Republicans May Get Gay Marriage Repealed

[rawTOP]

I find it appalling that people on a gay website are actually supporting candidates that are actively working to harm our community. Case and point - Justices Thomas and Alito have said they favor reversing the decision that gave our community marriage.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/05/politics/thomas-alito-obergefell-same-sex-marriage-analysis/index.html

If Amy Coney Barrett gets confirmed you can kiss our community's freedoms goodbye. The stakes couldn't be higher for us right now.

I completely respect "1970s Republicans" that wanted balanced budgets and limited government. But the Republican party today is a long way from that. When Republicans like Ana Navarro and the Bushes are supporting Biden, it's time to rethink things if you're a gay Republican.

To put it bluntly, any support of far right ideologies or politicians will be seen by the moderating team as an attack on the gay community and dealt with as such. As always, reasoned, fact-based political discussion is still completely OK (just make sure you quote quality sources with good data).

If you don't understand how Trump and his administration are a threat to the gay community, start here…

https://www.glaad.org/trump

There's been a serious attack on our community by him or his administration roughly once a week since he took office.

[rawTOP]

 

[BootmanLA]

And yet the people who got 40 cents more per week in their paycheck after the Trump tax giveaway will insist that's more important.

[evilqueerpig]

Vote like your life depends on it...because it DOES!

[Guest Iamme]

Wow I never voted before but sounds like it's time to register to vote 💁‍♂️

[Guest]

I'm not a citizen and I was asked to vote this year

[BootmanLA]

15 hours ago, NatureBoy said:

I'm not a citizen and I was asked to vote this year

Anyone can ask you to do anything, whether or not it's legal for you to do what they ask.

In a prior post on another topic, you bragged about having "voted both sides and still in the middle". Were you referring to voting in another country, where it's legal for you to do so? Or was that a confession that you vote illegally here? 

In that topic, you also made a comment about what "this country" needs to do, electorally - do you think that's really appropriate if you aren't a citizen? I have no idea where you ARE a citizen, but I can assure you I'm not going to tell the voters of that country how they need to vote.

In yet another post, you referred to the United States of America as "our country". If you are not a citizen, why do you consider this "our country"?

[sdcigarpig]

Another year, another election and once again we are forced to make a decision.

However, the issues and the problems of the country are far deeper that what many would say, and tend to ignore.  Any more for me it becomes this:  The devil I know, vs the devil I do not know.

The biggest issue here, and one that I think that all need to remember, that in the past presidential election, that if None of the above was a valid vote, then that is who would have won.  The sheer percentage of the population who could vote and did not, is getting closer and closer to the 50% mark, and when it bypasses it, then the real horror will come around, and ultimately will be the minority governing the majority.  I would encourage all people to not only vote, but get all of their friends and family who can vote to actually cast a ballot.  

[Guest]

All you self hating gays that are supporting trump need your heads examined 

All he has done is attempt and keep attempting to dismantle gay rights 

keep voting against your own interests 

that makes real sense 

[Guest Iamme]

All we can do is vote and encourage others to vote to protect our rights. 

[barefootboy]

On 10/14/2020 at 7:59 PM, Xantan said:

Wow I never voted before but sounds like it's time to register to vote 💁‍♂️

Please do!

[Guest]

hmmm seems to me gays want to be ruled by old white guys that lie to them and miss repersent things people say. #AmyComeyBarrett just pointed out the most important thing about #Obergefell: For it to make its way to the SC, lower courts would have to flout the law of the land. She said it would be "extremely unlikely" it would ever make it's way to the SC again. Are you listening Gay Left?   and where did all this trump hates stuff come in  i would have to say i have have never actually read or say any neg things about gays or changing laws that we support .  but hmmm biden says it both ways depending wich group he talks to is what he says so who knows wich way it will go. now i feel sorry for the guy that only got 40 cents a week from tax cuts. i know i made 5387 dollars this year vers look at your taxes paid in 2015 and look at taxes paid in 2019. so once again i think you need to do your own research and not listen to either side remember election are for you to pick your guy. my granfmother god bless her sole i qoute her. " you vote for your crook and i will vote for mine" and all i can say is when someone says something that someone else says is look it up make sure they are telling you excactly what they said cause there is so much of things being left out just to make it seem different and the news is great at it.

 

[BootmanLA]

1 hour ago, bbboffer said:

hmmm seems to me gays want to be ruled by old white guys that lie to them and miss repersent things people say. #AmyComeyBarrett just pointed out the most important thing about #Obergefell: For it to make its way to the SC, lower courts would have to flout the law of the land. She said it would be "extremely unlikely" it would ever make it's way to the SC again. Are you listening Gay Left?   and where did all this trump hates stuff come in  i would have to say i have have never actually read or say any neg things about gays or changing laws that we support .  but hmmm biden says it both ways depending wich group he talks to is what he says so who knows wich way it will go. now i feel sorry for the guy that only got 40 cents a week from tax cuts. i know i made 5387 dollars this year vers look at your taxes paid in 2015 and look at taxes paid in 2019. so once again i think you need to do your own research and not listen to either side remember election are for you to pick your guy. my granfmother god bless her sole i qoute her. " you vote for your crook and i will vote for mine" and all i can say is when someone says something that someone else says is look it up make sure they are telling you excactly what they said cause there is so much of things being left out just to make it seem different and the news is great at it.

Based on this post, here's what you don't understand about the Supreme Court and overturning precedent. 

