right and put the freedom of American citizens above the tyranny of discrimination-infested state governments.

When the Court does get it right, as it did in this case, it's a rare occurrence, when it should be a common every day occurrence.

Before this court ruling, 37 states had already protected the rights of gay couples to marry, an overwhelming majority of our states. On this issue, the states and the people of those states took the lead to resolve this discrimination and the minority of 13 states still practicing this discrimination have been over-ruled by the highest rule of law in our land.

It's a great day for gays and for the rest of US because while discrimination affects its targets the most, its existence is a dark cloud of harm and injustice that diminishes US all.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/26/politi...nge/index.html

The week that changed the nation

By Stephen Collinson, CNN
Updated 7:02 AM ET, Sat June 27, 2015


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Celebrations at the Supreme Court after marriage ruling 01:32

Washington (CNN)The times, they are a changing, suddenly at whiplash speed.

After a momentous week, same-sex couples can now marry in all 50 states, the Confederate flag's historic hold on the political institutions of the Deep South is fraying by the hour and Obamacare, after defying another attempt to dismantle it, is now reaffirmed as the law of the land.

And as a capstone to these seismic events, the first black president of the United States spent Friday afternoon singing "Amazing Grace" on live television in front of an African American congregation.

Political and social conventions on civil rights and race relations that for decades have seemed immovable are being swept away in a cascade of grass-roots change. Politicians have been left struggling to keep up.

"Progress on this journey often comes in small increments," President Barack Obama said Friday, arguing that the task of each generation is to honor the Constitution's guarantee of equal rights as the times change.

"(It's) sometimes two steps forward, one step back, compelled by the persistent effort of dedicated citizens," he said, describing the process of transformational political change around which he has built his political career.

"And then sometimes there are days like this, when that slow, steady effort is rewarded with justice that arrives like a thunderbolt," Obama said, moments after the Supreme Court delivered its historic decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide.

The pace of change is bewildering to some political figures, activists and candidates. In the case of the Confederate flag and gay rights, the shifts are happening despite politicians and not because of them: Federal and state leaders are simply being overtaken by the people on several key issues.

But the swift torrent of change no doubt has far-reaching political implications.

After speaking about the historic gay rights ruling, Obama climbed aboard Air Force One to head to South Carolina for his final duty of an emotionally draining week, the funeral of Pastor Clementa Pinckney, the most prominent of the nine people killed in Charleston massacre.
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Obama sings 'Amazing Grace' during eulogy for pastor 01:44

He turned on the political theatrics again, delivering a eulogy that turned into a moving sermon on race, the experience of being black and the power of faith. Before an enthralled congregation, Obama embraced his status as the first African American president as never before, calling for action to counter discrimination. It was a fitting end to a historic week, as it showed Obama had shed his former reticence to talk about race -- and the nation may not look on its president quite the same way again.

"We talk a lot about race ... we don't need more talk," Obama said, adopting the cadences of a preacher, condemning employment discrimination and the attitude that results in someone being told "call Johnny back for a job interview but not Jamal."

Then, in what will surely become one of the iconic moments of his presidency, Obama paused before hitting the first notes of the hymn "Amazing Grace," with the organist providing backup and the congregation joining in -- a moment of joy amid sorrow.

Tharon Johnson, a Georgia political consultant who ran Obama's southern campaign in 2012, said the president, who referred to church as a place for African Americans to call "our own" and who used the 'N-word' in a podcast that went viral on Monday to argue racism was not dead, was speaking to multiple audiences.

"Today, President Obama not only spoke as the president of the United States, but he was able to articulate a healing and soothing message to the predominantly African American audience. There was no other person that could have given that eulogy. His singing of 'Amazing Grace' was epic."

Kareem Crayton, a University of North Carolina law professor, said Obama's speech was the finest of his presidency.

"I think what we saw today was what a black man who served in the nation's top office for six years sees when he looks out on America. You heard in the words the emotion, the sense of where we are and what we have to do," he said.

Even before Obama's appearance in Charleston, the events of the last five days were likely to have far-reaching political implications.

Friday's 5-4 Supreme Court ruling giving same-sex couples the right to marry nationwide was just the latest development that appears to boost liberals and challenge conservatives determined to preserve traditional values.

It provided an immediate test for Republican presidential candidates a day after the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act, the centerpiece of Obama's domestic legacy, which the GOP is still vowing to overturn.

The gay rights decision seemed to trap Republican leaders between the conservative attitude on social issues that is vital to their political base and the widening acceptance of gay rights among more moderate voters that the court's judgment seems to reflect.

"The Supreme Court has spoken with a very divided voice on something only the Supreme Being can do -- redefine marriage," said 2016 Republican candidate Mike Huckabee, siding immediately with evangelicals in the conservative base.

"I will not acquiesce to an imperial court any more than our Founders acquiesced to an imperial British monarch," Huckabee said. "We must resist and reject judicial tyranny, not retreat."

And Florida Sen. Marco Rubio offered the first hints of a conservative fight, placing the future ideological direction of the Supreme Court -- and the likelihood that the next president will have the chance to replace several aging justices -- at the center of the 2016 campaign.

"As we look ahead, it must be a priority of the next president to nominate judges and justices committed to applying the Constitution as written and originally understood," Rubio said in a statement.

And despite the forest of gay rights activists' rainbow flags that overwhelmed the marble plaza in front of the Supreme Court Friday, there are signs this battle in the culture wars will not be abandoned just yet — especially with possible Supreme Court cases on issues like abortion looming in the near future.

Chief Justice John Roberts, in his dissent to the majority court ruling, complained that "five lawyers" -- namely his colleagues on the highest bench in the land -- had taken it upon themselves to redefine the institution of marriage as it had been accepted by multiple civilizations throughout history.

"Celebrate today's decision. Do not celebrate the Constitution, it has nothing to do with it," said Roberts in the waspish conclusion to his dissent.

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Should Confederate history be taken down from the U.S. Capitol? 01:25

Kerri Kupec of the Alliance Defending Freedom picked up Roberts's contention that the court's decision had cut off a democratic process through which people were weighing in on gay marriage in elections and state ballot initiatives.

"I think we are heading into uncharted territory with respect towards regards religious freedom," Kupec told CNN, arguing that the marriage ruling called into question the right of people to view the institution in accordance with their faith.

Another example of people power outpacing politicians is unfolding in South Carolina following the massacre.

Just over a week ago, Republican political leaders were arguing that the fate of the Confederate flag, which is revered by some white supremacist groups, was a matter for the states alone. But that position quickly became unsustainable.

