[quizotic]

Yes, but why this minority? Why not allow 12 year olds to marry as a consititutional right? Why not allow brothers and sisters to marry? I'm not trying to make a slippery slope argument. I'm really asking.

States license things all the time, and the conditions of their licenses block certain people from doing certain things. Why are the courts blocking the right of states to license this activity (marriage) in this particular case?

Again, I'm personally happy with the outcome. It feels as wrong to me to say the LGBT can't marry as it would to say an interracial couple can't marry. But Scalia asks what the legal reasoning is, not whether it's the right outcome. What's different about this minority or this situation?

[glesica]

> Why not allow 12 year olds to marry as a consititutional right?

Marriage is a legal contract. 12 year olds can't enter into legal contracts (alone). Therefore, 12 year olds can't get married. This also takes care of pedophiles marrying children.

Gay people are born gay. So this is different from polygamy. Animals can't enter into legal contracts. So this is different from bestiality.

As an aside, my girlfriend just pointed out to me that it is hard to justify laws against incest (two adult relatives). Maybe we shouldn't have such laws.

The best way, in my opinion, to look at this issue is to see marriage not as some kind of weird lovey-dovey thing, but to see it as what it is, a legal contract that has special consideration in many areas of the law and society.

[__z]

>As an aside, my girlfriend just pointed out to me that it is hard to justify laws against incest (two adult relatives). Maybe we shouldn't have such laws.

I don't think we should have them. We only have them because its "eeeewwwww." Social taboo. Cousin marriage is legal in most of the east coast, including in my state and cousin marriage wasn't taboo historically.

In non-cousin marriage states it would be hard to enforce such a ban anyways. Do you have to prove you aren't related when you get your license? Who is going to find out? Who is going to care? Is the IRS going to challenge you? Is your employer going to find out your spouse is actually your cousin, know that is illegal in the state you got married in, and then deny your spouse benefits because your marriage wasn't technically legal? Probably not.

"Genetic problems" is compelling in some ways (but probably overblown) but you can have sex without marriage and marriage without sex and have sex without children (especially in the case of same-sex sex, post menopause sex, sex with someone who had their gonads removed, sex with inter-sexed persons... I can go on...)

I would also say it is your choice to have children with genetic problems - I mean we don't actually outlaw it. If two people were carriers of a terrible disease we don't punish the parents for knowingly taking that risk. We don't punish parents who have children much later in life (children born to parents of advanced age have a higher chance of a few diseases such as Down's Syndrome.)

The reason we have these laws is nobody has challenged them in court yet and is not likely to because not to many people want to marry their sister enough to file a federal lawsuit and I'm not aware of too many people who were arrested for incest (regardless if they were practicing it or not).

Legislatures can pass any laws they want. It can only be challenged by judicial review after said law is passed.

[meatysnapper]

I'm free with people having "Timmeh" children as long as I as a taxpayer don't need to pay for their choosing to have compromised children.

[__z]

Having a child is always a genetic lottery. At what point does some somewhat advanced probability of some disease become "choosing to have compromised children"?

[adventured]

Gay people do not have to be born gay, even if the radical majority tend to be.

There is nothing that prevents a person from deciding they want to experiment sexually, or completely alter their sexual identity, at any given time.

It would be a form of bigotry to proclaim that straight people can't choose to be gay of their own free will, and vice versa. It would imply we're not in control of our own sexuality, and that we lack free will.

And this is not a support of the bigots that proclaim that being gay is always a choice and that gay people should just stop pretending and change their minds --- those people were always in the wrong, their argument was always vile. Sticking to the: gay people are all born gay, premise, is a defeatist response to that bigotry, it's a very very poor defense when a defense is not needed at all.

The proper position is: if I want to be straight or gay, it is my choice, period. If I'm born gay, that's fine; if I'm born gay and want to be straight, that's fine; if I'm born gay and only want to be gay, that's fine. And so on.

[dudifordMann]

I am not sure I can buy into the "it's a choice" camp.

