I'm Proud of My Country Today
 

I'm proud to read the headlines in the paper. I'm referring, of course, to the Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage. I've thought for many years that marriage equality was inevitable, but I didn't expect it this fast.

I must say, it's a nice feeling.

Now what the nation needs is an equally modern ruling on gun control and abortion rights and fair wages.

Congratulations all, for the Supreme Court announcement today. (But keep in mind that many are still out to overturn Roe vs Wade which is riddled with loopholes so take nothing for granted.)

I'm proud also - and delighted with yesterday's Obamacare and Fair Housing decisions as well - but, as Janice points out, there is so much more to be done - and we have to fight continually to keep what we just established. We're making a bit of progress recently on increasing minimum salaries, but income inequity is still massive, abortion rights are being chiseled away, and our gun control policies are utterly out of line with every other nation. And so on. We're living off our assets and past glories and wisdoms, the rest of the world has caught up, and in many areas they've left us in the dust - unless pointing to a massively armed citizenry and the world's highest incarceration rate makes you proud to be an American.

I'm a Brit, but I'm happy about this common sense legislation too, Michael. It's a topic I feel strongly about. I've never understood why anyone should object to two people making a commitment to each other, regardless of their gender.

And in the news today, we have the sickening atrocities in Tunisia and Lyon, which came about because of people's intolerance of others' views. For pity's sake, why can't people just be nice to each other? "Live and let live", and all that.

Love between two people is a wonderful thing. If they wish to publicly declare that love by getting married, that's a good thing, right?

On today's Desert Island Discs, one of my favourite Radio 4 programmes, the subject was Stephen Fry - enormously popular TV personality and author extraordinaire - who recently married his gay partner. He's bi-polar and has had his demons in the past (attempted suicide etc). That he's now very happy is all that matters.

Yes, in this world full of wickedness and evil let's celebrate love, marriage and happiness!

Yes, Jayne and Janice and Michael. It feels right to celebrate love -- we’re poets, after all...

On the subject of work still to be done, the legacy of slavery is particularly noxious and intractable in the US. I must say I’m awestruck by the dignity and grace with which members of ‘Mother Emanuel’ church in Charleston have faced a senseless atrocity. Proud isn’t a strong enough word.

We are not celebrating love, Michael, but marriage. Not the same thing at all.

America was well ahead of us in the UK in celebrating gay love, as Auden, among others, found. Did you know that he was a major in the American army? That put some noses right out of joint. Ho-ho. He wore slippers too.

Yes, but Obama didn't do this. (I say in response to a comment of John's that has apparently been edited out). The Supreme Court did it. And the key here is Justice Kennedy. It's worth remembering that we only have Justice Kennedy on the Court because Reagan's first choice, Robert Bork, was rejected by a very wise Senate. Reagan's next nominee was forced to withdraw after people learned he had smoked dope, and then Reagan was forced to come up with a "safe" nominee because he couldn't afford a third failed nomination in a row. If Bork hadn't been such a total right-wingnut out of step with mainstream jurisprudence, the result might have been different. (Though Bork died in 2012, so perhaps Obama would have appointed his successor on the Court and all would have been well).

Original comment too tangential, even for me... So instead of my meanderings:
crooksandliars.com/2015/06/open-thread-lowered-and-raised

If two people are willing to make the hard honest exchanges
they can come to promise
and treat each other with love and trust
but this society and this country,
regardless of Presidents, Congresses or Supreme Courts,
has always shown an endless need and accompanying cleverness
to discriminate and can never be fully trusted.

John,

Why did you change your initial response, which was generous of spirit and becoming to you?

Yes, I did know that Auden wore slippers around NYC. He had horrible bunions or corns or some such. I also recall something about his going to Spain to drive an ambulance in the Spanish Civil War.

Of course you're right: there can be marriage without love. But where there is love, what interest has the state in proscribing marriage? Cui malo? That is the question, as I'm sure you know.

It is a great day, and pays off a little of the karmic debt Justice Kennedy must've accumulated from Bush v. Gore, Hobby Lobby & Citizens United, among other cases. How ironic if the Supremes had not treated gays equally, after declaring corporations are people! Still, a great day. So much left to do.

