A Risky Proposal: Is it too soon to petition the Supreme Court on gay marriage? | Hacker News Reader

A Risky Proposal: Is it too soon to petition the Supreme Court on gay marriage?

newyorker.com

7 pointsrms10 comments

This is pointless

Here's the thing about Gay Marriage. It's essentially a state issue (and hence not in the purview of the Supreme Court). There are only two points on which it could be challenged at a National level and those are the Equal Protection Clause (that states all citizens must be treated equally) and the Full Faith and Credit Clause (which states all states must recognize judicial decrees made by other states)

But California (unlike many other states) legally specifies, in explicit language, that Civil Unions must be given all the rights and privileges of Marriages. Hence the state violates neither of the Constitutionally viable arguments.

So if you REALLY wanted to mount a legit challenge to Gay Marriage bans you'd do it in a state that doesn't have Civil Unions or doesn't guarantee them equal rights.

Are you a lawyer?

Did you read the article? It discusses two different legal challenges and discusses in-depth why they may or may not actually work. You didn't explain why your suggestion is better than what the teams of professional lawyers are doing.

Is anyone here actually against gay marriage?

The libertarian argument saying the state shouldn't sanction any marriages, only civil unions is a good idea but impractical in US politics.

This issue makes people very angry sometimes but we should be able to keep personal attacks out of it.

And before someone else starts it, no not-hacker news discussion in my submission. Anything from the New Yorker is basically automatically on topic because of its intellectual weight.

And after you've started it, yes, this submission is off-topic. You may be surprised but there exist people who are not overwhelmed by the intellectual weight of The New Yorker.

Also, there are people who have strong views about gay marriage, not necessarily aligned with yours or The New Yorker's. Just imagine what would happen if these people started forcefully expressing and defending their views on this thread?

"Just imagine what would happen if these people started forcefully expressing and defending their views on this thread?"

The best way to avoid this fate is to flag such articles into oblivion.

"Anything from the New Yorker is basically automatically on topic because of its intellectual weight."

That's the stupidest rationale for a submission I've ever read on HN. What is "on topic" for an HN submission has nothing to do with who wrote it. And no one has automatic "intellectual weight" for anything they write.

The fact that you have to make such a logic free statement indicates that you know you are trolling/ karma whoring.

I guess it is fine to occasionally test the strength of HN's immune system.

   you know you are trolling/ karma whoring.

Is this in reply to my comment or the parent?

I think he meant to reply to me since he quotes my post.

Can you show me when the New Yorker has published a recent journalistic article that has been wrong?

Karma whoring? Trolling? It's been a while since anyone actually accused me of trolling, but this is a meta-discussion worth having.

OK, intellectual weight is basically a meaningless word. One thing I was trying to indicate was page length. Hacker News could use more really long articles, generally they are higher quality.

I think the New Yorker is a well-written, basically authoritative source with regards to journalism. See their excellent article that makes a complete case that Cameron Todd Willingham was an innocent man executed by the USA. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_...

Are there any New Yorker journalism articles that lack sufficient weight to be considered correct? I'm not talking about their movie reviews. What makes this article Hacker News material is that while discussing a mainstream, inflammatory, emotional topic, it is much closer to the truth than anything you are likely to hear on the TV news.

Finally, if people have strong opinions, they should be allowed to express them. Maybe we'll all learn something. The downmodding and moderation system mostly works here.

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