The power of Anthony Kennedy
by Greg Krehbiel on 4 March 2013
The Supreme Court will likely issue a ruling on same-sex marriage this year, which probably means that Anthony Kennedy will get to decide whether the (until very recently) universal definition of marriage — requiring a person of each sex — is legal.
No matter what you think of same-sex marriage, you have to agree that this is a ridiculous situation.
My prediction is that if the Supreme Court rules that restrictions on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional, several states will leave the union.
-- 2013-03-04 » Greg Krehbiel
4 March 2013 @ 5:28 pm
My prediction is that if the Supreme Court rules that restrictions on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional, several states will leave the union.
I will take up to 20:1 odds against this happening, and am willing to put up a fair amount of money.
There are circumstances under which I could imagine states seceding — the Federal government imposing some draconian tax on states which aren’t bankrupt to pay for the retirement of California public workers, or something, something which has an immediate direct impact on people — but over same-sex marriage? No way.
5 March 2013 @ 6:58 pm
OK don’t laugh … (no, not really … guffaw-honk if you want to)
But I’m with DSM on this one. Too much in the way of public support for the concept of SSM to cheese-out from the union on that issue. I’m not sure that there really is any legislation that would lead americans to actually … do something … like that.
5 March 2013 @ 11:49 pm
I agree with the others that said ruling wouldn’t lead to secession. What’s the point anyway? Things are already too far gone. No fault divorces laws in the 1960s and 1970s have already gutted the institution of marriage. Marriage has been on the decline since then and now 40% of births are out of wedlock. Gay marriage, which naturally flows from all of this, is just icing on the cake. In other words, our society’s approach to marriage has been insane for several decades. Crazy ideas such as gay marriage, however, are normal in an insane asylum.
On the flip side, no fault divorce laws will apply to gays who get married. Something tells me that many of them who end up in divorce court will be for an unpleasant surprise. Be careful what you wish for and all.
6 March 2013 @ 8:22 am
I understand that very little is at stake on this issue, practically speaking. If two men want to pretend they’re married, it doesn’t affect me very much. And if people want to give marriage-like rights to same-sex couples, that’s their business.
But to me, calling a same-sex union “marriage” is just as outrageous as calling triangles squares.
Marriage is and has always been between people of the opposite sex. That’s simply what it is. There’s a husband and a wife. Maybe there are several wives. Maybe on some small island somewhere there were several husbands. But it has always been male + female. Always and everywhere.
To call male + male “marriage” is outrageous. We might as well call up down and left right. To me it is that stupid.
This has nothing to do with rights or discrimination or anything like that. To say that we’re discriminating against a same-sex couple by not letting them “marry” is like saying we’re discriminating against children by not letting them be old. It’s just lunacy of the first order.
When Jews decided that the girls were being left out of the Bar Mitzvah fun, they didn’t start giving girls Bar Mitzvahs — which would be absurd since it means “son of the covenant.” They made up a new thing — Bat Mitzvah.
Okay, whatever. Maybe something like that has to be done for same-sex couples.
“Same-sex marriage” is like giving a Bar Mitzvah to a girl. It’s beyond stupid.
One of these days people are going to get sick of the over-reach by the court, and the tendency for liberals to impose their non-majority views on the rest of the country.
This might not be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. But sooner or later people are going to say “I’m mad as Hell and I’m not going to take this any more.”
Or maybe we’re all just comfortably numb with delivery pizza, TV and Internet.
6 March 2013 @ 10:42 am
But sooner or later people are going to say “I’m mad as Hell and I’m not going to take this any more.”
This assumes that people are angry, and those angry people are contiguous in sufficient numbers: what if they’re happy, indifferent, or just disappointed?
I think more likely than secession is increasing self-segregation, which is why the Left has to insist upon its universal jurisdiction to punish sin, taking private heresy as an offence against God with social consequence and therefore a public crime. They’d express it in secular terms, of course, but if you replace “sin” with “discrimination” and “heresy” with “hate”, then the positions of the Left start making a certain kind of sense.
10 March 2013 @ 4:29 pm
An interesting thesis, Greg. My question is, if this happens, would it be a good thing or a bad thing?
10 March 2013 @ 4:37 pm
Bad thing, Dirk. We need to reform the political system so we don’t get to such crisis points.