Utterly Meaningless

I really like the wording the Court used. They didn’t “dictate” gay marriage. They simply said gays have to have to same rights as non-gays, and threw it back to the legislature to figure out how to do that and what it will be called.

That pesky equal protection clause…

I think the legislature will probably just call it “marriage” anyway. The alternative would entail changing tons of laws and documents. Big bucks. It’ll be much easier to just punt and blame the court. 🙂

Well, yes–I was going to say that. The biggest impact may be on Maryland, where Michael Steele is now running even with Ben Cardin in the Senate race. (Maryland is a 2-1 blue state, so this is a pretty neat trick for a black Republican.) But a Maryland court tried to strike down Maryland’s marriage law earlier this year, and the African-American community is generally in favor of man-woman marriage.

Of course, our bet isn’t on who gets the Senate. Kean and Steele may win seats for the GOP in NJ and MD as a result of this ruling, but that probably won’t affect the House.

Not to restart an old argument (although I probably will), but I still don’t understand how this affects anyone but gay couples. Why would anyone feel the need to decide whom to vote for based on the fact that gay people might actually get the right to have the same legal protections as the rest of us? My marriage is not threatened by theirs.

No argument from me, but I think it does affect all of us. It’s a civil rights issue, just like in ’50s and ’60s. The same (type of) bigots who opposed the Civil Rights movement back then are leading the fight against gay marriage now.

I hope the NJ legislature does the right thing and allows gays to marry, but we may have to go through a gay Plessy before we get to a gay Brown.

OT: Google adsense is really a fascinating program. Check out the strip to the right. It’s currently all “gay marriage” ads, based on our discussion so far. But if we drift into some other topic, like homeschooling, the ads will shift to represent the change in topic. I wonder if they have a “gay homeschooling” ad in the queue.

And this is ‘the debate” isn’t it folks? The question really boils down to is are a few people who are offended by non traditional, well anything, going to be allowed to call cadence on the march toward the American future? Scott’s probabaly a nice guy and all Mr. Cobranchi, but he wanted real debate he’d have to put his bible down and spend a little time on Lexis/Nexis. The age of trying to make average people feel bigger than they areally are by having them support a religion based position on a matter of law is dead as Julius Caesar.

And thank you Lillian and I wish you and your family well as you have seen through the fog that Christianists would like to thicken to see that what a lesbian, like myself, would do in the privacy of their own home with my SPOUSE, is no one’s business as long as no crimes are committed.

And a side note Ser Cobranchi, it seems the powers that be here have made you a “scientific peer” or some such. I think they’re just afraid you and COD will take over when you get here. No worries though we’ll save some sweet tea and a soft seat for ya!

Garden State Equality is really unhappy with the court’s ruling. For them, it’s marriage or bust.

How’s this for another perspective — I don’t think the state should be involved in sanctioning *any* kind of marriage, and that things such as property division, health-care decisions, etc., should be handled contractually. In fact, giving someone rights *just because* he or she is a spouse can be as unfair as the reverse.

Go New Jersey!
But, after reading the Mass. decision when it came out, I have to agree with the Mass. judges that the only reason to have two different names (marriage and civil unions) is so you can make a distinction between the two, which you shouldn’t need to do. Separate but equal isn’t.

They just pretent to make a distinction. There is none. You are either “married or civil union” in VT, and unable to specify which. Maybe pretending there would be a difference was a way to get it all done more quickly but with less controversy. The decision went from VT’s court right to an order to the legislature to “figure it out” as well. Next election, that legislature lost 16 House incumbents.