If you were a avid meat enthusiast, you owned your own meat smoker, held barbeques on the weekend, and your license plate said "3atmeat". if you woke up one morning and said, "You know what? Imma be a vegetarian" there is something disingenuous about that. Even if you decide that the treatment of animals by the meat industry is cruel, and you chose to abstain for ethical reasons, if a perfectly cooked and seasoned steak was presented to you, you would probably salivate.

Now, instead, if you found yourself never really enjoying meat, and found that dining without meat was more pleasant to you, then it would seem you were always a vegetarian, or at least have vegetarian leanings. and did not realize it.

EDIT: with respect to the person below: to be clear I am not saying that being gay is necessarily genetic. Perhaps neurological, but my claim is that you cannot fight against what feels natural without some repercussion

[coldpie]

I think you missed his point. The point is, it doesn't matter whether it's a choice or not. It's not bad in either case.

[tibiapejagala]

It's first time I encounter someone sharing this sentiment too.

I'm so tired of hearing 'they're born this way' argument. It just sounds like if it was a choice, it would be totally ok to persecute them.

[aoeuasdf1]

Agreed.

Although, I'm a vegetarian and I'm salivating at the thought of a perfectly cooked and seasoned steak. :)

[JoeAltmaier]

That's arguable - folks are notoriously incapable of controlling their sexuality, to the point its reasonable to postulate free will has nothing to do with it.

[fizzbatter]

It may be a moot point though, i've always felt that it's a gray area - not black or white.

Eg, i could feel/claim to be entirely straight. But if i have a drunken experience in college, perhaps i realize that i enjoyed it a bit. Did i change? Or was i never "100% straight" to begin with?

Who's to say that you can't even be wrong about your own sexuality? We're wrong about things all the time, even within our own minds. Is sexuality any different? I doubt it.

The idea that you're born straight or gay appears to be created by a desire to separate humanity. You're in one camp, they're in another, and with that separation you can judge them differently.

Interesting how it all comes about though. We're complex creatures in everything we do, it seems.

[AlexandrB]

> The proper position is: if I want to be straight or gay, it is my choice, period. If I'm born gay, that's fine; if I'm born gay and want to be straight, that's fine; if I'm born gay and only want to be gay, that's fine. And so on.

I agree completely. I always thought that the biological argument was a red herring meant mostly to sway those that couldn't be swayed anyways (those that thought gay impulses were aberrant). The moral argument remains the same whether someone is born gay or choses to become gay.

[glesica]

> Gay people do not have to be born gay, even if the radical majority tend to be.

I thought about noting that "most" gay people are born gay, but I didn't. It doesn't really matter for my argument, provided that at least some gay people are born gay. The point is that you can't equate polygamy and gay marriage because polygamists make a conscious choice to be polygamists, they aren't born that way.

I would actually be fine with polygamy (I think the correct term is actually polyamory), but it is a commonly used argument against gay marriage because most people are against it or find it uncomfortable, and it has a pretty ugly history in some areas. I was trying to refute the "slippery slope" class of arguments against gay marriage, so I gave a refutation for that one.

[wtbob]

> Marriage is a legal contract. 12 year olds can't enter into legal contracts (alone). Therefore, 12 year olds can't get married.

Marriage is a formal relationship between two people of the opposite sex. Two men or two women are of the same sex. Therefore two men or two woman cannot marry.

You can do anything, if you redefine the meaning of everything.

[pluma]

Strawman.

There's nothing about marriage that necessitates restricting it to members of opposite sexes. It is however a contract, which requires restricting it to persons that are capable of consent. Exclusion conflicts the basic premise of equal rights so the exclusion has to have valid reasons other than "because that's how we defined it".

A more interesting question would be why it's restricted to natural persons and why it is restricted to two persons.

[wtbob]

> There's nothing about marriage that necessitates restricting it to members of opposite sexes.

There's nothing about contracts that necessitate restricting them to persons capable of consent, if you decide to define contracts not to require consent anymore.