Within days, spurred by an outpouring of support for victims of the alleged hate crime, South Carolina Republican Gov. Nikki Haley joined other prominent local GOP leaders in calling on the legislature to remove the flag from state property.

Similar calls came from leaders elsewhere in the South, as major corporations like Walmart announced they would stop selling Confederate Flag merchandise.

While the events of a dizzying week will have a broad impact for decades to come, they also represent an important, personal boost for Obama, who continues to defy expectations that he is a lame duck as his second term enters its twilight years.

While the administration did not bring the case that rewrote the law on gay marriage, it did side with the plantiffs -- allowing the White House to argue it is on the right side of history.

Even before Friday, Obama was celebrating a stunning week in which the Supreme Court in a 6-3 ruling rejected a second legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act and Republicans, who have often thwarted the president's agenda, worked with him to secure fast-track authority to negotiate trade agreements, including a legacy-boosting pan-Pacific pact.

Next up is the prospect of a nuclear deal with Iran, as U.S. negotiators head to Europe to try to clinch a final agreement that would represent a striking, if partial, break with more than 30 years of visceral hostility between Washington and Tehran.

And there can be little doubt that Obama, after a presidency marred by political polarization in Washington and successive economic and foreign policy crises, views this roller coaster week as confirmation of his own belief in the power of people to defy the inertia stifling their political institutions, whether they be equal marriage campaigners seeking the basic right to wed or prayerful congregants in South Carolina offering mercy to a killer.

"What a vindication of the belief that ordinary people can do extraordinary things," he said after Friday's Supreme Court ruling, which came after years of campaigning by gay rights activists. "What a reminder of what Bobby Kennedy once said, about how small actions can be like pebbles being thrown into a still lake, and ripples of hope cascade outwards and change the world."

Mike Huckabee: Conservatives can ignore gay marriage ruling like Lincoln ignored Dred Scott

http://twt-thumbs.washtimes.com/medi...1a2b4b5d0f3148
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. (Associated Press) ** FILE ** more >

By Valerie Richardson - The Washington Times - Saturday, June 27, 2015

DENVER — Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee suggested Saturday that conservatives treat the Supreme Court’s gay marriage decision like Abraham Lincoln treated the high court’s pro-slavery ruling in Dred Scott: Ignore it.

“They can do same thing that Abraham Lincoln did about the Dred Scott decision of 1857,” Mr. Huckabee said at the Western Conservative Summit. “The Dred Scott decision said that African-Americans were not fully human, that they need not be treated as fully human.”

“He [Lincoln] simply ignored the ruling and said, ‘That’s not correct,’ ” Mr. Huckabee said. “And by the way, it may sound like, ‘Oh, that’s an extreme position.’ Actually, it’s a constitutional position. Here’s why: If we acquiesce immediately without review, without the other branches of government, it goes back to my point, that this is judicial tyranny.”

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SEE ALSO: Jim Inhofe: My gay friends thought Supreme Court marriage ruling was bad

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He also said he wanted to warn his liberal friends — “both of them,” he joked — that an activist court can swing the other way.
When that happens, “I hope they remember their jubilation,” Mr. Huckabee said.

The Republican presidential hopeful and former Fox News host took a jab at President Obama for reversing his past opposition to same-sex marriage.

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SEE ALSO: Rick Santorum blasts Supreme Court’s gay marriage ruling as ‘based on a lie’

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“If he has so radically changed his view and now he believes that same-sex marriage is the best thing that could happen to this country, one of three things is true: He was either lying in 2008, he’s lying now, or God rewrote the Bible and Barack Obama is the only one who got the new edition,” Mr. Huckabee said to applause and laughter.

Mr. Huckabee is one of six would-be GOP presidential nominees scheduled to speak at the three-day conference hosted by the Centennial Institute at the Colorado Convention Center.

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...#ixzz3eIWDJYYt

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Originally Posted by Judy

. . . Also, what a relief it is, as we head into the 2016 Elections, that the issue of gay marriage is off the table already covered by the highest rule of law in our land.

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10 LGBT fights the Supreme Court could hear next

by Jorge Rivas | June 26, 2015 11:47 AM

Worker discrimination laws for LGBT workers

Housing discrimination laws

Adoption refusal laws

Gay conversion therapy

“Show Your Papers to Pee” bills

Keeping bias out of public schools

Rights for incarcerated LGBT people

Laws that criminalize HIV

Incarcerating LGBT immigrants

“Religious freedom” laws

Same-sex couples to get big Social Security bonus

Robert Powell, Special for USA TODAY3:45 p.m. EDT June 26, 2015

The Supreme Court's ruling on whether same-sex marriages should be recognized will have wide-ranging economic impacts for same-sex couples. Time

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(Photo: Carlos Osorio, AP)


Heterosexual married couples have long been able to use Social Security claiming strategies — such as file and suspend, and restricted claim — to maximize their household's benefits.

But since Friday's historic Supreme Court decision recognizing same-sex partners' marriages as a constitutional right, those couples will be able to use the same benefit-boosting strategies — including benefits for spouses, ex-spouses and survivors of deceased workers — as straight married couples.

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USA TODAY
Supreme Court strikes down bans on same-sex marriage

And the financial benefits could be immense, according to a report by Financial Engines, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based investment advisory firm. In fact, the ruling could add anywhere from $20,000 to more than $250,000 in lifetime benefits to same-sex couples, says Christopher Jones, chief investment officer at Financial Engines.

Others agree.
From a Social Security-claiming perspective, "these unions ... will be no different than traditional marriages," says Stephen Stellhorn, president and CEO of MSM Capital Management in Tampa. "The rules of Social Security and the benefits it provides will apply to both spouses as well as any children they may have. And not understanding the basics of Social Security could cause you to leave thousands of dollars on the table over your lifetime."

In a case study, Financial Engines examined how much in additional benefits one same-sex couple would be eligible for.
In one scenario, Financial Engines profiles a fictitious couple — Henry, age 64, (current salary $80,000), and Logan, age 62 (who has had a lower-paying job interrupted by taking several years off). If Henry dies at 84 and Logan dies at 90 they would receive total Social Security benefits of $797,280 as two single people if they start collecting benefits at ages 64 and 62.

But if Henry and Logan claim Social Security as a married couple, their lifetime benefits would grow to $938,112, an increase of $140,832. That's because Logan can now receive spousal and survivor benefits based on Henry's higher earnings history.

And if Henry and Logan optimize when they claim Social Security they would get more than $1.1 million, some $202,176 more than if they claimed at ages 64 and 62.

How would they do that? With the "file-and-suspend" claiming strategy. According to Jones, Henry, at age 68, would file for earned benefits and immediately suspend — not take — them. That would let Logan receive spousal benefits while Henry's earned benefits continue to grow. At 66, Logan files for spousal benefits, but also files a restricted application to exclude earned benefits. At 70, Henry starts collecting earned benefits. And at 70, Logan switches to earned benefits.

