What’s at Stake
his week the U.S. Supreme Court (or SCOTUS) is hearing two very important cases regarding the Constitutionality of the Prop 8 case in California which took away the rights of same sex couples to get married, as well as the Defense of Marriage Act (a.k.a. DOMA). The arguments have been presented by both sides, on both issues, and as of now, we’re mostly just waiting to see what SCOTUS decides, but while some would argue that there isn’t much riding on the Prop. 8 case as it relates to the country as a whole (as the ruling will likely only effect California), the DOMA case will very likely effect everyone, because it will either solidify the law’s statement that the marriages LGBT Americans will not be recognized federally under the law, or it will ensure that even though only a few states allow and recognize same-sex marriages, the federal government in fact would. It isn’t a lot, and honestly for those that were worried (because I know some people, who likely would never read this blog, are) it wouldn’t force every state to accept same-sex marriage (although that would be pretty awesome). I suspect, that unlike other civil rights issues, the matter will merely be left up to the state and so even when several decades from now most of the country allows it, certain states will always be against it and try to deny it. Of course as it happens, apparently even if the law did make it so that all states would have to accept it, certain states would work around it as they have been attempting to do with abortion laws in said states.
It saddens, and frankly troubles me, that given our current state of affairs we would rather take away people’s rights than deal with, oh I don’t know the sequester problem we have? Or properly dealing with the banks, or Wall Street or hell any of the massive problems we have. We’ve really complicated what should be simple issues. Some people want marriage to be like an exclusive country club, but not so exclusive that idiots who want to be married for five minutes can’t join. Seriously I live in Vegas, we perform about 120,000 marriages annually. We’re the biggest in the country and we’re not surprisingly also number one in divorce.
And because I know some people want to trivialize this, and say, well if you get all the same rights as marriage without the word, why do you need the word? A: Because actually in a lot of places you don’t get the same rights, and B: if it’s just a word, why are you protecting it like it’s the holy grail? Obviously you know as well as any one over the age of 2, words have meanings. We put meanings to words, and so when you act like a toddler with a stuffed animal and say, YOU CAN’T HAVE THIS WORD! IT’S MINE! obviously there’s a meaning to that word, so why should you have exclusivity to it?