If you feel free to redefine the nature of marriage, surely you can also feel free to redefine the nature of contracts.

[glesica]

Contracts, by their nature, require consent. If there isn't consent, then there literally isn't a contract. Do you and I have a contract saying that you'll give me all your money? Without consent, we might. I'll be expecting a check from you within a week.

Marriage, by its nature, as seen by the government (that is an important qualification), requires nothing more than two consenting individuals. In the eyes of the government, marriage is nothing but a contract between two people. If your religion wants to define it some other way, that's fine with me. But from the standpoint of our government, the way your religion defines it makes no difference, nor should it.

I would actually be perfectly fine with renaming the legal institution of "marriage". It would actually be better if no one could get "legally" "married". Just call it a civil union. If you want to have a religious ceremony, great, but all the government would recognize is a civil union contract. However, most people don't agree with me, so we're stuck calling it marriage even though it has nothing to do with religious traditions.

[wtbob]

> Contracts, by their nature, require consent. If there isn't consent, then there literally isn't a contract.

'Marriages, by their nature, require a man and woman. If there aren't a man and woman, then there literally isn't a contract.'

You're not arguing: you're just asserting. One surely could have a piece of paper legally called a 'contract' which states that I owe you money, but to which I have no consented. The fact that it's not what you & I and the law today would call a contract would be irrelevant if the law changed tomorrow.

Heck, we have a constitutional amendment forbidding involuntary servitude except as punishment for a crime, and yet we have a draft and people can be forced to work for others. Words have lost their meaning.

> Marriage, by its nature, as seen by the government (that is an important qualification), requires nothing more than two consenting individuals.

As of today, in this country, that's true. A few days ago, it wasn't. Anything can mean anything once words stop meaning anything.

> I would actually be perfectly fine with renaming the legal institution of "marriage". It would actually be better if no one could get "legally" "married". Just call it a civil union.

That's what I've advocated for. And it shouldn't be limited to two people having sex with one another, either. If a fraternity wish to form a temporary civil union in order to secure health insurance or ownership of their home, let them. Why does the government care who's having sex with whom, if that sex cannot create children?

[chockablock]

> Why not allow 12 year olds to marry as a consititutional right?

Children are not considered capable of consent.

> Why not allow brothers and sisters to marry?

Claimed societal interest in preventing harm to offspring born from inbreeding.

> I'm not trying to make a slippery slope argument. I'm really asking.

OK, well now you have a couple answers.

[slavik81]

>> Why not allow brothers and sisters to marry? > Claimed societal interest in preventing harm to offspring born from inbreeding.

If that's all, it seems that logically, brother-brother marriage should be OK.

I suspect the real reason for a lot of these laws are is "because it's icky". The justifications seem more like rationalisations.

[murbard2]

Yes, but "it's icky" didn't form arbitrarily, ex nihilo. If you go one level deeper and ask why it's considered icky, you may find justifications, some good, some bad, some outmoded, some relevant.

[hluska]

I should preface this by saying that Christmas dinner at the Hluska household is already complex enough...:)

On a serious note though, you allude to one of my favourite aspects of law. Throughout history, views on brother-sister marriage have changed. At points/places, it has been perfectly fine for brothers and sisters (especially in elite families) to get married.

I am far from an expert in this field so can't speak to why our norms changed. If you want to take this further, you should start with the Westermarck effect and look into the kibbutz study. Or, maybe consider how marriages between families evolved as a way of formalizing business or other strategic relationships. Either way, taboos are cool!!

For example, in ancient Greece, homosexuality was fine. Hell, even Zeus advocated it as a way to prevent pregnancy. Yet, by the early 1900s, it was considered mental illness through much of the world. Taboos are always in flux and I can't figure out why. Logically, you'd think that science and information sharing would make us all more liberal and taboo-proof, but I'm not sure that is happening.

- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westermarck_effect

[fizzbatter]

> Logically, you'd think that science and information sharing would make us all more liberal and taboo-proof, but I'm not sure that is happening.