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USA TODAY
First Take: Kennedy's the key to unlocking door to gay marriage


So given all that, what advice do experts have for same-sex couples?

Learn what's at stake. Same-sex married couples should learn what Social Security benefits are available to them and start analyzing how to optimize their household's overall benefits, says Jones.

Visit the government's website. Visit the Social Security Administration's website for same-sex couples: ssa.gov/people/same-sexcouples/. That site offers information about Social Security, Supplemental Security Income and surviving spouse claims.

Don't rely only on Social Security. Kurt Czarnowski of Czarnowski Consulting in Norfolk, Mass., says he would give any married couple the same advice: "Recognize that Social Security provides a base of financial protection that was never intended to be someone's sole source of income in retirement."

Use the planning tools that are available to help understand what Social Security will provide, and then take steps to supplement what the program will provide. For the average worker, the Social Security payment is only intended to replace about 40% of pre-retirement earnings.

Keep on working. According to Czarnowski, Social Security retirement benefits are calculated by averaging someone's highest-earning 35 years of work — regardless of when they occur.

"As long as someone continues to work and pay into the system, and their earnings are higher than the lowest of the 35 years that Social Security had been using to calculate their benefit, then the person's benefit will increase," he says.

"And after full retirement age, work never hurts, because additional earnings at a low amount will not cause a reduction in the benefit amount."

Robert Powell is editor of Retirement Weekly, contributes regularly to USA TODAY, The Wall Street Journal and MarketWatch. Got questions about money? Email Bob at rpowell@allthingsretirement.com.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/...rity/28699323/

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Conservative groups have been bracing for the ruling for months—developing legal strategies to carve out religious exemptions and ramping up fundraising to pay for them. Those groups said they expect to continue to fight for religious exemptions from legal mandates to accept same-sex marriage in courts, at the federal level, and state by state.

Catholic bishops and Southern Baptists are throwing their support behind federal legislation introduced last week that would ban the federal government from revoking tax-exempt status or otherwise penalizing religiously affiliated organizations, like schools, over a refusal to accept same-sex couples.
“The decision makes it all the more important that Congress move to protect the religious liberty of those who believe in traditional marriage,” said U.S. Rep. Raul Labrador, a Republican from Idaho who introduced the legislation, known as the First Amendment Defense Act.

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Giggles. Oh yes, it's all about that 501 C 3 tax deduction for "fundraising" isn't it? What a bunch of hypocrites. Now tell me please why I should pay more federal taxes so you buffoons can raise tax free money using my money to make up the difference? You want religious liberty? That means paying your own way to have it.

Pass the FairTax and put an end to this 501 C 3 tax fraud scam.

Conservative Republicans question what's next after gay marriage ruling

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By Andy Sullivan1 hour ago

Related Stories

1. Gay marriage a done deal as political issue? Not so fast Christian Science Monitor
2. Republican Presidential Candidates Criticize Supreme Court Same-Sex Marriage Ruling Huffington Post
3. U.S. evangelicals draw battle lines against same-sex marriage Reuters
4. Gay Marriage Ruling Ends U.S. Debate, Unlike Health Care MarketWatch
5. Q&A: What the Supreme Court's gay marriage ruling means Associated Press

DENVER (Reuters) - While some Republican presidential candidates urged action to counter the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling legalizing gay marriage, grassroots activists at a conservative conference this weekend said they preferred to focus on limiting the damage.

Several presidential hopefuls at the Western Conservative Summit in the swing state of Colorado called for constitutional amendments or civil disobedience to turn back the Court's landmark ruling on Friday.

But Christian conservatives who have been on the front lines of a battle to stop the advance of gay marriage indicated it was time to cut their losses. Rather, they would prefer to ensure that the ruling would not restrict their ability to practice their religion as they saw fit.

"Our first response is moving at a federal and state level to protect religious freedom," said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a Christian conservative group. "You have to secure your base camp."

The calls for action against the ruling came from presidential candidates keen to show their conservative credentials as they compete in a crowded Republican field for the party nomination for the November 2016 election.

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum blamed his fellow Republicans for not banning gay marriage nationwide, as he tried to do a decade ago in Congress.

"We have been bullied into silence," Santorum said on Friday. "We're losing because we're not trying to win."

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee said states that disagreed with the decision could prevent it from taking effect, even though conservative states like Texas and Kentucky began issuing same-sex marriage licenses after Friday's ruling.

Civil disobedience is also an option, Huckabee said.

"In all of our lives there comes moments where have to decide whether we obey God or we obey a decision we believe is unlawful," he said.

'LIVE AND LET LIVE'
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, a likely presidential candidate who was due to speak at the conference later on Saturday, wants a constitutional amendment to let states decide whether or not to legalize gay marriage. Texas Senator Ted Cruz said in Iowa on Saturday that the constitution should be amended so voters could recall Supreme Court justices.

Those ideas would seem to find fertile ground at the Western Conservative Summit, where attendees can find pamphlets advertising "conversion therapy" for gays and lesbians.

But the head of the group that organized the conference said that while many people attending are disappointed by the ruling, they respect the right of gays and lesbians to live their lives.

"Live and let live has been said repeatedly, and that is part of the genius of America," John Andrews, director of the conservative Centennial Institute, told Reuters.

Some said the ruling was irrelevant so long as it did not interfere with their religion.

"Our federal laws will be enforced now for a little while, but God's law will be enforced eternally by the one who will judge us all in the end," Colorado state representative Gordon Klingenschmitt told Reuters.

The head of a Republican gay rights group that was denied a booth at the conference said his party should stop fighting a battle it has already lost.

"Now this is the law of the land, what can we do to ensure that there is religious freedom for all and there is equality of marriage under the law for all?" said George Gramer, president of the Colorado Log Cabin Republicans.

Others said their party should move on entirely.

"The gays aren't trying to take away our country," said retiree Carol Beckler, a former state legislature candidate.

"They're good people."

http://news.yahoo.com/conservative-r...013722006.html

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Others said their party should move on entirely.

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Absolutely. There is no basis for our party to be opposed to same sex marriage. If we have members who disagree with same sex marriage, then they are free not to participate in same sex marriage, they are free to live their lives as they are. This ruling doesn't affect anyone except gay couples who were deprived in 13 states of being able to marry their partner. Now they can, and that's the way it should be in our little land of liberty.

