Justice Alito: Why Not Let 4 Lawyers Marry One Another? [Romans 1]

CNS News ^ | 4/29/2015 | Staff

[tacticalogic]

I want to marry the color orange and a scone.

I want to marry my children on my death bed, and screw the IRS out of the inheritance taxes.

[Jan_Sobieski]

Wow...very creative. Why not? But if you are allowed to marry Orange, what about R[]YBIV. The other colors are not able to marry you and therefore it is discriminatory. Therefore we must have multicolor marriages.

What if other folks besides you want to marry orange? It discriminates against them to not be able to marry orange, therefore...

[Bob434]

[[She seemed to say that states would “rush in” to show a compelling interest against 3 or 4-party marriages.]]

She went further by saying basically that because there would be so many people that disputes would arise as to who gets what I n the marriage, and she says that it would cause cases of coercion with one person or two forcing the other to do something against their will- basically-

It’s an asinine argument/answer- the first part of her answer is a LIE- states would NOT rush in now that DEVIANT sexual practices are now legal and rewarded with marriage- once you allow one DEVIANT lifestyle marriage, you then MUST allow all- you can NOT legislate4 from the bench and pick and choose which of the sexually deviant lifestyles you like and don’t like- These DEVIANT sexual acts of all kinds have been determined to be immoral and DEVIANT for a long long time now- and to now come along and say that one or two or several aren’t deviant is to declare from the bench that we the people don’t have a right to label something immoral that has been called immoral since the beginning of time

Her second part to her answer is just asinine- like coercion doesn’t happen in marriages with two people? Like squabbles don’t already happen? NEITHER of these explanations are relevant

This whole issues boils down to this basic question “Is Homosexual sex an unnatural act? If yes, then it is an immoral act, and immoral acts can not be allowed in marriage- period- IF you allow one immoral unnatural sexual persuasion, then you MUST allow them all

Alito tried to get the lawyer to explain why she would pick and choose which unnatural act should be allowed, and she danced all around the issue giving asinine ‘answers’

[Bob434]

[[As long as it arbitrary marry yourself ]]

Are you kidding me? I can’t stand myself- I’d be cosntnatly fighting with myself If I had to marry myself-

[x]

At the bottom of the ocean?

It would be a good start?

[DaveyB]

I can’t stand myself...

You should feel free in your case to marry your alternate self. An alternate is sorta like the profiles and avatars folks use on dating sites.

[petercooper]

I want to marry the Queen of Hearts, and a perfect Key West sunset.

[Jan_Sobieski]

Good point!

[Bluestocking]

The lawyer in favor of same-sex marriage knew should would be asked a question like Justice Alito’s concerning a marriage of four lawyers. She had months to prepare for it — and yet her answer was extremely unconvincing if not actually incoherent.

So where does that leave the liberal Justices, who will have to address the same slippery-slope issue in their written opinions if they rule in favor of same-sex marriage?

It’s one thing to be a mere lawyer speaking on behalf of a client. But Supreme Court justices are required to protect the American legal system instead of knowingly destroying it by setting precedents like legalized same-sex marriage that could easily lead to four-member marriages and beyond until the whole concept of marriage becomes a mockery.

So the question is, how shameless will the liberal Justices be in their decisions? And if they choose to destroy the institution of marriage, how absurd will the convolutions be in their written arguments as they attempt to defend the indefensible?

[Armando Guerra]

Marriage laws usually involve certain limitations:

1. One human (presumed) male;

2. One human (presumed) female;

3. Of a certain age;

4. Not of a certain level of familial relationship.

If "love is all you need" then none of the other limitations should be applicable either. You should be able to marry your 12 year old sister and her little dog too based on the same arguments made in favor of gay marriage.

[TheStickman]

Brian May of Queen who wrote a good many of their songs is not gay.

[EternalVigilance]

They’ll never let four lawyers marry. The divorce proceedings would tie up the entire court system for a thousand years.

[jocon307]

I’ve seen a lamp or two in my time that I’ve wanted to marry. And, lest anyone misconstrue, I’m not talking about lamps that have human figures as part of their design. Although I dare say some might find those quite fetching.

[Springfield Reformer]

From the transcript as quoted in the article:

Justice Samuel Alito: Suppose we rule in your favor in this case and then after that, a group consisting of two men and two women apply for a marriage license. Would there be any ground for denying them a license?

Mary Bonauto: I believe so, Your Honor.

Alito: What would be the reason?

Bonauto: There'd be two. One is whether the State would even say that that is such a thing as a marriage, but then beyond that, there are definitely going to be concerns about coercion and consent and disrupting family relationships when you start talking about multiple persons. But I want to also just go back to the wait and see question for a moment, if I may. Because—

Justice Antonin Scalia: Well, I didn't understand your answer.

Alito: Yes. I hope you will come back to mine. If you want to go back to the earlier one –

Bonauto: No, no.

Alito: -- then you can come back to mine.

