TOPICS:
AUG 31, 2007 02:50 PM
AUG 31, 2007 03:00 PM
Virtute
Brooklyn, NY
July 2007
AUG 31, 2007 03:18 PM
Subrosa said:
oyaji said:
This is just an end run around saying that sexual orientation is a protected class. Which is to say, I'll believe it when the Supreme Court says it's true. Until then we are just saying what it should be. The Court gets to say what it is.
While I disagree that the distinction between sexual orientation and sex is just an "end run" (in other words, I don't think there's much of a rational distinction at all) I ain't disagreeing with you that the Court gets the end say. I'm saying that it's painfully obvious to me what the end say should be.
This is a better argument. But rational basis review is just a way, really, of imposing judicial personal preference over legislative preference. It's not going to go the way you want it to go if it is reviewed by any one of a wide, wide swath of the judges on the federal bench.
It can be. But it also can have some teeth to it, even in situations similar to this. See: Romer. Now, I'm not arguing this will hold up on appeal, but I don't see the harm in the continual push towards equality through both political and judicial channels.
I have nothing useful to add. I just like that I actually mostly understand what you're talking about. 
Virtute
Brooklyn, NY
July 2007
AUG 31, 2007 03:18 PM
Virtute
Brooklyn, NY
July 2007
zarth
Seattle, WA
December 2004
AUG 31, 2007 03:27 PM
AUG 31, 2007 03:36 PM
oyaji said:
Is there any part of Iowa that can't be at least somewhat accurately described as "bumblefuck?"
There are 200,000 people living in Des Moines. There are 95,000 people in Albany. You can call Albany bumblefuck if you want, but you still gotta follow our laws.
But yeah, Northerners have definitely never had to lay the moral law down with people from less enlightened parts of the country. 
AUG 31, 2007 04:29 PM
AUG 31, 2007 04:30 PM
zarth
Seattle, WA
December 2004
AUG 31, 2007 04:35 PM
AUG 31, 2007 04:44 PM
AUG 31, 2007 06:43 PM
AUG 31, 2007 09:24 PM
SEP 01, 2007 08:17 AM
oyaji said:
DannyDMc said:
dingoes8 said:
"Couples, such as plaintiffs, who are otherwise qualified to marry one another may not be denied licenses to marry or certificates of marriage or in any other way prevented from entering into a civil marriage ... by reason of the fact that both person comprising such a couple are of the same sex," he said.
It is mind-boggling that this is considered revolutionary thinking in 2007. How can anyone in their right mind disagree with that statement?
Also, coming from Wisconsin, another state that people assume is full of farmers and hicks... don't underestimate the heartland. There are a lot of intelligent, progressive-minded people here.
Last time I checked, it took the rest of the country until the New Deal to catch up to the reforms Wisconsin had enacted during the Progressive Movement. We've always been on the forefront of reform and clean government (the embarrassing Thompson administration not included, of course).
I'm sick to death of people on the East and West coast writing entire swaths of this country off and imagining them full of semi-literate barbarians, especially the Midwest. Arrogant jackasses.
Obviously there are right-thinking people everywhere. It just happens to be that most of us are not in those big square states in the middle. It's called reality. Deal with it by going out into the countryside and convincing the people you live with not to behave like retrograde fucktards.
Don't go confusing we people on the East and West coasts with some whole other body; you don't get to waltz in here and call us names without blowback just because you feel hurt and insecure about living in the retard part of the country.
I hate to have to say this, because I know you're a really smart guy, but this just makes you sound so, so ignorant.
zarth
Seattle, WA
December 2004
AUG 31, 2007 02:36 PM