Best,

Ed

Ha ha, well said, Ed.

I changed it, Michael, because I was tired of being the resident right-winger. But what I said was that America was very late in coming to this party. David Cameron was there before him, and Cameron had to be far braver than Obama to do it.

Was some judge rejected because he did what everyone has done, and smoked dope? I think that's shockingly puritanical and hypocritical?

I thought the stuff about Auden was funny and interesting. He was a splendid man, generous of spirit and brave. Poets should be proud of him

Just to add my voice... As Janice, Ed and Michael said, there's still a huge amount to be done, but this week's Supreme Court decisions were truly momentous and amazing. And I'm glad to find myself among all you goodhearted, generous Sphereans who see the humanity in the court's actions.

Charlotte

Even so, I wouldn't take my eye off them just yet. I have followed the Supreme Court for years, not as a scholar of the law but more as a trench soldier of the law who must deal with the shrapnel and mustard gas of their usual rulings; and though some are admirable in their way, I've seen them work a lot of evil as a group.

When a great thing like this happens, I think of it as something even the Supreme Court got right -- a tide of national history or sentiment so strong even they would not swim against it. As if King Canute, having set his throne on the shore, finally said to the tide, "Oh well, you might as well come ahead, then."

This victory belongs to everyone, but it is truly the child of those who fought almost alone against great odds and a seemingly immovable wall of hate and mockery. I bow to them. Ladies and gentlemen: very well done.

Best,

Ed

Ah – I understand, John. Thank you for explaining.

I agree – we are late to the party. But I’m so often angered or ashamed by the newspaper headlines about my country that it is quite nice to take pleasure in them, for a change. This is a victory of millions, as Ed says.

I share your esteem for Wystan, as a poet and a man.

I'm obviously thrilled about the decisions as well...more about the gay marriage ruling than "Obamacare," but both were essential. I can understand some of the dissent for Obamacare, since it has an economic element that can spook those who are legitimately fiscally conservative, but I cannot understand how any can have continued dissent over gay marriage. Not even a little. Beyond the most tenuous of religious reasons, standing staunchly against that ruling is standing against the recognition that homosexual love exists and deserves to be legitimized. In other words, it's an archaic view that ultimately originates from a kind of implausible deniability.

I don't like to dip my toe in political discussions very often, but I have yet to hear anything resembling a cogent argument for why, as Ted Cruz says, the ruling makes for some of the "darkest 24 hours" in U.S. history. It's utter nonsense, as it affects pretty much nobody in a negative way, and huge numbers of people in a positive way.

Regardless, I'm pretty happy to be living in an America that allowed this to happen. Hope has been a scarce resource for the last fourteen years or so, but the last few days have served up a generous helping.

I think that Ed Shackle's most recent post is admirable. Ed is not simply a concerned citizen - he works and battles with these laws and the Ted Cruz and Huckabee and Jindal and Walker mind set on a daily basis, and as he puts it - this is something even the Supreme Court got right. But there is so much they got wrong. It is imperative that we elect a Democratic President in 2016. This is an aging Court, and the choices made by the next President (on a host of other things in addition to the Court) will be critical.

I love my country with a patriotic love that cannot be quenched by the whims of society's fickle nature. I've always been proud to be an American. I wouldn't know how to be anything else.

I am most proud to be a Christian though, through and through.

I am proud that men and women still have to place their hand on a Bible to swear to uphold the Constitution, regardless of whether I agree or disagree with their decisions.

I am supremely proud, once again, no, twice this week, that the Holy Scripture has been found to be as true and prophetic as it has always been.

Regarding ACA, Obamacare: Matthew Chapter 5, all of it, and Matthew Chapter 6, all of it.

On Gay marriage, 2nd Timothy, Chapter 3: 2 thru 6, will do it.

To my Christian friends and family: Fear not, God's plan never changes or wavers.

So I guess you think we're in the "last days" now?

