"Joy and pleasure are as real as pain and sorrow and one must learn what they have to teach. . . ." -- Sean Russell, from Gatherer of Clouds

"If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right." -- Helyn D. Goldenberg

"I love you and I'm not afraid." -- Evanescence, "My Last Breath"

“If I hear ‘not allowed’ much oftener,” said Sam, “I’m going to get angry.” -- J.R.R. Tolkien, from Lord of the Rings

Monday, April 20, 2015

Marriage News Watch, April 20, 2015

I've rounded up the weirdest Supreme Court briefs that argue in favor of preventing gays and lesbians from marrying. Some are full of mistakes, others have baffling arguments. And at least one is incredibly sexist, and signed by a member of Congress.


Desperately hoping something sticks to the wall.

Here's yet another one, from fifteen state attorneys general.

One thing that strikes me, reading through a number of these briefs, is that they all start, as they must, with the "Questions Presented," the two questions the Court said it wanted responses to. (Except for NOM's amicus brief -- NOM rewrote the questions.) Those two questions are:

1. Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to license a marriage between two people of the same sex?

2. Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-state?

And then they lay out arguments based on reproductive biology, "vox populi", tradition, natural law, and a whole resale shop full of bizarre arguments (including one brief about Alfred Kinsey, for some reason), and nothing about the Fourteenth Amendment.

Question: Is it reading comprehension, or attention span?

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