Oklahoma's domino has fallen

[Joe Republic]

... kind of.  There are caveats, as always. 

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[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Congrats, Bushie!

[politicallefty]

This was the same panel as the Utah case. It seems redundant to me. The Tenth Circuit has already ruled under strict scrutiny that gay marriage is a fundamental right protected by the Constitution.

[So rightwing that I broke the Political Compass!]

GRRRR. This is the verydefinition of judicial activism. By what right does an appointed-for-life judge veto the religious beliefs of an entire state?

Liberals should remember the consequences that their movement bore when Roe v. Wade was shoved down the nation's throat 40 years ago. It actually undermines support for the cause that has been imposed.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

GRRRR. This is the verydefinition of judicial activism. By what right does an appointed-for-life judge veto the religious beliefs of an entire state?

Religious beliefs are irrelevant to Oklahoma's marriage laws, because in this country an 'entire state' isn't deemed properly capable of having religious beliefs (unlike, apparently, closely held corporations, but I digress). Whether or not you think that that is a good thing is up to you, but answering no would not be very American of you.

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Which is why the Supreme Court has been more cautious on this issue. United States v. Windsor was clearly a prelude to nationwide legalization of gay marriage. The reason it was not, itself, nationwide legalization of gay marriage is precisely this.

Furthermore, it's only fair to remind conservatives of Loving v. Virginia and the way that's become uncontroversial over the years despite a greater proportion of the country opposing it at the time than Roe v. Wade.

Still furthermore, most sane people recognize that abortion is a much more morally fraught issue than gay marriage because it's literally a matter of (how one defines) life and death.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Don't feed the troll.  Please.

[So rightwing that I broke the Political Compass!]

Still furthermore, most sane people recognize that abortion is a much more morally fraught issue than gay marriage because it's literally a matter of (how one defines) life and death.

How is that any more fraught then how we define the means of producing life, that is to say relations between a man and a woman?

[free my dawg]

GRRRR. This is the verydefinition of judicial activism. By what right does an appointed-for-life judge veto the religious beliefs of an entire state?

Liberals should remember the consequences that their movement bore when Roe v. Wade was shoved down the nation's throat 40 years ago. It actually undermines support for the cause that has been imposed.

Rich coming from the party of Citizens United and Hobby Lobby.

[So rightwing that I broke the Political Compass!]

GRRRR. This is the verydefinition of judicial activism. By what right does an appointed-for-life judge veto the religious beliefs of an entire state?

Liberals should remember the consequences that their movement bore when Roe v. Wade was shoved down the nation's throat 40 years ago. It actually undermines support for the cause that has been imposed.

Rich coming from the party of Citizens United and Hobby Lobby.

Those were simple reinforcements of longstanding constitutional principles regarding freedom of  speech and freedom of religion. Gay marriage OTOH is the imposition of an entirely unprecedented definition of marital relations, the implication being that America is abandoning one of the cornerstones of western civilization: the nuclear family.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Gay marriage OTOH is the imposition of an entirely unprecedented definition of marital relations, the implication being that America is abandoning one of the cornerstones of western civilization: the nuclear family.

Actually, the cornerstone of western civilization, indeed of civilization generally, has been the extended family, not the nuclear family, and while we indeed have been abandoning that institution for the nuclear family for some decades now, you have utterly failed to explain how gay marriage imperils family, be it extended or nuclear.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

How is that any more fraught then how we define the means of producing life, that is to say relations between a man and a woman?

If it's not already intuitive to you how why that's a specious equivalency then I'm not sure I can explain it to you.

[So rightwing that I broke the Political Compass!]

Gay marriage OTOH is the imposition of an entirely unprecedented definition of marital relations, the implication being that America is abandoning one of the cornerstones of western civilization: the nuclear family.

Actually, the cornerstone of western civilization, indeed of civilization generally, has been the extended family, not the nuclear family, and while we indeed have been abandoning that institution for the nuclear family for some decades now, you have utterly failed to explain how gay marriage imperils family, be it extended or nuclear.

To the contrary, the extended family is if anything in a slightly stronger position then it has been historically, at least in countries like America which originated in colonialism and subsequent interminable westward spread. That sort of mobility was only possible because of the nuclear family's strength, since it by definition meant the abandonment of extended family ties.

