Always strive to learn something useful. --Sophocles

This has been a long time coming, now the state fights will probably multiply like the flood of statements yesterday when part of the Civil Rights Act were thrown out.

I particularly liked this part: "In his dissent, Scalia said the court was exercising too much power and should not have even decided the case because Windsor had won in the lower courts “and so cured her injury.”

“That is jaw-dropping. It is an assertion of judicial supremacy over the people’s Representatives in Congress and the Executive,” he wrote. “It envisions a Supreme Court standing (or rather enthroned) at the apex of government, empowered to decide all constitutional questions, always and everywhere ‘primary’ in its role.”"

I guess Scalia doesn't think that what the Court did in Citizen's United was not exercising too much power. But Scalia won't talk about CU, when it's brought up in public Q&A he says 'get over it!'.

The article says 17 states currently allow same-sex marriage. But 31 have constitutional bans against gay marriage or some flavor thereof. So this is just beginning, but now has a Federal basis opposing it.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/06/scotus-same-sex-marriage/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_constitutional_amendments_banning_same-sex_unions_by_type

"You may be as straight as an arrow, and you may have a friend that is as straight as an arrow. Say you had a great job with the government where you had this wonderful health plan. I mean, what would prohibit you from saying that you're gay, and y'all get married and still live as separate, but you get all the benefits?...To me, it's all about a free ride."
—Georgia GOP Chairwoman Sue Everhart, on gay marriage

I'm sure she's right. There probably are some hetero people abusing the system. I'm sure that's less than 1% of the cases, though. And you'll find people who are legally married in order to get someone a green card. Again, probably less than 1% of the cases.

But like they say, 99% of all legislators give the rest a bad name.

Looking at a link from an LJ post, came across the following exchange. This went down at a Maryland hearing regarding a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage:

"At the end of his testimony, one of Maryland's most insane ultra-far-rightwingers, republican Senator Nancy Jacobs, stood up and shouted: "Mr. Raskin, my Bible says marriage is only between a man and a woman. What do you have to say about that?"

To which Mr. Raskin replied: "Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.""

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gene-stone/a-rare-moment-of-sense_b_17347.html


and another quote in the replies to this post:

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
-- Stephen Roberts