Listening right now to C-Span3 on marriage equality by three Georgetown law professors, I must add that The Supremes should rule in favor of marriage rights for all that therefore includes same-sex people is a matter of time being of the essence.
My previous diary, Define Marriage, was not clear enough: Same-sex individuals have the same Constitutional right under equal treatment under the law as me or you. That is what The Supreme Court has an obligation to affirm for all 50 states. If we had waited for each state to vote against their racism to legalize inter-racial marriage or the end to segregation, we'd probably still be waiting. Indeed, Mississippi just got around to completing its law making segregation illegal.
Race and sexual orientation are the same in that they are attributes of minorities that majorities often despise and therefore deprive of the full protection of our Constitution. It is why our Enlightened founders included the protection of minorities in the face of this unlawful power of bigots over others by the numerical power of their prejudicial vote.
Popularity is, thank the Constitution, not necessary to be equal under the law. My neighbor (especially in my current residence in red Indiana) need not agree with nor even like me. What they must do is, however intolerable to their chosen faith and chosen 'facts,' know that I am protected to pursue my own pursuit of happiness. The Bill of Rights elucidates these rights to enlighten my neighbors. (Thank you, Enlightenment!)
Especially egregious is one of the three Georgetown professors still discussingthe topic of same-sex marriage, Edward Whelan, who is a President of Ethics & Policy, for God's (according to him) sake!
In a tossed off flippant aside, he denigrated the ruling of Roe v Wade and those that agree with that decision. Ergo, he sees marriage equality as also outside the purview of The Supremes, and cares not a whit (or Whig?) how long it might take the other (majority) of the states to see marriage equality as a civil right. What a putz. That's the attitude the elite always takes, whether the topic is slavery, women's suffrage, segregation, or --right this very minute on C-Span3-- the cuts that 'harm tribal health care facilities' in the stupid Sequester.
Of course, the Sequester is harming many more vulnerable fellow citizens. How long the harm goes on doesn't hurt any like Whelan, Rawmoney, nor Paul Ryan, et. al. Are the majority in Congress now millionaires? Bully for them. Throw these bullies out.
I hope The Supremes see that Edward Whelan's is really bad reasoning (not to mention execrably shown comprehension that our country might be 'under God' added in our anti-Communist fever, but we are under secular law) about the current 'marriage culture' will be harmed by acknowledging the Constitutional rights of all citizens, no matter what their sexual orientation. So, since Whelan's statement that 'decades and decades and decades' are necessary to prove whether same-sex marriages are negative or not, Edward of Ethics is OK preventing The Supremes from acknowledging the marriage rights of LGBTQ citizens. Q.E.D? Hardly. If this were in the form of a theorem, my middle school geometry teacher would've laughed me out of his class, with a 'do over!' scrawled across it.
Whelan just repeated that 'the core component' of traditional marriage is heterosexuality so that the 'barbarians' (really) we bear are civilized by one woman and one man.
So, Whelan of Ethics thinks our children are 'barbarians.' He probably believes in Original Sin (deduced from what I'm hearing him say). Push him further, and he'll reference The Bible as the basis of marriage. If my logic is incorrect, Whelan is welcome to stoop to correct me.
Whelan also earlier asserted procreation (and the civilizing of little 'barbarians') is the sole reason of marriage. Where'd he park his time machine? Hope he hops back aboard to have fascinating disputations in the 19th century. Would that he were on the public stage with Mark Twain!
So I needed to write this right now as he spoke because tempus fugit now, too, with your humble writer. Yet the weasel words of Whelan could not remain unaddressed here even by this mere state university minion, who'd minored in philosophy. ('Love of wisdom,' Whelan: Why not try it?)
That the entire USA must have a federal law that includes all citizens' civil right(s) to marry is the only just ruling our highest court should make. Let's see if justice prevails...