It imperils the nuclear family because it signals the government withdrawing it's favoritism for reproduction within the nuclear family.

[So rightwing that I broke the Political Compass!]

How is that any more fraught then how we define the means of producing life, that is to say relations between a man and a woman?

If it's not already intuitive to you how why that's a specious equivalency then I'm not sure I can explain it to you.

Please try.

[afleitch]

The societal demand that those who had the sex to have the children should raise them is a very recent one. All humans, sociopaths aside, have the ability to be care givers. It is often the parents or their extended family but that should never be exclusive. The idea of the 'nuclear family' while thankfully fleeting in practice is very much contrary to the traditional of shared care giving, yet people still hold it as an ideal. It's a damaging idea as it means that a failing marriage more disproportionately affect children than it otherwise would do where care giving is shared.

[Joe Republic]

Marriage equality strengthens families.  There are thousands upon thousands of abandoned children created from failed heterosexual relationships, who are now finding homes with dual-income couples who have only recently been able to prove to a court their suitability as adoptive parents.

And that doesn't even take into account the gay couples who create life via biological means.  (e.g. surrogate mothers, sperm donors, etc.)

[afleitch]

Marriage equality strengthens families.  There are thousands upon thousands of abandoned children created from failed heterosexual relationships, who are now finding homes with dual-income couples who have only recently been able to prove to a court their suitability as adoptive parents.

And that doesn't even take into account the gay couples who create life via biological means.  (e.g. surrogate mothers, sperm donors, etc.)

And that is the key. All you need to do to be endowed with legal rights over a child instantanously is to have sex. That is it. And we have a society in which children's rights as a concept appear to be subservient at all times to the whims of the parent. The idea that children have rights independent of and at times contrary to their own parents is an enigma to some people. The rights of children are often not served in the heterosexual relationship, whether fleeting or embedded, that brought them into the world and the idea that the generations of heterosexual, married relationships that form and shatter and reform and have f-cked up so many people are automatically better for a child than another mother and father, or two fathers, or two mothers, or the aunt or the grandparent is a disgrace.

It is the job of the government and society to support all families that support each other and provide love and support for children whether they be their own or someone elses. The 'nuclear family' closes off this difference by insinuating other arrangements are lesser or not appropriate. It is this compact, self serving and often patriarical unit that has also led to the disconnect that has shattered what the 'family' used to be; cutting off the extended family as care givers and subjecting the elderly to being removed from the family care unit altogether when they are too old or too difficult to handle.

[Indy Texas]

But muh faith / muh family / muh freedoms...

[Maxwell]

Unsurprising our vengeful Governor Mary Fallin has taken the anti-family position on this issue (she did cheat on her husband, after all).

[HagridOfTheDeep]

GRRRR. This is the verydefinition of judicial activism. By what right does an appointed-for-life judge veto the religious beliefs of an entire state?

Liberals should remember the consequences that their movement bore when Roe v. Wade was shoved down the nation's throat 40 years ago. It actually undermines support for the cause that has been imposed.

You are a bigot.

[Indy Texas]

Unsurprising our vengeful Governor Mary Fallin has taken the anti-family position on this issue (she did cheat on her husband, after all).

They don't call her "Mattress Mary" for nothing.

[SteveRogers]

GRRRR. This is the verydefinition of judicial activism. By what right does an appointed-for-life judge veto the religious beliefs of an entire state?

Liberals should remember the consequences that their movement bore when Roe v. Wade was shoved down the nation's throat 40 years ago. It actually undermines support for the cause that has been imposed.

It don't know that it can be the "definition" of judicial activism unless you can offer a rebuttal to the actual legal reasoning used by the judges to arrive at the decision. "But my religious beliefs!" isn't a valid legal argument.