I think you're right - but i also think you're underestimating the lack of science minded individuals in the ones who are less liberal (such as in the US).

Education is becoming a big problem, in general.

[JoeAltmaier]

The 'inbreeding' argument doesn't, and has never, held water. Not that I'm about to jump my sister; but as a point of science its not terribly significant. Cousins can actually have closer DNA than siblings; cousins are often allowed to marry (varies state by state). The idea that only horrible monsters will result is silly; its how all purebred farm animals are created.

[cyorir]

The main argument against incest that I know of pertains to recessive genetic diseases. Suppose one parent has a recessive disease, and the other does not (P generation). Then F1 generation may have carriers, but will not display the disease. If F1 mate together, however, then the F2 generation may contain individuals who are homozygous for the recessive allele, so they will display the disease.

There was a case in which this happened, the "Blue Fugates" [0], who had a particular recessive disease[1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Fugates [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methemoglobinemia

This argument made sense before genetic screening was available, but falls apart with genetic screening, since you could screen the siblings to see if they are both carriers.

[DanBC]

The other argument against incest is to protect vulnerable people from abusive adults.

There are enough cases to realise this is something of a problem, although protections can probably be built into the system.

[JoeAltmaier]

And other forms of marriage are not subject to abuse? Doesn't rise to the level of prohibition, I think.

[driverdan]

[citation needed]

[jrs235]

>Children are not considered capable of consent.

Children (minors and the "age of majority") and age of consent is defined by law. While we have come mostly to an agreement on the age of consent for many things, nothing prevents us from changing our definitions or age of consent for varying activities.

[spdustin]

The age at which the brain is capable of the higher levels of executive function necessary to make rational, informed decisions (not saying that such decisions are guaranteed, just that the brain is capable of considering them) is a function of biology, i.e. defined by natural law.

The legal framework of consenting age protects the abuse of a minor's inability to "think like a grown up", though it's arguable if the age of consent is too low (because biology dictates an older brain has a matured executive function capacity) or too high (because some kids, as many can attest, are wise beyond their years).

[jrs235]

>The legal framework of consenting age

Should be "Current western and developed/modern civilization's legal framework of consenting age"...

[dorgo]

>> Why not allow brothers and sisters to marry? >Claimed societal interest in preventing harm to offspring born from inbreeding. They can produce offspring without a marriage. Or, if it would be allowed, they could marry and dont produce offspring. Dont see how one is connected to the other. Its not a question of reasoning. All you need is a lobby big enough and enough time and you are allowed to do whatever you like to do. Marry a 12 year old, marry a pet, marry a car..

[ikeboy]

>Claimed societal interest in preventing harm to offspring born from inbreeding.

If that's a valid argument, why isn't the same argument [1] against gays valid? Conversely, if greater risk isn't enough of a constitutional reason to allow bans on gay marriage, why is it enough to make incest bans constitutional?

[1] http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/risk/gender/msm/facts/

[foldr]

How would legalizing gay marriage increase the risk of anyone getting HIV? You're not making any sense.

[ikeboy]

The same way that legalizing brother-sister marriage increases risk. Or could you explain more fully why one would increase risk but not the other?

[foldr]

You think that gay men are more likely to have unprotected sex with multiple partners if they get married than if they don't?

[ikeboy]

They might; something being officially sanctioned might increase the frequency.

Can you at least see a reasonable comparison between the two? If you don't think changing marriage laws affects behavior, shouldn't that apply to incest as well?

It seems to me that "legalizing gay marriage won't increase gay sex overall" and "legalizing sibling marriage won't increase sibling sex overall" are likely to be inconsistent with each other, and that the first is implied by your wording; if gay sex increases, it should also increase "unprotected sex with multiple partners".

[LordKano]

Claimed societal interest in preventing harm to offspring born from inbreeding.

Does this mean that marriages between same-sex siblings will be permitted?

It's simply the fact that we find the idea of siblings having sex to be icky. Which is the same reason for the prohibition against same-sex marriage.

