DOMA unconstitutional (5-4); Court punts on gay marriage (no standing)

I think it'll be slower on states being required to allow people to marry there, but it'll be all 50 at once if there's a court decision that says a marriage valid in one state has to be recognized in another.

So if your Massachusetts straight marriage is valid in Alabama for tax purposes, etc., then your Massachusetts gay marriage is valid in Alabama for those same things.

 

Well, Scalia is a moron. Thinks we should interpret the document exactly as it was written and enforced 200-plus years ago. Of course, if that were really true, women would be 3/5 a person and blacks wouldn't exist as far as governing goes...

So that doesn't make sense.

Nowhere in the document does it say that marriage is between a man and a woman, but it does say that all people are to be treated equally under the law. I just can't get how he can be a strict interpreter of the document and yet tries to use that as his reasoning for not being in favor of gay marriage.

To me, that makes him a bigot.

 

This isn't true. He certainly recognizes Constitutional amendments as valid. And he's certainly not a "moron."

He's not a textualist. He's an originalist. The Equal Protection amendment was enacted to apply to racial discrimination only. That's why it was passed.

Should 12-year-olds be allowed to drive?

Should 10-year-olds be permitted to marry?

 

The Court will eventually apply intermediate scrutiny to gays/lesbians, as they currently do for sex. Frankly, it's the best fit to get where the Court is going, and I'm a little surprised they didn't just go ahead and do it.

 

So where in the "originalist" document does it forbid gay marriage? Where is marriage addressed at all? Gay people aren't a new phenomenon, and just because people didn't think about it back then, why should it be illegal today just because it wasn't thought of back then? Don't say 200 years of history, because a lot has changed in 200 years.

 

Where does it forbid murder?

And yet states go right ahead and forbid it, nonetheless.

 

I'm more curious about this spot-on assertion that, if we really wanted to be all consistent with the Constitution as it was "written and enforced," a woman would be counted as 3/5ths of a person.

 

Forget it, he's rolling.

 

I feel a little better about Scalia, then. And I'm sure the esteemed justice will sleep a little easier, too, knowing that the case for his being a moron's not as solid as had been thought.

 

My apologies for being a moron myself... confused my history for a few minutes...

Willing to admit a mistake, doesn't change the original point that the document originally permitted and acknowledged white men only as having voting rights, etc.

 

Correct.

And it was amended.

Which Scalia recognizes without reservation.