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Marriage

David Boies and Ted Olsen make the case for the marriage of any two individuals who desire it.

Tags: equal protection, fourteenth amendment, gay marriage, supreme court

Posted by Norm on May 29, 2009 1:55 AM | Permalink

Comments

gypsy sister | May 29, 2009 8:15 AM | Reply

There isn't a rational basis...

Olsen nails it on the head.

Heck, there are plenty of us with opposite gender preference that are too damn picky to marry another. If 2 folks with same gender preference can find a good partner, and not be so freakin picky, then let them marry so that they can have the same (international) couple rights that heteros have.

Andyo replied to gypsy sister | May 30, 2009 3:08 AM | Reply

Not only the basis is not rational, but from all the irrational ones, 99% are religious. I think this needs to be said more. Religion is automatically related with morality too many times. Religion is mostly irrelevant to morality, and many times even helps to justify immoral behavior.

Erick replied to Andyo | June 1, 2009 10:48 PM | Reply

That is true, although I think he was more referring to rational basis the legal term. The others would be out of the scope when dealing with suspect classifications.

Studos | May 29, 2009 1:59 PM | Reply

Still they don't get the REAL reason why gay marriage should be allowed. It's not about sexual preference, but about ones ability to choose a PERSON to marry. Requiring somebody to choose by sex is, BY DEFINITION, sexual discrimination and, therefore, unlawful.

thaddeusphoenix | May 29, 2009 4:15 PM | Reply

What about the problem with the definition of "man" and "woman"? When studying anatomy in college, we had plenty of case studies of all the strange thing that can happen. Men born with ovaries, women with y chromosome, sex changing at puberty, etc... nature is pretty varied in what it can come up with and it does it about 10% of the time. If our society didn't demonize people like that then we might have a court case come up where someone who defies the definition would be pressing for marriage rights. It's not about 'gay' marriage, it's about letting 'people' marry.

short point... where is the talk about basic human biology?

James Campbell | June 1, 2009 1:52 AM | Reply

I do not intend to make an argument against same-sex marriage per se (on that issue I fall somewhere between ambivalent and in-favour) but I do take issue with the justification put forward here - namely that marriage should be available for any two individuals who desire it – as this plainly would allow marriage between father and daughter or brother and sister, or any other incestuous combination.

In fact, to go a little further, why should marriage be restricted to just two individuals? Why not three? – as long as all parties so desire. How, under the rationale put forward here, can one oppose the marriage of two brothers and a sister?

Again, this is not intended as an argument against gay marriage, nor is it an attempt at a “slippery-slope”-style contention. I’m just genuinely interested in how / where anyone would draw a distinction.

James Campbell (London)