[DanBC]

Where "no evidence" means "lots of evidence".

http://www.genetics.edu.au/Publications-and-Resources/Geneti...

Etc.

[tzs]

> There's no evidence that sibling marriage results in defective offspring. It's simply the fact that we find the idea of siblings having sex to be icky

Bullshit [1].

[1] http://www.larasig.com/node/2020

[bdowling]

Did you read Your citation? Because it doesn't back up your assertion. It's says that for for first degree relations (brother-sister or parent child) the risk of death or severe defect increases 31.4% over the general risk. It doesn't say what the general risk is, but I assume it is relatively rare, on the order of 1 in 1000 or fewer. So risk to offspring from siblings would rise to about 1.3 in 1000. I would hardly call that proof that sibling marriage results in defective offspring.

[chralieboy]

The opinion goes into strenuous detail on the history of marriage cases before the court. This decision was not tearing down "what is marriage?", but pivoted (for Justice Kennedy, who was the deciding vote and wrote the majority opinion) on providing equal dignity. In essence, they found that the core aspects of marriage were upheld in gay marriages and as such they were due equal protection.

Your question — whose dignity falls under the scope of consideration — is the tricky one here. This is malleable and in the US Constitution is reinterpreted as views change. The majority's view is that, as we have seen states experiment with gay marriage and civil unions, we have found the arguments against them to be untenable. We've never defined marriage as being about procreation (e.g. if a man and a post-menopausal woman want to marry that's never been an issue) and we hold it as a form of social cohesion (which applies in LBGT unions, as seen in state who have allowed them.)

Why not siblings? This has a genetic argument against it that was not addressed here. Why not 12 year olds? We don't see their union as a part of the social construct. Again, this decision isn't about tearing down the definition of marriage. It upholds the definition of marriage and says that it applies to same sex couples.

[humanrebar]

> This is malleable and in the US Constitution is reinterpreted as views change.

This is the rub. What is the point of writing down laws and constitutions if the words don't stay put? If their meanings are ephemeral and open to interpretation, we are governed by men (executives, bureaucrats, judges, prosecutors, police) and not by laws.

There are states out there that make no pretension and are ruled by fiat. The U.S., in contrast, is supposed to be a nation of laws. The laws being checks against individuals and special interests. The legitimacy of the U.S. hinges on it sticking to the rules of governance that were set in place and upheld over the years.

[XorNot]

Guess you oppose all those constitutional amendments then too?

The Bill of Rights even expressly notes that the rights enumerated do not cover all rights and cannot be expected to cover all rights, and that those rights not enumerated are not meant to somehow be lesser -

"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

[chrishynes]

Exactly the opposite. Amendments are the correct way to change the Constitution.

Randomly deciding, "oh, we'll just reinterpret the existing language to mean something totally different, and is cool because times have changed..." is a totally different ballgame.

That sort of thinking violates the legitimacy of our legal system at the basest level. If words in a law, or in the Constitution don't mean anything and meanings can be changed on a whim, there is no solid ground for anything.

[JoeAltmaier]

Except this is the norm. Is electronic communications protected? Freedom of the Press cover that? Who controls currency vs coin? What about bitcoin? Interpretation is going on all the time.

[chrishynes]

There's nothing wrong with interpretation, as long as that interpretation doesn't change the original intent. Obviously freedom of the press covers communications in general, already covered several types of communication originally, and would cover electronic communications and any other form of communication we invent.

If you want to change the original intent, though, that's an amendment. That's why prohibition required an amendment, for example. The court couldn't (as they disingenuously do today) just say, "well, over here the Constitution says that the feds have the power to regulate interstate commerce. So sure, prohibition is fine because commerce."

[humanrebar]

Constitutional amendments are certainly constitutional.

The judicial system discovering new rights is not.

And that clause of the Constitution certainly was not used when the question of mandatory health insurance came before the court. I would actually like that policy if it were consistently applied. Instead it is applied when it is the means to meet the desired ends. And that means we are a nation ruled by men, not by laws.

