Supreme Court affirms right of same sex marriage

In a huge decision released just now, today the US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that bans on same-sex marriages were unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, joined by Kagan, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor.

This is a great day for the LGBT community and for everyone who believes in equal rights.

The ruling seems to go well beyond what I expected but I will write more about this later when I have had time to read the opinions and dissents. Unfortunately today is a very busy day for me.

But for now, all I will say is congratulations to those who fought so hard for this day.

Chief Justice Roberts getting hammered over Obamacare ruling

As expected, the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision to uphold the Obama administration’s understanding of the Obamacare law and reject the plaintiff’s claims that only health exchanges set up by the state could be used to provide the federal tax subsidies that made health insurance affordable to many has created a furious reaction from the right-wingers who seem to have become almost unhinged (I compiled a list of some of the immediate reactions yesterday.) The vehemence may be partly explained by their overly optimistic expectations that they would win, since they had won in the Appeals Court.
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Schadenfreude over the rage and tears of Obamacare opponents

So the reviews are coming in from the right wing nutcases following today’s Supreme Court ruling upholding the subsidies provided by the federal exchanges in those states that did not set up state exchanges. They were predicted to be over the top and they did not disappoint, essentially claiming that democracy is dead and the system of government envisioned by the country’s founders has been replaced by a tyrannical president supported by judicial activist Supreme Court.
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Supreme Court rules in favor of Obamacare

By a 6-3 vote issued today in the case of King v. Burwell, the US Supreme Court upheld the subsidies for health insurance provided by the federal exchanges in those states that decided to not set up state exchanges. This will come as a huge relief to the Obama administration’s signature legislation. But more importantly, it will enable about 10 million people to continue to get affordable health care coverage.
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Breaking free of arranged marriages

Arranged marriages are not common in the US where women and men have many opportunities to meet one another in co-educational schools, workplaces, and social settings. This creates, from the point of view of highly traditional families, a ‘problem’ in that when allowed to mix freely in cosmopolitan settings, people might well fall in love with those who do not share their own ethnic or racial or religious backgrounds.
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The suddenly toxic confederate flag

In a previous post, I expressed some pessimism that southern states would disassociate themselves from the confederate flag, pointing out that the determination of fans and owners of the Cleveland Indians baseball team to retain their racist mascot in the face of opprobrium shows the strength that symbols have on people. If a baseball mascot could not be gotten rid of, what are the chances of doing so for a flag in a nation that fetishizes flags?
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