Bonauto: Well, that's what -- I mean, that is -- I mean, the State –

Alito: Well, what if there's no -- these are 4 people, 2 men and 2 women, it's not--it's not the sort of polygamous relationship, polygamous marriages that existed in other societies and still exist in some societies today. And let's say they're all consenting adults, highly educated. They're all lawyers. What would be the ground under--under the logic of the decision you would like us to hand down in this case? What would be the logic of denying them the same right?

Bonauto: Number one, I assume the States would rush in and say that when you're talking about multiple people joining into a relationship, that that is not the same thing that we've had in marriage, which is on the mutual support and consent of two people. Setting that aside, even assuming it is within the fundamental right –

Alito: But--well, I don't know what kind of a distinction that is because a marriage between two people of the same sex is not something that we have had before, recognizing that is a substantial break. Maybe it's a good one. So this is no -- why is that a greater break?

Bonauto: The question is one of--again, assuming it's within the fundamental right, the question then becomes one of justification. And I assume that the States would come in and they would say that there are concerns about consent and coercion. If there's a divorce from the second wife, does that mean the fourth wife has access to the child of the second wife? There are issues around who is it that makes the medical decisions, you know, in the time of crisis. I assume there'd be lots of family disruption issues, setting aside issues of coercion and consent and so on that just don't apply here, when we're talking about two consenting adults who want to make that mutual commitment for as long as they shall be. So that's my answer on that.

He's eviscerating her argument. As BL says, right out of the gate she concedes the states would be able to define certain aspects of marriage, for example, the number of members, but not the gender or sexual orientation of the members.  Why only a partial power of definition?  That's sandlot rule-making.  Just pulling distinctions out of thin air.  It's irrational.

And then she gets how lame this is so she trys to play the complexity card.  The state should disallow marriages that are too hard to figure out relationally, whether party A has enough control over what transacts between parties B, C, and D to avoid issues with consent or coercion. But that again is pulling new rules out of thin air.  Complex multi-party contracts form all the time, even in family law.  Other than being a consenting adult, that sort of complexity consideration has never been entertained as a reason to outright prohibit a marriage.  

Again feeling the pressure of the weakness of these arguments, she tries desperately to retreat to a safer question, where she might be able to buy some time and get her act together.

But Scalia pulls her back to the mess she just made. He says he doesn't understand, but he probably does, and just wants to expose the irrationality, the arbitrariness of her baseless rule-making.

Alito also recognizes these weaknesses and does not let her of the hook.  

She has a nasty falter here.  (BTW, I know how this feels, and it isn't fun.  I might even be sympathetic if her subject matter were not so perverse.  But I digress...)

Then Alito moves in for the kill. He goes with "all lawyers" to smash the complexity argument. You now have, theoretically, the most legally competent people you could ever ask for, lawyers, so they can handle any legal aspect such a complex set of relationships might raise.  So now that's not a barrier to a foursome marriage.  What else could be a rational barrier to such an arrangement, once we ditch the existing rules on sexual orientation?  Because the dirty little secret in all this is that the requirement of having only 2 derives directly from marriage being defined as a he and a she, two.  Take away that basis in biology, and no rational reason can ever be found for limiting the number of parties to just two.

And then she steps in it again.  The states would rush in because ... wait for it .. we've never done it that way before. Oh?  But we've never done gay marriage before either.  Using that logic, why wouldn't the states be justified in "rushing in" to stop it?  Or put another way, why is the elimination of the heterosexuality requirement any less revolutionary than elimination of the number requirement?  How would you objectively quantify that?

Then she's so bad off she tries the old "dust in your eyes" tactic.  Justification? Really? What does that mean, Ms. Bonauto?  Well, it has something to do with that complexity issue you just destroyed.  Two gay individuals would have a less complex relationship than four lawyers. Oh? And the states will recognize that and make rules preventing really complex relationships ... that are already permitted in many other areas of the law.  Ugh.  A very flat way to end her presentation.  It is as if they didn't really prepare seriously for this line of inquiry.  If I am their client, I'm not feeling too happy about this.  But as a defender of traditional marriage, this was great fun to watch. :)

Peace,

SR

[onyx]

B T T T ! ! ! ©

[EternalVigilance]

Yup.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Didn’t Charlton Heston say, in THE WAR LORD that he had been married to “that cold wife” (his sword) for many years?

Didn’t Richard the Lionhearted, in C B DeMille’s THE CRUSADES send his sword to be proxy for himself at his wedding as he had other matters to attend to? His wife then took the sword to bed with her that night but kept Richard out.

Why can’t a man marry a sword, or rifle? Am I a “bigamist if I have too many “cold wives”?

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Remember what farming and ranching used to be called? Animal Husbandry. Is it now a perversion?

[afraidfortherepublic]

Why not a whole law school class? That’d be chaotic with everybody talking at once. It would sound like O’Reilly.

[jwalsh07]

That’s why she was running away from Alito’s question. Because there is no answer. Polygamy will follow same sex marriage as sure as the four lawyers will chase the ambulance.