No more need for adjectives when discussing marriage. Two people can now marry, period.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33290341

So unbelievably happy about this today, will be out celebrating with the rest of the city to enjoy a large amount of positive energy.

Thank you to anyone who fought to help make this happen.

The fact that it's Pride weekend is amazing. What awesome timing!

Details of the case are on wikipedia if anyone's interested in the legal road it took to get here.

Article will probably get vandalized a few times before it settles down. Kind of a metaphor for how things will probably go in some states.

Without getting into a debate about marriage <---(read this part)

I find it an unfortunate side effect that the legislative branch is becoming increasingly useless between Executive Orders and Presidential Decision Directives and judges that feel the need to write laws instead of interpret them and allow the due process to take its course.

The current outcome was inevitable, but should have gone through the proper process. Methinks we need to require our elected and appointed officials to watch Schoolhouse Rock once a year as a prerequisite to serving.

What part of the case do you feel didn't follow due process?

(Agreed, keeping it to a discussion of law only.)

EDIT: Okay, I think I fixed the links to the case information. Originally had the wrong case in both places.

IANAL, but it seems to me, that whether right or wrong, the DOMA defined marriage very clearly in a way that does not violate the constitution in any way, certainly not the 5th amendment because due process of law was followed.

I'm not saying the final outcome was wrong, simply that they invented reasons in the constitution to strike down the law where there weren't any.

From what I can gather, it was about the 14th amendment, not the 5th amendment.

Like you, I'm not a lawyer and I don't understand all the legalities. But from the few minutes of reading I just did, it seems to me that if a state tries to prevent the spouse of a terminally ill patient to be on their death certificate (the Ohio case that started this snowball), then that sounds to me like it's indeed directly at odds with the 14th amendment's "equal protection" clause.

If I'm interpreting that correctly, then it sounds to me like the supreme court did exactly the thing they were supposed to do: Make a ruling decision between two contradictory laws. It doesn't look to me like anyone invented a reason. That reason was brought *to* them by citizens with a grievance. It took a lot of years and multiple levels of courts to get that far. Sounds like proper due process to me.

Since one of the jobs of the supreme court is to be the final arbiter of constitutional law, and since the 14th amendment was written in the 1800's, I don't think anyone was doing any inventing here. It looks like they were presented a genuine case where a state attempted to deny US citizens some rights, thus being in contradiction to the 14th amendment, and made a ruling.

The bigger picture is really: How, from a legal standpoint, can we say that states can have individual laws at all, as long as the 14th amendment's "equal protection" clause still stands? How far-reaching is that 14th amendment? Today, it reaches a little farther than it did a few days ago. And it's indeed the supreme court's job to decide how far it, and other parts of the constitution, reaches.

Of course the members of the supreme court know full well that they ultimately have made a moral decision as well as a legal one, that's pretty clear in their statements. But that's usually how these things go. The letter of the law gets enforced at all the lower court levels, and anywhere there's ambiguity, the fight goes back and forth until it gets all the way to the top. After all the details of the legalities have already been fought to death and stripped away, all that remains is the really big moral choices. Those end up being at the heart of many SCOTUS decisions, because that ends up being their job out of pure necessity.

But they didn't start this battle, they just ruled on the case that was brought before them. I don't think they set out to strike down DOMA, but someone brought an actual legal case before them which was directly in the crossfire between one of clauses in the DOMA and one of the clauses in the 14th amendment. One of those two clauses had to lose that battle. So now one of the clauses in the DOMA has been indirectly struck down by this decision.

Again, I'm not a lawyer, but that's what it looks like to me on my brief read.

Hahaha! They've done that to themselves. They make sure nothing ever gets done, no matter which "side" proposes it. This is what happens when there's too much corporate money in government.

But anyway, I'd rather celebrate. I agree, Tom, this is a great day and I'm so surprised and pleased that it's here. Finally, any couple who loves each other will be able to visit their significant other in the hospital, they'll be able to adopt, they can get tax breaks, etc. This is great news.

Absolutely agreed! Nothing useful ever seems to get done, no matter who has a majority.

Tom,

I tell people that I was "raised by Catholics" to imply some of the baggage that it certainly did entail. It is nice in many ways to be older and perhaps more chill. In this realm the fact that I enjoyed the work of the late Steve Goodman did not hurt:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulZcRN9j_cw

I still get caught out on occasion when someone says "husband" or "wife", but a small price to pay for people being who they are and happy. The forecast for the weekend on Capitil Hill is great. Bring sunscreen.

Jim

Thank you Jim. Being out there today was a blast, looking forward to more celebration this weekend.

I'm in Columbus Ohio, at Comfest. Ohio, yesterday, and hopefully all weekend, is a good place to be (plus Comfest is always a fun time)

As an Italian, I've always been a big fan of the American Constitution, which I find beautiful in so many ways. It seems to me this victory of individual freedom rests entirely upon such a political (and philosophical) document.

Italian constitution expressly state that marriage happens "between a man and a woman", so I know things will be harder here for GLBT because of that (besides the rest).

Kudos American friends. Way to go.

I don't know much about EU politics, but do you think that the EU might find a way to create "equal protection" across its member states and thus push back on Italy and other countries that don't allow same-sex marriage?

Eventually. Most people are in favor. Including some religious ones, actually. It's just not going to be that easy.


Edit:
To elaborate more: no, the EU cannot force countries members of the union to to any such thing, legally. The EU is not a federation, so that would only happen if the individual states agreed at some point to delegate to the EU Commission such a lawmaking power. Not only that is not on the radar - power delegated to the Commissions are not of this nature: they tend to be more economic or self-defense ones - but also, I am not really sure it would be a good idea to delegate such powers just yet.

I think it is more likely that simply Italy will adjust to a more and more popular sentiment, and will want to conform to a general EU trend. Also, what I think will soon happen, is that marriages celebrated in other countries will be recognized here to.

I actually like it this way much better, from a democratic stand point. The EU commission really is not in a position to play a role in such matters, and, as a European, I really don't feel much represented by that.
I'd love a true politically united EU, but it is just not there, so far, and what is there is quite "far", hidden behind layers of bureaucracy. If I only think of the 500 pages EU "constitution", that some wiser countries decided to reject, I am quite horrified. It was (is?) possibly bigger than the Soviet one. Oh my.
Again, I am all in favor of a united EU, and I'd love if THAT would bring more individual freedoms. But, we don't have that yet.

??
tanstaafl.

Dan, I just added few thoughts to my reply to you, above.