[aNoob7000]

You asked, why this minority? Because two consenting adults want to get married, that's why. Not two children, but two adult Americans want to get married and have it recognized around the United States, not just a few states.

States screwed up when they took the civil part of marriage and associated it with the ceremonial part in a church.

[rqebmm]

>States screwed up when they took the civil part of marriage and associated it with the ceremonial part in a church.

Couldn't agree more. To me the correct answer is that the government should grant civil unions, and not recognize marriages in any legal way. Marriage should be between people and their religious institution. Want to get married? Great! Go to your church and sign your civil union documentation when you're done with the ceremony to get all the governmental perks. If your church doesn't want to allow homosexual marriage? Fine! Homosexuals can find an accepting congregation and get married there. Or they're non-religious, and can just go get a civil union without the marriage.

The real problem with the gay marriage debate hasn't been the inequality, or the bigotry, it's the fact that a religious institution got mixed up with a legal institution. So instead of teasing them apart, we've decided that the legal definition now partially defines the religious institution. That is why some people are going to continue to be somewhat justifiably angry about this. If we just gave them separate definitions, it would let people self-select private institutions whose definition they agreed with.

[abhorrence]

While I generally agree that it is annoying that religion and government got mixed up here, I've found that in a significant portion of cases, "marriage is religious, don't redefine it" is just a convenient cover for animus. Out of which things like North Carolina's 2012 state constitutional amendment came.

[MichaelGG]

Why two? Civil marriage should be a normal contract between n entities that are allowed to engage in contracts. It seems extremely inelegant to have arbitrary restrictions on it.

[Goronmon]

I think it's pretty straightforward to come up with reasons why it's important to limit marriage to as few people as possible. One strong one being that it could be very bad for society to allow wealthy men (and women, though I think it would be less common) to marry a large number of women, especially due to the negative effect such a situation would have on lower class men.

[MichaelGG]

But it's not limiting that. People are already free to do so and some religious or philosophies encourage or make it highly desirable. They just cannot be legally recognized which is pointlessly discriminatory.

[tome]

I'm quite tempted to choose n = 1 and get those tax breaks all for myself.

[rodgerd]

> States screwed up when they took the civil part of marriage and associated it with the ceremonial part in a church.

In England that was because the church - specifically the Anglican church - wanted to gain religious power over marriage as a mechanism to make it harder for Anglicans to marry into other faiths. So I'm not really sympathetic to churches in common law countries crying about this one.

[dec0dedab0de]

Well children are always an exception.

Siblings/cousins creep most people out due to inbreeding, but honestly I don't really see a problem with it if they promise to not have kids. (I'm an only child though, so I don't have any perspective)

Polygamy also seems like it should be legal to me, as long as everyone is a fully consenting adult.

Basically I just think the government should just stay out of peoples lives as much as possible.

[themartorana]

I think they should stay out of marriage since it's almost entirely a religious construct. Instead, they can be in the business of civil partnerships, which dictate those things required by law - HIPPA/healthcare rights, inheritances, child custody, death rights, and so on, and so forth.

Then "marriage" can be defined by your religion. My wife and I were not married in a Catholic Church. Therefore, in the eyes of the church, we're not married. That's fine with me. In the same vein, I'm friends with a gay couple who's synagogue married them before their state legalized gay marriage. In their eyes, they were married, whether or not the state acknowledge inheritance/HIPPA rights.

It seems relatively logical, but it's never come up in conversation. Let the state make rules around civil partnerships, and let religions deal with marriage - which, basically, says that if you say you're married, then cool - you're married.

[__z]

>Let the state make rules around civil partnerships, and let religions deal with marriage

That's exactly how it works now. One is called civil marriage and one is called religious marriage. The church sets their own rules and the government sets theirs. You can be in one, the other, or both at the same time.

Civil marriage is a legal contract, religious marriage is decided by the church and it is whatever the church says it is. The government lets clergy also officiate civil marriage but it doesn't have to. It does because it makes sense. You wouldn't have to need a civil official and a religious official at your wedding. You wouldn't have to go through two ceremonies, one at the church and one at city hall.

