WASHINGTON — In a long-sought victory for the gay rights movement, the Supreme Court ruled by a 5-to-4 vote on Friday that the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage.

“No longer may this liberty be denied,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority in the historic decision. “No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were.”

Marriage is a “keystone of our social order,” Justice Kennedy said, adding that the plaintiffs in the case were seeking “equal dignity in the eyes of the law.”

While religious accommodations have been written into state laws redefining marriage, the U.S. Supreme Court did not, and could not, do that in claiming that gay marriage is a fundamental right; inevitably, this will lead to religious freedom conflicts, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his dissenting opinion.

"Unfortunately, people of faith can take no comfort in the treatment they receive from the majority today," he wrote. (For simplicity, footnotes have been removed from all quotes.)

While Justice Anthony Kennedy acknowledged in his majority opinion that religious conservatives have the right to "advocate" and "teach" their views, "ominously," Roberts continued, there was no mention of the freedom to live according to their beliefs.

"The First Amendment guarantees, however, the freedom to 'exercise religion.' Ominously, that is not a word the majority uses," he wrote.

Justice Clarence Thomas also criticized Kennedy's opinion for "a misunderstanding of religious liberty in our nation's tradition."

"Religious liberty is about more than just the protection for 'religious organizations and persons ... as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths,'" he wrote. "Religious liberty is about freedom of action in matters of religion generally, and the scope of that liberty is directly correlated to the civil restraints placed upon religious practice."

Religious colleges and adoption agencies could lose their tax-exempt status for upholding norms consistent with their faith, Roberts noted, while citing the oral arguments of the Obama administration's solicitor general.

Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/religious-conservatives-will-be-vilified-and-marginalized-lose-their-religious-freedom-justices-warn-in-gay-marriage-dissenting-opinions-140901/#8YK6xpKZBv5QQkoS.99

In 2004, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom unleashed a national political and legal tempest when he issued about 4,000 marriage licenses to same-sex couples. At a time when gay marriage was expressly prohibited by California law, even many of Newsom's allies wondered aloud whether the rising Democratic star had effectively sabotaged his political career. Others grumbled that by forcing the hot-button issue into the presidential campaign, he'd handed a sharp weapon to the Republicans. During two political fundraisers in San Francisco that year, Barack Obama infamously refused to be photographed with Newsom.

But history was on Newsom's side. In 2008, the California Supreme Court struck down the state's same-sex marriage ban. Proposition 8, a subsequent, voter-backed constitutional amendment outlawing gay marriage, was later invalidated by a federal appeals court in a decision the US Supreme Court allowed to stand. Friday'sSupreme Court ruling has enshrined same-sex marriage as the law of the land, offering Newsom, now California's Lieutenant Governor, sweet vindication 11 years after he took his rogue stance. 

read more: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/06/san-francisco-mayor-gavin-newsom-supreme-court-ruling-same-sex-marriage

'And Noah began to be a farmer, and he planted a vineyard. Then he drank of the wine and was drunk, and became uncovered in his tent [apparently this was a euphemism for "having a fuck"]. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. But Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father's nakedness. So Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done to him. Then he said: "Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants he shall be to his brethren." And he said: "Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem, and may Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge Japheth, and may he dwell in the tents of Shem; and may Canaan be his servant."'

Genesis 9:20-27.

This makes as much sense as the religious excuses of men having several fuck-option under their one roof...:

Some Bible commentators have suggested that the Lord allowed men to have more than one wife or several concubines during the period from the Great Flood until the Old Covenant in order to build up the world's population (which had obviously been decimated by the Flood), but from the time of Moses receiving the legal package on Mount Sinai, concubinage was banned. But this is totally incorrect for two reasons:

• Firstly, we should not forget that the Old Covenant was given to Israel alone!

• Secondly, the Old Covenant did make provision for a man having more than one wife. Please note Deuteronomy 21:15-17 !!

   

Links available... but this bullshit is not worth the space...

And I wonder not why I am an atheist...

The revelers glimmered beneath sprinkling skies, carrying handmade signs and rainbow flags, screeching noisemakers and fussy children.

A familiar chant — at least before the coda — wafted over 41st Street in Midtown Manhattan.

“What do we want?”

“Marriage equality!”

“When did we get it?”

“Friday!”

Two days after the United States Supreme Court affirmed same-sex marriage as a right, the nation’s well-timed pride parades on Sunday promised a sort of social catharsis — along Fifth Avenue in New York City and Market Street in San Francisco — joining the country’s twin hubs of gay activism in a bicoastal embrace.

“All 50 states!” the New York crowd roared at one point. It was no longer a plea, but a celebration.

And if even the common pride parade can blur the lines between friend and stranger, Sunday’s proceedings quickly assumed the feel of a mammoth wedding reception, uniting graying activists, fledgling families and simple party-seekers in a historical moment that all seemed keenly aware they occupied.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/29/nyregion/jubilant-marchers-at-new-yorks-gay-pride-parade-celebrate-supreme-court-ruling.html?_r=0