allentown wrote:

Werthless wrote:Dajafi covered it. I hated the results of the Bush admin, and refused to vote for McCain in 2008 as protest of the spending and foreign policy. That doesn't change the reality of the Obama admin and the different approaches to recessions that the current republican house and the Obama admin have taken.

What am I ignoring? I may be misinterpreting your post.

Discretionary spending and deficit both falling sharply. Discretionary spending lower than it's been in ages. Fewer government workers. In short, there are two reasons for spending being higher today: more old people and higher unemployment payments. Neither are new programs by Obama. This is in large measure the normal deficity increase caused by a severe recession, coupled with a trending down in the actual deficit. Revenues being depressed by recession is more a cause of current deficits than any new spending.

kimbatiste wrote:Apparently, Alito, Scalito, and (sadly) Roberts were asking a lot of questions about whether the issue is premature and that states (the laboratories of democracy) should be given time to study and experience how gay marriage could impact child-rearing by gay couples. Talk about a red herring. I think this was even noted by the District Court (if I'm thinking of the right decision) but gay marriage has nothing to do with parenting by gay couples. Putting aside the completely unsupported proposition that being raised by two parents of the same sex negatively impacts a child, if that is your concern then the answer is to ban gay adoption not gay marriage.

td11 wrote:promotes the general welfare of who/what? the children being adopted?

Bucky wrote:cool, i can have a spicy chicken sandwich again?

Werthless wrote:

td11 wrote:promotes the general welfare of who/what? the children being adopted?

I'm asking if that was their line of questioning. Were they asking if societies/states with gay marriage are better off?

Werthless wrote:But I think it's easier to fix schools than it is to fix parents. Putting on my fantasy hat, if we spent less money per student in a place like Camden, perhaps more money could be spent addressing some of the other barriers to academic success.

Werthless wrote:

td11 wrote:promotes the general welfare of who/what? the children being adopted?

I'm asking if that was their line of questioning. Were they asking if societies/states with gay marriage are better off?

swishnicholson wrote:And a lot of the "extra" money spent on urban students does get swallowed up in administrative costs, security initiatives and, yes, some teacher salaries and benefits that might interfere with the addition of more staff.

td11 wrote:

Werthless wrote:

td11 wrote:promotes the general welfare of who/what? the children being adopted?

I'm asking if that was their line of questioning. Were they asking if societies/states with gay marriage are better off?

ah ok. is it a relevant question, though? i mean, why does it matter if "society" is "better off" and how do you prove that? isn't the more pertinent question whether it promotes the general welfare of the gay couples and their kids?

TenuredVulture wrote:I understand the stakes in the current court arguments regarding marriage equality. However, I think in the long run, marriage equality is better secured through the ballot box. I understand justice delayed is justice is denied, and I'm not denying that the courts have a role in civil liberties. On the other hand, movement has come so quickly through the legislative process in so many states that I believe full marriage equality is inevitable and achieving this goal through democratic means is better than through judicial fiat.

We no longer live in a world where we can rely on the courts to defend civil liberties. Historically, the progressive decisions of the Warren Court were an anomaly. More often, the court has lagged public opinion on civil liberties--Plessy v. Ferguson and Dred Scot are more typical than Miranda or Roe v. Wade. There are probably structural reasons that the court is going to be a conservative institution, but political science has never really looked at this way, because modern political science has coincided more or less with the progressive court of the 50s-70s, and has yet to catch up to the reality of the normal, conservative court.

Thus, it's a good thing advocates of marriage equality have not depended so much on courts, but have instead chosen (mostly out of necessity to be sure) to mobilize democratically. They're going to win, regardless of what the court decides.

pacino wrote:

In the 2003 decision, Scalia harshly criticized the court’s decision that struck down a Texas anti-sodomy law that had been used to convict a gay man of having sex with another man in his own apartment. The opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy overturned a 1986 ruling in Bowers v. Hardwick that had upheld state sodomy laws.

Scalia wrote in his dissent:

“The Texas statute undeniably seeks to further the belief of its citizens that certain forms of sexual behavior are ‘immoral and unacceptable,’ . . . the same interest furthered by criminal laws against fornication, bigamy, adultery, adult incest, bestiality, and obscenity. Bowers held that this was a legitimate state interest. The Court today reaches the opposite conclusion. The Texas statute, it says, ‘furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual,’ …The Court embraces instead Justice [John Paul] Stevens’ declaration in his Bowers dissent, that 'the fact that the governing majority in a State has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice,' . . . This effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation. “

He also questioned whether the laws against same-sex marriage can survive if “moral disapproval” is not a reasonable basis for upholding them, in effect predicting the cases the court agreed to hear Friday.

“Today’s opinion dismantles the structure of constitutional law that has permitted a distinction to be made between heterosexual and homosexual unions, insofar as formal recognition in marriage is concerned. If moral disapprobation of homosexual conduct is ‘no legitimate state interest’ for purposes of proscribing that conduct . . . and if, as the Court coos (casting aside all pretense of neutrality), ‘[w]hen sexuality finds overt expression in intimate conduct with another person, the conduct can be but one element in a personal bond that is more enduring,’ what justification could there possibly be for denying the benefits of marriage to homosexual couples exercising ‘[t]he liberty protected by the Constitution.’”