The obsession with this liberty by members of our Republican Party makes no sense. There is nothing to fear, there is no harm that will come to you, there is no impact at all on you, so why in the world do you want to create divide, tension, hatred, discrimination and threaten becoming lawbreakers yourselves to try to stop something that has no impact or effect on you? It makes no sense.

Candidate Donald Trump talks immigration, gay marriage and ISIS

By Eugene Scott, CNN
Updated 10:15 AM ET, Sun June 28, 2015
| Video Source:CNN

Washington (CNN)Presidential candidate Donald Trump touched on a wide range of issues in an interview aired Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union," including his continued support for traditional marriage, immigration issues with Mexico and his desire to bring outsourced jobs back to the U.S.Trump's recent comments on undocumented immigrants from Mexico has led to Univision deciding not to air the Miss Universe pageant, which is co-owned by Trump and NBC Universal. Trump has since said he intends to sue Univision.

On Sunday, Trump doubled-down on his plan to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border.

"I like Mexico. I love the Mexican people. I do business with the Mexican people, but you have people coming through the border that are from all over. And they're bad. They're really bad," he told CNN's Jake Tapper.

"You have people coming in, and I'm not just saying Mexicans, I'm talking about people that are from all over that are killers and rapists and they're coming into this country," he maintained.

RELATED: Jeb Bush touts record on guns

The real estate mogul revisited his socially conservative views on abortion and marriage with awareness that they are difficult for many to understand given his personal history.

"I'm (for) traditional marriage," he said.
When asked how Trump reconciles the notion of "traditional marriage" with his personal history of being married three times and divorced twice, Trump conceded the point.

"I have a good wife now," Trump said. "My (first) two wives were very good. And I don't blame them, but I was working ... 22 hours a day."

Trump, who in his presidential announcement said he'd be the "best jobs president that God ever created," emphasized the need to get more Americans back to work.

"You have to bring in jobs, you have to take the jobs back from China, you have to take the jobs back from Mexico," he said.

But he argued that producing his own brand's clothing in China doesn't make him hypocritical on outsourcing.

"They've manipulated their currency to such a point that it's impossible for our companies to compete with them," he said. "It's very, very hard to have anything in apparel made in this country."

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam...xlarge-169.jpg

Real estate mogul and billionaire Donald Trump attends golf legend Jack Nicklaus' Congressional Gold Medal ceremony on March 24, 2015, in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. Trump announced on March 18 that he has launched a presidential exploratory committee.

"I don't care about the government of Iraq. They're corrupt. The government of Iraq is totally corrupt," he said.

But Trump maintains he's a serious candidate.

"It's something that I've looked at over the years, I looked at it very seriously, as you know, four years ago," he said.

Trump has surprised some by polling second behind former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in a recent CNN/WMUR New Hampshire Primary poll.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/28/politi...marriage-2016/

Mike Huckabee Expects Civil Disobedience in Response to Gay Marriage Ruling

Jun 28, 2015, 12:00 PM ET
By BEN GITTLESON
BEN GITTLESON Assignment Editor

http://a.abcnews.com/images/Politics...5_16x9_992.jpg
Mike Huckabee: Supreme Court Case Was About 'Marriage Redefinition'
NEXT VIDEOHow Will Supreme Court Decisions Change 2016 Race?


Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee suggested Sunday that Christians opposed to the Supreme Court's ruling in favor of gay marriage will carry out civil disobedience in response to it -- and that, if elected president, he might put up a nativity on the White House lawn.

"I don't think a lot of pastors and Christian schools are going to have a choice," the a former governor of Arkansas and Baptist minister said on ABC's "This Week." "They either are going to follow God, their conscience, and what they truly believe is what the scripture teaches them or they will follow civil law."

The Supreme Court ruled Friday in a 5-4 decision that gay and lesbian couples had a constitutional right to marry.

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Huckabee, who has long opposed gay marriage, said Christian business owners, university presidents and school administrators could be inspired by how Martin Luther King Jr. pushed back during the civil rights movement, and that county clerks shouldn't have to carry out the Court's decision and issue marriage licenses for same-sex couples.

"If they have a conscientious objection, I think they should be excused," he said.

Huckabee stopped short of saying that, as president, he would refuse to enforce the ruling, explaining he would wait to respond to any "enabling legislation" Congress passed.

"I'm not sure that every governor and every attorney general should just say, 'Well, it's the law of the land,' because there's no enabling legislation," he said.

Huckabee also took issue with the rainbow-colored lights that lit up the White House on Friday night.

"If I become president, I just want to remind people, that please don't complain if I were to put a nativity scene out during Christmas and say, 'You know, if it's my house, I get to do with it what I wish despite what other people around the country may feel about it,'" he said.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/mike-...ry?id=32080744

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Originally Posted by Judy

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Absolutely. There is no basis for our party to be opposed to same sex marriage. If we have members who disagree with same sex marriage, then they are free not to participate in same sex marriage, they are free to live their lives as they are. This ruling doesn't affect anyone except gay couples who were deprived in 13 states of being able to marry their partner. Now they can, and that's the way it should be in our little land of liberty.

The obsession with this liberty by members of our Republican Party makes no sense. There is nothing to fear, there is no harm that will come to you, there is no impact at all on you, so why in the world do you want to create divide, tension, hatred, discrimination and threaten becoming lawbreakers yourselves to try to stop something that has no impact or effect on you? It makes no sense.

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I gotta agree. I support same sex marriage, just not how it was accomplished.

My issue is that the SCOTUS is redefining the Constitution to include things it was never intended to. This is the real threat and the liberals used Gay Marriage which most Americans support to make a new precedent that its fine for the SCOTUS to just change a law as it see's fit to include new agenda's. However I am betting that if in 2008, 2009, 2010 if there was a bill to legalize same sex marriage it would have passed with strong bi-partisan support except from a few who hail from extreme religious states. But it was never attempted even before DOMA was thrown down because this was all about winning future elections and establishing a precedent that allows the SCOTUS to simply redefine the Constitution as it wants. I'm a believer the Constitution is a written dead document. Any living part is only through Amendments.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ReformUSA2012

I gotta agree. I support same sex marriage, just not how it was accomplished.

My issue is that the SCOTUS is redefining the Constitution to include things it was never intended to. This is the real threat and the liberals used Gay Marriage which most Americans support to make a new precedent that its fine for the SCOTUS to just change a law as it see's fit to include new agenda's. However I am betting that if in 2008, 2009, 2010 if there was a bill to legalize same sex marriage it would have passed with strong bi-partisan support except from a few who hail from extreme religious states. But it was never attempted even before DOMA was thrown down because this was all about winning future elections and establishing a precedent that allows the SCOTUS to simply redefine the Constitution as it wants. I'm a believer the Constitution is a written dead document. Any living part is only through Amendments.

