Gay Marriage Upheld by USSC in Close Ruling

[Valmy]

Also for the record (as someone said the U.S. do not need more lawyers) if I decided to make such a move it would be more along the lines of taking my savings and starting something much more low profile, such as bed and breakfast.

You can begin making Fawlty Towers puns.

Well then you should move to Vermont.

[Admiral Yi]

Oh. Never heard of a Hood College in Oregon.

Not Hood, Reed.  Doh.  Got one letter right.

[Valmy]

Also Fireblade is trying to convince me to move to Eureka Springs, AK instead.

If you really want to move to a trashy place with hills the Caucasus are much closer. Or the Balkans for that matter.

[Ed Anger]

I give it 5 months before Mart gets lynched in the States.

[garbon]

Wow I had no idea the counties down by Arizona all went for Obama. That surprises me.

Well one of those is fairly light blue but yeah, I would guess that a lot of that is Hispanic voters - of which there are a lot in those areas.

[The Larch]

Wow I had no idea the counties down by Arizona all went for Obama. That surprises me.

Hispanic majorities?

[The Brain]

Idea for novel: young man reaches majority and finds out it's Hispanic.

[crazy canuck]

Glad to see you posting grumbles. I get a little worried when people vanish for a bit after the Seedy thing.

I still visit, but don't post much here any more, for reasons that are probably pretty clear:  its so toxic here sometimes that we drive away posters, both new and old.  I still enjoy reading most of the threads, though, so I am not going anywhere.

Hey Grumbler.  Glad to see you are still around.   

[Monoriu]

I am not surprised to find out that there is a thriving anti-gay movement in Hong Kong.  I find their arguments against gay marriage hilarious and insulting.  But that also means there probably won't be legal gay marriage in Hong Kong for many decades to come.  This is like priority #4872389 on the government and mainstream agenda 

[dps]

I give it 5 months before Mart gets lynched in the States.

Yeah, but being gay would have nothing to do with it.  Well, unless unless members the gay community lynched him themselves as a good PR move.

[jimmy olsen]

Shots fired by George Takei

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/246759-george-takei-justice-thomas-a-clown-in-blackface

Actor and gay rights advocate George Takei is slamming Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas after his dissent to last week's decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide claimed that the government can neither give nor take away human dignity.

"He is a clown in blackface sitting on the Supreme Court. He gets me that angry," the former "Star Trek" star said in an interview with Fox 10 this week in Phoenix, standing alongside his longtime partner and husband.

"For him to say slaves had dignity ... I mean, doesn't he know slaves were chained? That they were whipped on the back?" Takei asked.

Dissenting in the 5-4 Supreme Court same-sex marriage case, Thomas, an African-American, reflected on the origins of human dignity within society, invoking the belief that humans have God-given "inherent worth."

"That vision is the foundation upon which this Nation was built. The corollary of that principle is that human dignity cannot be taken away by the government. Slaves did not lose their dignity (any more than they lost their humanity) because the government allowed them to be enslaved," Thomas wrote.

"Those held in internment camps did not lose their dignity because the government confined them," Thomas wrote. "And those denied governmental benefits certainly do not lose their dignity because the government denies them those benefits. The government cannot bestow dignity, and it cannot take it away."

Takei responded to Thomas' remarks in the case, Obergefell v. Hodges, reflecting in an MSNBC op-ed on his time in a Japanese-American internment camp as a young boy.

"I was only a child when soldiers with bayonetted rifles marched up our driveway in Los Angeles, banged on our door, and ordered us out," Takei wrote.

"I remember my mothers' tears as we gathered what little we could carry, and then were sent to live for many weeks in a single cramped horse stall at the Santa Anita racetracks."

Takei reflected on his family's assets being frozen and their family being shipped by railcar a few months later to Arkansas where they "slept inside bug-infested barracks, ate in a noisy mess hall, and relieved ourselves in common latrines that had no walls between the stalls."

"To say that the government does not bestow or grant dignity does not mean it cannot succeed in stripping it away through the imposition of unequal laws and deprivation of due process. At the very least, the government must treat all its subjects with equal human dignity," he wrote.

In the Fox 10 interview, Takei also mentioned rape scenes from the movie "12 Years a Slave."

"And he says they had dignity as slaves?" Takei asked.

"My parents lost everything that they worked for in the middle of their lives in their thirties. My father's business, our home, our freedom. And we're supposed to call that dignified?" Takei continued.

"This man does not belong on the Supreme Court. He is an embarrasment. He is a disgrace to America."

[The Brain]

I routinely trust an actor over a supreme court justice on legal matters.

[Martinus]

I routinely trust an actor over a supreme court justice on legal matters.

It is not really a legal matter, though.

[The Brain]

I routinely trust an actor over a supreme court justice on legal matters.

It is not really a legal matter, though.

FWIW I think his attack on Thomas would have been more powerful without the racist stuff.

[crazy canuck]

I routinely trust an actor over a supreme court justice on legal matters.

It is not really a legal matter, though.

Now you are adopting Scalia's narrative