And now for something completely different
I usually use this to post about personal issues, but I’m goin’ political for this post.
Gay marriage is now legal, which is... amazing. This whole issue went pretty much exactly the way that I thought it would. The backlash is unfortunate but predictable. Bigots always get the loudest right before history proves them wrong.
What’s disappointing, however, is that the reaction to this amazing development is pretty much split exactly down party lines. I’d have loved to have seen one Republican rep saying something like “Okay, hey, I know I might catch flack for this, but you know what? We were kinda in the wrong on this one. Is preventing some people from getting married such an important issue for us to be concerning ourselves with when the deficit is skyrocketing and immigration and, hell, all these other things that are just begging for our attention?”
Hell, I’m sure more than one of them think this. They can’t all be complete assholes, right? But if you pay attention, you’ll notice that almost every republican reaction has the same verbage. “I’m upset that the democratic will of millions of Americans has been overturned by five unelected officials.” The same statement. At least a dozen times.
Kinda skirts the question doesn’t it. Even the ones who oppose this ruling seem to have trouble facing it head on. “Is preventing people from getting married a good or bad thing” is not addressed because at this point the answer is pretty fucking self-evident. They know, on some level, that they’re playing the villains here, so they have to spin it in a way that makes them look like they’re “defending freedom” rather than “being homophobic douches.”
So guess what. I’m sinking to their level here. I’m going to argue on their terms. The Supreme Court’s duty, their literal job description is to overturn the democratic will of the American people when it conflicts with the founding notions upon which the law is built i.e. the constitution. No they are not elected, they are appointed. That is also in the constitution. So what, you ask, is the constitutional matter at hand?
Amendment 14, section 1: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
This leaves you with only one debatable recourse, to argue that marriage does not constitute a privilege under law (a laughable point, but whatever). To this I posit thus: you are free to disagree with the supreme court’s ruling on the matter, but that does not make the ruling any less valid. Even if you disagree with the interpretation of legal privileges to include marriage, you have to concede that it is, at the very least, a reasonable interpretation thereof. Since it is the Court’s literal responsibility to interpret the constitution’s application, by definition any law denying the right of any two adult people to marriage is unconstitutional.
Therefore, this is not a gross miscarriage of justice. This is not an unamerican decision. This is not a dangerous precedent. And by God this is not the end of traditional marriage.
You have only three options here:
agree that the Supreme Court did their duty with due diligence and accept that marriage is now a constitutional right
realize that your arguments against this are motivated from a personal, not legal standpoint, whether that be being homophobic yourself or merely to appeal to your homophobic constituents. I’m honestly not sure which is more deplorable.
Reject the entire court system as it now stands (a positively unamerican standpoint that would require you to admit that the founding father’s did something wrong. LeGasp!).
In conclusion, Love won. Deal with it