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I understand that some people don't like to see our courts used to protect civil rights, and they usually don't, but that is the whole purpose of our Constitution and the Courts it created with regards to our citizens, and in particular the 14th Amendment.

Civil rights aren't addressed without people demanding them, and that is how courts are used. They don't unilaterally dictate anything, and they usually refuse to review cases, but when they do review cases, it's part of due process of law under the Constitution in response to someone or a group of people bringing the abuse to the attention of the courts to correct.

People who are opposed to civil rights call that "judicial activism" when the courts rule in favor of the victims of civil rights abuse, but no, it's not activism, it's their job, and one they rarely fulfill. This time they did, and good for them. We don't want federal laws governing marriage or anything like that. It should be left up to states to decide such things along with a host of other matters, but our States are bound by the US Constitution and the foundation upon which it is based including the Declaration of Independence, which is all people are created equal with due process of law, liberty, justice and equal protection under the law.

So when states pass laws or Constitutional provisions that don't meet those simple standards, those state laws are unconstitutional under the US Constitution, and have always been so. It's not the courts or the Constitution that change, it's our people who over-time get fed up with being mistreated, abused and discriminated against, and decide to take legal action. It takes years of cases, suits, money and effort to get a civil rights case to the US Supreme Court, secure a review, and then win a ruling.

Everyone needs to remember that the primary obligation and duty of our courts is to protect the individual, civil and equal rights of our citizens, not the latest policy statement out of the Southern Baptist Convention or the US Council of Catholic Bishops or the discriminatory state laws they pushed through state legislatures.

At least this time, 5 members of the court remembered that, and shame on the 4 who didn't.

I see Equal Rights as pertaining to race, age, religion, and sex. Sex is not the same as sexual orientation or gender identity. Equal Rights states that based on the 4 things I listed everyone should be able to do the same thing everyone else can. I saw that as the ability to marry someone of the opposite sex matter if they are male or female. Sexual orientation is about *feelings* not genetics/dna.

With your idea on *civil rights* one can keep expanding it through the courts and with the same argument marry many partners and even marry children. Its a slippery slope when one starts adding new civil rights through the court because it becomes 1000 times harder to argue against the next claim.

My point is just that such things should be handled through legislature creating laws, expanding civil rights, and so forth. Courts to me should only read the letter of the law and how it pertains to the letter of the Constitution. Courts shouldn't be on expanding the meaning of an already established idea or law to suit new interests that were never intended as written. To me that is the key to keeping the courts pure and why the court system is failing more and more every year.

Oh geez, look at this:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/28/politi...age/index.html

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Republicans pivot from gay marriage to religious liberty fight
By Eric Bradner, CNN
Updated 6:02 PM ET, Sun June 28, 2015
| Video Source: CNN


Story highlights

• Some Republicans are turning to a religious freedom fight in wake of gay marriage ruling
• Indiana Gov. Mike Pence was burned by business when he took up that fight

Washington (CNN)The Supreme Court's decision Friday to legalize same-sex marriage everywhere offered the GOP a way out of a debate that national polls show has turned into a loser for their candidates. But some Republican presidential contenders are ready for another cultural and civil rights battle — this time over religious liberty.

On Sunday, several 2016 hopefuls sought to court evangelical Christians who make up much of the base Republicans must win over to advance out of the primary election, signaling that they're willing to deal with the accusations of discrimination that states like Indiana have faced in order to protect religious rights.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee channeled Martin Luther King, Jr. calling for non-violent resistance to the court's ruling.

"May I ask, are we going to now discriminate against people of conscience, people of faith, who disagree with this ruling?" he said on ABC's "This Week." "I'm not sure that every governor and every attorney general should just say, 'Well, it's the law of the land' because there's no enabling legislation."
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam...m-plus-169.jpg

GOP hopefuls denounce marriage equality ruling 01:36

RELATED: How the GOP won on same-sex marriage
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz went even further in the wake of the ruling, telling an Iowa crowd that "the last 24 hours at the United States Supreme Court were among the darkest hours of our nation."

And Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal predicted the fight over religious liberty would persist through the 2016 election.

"Here's where the next fight's going: I think the left is now going to go after our First Amendment rights," Jindal said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"I think it is wrong for the federal government to force Christian individuals, businesses, pastors, churches to participate in wedding ceremonies that violate our sincerely held religious beliefs," he said. "We have to stand up and fight for religious liberty. That's where this fight is going. The left wants to silence us, Hillary Clinton wants to silence us, we're not going away."

The issue thrust Indiana into the national spotlight -- and ended any hope Gov. Mike Pence had for a dark-horse presidential campaign -- three months ago when the Republican-dominated Legislature there passed a "religious freedom" law that critics said would have allowed businesses to turn away gay customers.

It was Pence's struggles to explain the move, capped by a widely panned interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC's "This Week," that led Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson to order changes to a similar bill in his state and led others, including Georgia, to drop their legislative pushes for "religious freedom" measures altogether.

Pence's debacle also attracted the attention of some presidential candidates, who tried to to both rally to the cause but not risk alienating any powerful -- think business -- interests.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said Pence, in "fixing" the law had done "the right thing."

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said Christian photographers shouldn't be punished for refusing to shoot a same-sex wedding.
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam...m-plus-169.jpg

S.E. Cupp tears up over same-sex marriage ruling 01:29

And former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum said at the time he stands for "religious liberty and real tolerance."

The issue -- similar to immigration -- is a conundrum for Republicans. Their primary electorate opposes same-sex marriage, while national polls show the general public is much more supportive of allowing gay and lesbian couples to wed. The Supreme Court's ruling has evoked fears that religious rights are poised to be trampled if a liberal president succeeds President Barack Obama and appoints more Supreme Court justices.

Cruz has even called for a constitutional amendment judicial elections for Supreme Court justices in the wake of the Court ruling.

"I am proposing an amendment to the Constitution to subject #SCOTUS justices to periodic judicial retention elections #BelieveAgain," he tweeted on Saturday.

Some GOP contenders weren't eager to start a new fight over religious liberty on Sunday, though.

"I think we need to take a deep breath," Ohio Gov. John Kasich said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

"Look, I believe in traditional marriage, but the Supreme Court has ruled, and it's the law of the land, and we'll abide by it," he said. "And I think everybody needs to take a deep breath to see how this evolves."

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that Republicans should "fight for the religious liberties of every American."

But he used much less stark language than other contenders, saying the ruling was a "transformational moment."

"There are a lot of upset people who believe in traditional marriage. They're disappointed, they're down right now," he said.

Graham said he would, as president, protect the tax-exempt status of religious institutions that refuse to participate in same-sex weddings.

