Tag: same-sex marriage

Same-sex common law marriage – oh, yes, it’s a thing now.

It is absolutely a thing. And, in the states where it is a thing, it is going to be a thing that can potentially require a matrimonial attorney:

Jeff Schreiber, a family law attorney in Charleston, South Carolina, said that common-law marriage laws are “not just used to prove someone is married, it’s used as leverage” in negotiating how property ownership and other rights are determined after a breakup. Just the threat that one of the former members of a couple may attempt to claim a common-law marriage existed can encourage the other person to settle with them to avoid that risk.

Screiber pointed out additional “wide-reaching issues” that can be effected by the existence or absence of a marital relationship, such as property rights, inheritance, child support and custody, medical decisions, and criminal law.

Continue reading Same-sex common law marriage – oh, yes, it’s a thing now.

Vox.com ‘forgets’ that Hillary Clinton opposed SSM in 2013.

(Via @baseballcrank) Scare quotes because I don’t think that they actually forgot. I think that Vox knows that its readers are intellectually incurious, and will eat whatever gets put in front of them. The temptation to cater to that is apparently just too strong to ignore…

What does Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway (D) intend to do about that defiant County Clerk?

Via @EsotericCD comes this latest action in the same-sex marriage wars:

Speaking as a same-sex marriage supporter: I was and am adamantly opposed to using the courts to force Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis to issue the licenses in the first place. I therefore feel that her continuing defiance is a matter for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and does not really require my personal input. But it does require the personal input of both Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway (D) and Kentucky Governor Steve Bershear (D). Spoiler warning: neither man particularly wants to be involved in this issue. Continue reading What does Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway (D) intend to do about that defiant County Clerk?

A random thought about same-sex marriage.

To wit: the general consensus on this seems to be that, essentially, the US Supreme Court is going to at some point heat-treat the back of the US Constitution to expose the Gay marriage is Constitutional clause that the Founders wrote in invisible ink, lo these many years ago. Let us be clear: the Founders did not. The Founders, in fact, would have written Gay marriage is not Constitutional if any of them had had any notion that such a thing needed to be spelled out*.  That I can state that while still simultaneously supporting gay marriage is not a contradiction: after all, something doesn’t have to be enshrined in the Constitution first before it can officially be seen as being, one the whole, as a reasonably good idea. Continue reading A random thought about same-sex marriage.

USSC on same-sex marriage: ‘Not our problem, macushla.’

This is going to raise eyebrows:

Which essentially means this:

This apparently surprised the veteran court-watchers; I’m still trying to process it myself. You’d think that there would have been a four-Justice consensus on the Court to at least settle this issue…

Why I just dumped Firefox as a browser, and so should you. #uninstallfirefox

When I heard that Lefty advocates had managed to hound a traditional marriage supporter from his position at Mozilla’s CEO, I did what any sensible opponent of California’s Proposition 8 and supporter of Maryland’s Question 6 would do: I immediately dumped Firefox and found another browser (in my case, Chrome). I support gay marriage.  I do not support demonizing the roughly half of the country that disagrees with me.

What I did not realize, however, was just how bad Firefox has gotten over the last few years. I am absolutely shocked by how much faster Chrome loads and operates, and it’s apparently a heck of a lot more stable, too. What makes it more startling is that I had Chrome on my Chromebook; I guess that I assumed that the faster speeds there was just due to Google optimizing the computer for its browser.  No, it works better on desktops, too.  And you can even import your bookmarks and passwords. Continue reading Why I just dumped Firefox as a browser, and so should you. #uninstallfirefox

USSC rebukes 10th Circuit hyper-partisanship on Utah same-sex marriage decision.

Quick background: a federal judge in Utah recently tossed that state’s same-sex marriage ban (which is, by the way, based off of a state constitutional amendment*); the judge also then refused to put a stay on the decision until the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver had a look at it.  At that point the screaming reached the point where Justice Sonia Sotomayor (who oversees requests from the 10th Circuit) noticed; the Supreme Court then turned around and instituted said stay on the decision.  It now goes to the Court of Appeals’; presumably, it will then proceed to the Supreme Court with all due speed.

I take Ed Morrissey’s position on this:

This may well be a rebuke from the top court to the rest of the federal judiciary about refusing stays for obviously activist decisions. I’m not sure it says anything more than that.

Continue reading USSC rebukes 10th Circuit hyper-partisanship on Utah same-sex marriage decision.

Ah, the pitfalls of same-sex marriage. …Which is to say, bourgeois expectations.

Speaking as a same-sex marriage supporter myself, my reaction to this email that Glenn Reynolds got (“Gay Couples May Be Pressured into Marriage: Benefits May Be Terminated for Unmarried Same-Sex Couples”) is the same as Glenn’s: “Well, yes. Just like straight people!”

…Yeah, sorry to tell folks this: but coming with the ability to get married is this entire societal expectation that you will get married. I understand that some sub-demographics of the gay community are a bit upset about this: ach, well, cultural assimilation is a trial for us all.

Moe Lane

Continue reading Ah, the pitfalls of same-sex marriage. …Which is to say, bourgeois expectations.

Charlie’s Cristing again: this time, on gay marriage.

He’s apparently now for it.  And the Washington Post itself is snarking over why, although it’s subtle:

In his Facebook post, Crist did not discuss when or why his personal views on the issue have changed.

There’s gotta be a timeline for this sort of thing, you see.  Timeline, paper trail, and perhaps a lot of loud distractions from questions like “Didn’t you use to be the most Republican Republican that ever Repubkicked a can?”

Moe Lane

PS: You know, it’s funny.  I used to be a Democrat.  When I switched sides, I kept a few of my existing opinions on social policies (I am not particularly a social conservative, unless being basically pro-life these days counts).  In particular, I support same-sex marriage. And yet, I’ve never felt the need, either professionally or privately, to either recant my earlier views, or to hide them. And yet, if Charlie wants to be governor again he apparently has to – has to – admit to being a bald-faced liar on the subject.

I don’t know whether that’s more of a judgement on the Democratic party, or of Charlie Crist.

Kay Hagan demonstrates that there is no such thing as a conservative Democrat.

Speaking as a same-sex marriage supporter, I am going to call bullsh*t:

Sen. Kay Hagan (N.C.) on Wednesday became the latest Democratic senator to announce her support for same-sex marriage, as the Supreme Court weighs two landmark cases on gay rights.

[snip]

“I know there are strong feelings on both sides, and I have a great deal of respect for their opinions,” the North Carolina senator said. “But after much thought and prayer on my part this is where I am today.

Based on the ongoing update to Allahpundit’s gay marriage “pool” post, I’m going to guess that what happened here was that the DSCC – or Obama – did a selective email blast and laid down the law: support same-sex marriage, or you can forget about getting campaign money from the Democratic party.  Personally, if I were still a Democrat I’d be worried that I can’t trust all of these Senators to flip back if they saw the advantage in it.  I certainly don’t trust any of them now.

There is no such thing as a conservative Democrat.  They crack every time the polls on an issue slip below 50%.  This is a thing that happens.

Moe Lane