Penn community reacts to gay marriage ruling

Penn’s LGBT community applauds Respect for Marriage Act

Same-sex marriage may soon be on its way to the United States Supreme Court.

Members of the Penn community are applauding a Tuesday ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that held California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional.

A three-judge panel voted 2-1 to strike down Proposition 8 — a 2008 voter ballot measure in California that defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

According to The New York Times, Tuesday’s decision “all but ensured that the case [will] proceed to the United States Supreme Court” upon appeal.

For College sophomore Hugh Hamilton, chair of the Lambda Alliance — Penn’s umbrella organization for LGBT groups — the court’s decision comes as a major encouragement for the LGBT community.

“I am personally thrilled with the outcome,” Hamilton said. “It will definitely be a boon when the case reaches the Supreme Court.”

College freshman Cameron Kiani, who considers himself a supporter of same-sex marriage, agreed that “this is definitely a step in the right direction.”

However, he added that “it’s amazing that there are people in this country who don’t share all the same rights. It’s almost like going back to the Civil Rights movement — it’s ridiculous that people would deny others the right to marriage.”

College junior Lisa Doi agreed.

“I personally believe that marriage is a legal institution,” she said. “I think that marriage should not just be limited to a man and a woman — that definition is too limited.”

Tuesday’s decision holds significant ramifications for the legislative push for same-sex marriage across the nation.

According to Political Science professor Rogers Smith, the nature of the ruling makes it a strong precedent to be used in future litigation.

“What the court ruled was that there was no reason for Proposition 8 to ban same-sex marriage,” he said. “For a court to find that there is simply no rational basis for restrictions on same-sex marriage, that’s a very powerful argument that can be cited in litigation everywhere.”

Smith added that the ruling will make it difficult for religious reasons to be used as justification for bans on same-sex marriage.

Penn’s LGBT Center Director Bob Schoenberg also believed that the ruling holds “significant implications in the advancement of the case for same-sex marriage.”

“The state of Washington is on the verge of adopting it, and with California perhaps about to be added to the list of states … we’re approaching 20 percent of states,” he said.

Now that Proposition 8 has been struck down by the federal appeals court, proponents of a same-sex marriage ban can appeal the decision in one of two ways. They can either request to have the case reheard en banc — before an 11-judge panel from the Ninth Circuit — or appeal directly to the Supreme Court.

For College junior and Vice-Chair of Lambda’s Political Affairs Jake Tolan, the future of the case gives him mixed emotions.

“I’m excited, but I’m a little bit nervous at the same time. I think it is very likely that the decision is going to be appealed and go to the Supreme Court,” he said. “[But] I understand that there are several conservative judges on the Supreme Court who may be hesitant to support such a ruling.”

Smith added that any future precedent established by the Supreme Court will outweigh Tuesday’s decision.

However, he believes that the Ninth Circuit’s holding was “certainly a victory for the LGBT community in California, as well as a legal victory that can serve as [a] precedent for winning expanded LGBT rights elsewhere.”

“Whatever happens, it will definitely set the tone for gay marriage in America,” Tolan added.

Penn’s LGBT community applauds Respect for Marriage Act

Comments (10)

It’s about Freggin TIME! It’s beyond shameful that the “home of the free” treats so many of its citizens like outcasts because they love someone.

Apparently, the Penn “community” unanimously supports the 9th Circuit’s decision. Or, maybe the DP just decided not to interview someone who disagreed — perhaps a member of the College Republicans or a Christian organization on campus.

In any event, the 9th Circuit is notorious for having its decisions overturned by the Supreme Court (now and prior to the current justices). Homosexuals have the right to marry people of the opposite sex like every American.

It has absolutely nothing to do with the right to marry a person of a certain gender, and everything to do with the right to marry the person you love, regardless of their gender.

While I agree that the article probably should have presented at least one student’s counteropinion (i.e., pro-Proposition 8) to convey both sides of the issue, what is the basis for restricting marriage to a union only between persons of the opposite sex, as you advocate?

Tradition? Well, times change, and society’s laws have to change and adapt to shifting public opinion. It wasn’t until the 1960s that anti-miscegenation laws were completely struck down in the U.S. If “tradition” were the only guideline for shaping our legal code, then that legal code would never change, and among other policies, individuals of different races would still be unable to legally marry. If the U.S. were to continually operate strictly along the lines of “tradition”, then the nation would not be revered as “the home of the free”, since outdated laws would not be able to evolve in response to changes in the social climate.

The Bible? Another often-cited reason for opposing same-sex marriage. But, the United States does not have any official religious affiliation; in fact, it prides itself on being a cultural “melting pot”. So, why should we use any one religious text as the basis for our legal code?

Alum is right that everyone has equal rights: that to marry someone of the opposite gender.