[HAnnA MArin County]

Ah, yes, the procreation argument regarding marriage. Do these right-wing goons ever stop and listen to how ridiculous they sound when making such pathetic claims? Okay, so if marriage is supposed to be all about procreation, then does that mean that infertile/sterile heterosexual couples cannot get married, or a heterosexual couple in their 70s, for that matter? If marriage is supposed to be about procreation and if the government can decide that only heterosexual couples can marry, does it also have the right to mandate procreation? The decision to have children is just that: a decision. Marriage is NOT about procreation. If you can use gender and sexual orientation to deny someone the right to be married, then why not include age or race? Oh, wait...

These arguments are so very interesting coming from the side that claims to be for limited government. Stop using religion to justify your bigotry against a minority of people who, contrary to your side's way of thinking, do not choose to be the way we are. Gay people live and breathe the same as straight people, we work in the same workforce as straight people and pay the same taxes to the same government only to be treated like second-class citizens simply because your magical book of fairy tales written millions of years ago contains six verses about how someone was born is "wrong." The same book that says that men should not listen to women, wives should be submissive to husbands, children who disobey their parents and stray from their religion should be stoned to death, eating pork and lobster is an abomination, and that it's totally fine for fathers to give their virgin daughters to strangers to be raped. Perhaps your side would be well advised to take your message of "love" to Uganda and Iran where it's totally okay to hang and stone gay people. 

Isn't it so ironic that a country that was founded to allow freedom from religious persecution is now attempting to use religion to persecute freedoms?

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

That's the thing... this is the law, not religion.

[afleitch]

When you fall in love with someone, what is it about them that you fall in love with? The answer that we should give; the ‘right’ answer is that you love them because of who they are; for their faults as well as what makes them special. That love should pay no attention to how people look, or what other people think of them. Love should be about the essence of that person and the joy that you bring each other. The ‘wrong’ answer should of course be that I love them because they have nice breasts, a large dick or a firm ass, or that any time I want I can plough this or ride that. The answer shouldn’t be as base and as carnal as that. But at times it is. Love is as complex as it is complicated and loving someone because of their physical attributes is not wrong in itself. But if it is exclusive or it dominates the relationship, then what a fleeting foundation on which to build it.

What traditional Christian understanding of sexual love does inadvertently is be over sensitised or predisposed to the physical even when it illicit a prudish attitude to what is carnal. ‘Love can only exist in marriage; marriage is about procreation. Only one man and one woman.’ You cannot get more ‘physical’ or more base than statements such as these being rooted as they are in sex, gender and physical acts of reproduction. When confronted with the love between two men, then that love is charged as being lesser on the basis of their physical incompatibility, the very fact that they have a specific sex or gender or on the basis of not being able to have children. By extension, there is an underlying assumption that the merit of a man or of a woman is in having their own children, not in being responsible for raising or supporting the children of others. In this mind-set, there is no scope for acknowledging the love of the ‘person’ as opposed to the body. Furthermore, amongst opposite sex couples within the traditional Christian understanding of love and marriage, the physical takes prominence over the person in matters concerning the relationship itself.  Within the context of what happens when the physical compatibility remains in that they are one man and one women perhaps with children, but the personal compatibility is breaking down, this has led to a rather unsympathetic and intrinsically unhealthy view towards separation and divorce.

I do not consider that the secular and permissive response to sex and relationships  is unhealthily concerned with matters of sex. Quite the contrary, I think those responses are broadly healthy. It is the traditional Christian view of sex, relationships, men and women that is overly concerned with the physical and the carnal even within the mandated confines of marriage. To deal briefly with the concept of exclusive celibacy, celibacy is an ‘anorexic’ view of sex; it is either a base fear, distrust or avoidance of sex that the person who is celibate tries to rationalise. As a concept it is also physical/carnal and detached from the idea of the person. Even dalliances and brief relationships that outwardly appear to be nothing more than sexual favours tend to have some connect, albeit fleeting, between those who participate in them. Those who are ‘anorexic’ towards sex sustain, though they are often greatly offended by this comparison, as unhealthy a relationship towards sex as those who are ‘obese’ towards it; those who overindulge who seek it out at all costs to themselves and to others completely disconnected from any personal relationship or concern towards the other ‘body.’

[King]

Woah-ho guys, we're too far along in this process for those tl;dr diatribes about love.

We won this war. Just tell anyone who disagrees to inks off at this point. No need to exert any more effort on it than that.