Don't put too much thought in the fact that both contain the word "marriage" in them.

Goodrich vs. Dept of Health (MASS.) (emphasis mine):

"Marriage is a vital social institution. The exclusive commitment of two individuals to each other nurtures love and mutual support; it brings stability to our society.... The question before us is whether, consistent with the Massachusetts Constitution, the Commonwealth may deny the protections, benefits, and obligations conferred by civil marriage to two individuals of the same sex who wish to marry. We conclude that it may not. The Massachusetts Constitution affirms the dignity and equality of all individuals. It forbids the creation of second-class citizens.... the arguments made... failed to identify any constitutionally adequate reason for denying civil marriage to same-sex couples."

[osi]

I agree.

I've long thought that a solution to the "gay marriage" "problem" would be for states to get out of the marriage business and just allow one adult to specify another adult as the legal party for all the things that a spouse gets under marriage.

Then there's no debate in terms of the state because the state doesn't define marriage at all! But that just exposes how some people WANT marriage to be man+woman to enforce their belief system.

[thomnottom]

I've heard this argument before, but I'm not sure I understand how that is different from what's going on now. It seems to just be semantics. The Catholic Church is still free to only marry Catholics and ignore the rest. That doesn't change. And people are still able to go through religious marriage ceremonies without bothering to be recognized by the state.

Personally I was married in a religious ceremony and then had to submit paperwork for it to be recognized civilly.

[humanrebar]

> The Catholic Church is still free to only marry Catholics and ignore the rest. That doesn't change.

The next round of lawsuits will see if you're right. There is some real risk you are mistaken. If not with regard to the Catholic Church, then with regard to private organizations recognizing or participating in marriage ceremonies.

[tommorris]

> I think they should stay out of marriage since it's almost entirely a religious construct.

You can have two atheists go before another atheist, who won't invoke any deity, and marry them based on the rules of the state.

That religious people get involved in marriage no more makes it "almost entirely a religious construct" than anything else religious people do.

Why concede to religion that which it has not earned and to which it has no special right?

[hackuser]

12 year olds, and brothers and sisters, are not oppressed minorities facing a long history of brutal discrimination.

[MBlume]

>12 year olds [...] are not oppressed minorities facing a long history of brutal discrimination.

No, they absolutely are -- not in a way that really bears on whether they should get married, but seriously, have you been 12? Ever spent five minutes inside a Jr. High?

[mgkimsal]

Being 12 is not a permanent condition, while generally race and sexuality are. While being 12 is not a choice - it's forced on most people - they also generally stop being 12, usually within a year or so of the condition.

[stevenspasbo]

When started being 12 when I was 10, and it lasted until I was 14 :(

[task_queue]

A child labor analogy would have worked better IMO

[chralieboy]

The opinion very specifically did _not_ provided any protected status to gays and lesbians.

Persecution had nothing to do with it.

[DanBC]

http://rt.com/news/185256-us-unicef-children-homicide/

> The US leads Western nations in child homicide rates, while millions of children around the world are threatened with physical, sexual and emotional abuse, including murder, rape and bullying, a new UNICEF report revealed

I dunno, sounds pretty brutal to me.

[__z]

Two 12 year old girls can get married in Massachusetts as long as their parents approve.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_marriage_in_the_United_...

[greggman]

Just a random thought but you could argue age discrimination is still equal because except for death, everyone goes through the same ages. In other words, when you're 25 you'll be treated by the law the same as other 25yr olds.

Brothers and sisters does seems to me like it's just people think of it as icky. Some cultures encourage marrying first cousins and the genetic risks are minimal. And even people that aren't related can and are tested for whether their genes combined will likely lead to genetic issues with their children. In other words the genetic risk is mostly not a valid excuse to ban siblings from marrying anymore than not being able to create children is for same sex couples.

