(10-20-2016, 07:52 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(10-20-2016, 07:35 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: But even same-sex marriage won the majority on the US Supreme Court as laws prohibiting it were proved in violation of basic human rights. Even that had some restrictions; like heterosexual marriages, same-sex marriages would have to involve consent and age of majority and preclude incest. Marriages would have to be between human beings and not with animals, plants, or inanimate objects. Nobody got the right to marry a dog, a tree, a car, or a gun -- let alone a child.
Flagrant inequality, and not denial of selfish or destructive indulgence, is the essence of Supreme Court decisions such as Brown vs. Board of Education, Loving vs. Virginia, and Obergfell vs. Hodges.
I don't know that incest is an issue in same sex marriages?
It isn't, and it was not brought up in the arguments.
Quote:The Bill of Rights Wrote:IX: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
This had traditionally meant that if a right existed in the colonial era as part of Common Law, the fact that it wasn't included in the Bill of Rights shouldn't mean the Common Law right should be disregarded. Living Constitution advocates are advocating five old men being able to invent brand new rights, including rights for corporations, and including rights that definitively did not exist under colonial Common Law, rights that are in direct conflict with colonial Common Law.
I can say that in general progressive justices rewriting the Constitution from the bench generally have their hearts in the right place. Alas, to the extent they have made the Constitution worthless, the conservative justices have been just as abusive, only it is corporate wallets they are concerned with. I would as soon the Court honor their oaths to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.
But -- the States have no right to deny rights as the Constitution defines them and the Supreme Court determines them. As an example, nothing in the Constitution authorizes the right to travel; so far as I can tell, travel for criminal purposes or for violation of terms of a military enlistment might violate laws.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.