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States. -- U.S. Constitution, Article VI

As we can see, the truth is that men and women who become Justices of the Supreme Court have to swear or affirm that they will uphold the Constitution, but there is absolutely no requirement that they touch a Bible or any other scripture while doing so. It may be customary to use a Bible in swearing-in ceremonies, but any such requirement would be an unconstitutional violation of Article Six, and also of the First Amendment's non-establishment clause.

Equality for all
 

The government recognizing equal rights for everyone regardless of sexuality is in fact something to be celebrated. You can't stop people from loving each other so why stop them from declaring their love?

I suppose swearing on any old shoe will do.

Charlie, I am glad you are proud to be a Christian. It is quite an accomplishment. It's certainly something that I myself have never been able to pull off. So mazel tov. In the meantime, your religious pride actually has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the question at hand, unless you feel that proud Christians should decide on behalf of the rest of us which civil rights we get to enjoy and which seem to contradict passages in a book that was written two thousand years ago in a society unlike our own in which slavery and stoning, among other things, were considered perfectly acceptable, and marriage essentially meant a woman being owned by a man.

You are absolutely right, Roger. But until Our Creator is banished from our Declaration of Independence and any mention of Him in the purpose for our Constitution is banished, I will remain grateful to He/that which you find so elusive. I don't hold your ideas against you, but morals did not develop from crawling out of the muck of the ocean. Of course, if you believe that, then I could see how you come to the conclusion that you do. All one has to do is give Matthew 5 and 6 a cursory glance to see where the Founders got their direction from. That they were adept on keeping their own diverse philosophies absent from the Constitution is to God's credit. Not theirs. Thank God that the world is not ruled by theocracies, (not that some religions don't try) and thank God that the world is not ruled by communists or socialists or fascists and anarchists. (Yet.) I will ardently support the Constitution until it tells me that I cannot practice my Christian beliefs or you, your atheistic beliefs. Don't you think we can stand arm in arm on that? That is why I am proud of my(and your) country. My Biblical beliefs tell me to obey the law, so I do. Is there a problem?

Charlie, it might. If the president-elect is an honest person although atheist or of some other faith, a shoe will do as well as a leather-clad treatise with antiquated and phobic content.

But, but Janice, what if they begin to swear on shoes with Dr. Scholl's tucked inside?

Charlie, I am not "proud" to be an atheist. I simply am one. But I have another form of faith that is as strong as yours, though it doesn't require me to postulate the existence of a divine entity. My faith gives me a moral sense that is at least as worthy as the one you get from coupling your moral precepts to a set of stories and myths that reinforce them for you. To say that moral precepts did not arise from the ocean's muck is not to say that the only other possibility is that there is an invisible being who said "let it be." You believe in God, who gave us morality. I simply believe in morality. I think eliminating the middle man is more sensible and gets us to the exact same place.

Charlie,

I have lot time for teachings of Jesus: radical teachings of love, non-judgement and forgiveness -- wonderful, inspiring, stuff, that often seems lacking when Christians (or anyone else) make pronouncements on how other people live their lives. I'm less excited by some of the opinions of other New Testament writers, especially when they start getting all judgemental. Nonetheless, the Timothy passage makes no mention of homosexuality or gay marriage. For it be relevant, phrases such as "evil desires" need to be connected in the reader's mind mind with homosexuality. If I believe homosexuality to be evil and wrong, I will see the passage as being about homosexuality, but if I don't, there's absolutely no reason to connect it to make the connection, and certainly no reason to see at as a prophecy relating gay marriage. Or am I missing something?

I did come across a line in 2nd Timothy (2:23) that I think we would all would do well to heed, myself included:

Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels.

(To be clear, I'm not saying your argument specifically is foolish and stupid; I'm thinking more generally about how rarely a political/religious arguments on the Sphere is productive.)

All the best,

Matt

Fair enough, Roger and Matt.

If it helps, a quote:


"Without Morals a Republic cannot subsist any length of time"

Founding Father Charles Carroll

Charlie

Are you saying that same-sex relationships are immoral or a sign of moral decline? That certainly seemed to be the implication of your Timothy citation and this latest quote. And if not, then I'm confused by what exactly it is you are saying about the gay marriage ruling.