[DanBC]

The risks are not "minimal". There are increased risks in cultures where first cousins marry. Part of that is that married first cousins have an increased risk of having children with birth defects. And part of it is that people are more related than they think if everyone is marrying a first cousin.

The link I posted earlier deals with this.

[anthony_romeo]

While I don't necessarily agree with, say, sibling marriage, the argument about birth defects is not very compelling. This ruling pointed out at one point that an ability to procreate is not a requirement for marriage in any state. Further, genetic testing to avoid birth defects is not a prerequisite for marriage, so why would sibling marriage be precluded to avoid birth defects. Should society therefore only allow siblings or cousins of the same sex to marry because they can't procreate?

[greggman]

Thank you for pointing that out but I still maintain it's irrelevant. People that will pass on genetic issues to their children are not banned from getting married nor banned from having children. On top of which as science progresses it's likely all those issues can be fixed. In other words, it's not a valid reason to deny siblings getting married.

[sampo]

Sometimes the general opinion (let's say > 55% of the population) changes so quickly that it would take 10-20 years to wait for the parliament and senate to be sufficiently repopulated by representatives from the new generation, with more modern opinions.

In these cases you can reach a situation where the democratically elected representatives will hold an opinion that is more conservative than that of the general population.

In this case, whatever shortcut mechanism can be exploited to bring the legislation closer to the general opinion, it will be cheered by the general population.

The decision was not made through the normal channels, but people are happy nevertheless.

[yellowapple]

> Why not allow 12 year olds to marry as a consititutional right?

12 year olds can't provide informed consent.

> Why not allow brothers and sisters to marry?

I actually don't object to this, so long as they're not permitted to have biological children. The primary reason why incest is bad is because of the genetic damage caused by it; eliminate that problem (by preventing the possibility of said damage), and there's not really that much of a reason left to forbid it (other than a potential "ick" factor, but that's mostly subjective).

[ubernostrum]

In the United States, the government -- at all levels, federal, state and local -- is allowed to discriminate against or in favor of particular groups of people. The government just has to show that the discrimination serves some permitted purpose, and depending on the groups involved may have to clear a high bar of proof that the alleged purpose is the real purpose (since some groups have historically been discriminated against for bad reasons, we have higher suspicion of new discrimination against those groups).

For example, state governments can require a person to have a driver's license before driving a car. This discriminates against people who don't have a license, but the support for it is rooted in a good reason: safety. Requiring people to pass a brief examination to show their knowledge of traffic laws and possession of the basic skills of driving is quite reasonable, and so driver's licenses are a permitted form of discrimination.

Similarly, people under a certain age typically cannot enter into contracts on their own. The support for this comes from the fact that younger people are less likely to be mature and knowledgeable and understand what they're getting into, so restricting it to a particular age (typically, the age at which one graduates from the public school system) and requiring the advice and consent of someone over that age for a minor to enter a contract is reasonable, and is permitted.

Over the past few years we've seen multiple alleged justifications for banning same-sex marriage asserted in courts, and each time they've been knocked down as nonsensical or even as contradicting the other policies of the state which advanced those arguments.

For example, we've seen an argument advanced that states have an interest in ensuring the production and safe rearing of future generations, that marriage is provided for the sole purpose of advancing that interest, and so a same-sex couple (who cannot procreate) should be excluded from marriage. Except this argument falls apart if you so much as breathe lightly on it: states which make this argument do not require any sort of commitment to have children from a heterosexual couple, and in fact will grant marriage licenses to couples known to be sterile, and many of them allow same-sex couples to adopt and raise children.

The result of this process has been that there really is no alleged justification or purpose left, other than "we don't like same-sex couples, largely for religious reasons". And that's not something our country allows as a justification for a law ("we don't like that kind of people" stopped being allowed about a half-century ago).

[justinpaulson]

Because they brought the case to the supreme court. If 12 year olds and incestual couples want the right to marriage then they need to also bring that case to the supreme court. They didn't just decide to make this decision, they are judging a case that was brought to the court.