Yes, it's true that a case has to make it up to the Supreme Court, through either all the levels of a state court system, or through both a federal district court and the appellate court above it. So no, nobody's likely to sue the state of New Jersey claiming same-sex marriage is inherently unconstitutional and get a ruling that makes its way to the Court to overturn Obergefell (the same-sex marriage decision).

But there are many other ways to challenge it and undermine it until the decision falls on its own. For instance, let's say I own a reception hall rental facility, and I refuse to rent to a same-sex couple for their reception because they're gay. The federal district court rules against me, saying I have no right to discriminate based on the sexes of the people getting married. I live in a state under a progressive appeals court - say, the Ninth Circuit - and that court upholds the district court, saying that companies cannot treat different marriages differently as long as they're legal.

At the same time, someone in the same situation across the country is also sued for the same reason. But he lives in the notoriously conservative Fifth Circuit, and that court rules that even though the state can't stop the couple from getting married, private companies are free to treat those marriages differently.

Now you have what's called a circuit split, which is the most common reason the Supreme Court takes up cases, as they aim for uniformity of federal law across the country. So they take the case, and Alito, Thomas, Barrett, Kavanaugh, and Roberts decide to parse the Obergefell decision carefully. Sure, they say - states cannot actually prohibit same-sex marriage. But they note that the FACT of being married and the BENEFITS of being married are not the same thing, and that states treat married couples differently based on different factors.

For instance, they might note, a state might (as mine does) give a married couple a property tax freeze on all property taxes once they reach the age of 65. So two married couples get treated differently based on some factor other than that they are married (ie age).

Or, they might note, a state might (as mine does) place restrictions on how a divorcing married couple must divide community assets, like a retirement account that is nominally in one person's name, based on how long the couple was married. If you're married more than ten years, for instance, the account must be divided in a divorce between the spouses like any other community property. So the state treats couples differently based on length of marriage.

Under those circumstances, the conservative bloc might say, states can clearly decide what benefits, if any, attach to WHICH KINDS of marriages, as can private companies (if the government can do it, certainly private companies can). And in one swoop, they gut Obergefell. Sure, you can get married in all 50 states. But Alabama? You're free to pass laws that say same-sex couples don't have automatic visitation rights in hospitals. Texas? You can pass a law that says same-sex couples don't qualify for family coverage under state employee group benefits plans. Louisiana? Those broad community-property laws you have under your Civil Code don't have to apply to same-sex marriages.

In other words, if they're determined to gut a ruling, they can find a way. Once they've sufficiently gutted the ruling, it may not matter if it still stands but without practical effect. 

[BootmanLA]

Here's another point that Barrett's non-answering glossed over: Even if you don't think a particular case challenging a prior decision is ever going to reach the court, refusing (internally) to accept that prior decision as fixed precedent means you can be aggressive at limiting its reach. Barrett noted a couple of cases that she classified as "super precedent", by which she meant they were so widely cited and the basis for so many further decisions that they could never be overturned. Among those she included Marbury v. Madison (establishing the principle of judicial review) and Brown v. Board of Education (striking down "separate but equal").

One case she refused to comment on was a case from 1965 called Griswold v. Connecticut. At that time, Connecticut state law forbid the sale of contraceptives, even to married couples. In striking down that law, the Supreme Court found that there was, inherent in the Constitution, a right to privacy that was not precisely defined, but which (at a minimum) encompassed the right of a married couple to control their own procreation. They clarified this right had been described, in various terms, in earlier cases such as affirming the right of parents to control the upbringing of their children.

It's true that it's essentially inconceivable that any state, in the 21st century, would ever try to pass a law like this again (the one in question had been enacted in 1873 and was almost never enforced). But that's not the important part. This case, establishing a right to privacy over certain aspects of one's life, serves as the underpinning of numerous other decisions, including Roe v. Wade, Lawrence v. Texas (barring states from criminalizing private, consensual gay sex), and Obergefell.

If you reject Griswold - if you refuse to acknowledge it as a precedent that can't be overturned, like Brown or Marbury, it may not mean you'd overturn the decision or that it's likely a challenge urging overturning it would come up. But if you reject its central holding - as some "textualists" like Barrett do - then you have no reason to ever, ever find that any other situation presents a right to privacy. At a minimum, you put that decision in a storage box, never to be used as the starting point for future cases. Say, for instance, a state passes a law that refuses to recognize a sex-change for legal purposes. Using Griswold as a guide, you would probably hold that such laws are unconstitutional, as there's little that could be more private than how you define yourself genderwise. But reject Griswold, and suddenly there's nothing to hang that opinion on in prior law; you just say that Griswold's holding applies to the facts of that case alone. In fact, five textualists can argue that the constitution is completely silent on that issue and so states can do as they please, even though you haven't overturned Griswold at all. 

That's why answers like hers are so disingenuous and dangerous. There are already two justices on the court - Alito and Thomas - who have on multiple occasions called for abandoning precedents they think were wrongly decided. Kavanaugh has exhibited some tendencies in that direction and so has Gorsuch, though less so. Add Barrett into the mix and you have five justices who are solidly committed to sharply limiting, if not outright overturning, any precedents they don't like, with the exception of a few "super-precedents", the criteria for which are poorly defined.

This isn't to say she should isn't qualified to be a justice (that's a separate argument). It's to say that she is going to shift the balance on the court dramatically, and yes, gay rights issues are likely to be in the crosshairs of this Court's decisions.

[Guest]

and i say everything you just said is speculation and could happen to other freedoms we churish in this contry like right to bare arms and many others that a liberal court would gut and destroy so you have to think what bests suits you when you vote and vote that way. but remember everything is hyperthectical and probaly will never happen.