Personally, I see the ruling as a significant improvement in moral/ethical standards and hence little evidence of the end of days being imminent.

best,

-Matt

Glad as I am to see the celebration, the ruling has mostly made me anxious, expecting a lot of unproductive antagonism.

The vast majority of us have similar interests on important, urgent issues like climate change and income inequality, but same-sex marriage, like other social issues, has been successfully used to make sure we don't work together, by convincing some of us that others of us are evil. I fear this ruling will convince those that feel that way that evil is winning, and they had better stand firmer than ever against anything liberals are for.

I am all for income inequality and a sturdy climate change denier. However, gay marriage is an unequivocally good thing and if you disagree I will kill you.

No, Matt.

I am speaking Constitutionally here. It was the opinion of at least one Founding Father that morality was an issue when it came to framing the constitution. I make no judgements whatsoever. But when the constitution was being drawn up, lots of things were considered, all by men who were just as flawed as you and I. One obvious example was slavery. The only way to get the document ratified was by making slavery legal. It was atrocious. And then we fought a war to end it. There are no perfect men, only a perfect God.

To hark back to what Bill Dyes wrote earlier and re Max above:

As recent events clearly show, that proclamation still hasn't won over the hearts and minds of a whole lot of folks.

Sorry, Charlie, you've lost me. What's the relevance of this to gay marriage? Remember I'm not an American, so what may seem obvious to you may not be to me.

best,

Matt

When President Obama signed the ACA into law, he made slaves out of the rest of us. Neither he or the US Supreme Court have won over the hearts and minds of a lot of folks. They don't have to.

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have. Thomas Jefferson

Matt, the framers of the constitution were silent on "Gay marriage"

I don't think it ever crossed their minds to make it a right. There had always been— the "Institution of Marriage" between a man and a woman.

If a person (a supreme court justice, for instance) is a strict constitutionalist, then he cannot make "gay marriage" legal. He has no remedy. However,if the states hold a convention on the issue, and if 3/4 of the states ratify it or affirm it, and then Congress ratifies it, it becomes the law of the land without recourse.

That hasn't happened. Some states legalized it, others haven't. It has always been a state's rights issue, not a federal issue. I am only speaking about the powers delegated to the specific branches of government, not whether I agree with the decision of the court or not.

The Supreme Court made law. It is not within the scope and authority of the Court, Constitutionally speaking, to do so. It has overstepped its authority delegated to it by the Constitution.

We may as well have no Constitution.

The bible bans sodomy not homosexuality, that's my interpretation , the whole story of Sodom was about buggery, not same sex love and buggery or sodomy, pleasurable though it is, ( I have given but not recieved) (well I was buggered once but I was unconscious) and the ban is sensible since buggery/sodomy is very dangerous re transmitting deseases.
But homosexuality per se hurts nobody.
Personally I think there is a serious distinction between marriage and gay marriage since marry originally means sexual intercourse and there is none of that in either gay or lesbian relationships , not to mention procreation, so I think the two are different, so I have no problem with 'gay marriage' but I do have a problem with calling 'gay marriage'.. 'marrriage' which I have noticed some gays advocating. Gay and straight sex is different, gay and straight marriage is different, not the love but the sex. I like the law to be precise.
Charlie I have seen many displays of the divine world although I still have fears and doubts. You have to bear witness from your own experience, bring the divine into reality, quoting from the bible adds nothing new.

Charlie, I'm not even going to try to be polite because I'm tired of hearing people carry on about their God, and their morals, and their interpretation of their Bible; and I don't care whether it's a Chassidic student who has clambered off a bus to restore my Jewish soul, or you and your catalogue of myths that you choose to regard as utter truth and I don't. These are private beliefs and should remain as such. I am not only not interested in mixing religion and government; but what I find very revealing is that I believe that the only part of the world where a portion of the populace pays more attention to religion and the Bible than America is the blood-soaked Middle East.

This started out as a discussion of America. You've turned it into a discussion of religion. And I have no more patience for that. Perhaps you'll get a better reception in the Middle East.