Nile Rodgers Quotes

Earlier, he had opposed same sex marriage, but as the population as a whole had a change of mind on this issue, so did he. By 2013, 16 States had modified their laws to allow gay marriage.

At the time he and the Obama administration had favored legal domestic partnerships for gays but opposed same sex marriage. However, he and the President were having moral and legal doubts and there seemed to be an acceptance of homosexuality emerging in society. The administration then changed their position and within just a few years, same sex marriage had become legal in over 10 states and was being politically debated in many others. In many parts of the country, Biden’s prediction came true in much of America, and the change in political and public opinion was occurring in more and more places.

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.

Two days earlier, New York Voted to legalize gay marriage and Alesi became the first Republican to vote for gay marriage. New York was the first state to legalize gay marriage by an act of their legislature and not by the judiciary on Constitutional grounds. Generally, most of the Republican politicians were opposed to marriage equality as they had the religious right wing of the party for whom gay marriage was anathema.

Stanek was a virulent homophobe who criticized her Republican Party for tolerating homosexuals.

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.