U.S., in Shift, Sees Marriage Act as Violation of Gay Rights | Hacker News Reader

U.S., in Shift, Sees Marriage Act as Violation of Gay Rights

nytimes.com

17 pointsakitchell11 comments

I've never really gotten why any marriage needs to be recognized by the government. Yes, I understand it's for tax purposes, and yes, I think taxing 'married' people any differently than 'single' people is stupid.

It's a lot more than just tax issues involved. Marriages are contracts that two people enter into and a number of benefits and responsibilities are determined by that contract.

People enter into contracts every day that the government has nothing to do with. I'm still not getting why government approval should be involved at all.

I didn't suggest that the government should be involved I just wanted to point out that it's a lot more than taxes. The problem is that the government is already involved and so at the very least we should allow all couples the ability to enter into this particular contract without discrimination based on sexual preference.

I'm for Gay Marriage but I think he loses some serious integrity points for this because he openly said he was against Gay Marriage during the campaign.

Beyond that the Justice Department's job is (by their own definition) "enforcement of the law and administration of justice". Not enforcement of the laws the current administration happens to agree with. The Bush administration did vaguely the same thing with Microsoft's anti-trust case but at least they bothered to make it look like they were still enforcing the law with a wildly insufficient plea deal.

Again my issue isn't with Gay Marriage. I'm just not crazy about sending the message that it's ok for the President to subvert the law and lie to the public to do what he thinks is right. Even if I agree with him.

(For those of a liberal bent who can't see past the Gay Marriage issue imagine a Conservative President deciding not to allow the DOJ to pursue states that outlaw abortion because he doesn't feel like enforcing federal law)

The difference is that he's not failing to enforce federal law; he's failing to contest the judiciary's finding that DOMA is unconstitutional. If the court is right, then it's not a law, and he has no obligation to enforce it.

Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act, Obama just called BS, now its up to the courts to decide. Yay separation of powers.

No, a court already called BS, and Obama gave up on arguing the point.

With 13 votes in less than an hour, I'm surprised that this isn't on the front page. Presumably some penalty is being applied, and I'd like to better understand this.

For hackers and many other people at startups, marriage is an important way of getting insurance coverage and other benefits. Until now, the US government has taken the stance that many people shouldn't be eligible for it. Now, it's changing the position. Why isn't this relevant?

Political articles tend to get flagged, pushing them off the front page.

Correct. All of the Giffords shooting in Tucson articles from last month got flagged off.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com