"If you're a gay person or a gay couple, if I'm president of the United States, you will be able to participate in commerce and be a full member of society, consistent with the religious beliefs of others who have rights also," he said.

Meanwhile, Democrats like Hillary Clinton, who only years ago said she opposed same-sex marriage, have celebrated the Supreme Court's ruling. It's provided a perfect opportunity to demonstrate a stark partisan difference on an issue where broad public opinion favors the Democrats.

A CNN/ORC poll from April showed 57% of those surveyed felt businesses such as caterers or florists should be required to serve gay or lesbian couples just as they would heterosexual couples, compared to 41% who said they should be allowed to refuse service for religious reasons.

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Religious liberty to discriminate on the basis of religion. Hmmmm. So what now? People with a different religious belief than you can deny you service? Really? Will they have questionnaires for you to fill out as a potential customer? Can Jewish owned banks discriminate against Christian customers? Can Christian owned real estate companies discriminate against Muslims? Can Southern Baptists discriminate against Black Baptists? Can Catholic owned businesses discriminate against Protestants? Can Atheists discriminate against all religious people? Can gay people discriminate against straight people?

I guess things aren't bad enough around here in our little land of liberty as we steadily work our way to becoming the World's Largest Banana Republic, so we might as well become the Middle East of the Western Hemisphere, too.

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Originally Posted by ReformUSA2012

I see Equal Rights as pertaining to race, age, religion, and sex. Sex is not the same as sexual orientation or gender identity. Equal Rights states that based on the 4 things I listed everyone should be able to do the same thing everyone else can. I saw that as the ability to marry someone of the opposite sex matter if they are male or female. Sexual orientation is about *feelings* not genetics/dna.

With your idea on *civil rights* one can keep expanding it through the courts and with the same argument marry many partners and even marry children. Its a slippery slope when one starts adding new civil rights through the court because it becomes 1000 times harder to argue against the next claim.

My point is just that such things should be handled through legislature creating laws, expanding civil rights, and so forth. Courts to me should only read the letter of the law and how it pertains to the letter of the Constitution. Courts shouldn't be on expanding the meaning of an already established idea or law to suit new interests that were never intended as written. To me that is the key to keeping the courts pure and why the court system is failing more and more every year.

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No, it's not my idea of equal rights. It's equal rights in our language. The phrase "all people are created equal", is a pretty basic concept that all Americans should understand. And the specific Constitutional provision that protects that concept is very simple too:

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Amendment XIV

Section 1.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

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It doesn't matter what personal characteristics someone has, states can not discriminate against them. They have to be treated under the laws of the states on an equal basis, which means being treated the same as everyone else. This is what equal protection under the law means in our language. It doesn't mean states can pick what type of personal characteristics people have that they're going to apply laws, immunities and privileges to or for, it's all citizens and persons within their jurisdiction and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.

What you're thinking of is the US Civil Rights Act, not the Constitution. The US Civil Rights Act currently protects employees from employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, national origin and creed. Federal employees have additional characteristics protected like family status as a parent, marital status, gender identity, sexual orientation, and so forth.

So courts are never actually expanding equal and civil rights, they're simply restoring rights that shouldn't have been denied to begin with.

ReformUSA2012 wrote:

Quote:

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My issue is that the SCOTUS is redefining the Constitution to include things it was never intended to. This is the real threat and the liberals used Gay Marriage which most Americans support to make a new precedent that its fine for the SCOTUS to just change a law as it see's fit to include new agenda's. However I am betting that if in 2008, 2009, 2010 if there was a bill to legalize same sex marriage it would have passed with strong bi-partisan support except from a few who hail from extreme religious states. But it was never attempted even before DOMA was thrown down because this was all about winning future elections and establishing a precedent that allows the SCOTUS to simply redefine the Constitution as it wants. I'm a believer the Constitution is a written dead document. Any living part is only through Amendments.

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I agree that homosexual marriage is not a right under the U.S. Constitution. Furthermore, homosexual marriage has nothing to do with civil rights, it's an issue of morality. Civil rights is not about protecting ones behavior.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MW

ReformUSA2012 wrote:



I agree that homosexual marriage is not a right under the U.S. Constitution. Furthermore, homosexual marriage has nothing to do with civil rights, it's an issue of morality. Civil rights is not about protecting ones behavior.

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But it is a right under the US Constitution. Gay marriage isn't about "morality". It's about who these people are and whether they have the same rights under the law as you do even though they are different than you are. Under our Constitution, they have the same rights as anyone else. Civil rights is not about protecting ones own "behavior", it is about protecting people from the behavior of you and others who want to discriminate against them because they're different than you are.

Look at the groups protected by the civil rights movement and the US Civil Rights Act, slaves, blacks, Native Americans, Asians, Hispanics, women, disabled, seniors, gays, single parents, married people, single people, divorced people, transgender people, religious people, non-religious people, etc., etc., etc. And the US Civil Rights Act just protects their employment. The 14th Amendment protects all their legal rights, but it has to be enforced, and those rights are enforced by the courts when state legislatures fail to do so at such time as the abused person or groups of persons file civil rights suits to have their grievances resolved and their rights restored. Even then, depending on the attitudes of the Court, they may win, they may not, but if they do win the ruling, then often times the federal government still has to step in and enforce the court rulings when states fail to abide.

Racism, chauvinism, homophobia, and mistreating people because of their age, marital status, transgender identity, or any other personal characteristics, is unacceptable in our land of the free and home of the brave that is supposed to believe in liberty and justice for all.

None of the horrible discrimination that has harmed and cheated so many is about morality. It's about being a bully and wanting to pick on people who are different than you are. It's way past the date when all of this should have come to an end. And perhaps the events and actions racing through our country these past two weeks is a sign that one day it will.

Judy wrote:

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But it is a right under the US Constitution. Gay marriage isn't about "morality". It's about who these people are and whether they have the same rights under the law as you do even though they are different than you are. Under our Constitution, they have the same rights as anyone else.

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You're dead wrong. Homosexual marriage is not a right under the U.S. Constitution! If you think otherwise, please provide your proof. Moreover, you're wrong again not to think homosexuality isn't about morality.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Judy

nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

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Here is the thing. Equal protection or basically having access to the exact same thing as anyone else. This is what I see as the flaw in your way of thinking. The *Equal Protection* or Equal Treatment would mean they don't just have access to the same thing everyone else has but also in the same manner. I see it as everyone has the right to marry someone of legal age of the opposite sex. Any man can marry any woman and vice versa. No one is denied the right to marry but its defined as being equal in how its used.

So *Marriage* itself is not the *Equal Protection* but *Marriage to a qualifying adult* which would be *equal treatment*.