Marriage is inherently a religious institution. The only reason that government ought to promote marriage is because of the procreative benefits that they deliver. Homosexuals do not make the cut.

Some say that this is a reason that wouldn’t allow sterile couples or couples unwillingly to have children to marry. But the government has no way of knowing these things, and cannot restrict them.

Also, if we’re going to allow “the right to marry the person you love, regardless of their gender,” as @Alum puts it, then why not polygamist marriages? First-cousin marriages? Sibling marriage? And what about marrying adolescents? What about animals? (I am not calling homosexuals animals here, and I apologize if it came off that way.) There is a slippery slope here along which we cannot allow ourselves to start falling.

Polygamist marriages are allowed in many Muslim countries. So is it religion, or just a narrowly defined religion you agree with?

homophobe, the happy news is that your anonymous posts don’t matter; what matter is the open statements of the judges who overthrew Prop 8. And if you had the balls, you would state your name.

The crux of your 2nd and 3rd paragraphs rest on your assertion that “the only reason that government ought to promote marriage is because of the procreative benefits that they deliver.”

Firstly, I’m not sure why you use the phrase “ought to” as the basis of your argument, since what “ought to” be may not actually be. Sidestepping the semantics, the institution of marriage has historically been tied closely with economics and property, so to tie marriage only to procreation is historically inaccurate.

In terms of the issues your raise in your last paragraph, I think there is some validity to some of them (e.g., why should a polyamorous marriage be illegal?). However, I don’t think cases in which there are significant, fundamental differences to what American marriage has always been are valid for your “slippery slope” argument. Having nullified the procreation argument above, there is essentially no difference between the potential goals of a hetero- and homosexual marriage. However, there is a significant difference between a heterosexual marriage and a marriage between an adult and an adolescent, because adolescents are deemed too immature and undeveloped (according to scientific findings) to consent to certain important decisions involving such issues as marriage and sex. Similarly, an animal can not consent (for obvious reasons) to a marriage. In the U.S., a marriage requires consent of both participants (an issue which I don’t think is considered unjust or is largely contested), so without the required mutual consent in the case of an adult-adolescent or human-animal relationship, those situations are fundamentally very different from what American marriages are recognized to be (i.e., voluntary unions). The sibling/family marriage, and polygamist marriage, are potentially valids point, but I don’t think the fact that there seems to be no compelling rationale against them justifies maintaining the illegality of same-sex marriage. There doesn’t seem to be a mass movement in favor of legalizing sibling or polygamist marriage, and so while that doesn’t mean that they are necessarily wrong, I don’t think they should be mentioned in the same vein as same-sex marriage, which has an outpouring of support in this country.

Sigh…I’m not sure why I thought I might find something different in the comments section. Let’s see, where to begin…
First, let’s start with marriage itself. It has both a legal and a religious connotation. In this country, the legal benefits of a marriage are well known. Up until now, the religious definition has been layered on top of that. Problem is, that religious definition is based on a political work (aka the bible) written thousands of years ago in order to control the population of the Roman Empire (obviously many religious texts define marriage in ways that would be abhorrent to religious folk in this country. But that’s beyond the scope of this post…so back to the Bible). Quite frankly, it has absolutely zero relevance to the legal definition of marriage. Pastors can still deny gay people the right to be married in their building, but they have no say on what this country is to legally define marriage as (via separation of church and state). So in response to “homophobe” and his silly statements about marrying animals (C’mon man, animals? Really? Try making a real argument), this movement is seeking to define marriage as a monogamous relationship between two consenting adults (regardless of gender) that is recognized and granted benefits by the state. This is reasonable to most people who don’t object on religious grounds, so we’re going with it. The reason you cannot marry kids is because they aren’t adults and cannot consent to marriage (DUH). The reason you cannot marry close relatives is to prevent the incidence of congenital diseases and defects (maybe not so duh, but look this stuff up before you assume it’s a logical counter argument).
So the usual response to something like what I wrote above is “why can’t we just give them civil unions, it’s the same thing”. Separate but equal didn’t work in the 20th century and it’s not going to work in the 21st century. Enough trying to ostracize people who just want to be married and left alone. Sure there are probably a few gay couples who would go and flaunt their bond in front of hyper-religious folk…but I’m pretty sure most gay people want nothing to do with them at all. So to anyone who is concerned about gays “infringing on the consciences and rights of religious people and institutions”, I’ll start listening once you stop your radical elements from shoving their beliefs in my face (that includes your politicians and other televised leaders). Until then, no one has a contest on religious grounds.

-a straight, male atheist (who is tired of this discriminatory crap).

On a side note though, I do agree with Alum that the DP didn’t do a good job covering this article. I think it would have been taken more seriously had dissenting opinions been found (I know that’s hard on a campus like this, but those people do exist). Doesn’t mean I would agree with anything those people have to say, but ignoring them is plain bad journalism.

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