Barack Obama Quotes
I support ensuring that committed gay couples have the same rights and responsibilities afforded to any married couple in this country. I believe strongly in stopping laws designed to take rights away and passing laws that extend equal rights to gay couples. I've required all agencies in the federal government to extend as many federal benefits as possible to LGBT families as the current law allows. And I've called on Congress to repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act and to pass the Domestic Partners Benefits and Obligations Act.
His view was that since gay marriage did not affect anyone else but the gay couple, it should not be illegal. This is an early Thomas Jefferson idea (see {604940} ) where Jefferson argues that since it does not effect him or anyone else if a person worships 20 gods or none, he and society has no business legislating against it. Those on the opposite side argued that if someone was an atheist or a pagan, it damaged the culture as a whole and offended their sense of morality. Therefore there must be a state religion. In modern times we are debating the same principle only gay marriage is the subject. Should the majority moral view control all or only those things that directly and negatively affect other people and not their moral sensibilities.
The law at that time gave a married woman almost no rights. The husband legally controlled the family assets regardless of who had earned or provided them. He aslo had absolute control of the upbringing of the children. Women could not vote and in many states were considered property of the husband.
This quotation illustrates the brilliance of Scalia. He was in the minority of the Justices when he opposed gay marriage. However, instead of just writing a caustic dissent—which he did—he posed this question to one of the most brilliant attorneys in the country who was arguing the case for gay marriage. Clearly, gay marriage was not considered unconstitutional when the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution. It is almost certain that no one in those times even considered such a prospect. However, by 2013 a number of states had allowed gay marriage, and the majority of Americans favored it. The best Olsen could answer was “There us no specific data in time. This is an evolutionary cycle”. Despite his oratory tour de force, Scalia was again in the minority and his view did not prevail. Public opinion had clearly changed, and most judges believed that the interpretation of the Constitution most also change and there is no more a specific time to say exactly when that change took place than there is to say exactly when America concluded that the nation should have Prohibition or any other social norm.
This was an incredibly accurate prediction as 2 years thereafter, it was not only the major civil rights issue of the time, but it became a major general political and legal issue regarding the rights of states. Within year, 16 states allowed same sex marriage.
What made this quotation very dramatic was that the state of Virginia, under the previous administration dominated by religious fundamentalists had passed a law banning same sex marriage. Several private Virginia citizens had sued the State in Federal Court, asserting that their Constitutional rights were violated by the ban. The Attorney general normally defends the state in any court proceeding. However, Herring agreed with the plaintiffs on the case, that the Virginia law was unconstitutional, so he and the State entered the case on the side of the plaintiffs and against the state law. His reference to the right side of history was related to the fact that as late as 1964 Virginia had a law prohibiting interracial marriage which they enforced and the Supreme Court invalidated. Thus, on marriage, Virginia had a track record of being on the wrong side of history and the law.
Barack Hussein Obama II is an American politician and attorney who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the United States. He previously served as a U.S. senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008 and as an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004.