To me however I don't see this as a marriage issue but an equality issue that just happened on marriage and as such my opinion on how it works doesn't change even though I support gay marriage. How I see it everyone should have the exact same standards for the protection for the chance of equal outcomes. Much of this to me comes from the biased treatment of women that I especially saw in the military. They claim they want equality when it suits them but rarely willing to do the same work as men and when things get hard cry that because they are women should have exemptions. I have seen in numerous jobs in my life women do less work then men yet want equal pay and benefits (of course some jobs women do better then men on average and usually rewarded better as well). In the military they have lower Physical standards then men, in sports their are women's divisions because in many cases they don't stand a chance on competiting against men (yet complain they aren't as highly paid). When deployed they complain on carrying the same load as men, having roving guard duty on foot, and play games to get light duties.

Hence I adopted years ago as mathematical system 1=1 and that is it. 1=2 can NEVER be right. Exact same rules for everybody. And in this case the rule was set as any man can marry any woman and vice versa. Its the new liberal definition that any person can marry any other person and while I support that it is a totally different rule than what has been in place and is equal per the law as written.

However this is just my opinion and how I see things. I'm a very logical and mathematical type person where I find my answers through simple equations.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MW

Judy wrote:



You're dead wrong. Homosexual marriage is not a right under the U.S. Constitution! If you think otherwise, please provide your proof. Moreover, you're wrong again not to think homosexuality isn't about morality.

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Oh I definitely think otherwise. How could you be confused on that? The proof is in Amendment 9 of the US Constitution:

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Amendment 9 U.S. Constitution

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

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Declaration of Independence

Quote:

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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.

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Amendment 10, US Constitution

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Quote:

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14th Amendment, US Constitution

Section 1.


All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

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MW, I think you're one of the folks who believe your rights are handed out to you by government. In this country, rights are taken away by the government not handed out, because our freedom is based on our Declaration of Independence, not by the Constitution, and as free people, we are born with rights, inalienable rights, and it is this set of rights that government, especially certain states have had great difficulty understanding over and through the years. The Constitution is absolutely clear in the Bill off Rights, that certain rights are retained by the people and certain powers are reserved by the people. These are all the rights not enumerated and powers not delegated. This includes natural rights, inalienable rights, and everything else free people wish and want to do.

If you'll notice, there is no mention of marriage at all, of any type in the US Constitution. Marriage wasn't even a government issue when the US Constitution was adopted, but marriage is a right, a natural right, an inalienable right, to partner up and have a life together, something humans have been doing for millions of years without government I might add and something Americans have been doing without government since there was an America until 1829 when some states started issuing marriage licenses, so Americans had been hitching up for hundreds of years in our colonies and then our nation without any aid or involvement from government.

But a country that took some of its people so long to realize that black slaves were people, I guess it's not surprising to see why it took them so long to realize that gays are people, too.

Gays are not immoral, they're gay. Homosexuality isn't about morality, it's about biology. Just because they're wired different than straight people doesn't exclude them from the same pursuit of happiness everyone else wants and has a right to.

There's nothing in the Constitution that says homosexuals don't have the same rights as everyone else, therefore they do. And they're entitled to the same rights because these are inalienable rights, rights that are retained by the people, guaranteed by the Constitution Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment. Because this issue is a state law issue, the Court correctly settled it with the 14th Amendment.

1, If you don't believe in abortion, don't have one.
2. If you don't believe in gay marriage, don't marry one.
3. If you breed 'em, you feed 'em.
4. If you want it, you pay for it.
5. If you make it over there, you sell it over there.

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Originally Posted by ReformUSA2012

Here is the thing. Equal protection or basically having access to the exact same thing as anyone else. This is what I see as the flaw in your way of thinking. The *Equal Protection* or Equal Treatment would mean they don't just have access to the same thing everyone else has but also in the same manner. I see it as everyone has the right to marry someone of legal age of the opposite sex. Any man can marry any woman and vice versa. No one is denied the right to marry but its defined as being equal in how its used.

So *Marriage* itself is not the *Equal Protection* but *Marriage to a qualifying adult* which would be *equal treatment*.

To me however I don't see this as a marriage issue but an equality issue that just happened on marriage and as such my opinion on how it works doesn't change even though I support gay marriage. How I see it everyone should have the exact same standards for the protection for the chance of equal outcomes. Much of this to me comes from the biased treatment of women that I especially saw in the military. They claim they want equality when it suits them but rarely willing to do the same work as men and when things get hard cry that because they are women should have exemptions. I have seen in numerous jobs in my life women do less work then men yet want equal pay and benefits (of course some jobs women do better then men on average and usually rewarded better as well). In the military they have lower Physical standards then men, in sports their are women's divisions because in many cases they don't stand a chance on competiting against men (yet complain they aren't as highly paid). When deployed they complain on carrying the same load as men, having roving guard duty on foot, and play games to get light duties.

Hence I adopted years ago as mathematical system 1=1 and that is it. 1=2 can NEVER be right. Exact same rules for everybody. And in this case the rule was set as any man can marry any woman and vice versa. Its the new liberal definition that any person can marry any other person and while I support that it is a totally different rule than what has been in place and is equal per the law as written.

However this is just my opinion and how I see things. I'm a very logical and mathematical type person where I find my answers through simple equations.

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Okay, back up to the Constitution. Where does it say that certain rights retained by the people and powers reserved by the people can be restricted to men and women of the opposite sex if a state says so? It doesn't. Unless you've got an exception to "any person" in the Equal Protection Clause, you're multiplying 1 x 0 which of course is not 1=1, it's 0.

Our Constitution is truly the most wonderful document ever written. The problem we have had in our country since it's inception has not been with the Constitution, it's been with people who either don't read it or they don't understand the simple meaning of the plain language of its words.

The whole purpose of our country was for people to be free. So in logic you start with that premise based on the Declaration of Independence. So at the beginning you are free to do whatever you want without restriction. Then comes governments to write the restrictions, usually with good purpose, but frequently not. Until 1829, there were no state marriage licenses issued in the United States, so do you move to an illogical step and assume the Constitution did not intend for people to be free to marry whoever they wanted or that states could restrict that inalienable right on an unequal discriminatory basis? No, because that would not be logical, it would be illogical. Yet States did just that. States barred inter-racial marriage, gay marriage and other types of marriages. And I don't know who was behind all this getting government involved in the private affair of marriage, but it was probably a bunch of Democrats, since the Republican Party didn't exist yet.

So the oppose sex laws in States were implanted by legislatures acknowledging the heritage of gay couples who obviously were marrying, otherwise there would be no need for the restrictive condition in State laws to forbid it. Thus these "one man and one women" laws are taking away protected rights that were already in play.


In any event, the marriage issues have now been settled.

In my opinion, you're wrong, Judy. Homosexual marriage and homosexuality are moral issues. As such, these issues are spoken to in the Bill of Rights 10th Amendment. As such, decisions on these issues are reserved for the people and states, not the Federal Government.

Judy wrote:

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MW, I think you're one of the folks who believe your rights are handed out to you by government.

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Actually, the way I see it, it's you that is thinking more along those lines.

Judy wrote:

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If you'll notice, there is no mention of marriage at all, of any type in the US Constitution. Marriage wasn't even a government issue when the US Constitution was adopted, but marriage is a right, a natural right, an inalienable right, to partner up and have a life together, something humans have been doing for millions of years without government I might add and something Americans have been doing without government since there was an America until 1829 when some states started issuing marriage licenses, so Americans had been hitching up for hundreds of years in our colonies and then our nation without any aid or involvement from government.

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Homosexuals have the right to marry ..... nobody is denying that. However, the U.S. Constitution does not give them the right to marry someone of the same gender. The U. S. Constitution does not cover issues of morality or personal behavior, that is why the issue falls under the 10 Amendment to the Bill of Rights.

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Text of the 10th Amendment

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

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It is not the U.S. Supreme Courts job to legislate, which they've clearly done in this case. Homosexual marriage is an issue that should be left specifically to the individual states.

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ReformUSA2012 wrote:

Here is the thing. Equal protection or basically having access to the exact same thing as anyone else. This is what I see as the flaw in your way of thinking. The *Equal Protection* or Equal Treatment would mean they don't just have access to the same thing everyone else has but also in the same manner. I see it as everyone has the right to marry someone of legal age of the opposite sex. Any man can marry any woman and vice versa. No one is denied the right to marry but its defined as being equal in how its used.

So *Marriage* itself is not the *Equal Protection* but *Marriage to a qualifying adult* which would be *equal treatment*.

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IMHO, you nailed it.

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Originally Posted by MW

In my opinion, you're wrong, Judy. Homosexual marriage and homosexuality are moral issues. As such, these issues are spoken to in the Bill of Rights 10th Amendment. As such, decisions on these issues are reserved for the people and states, not the Federal Government.

Judy wrote:



Actually, the way I see it, it's you that is thinking more along those lines.

Judy wrote:



Homosexuals have the right to marry ..... nobody is denying that. However, the U.S. Constitution does not give them the right to marry someone of the same gender. The U. S. Constitution does not cover issues of morality or personal behavior, that is why the issue falls under the 10 Amendment to the Bill of Rights.



It is not the U.S. Supreme Courts job to legislate, which they've clearly done in this case. Homosexual marriage is an issue that should be left specifically to the individual states.



IMHO, you nailed it.

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So what are you saying, MW, that you think it's moral to force gay people who want to marry to marry someone they don't want to have sex with? Are you serious?! You want to push gay people into being alone or marrying someone that turns their stomach in the bedroom? Really?!! How is that by any definition the "the right to marry"? That's a life of torture, depression, abject unhappiness. And what about the spouse who doesn't know they married someone who is gay? How is that fair to them?! What PERSON in the United States who is not gay would want to marry a gay person?! No one would want to do that, yet you think this is what the Constitutional right to marry, the inalienable right of marriage, the reserved RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE to pursue their own happiness, means?!

States Rights do not include forcing people who want to marry to marry someone who turns their stomachs in the bedroom. The right to marry the person whom you want to marry is a RESERVED RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE under the Declaration of Independence, Amendment 9, Amendment 10 and the 14th Amendment. How many times do the people of the United States have to draw you a picture? Well, it's been drawn 4 times, and under our system of government created in accordance with our Constitution, you've finally been shut down by the United States Supreme Court, and rightly so.

What if States decided for whatever reason, diversity, income redistribution or otherwise, that you could ONLY marry a "qualifying adult" of a different race? Under yours and Reform's theories, States have every legal right to do just that. Would you then be crying "waaa, waaa, waaa" all the way home?!

People with this bonehead idea of "freedom for me, but not for thee", have lost their cause in the United States, and rightly so. This Supreme Court Ruling affects more than just gay people, it affects everyone for the better because it restores liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the cornerstones of our private lives as free people in a free nation outlined in our Declaration of Independence and protected by the US Constitution.

Do you not have any clue as to the enormous harm, cost and damage to our country that this bonehead notion has caused in the name of your phony "morality"? I think about the couples who have been trapped by trying to do what society wanted and the law allowed them, the lives of absolute misery of the gay spouse getting nauseated with the thought of going to bed, the absolute torturous life of the straight spouse spending a lifetime wondering what is wrong with them, children raised in this artificial phony environment of pretend one-sided "love", young gay people so disturbed by how they feel and are treated if they tell anyone to the point of believing their lives are not worth living and commit suicide.

Morality? Oh no, this is not about morality, it's about abusing people who are different than you are, it's about intolerance of people who are different than you are, it's about discrimination against people who are different than you are, and that my friend is a violation of the 14th Amendment that requires any person within and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States to have equal protection under the law, which means in simple terms, no STATE has the right or power to do that to the people of the United States.

Judy, by your *anyone* argument why does it not apply to children? The same argument I could use so I could marry a 10 year old kid, or marry my dog while my dogs rights aren't in the Constitution mine is and as *anyone* I should have that right, correct? Also by *anyone* argument nothing says I shouldn't be able to marry 100 different people at the same time right? After all its our right as *anyone* isn't it?

See where this leads if you take an empty approach to it? The Constitution doesn't define who *anyone* is or even define what a *citizen* is. One could apply all these terms as tight or loosely as they want to fit any agenda.

Now instead the proper thing to do is think of the framers of the Constitution and its Amendments. Do you think the Founding Fathers supported the idea of Gay Marriage? Do you think the writers of the 14th Amendment thought for it to carry to the issue of Gay Marriage? Or those who wrote Equal Rights, think they intended it one day for Gay Marriage? If anyone actually really thinks that then they have no clue on real history. Its today's society that has adapted and changed our perceptions to think things like Gay Marriage is alright, after all consenting adults should be free to live how they choose as long as they don't harm others. However it is NOT and NEVER will be a Constitutional issue as how the US Constitution currently stands.

If you have other proof that the Foundering Fathers, the framers of the 14th Amendment, or even the politicians of the 14th Amendment ever had the slightest intention of Gay Marriage being part of it, please provide it and I'll gladly change my opinion. But until that then its time to stop putting agenda's and words in the mouths of those long dead for a new age idea.