So now Donald Trump is going to be president of the United States.

Although Hillary was a very flawed candidate, she certainly would have been more accepting of the gay community. Not that I think it is a big deal to the Donald, but his vice president Pence is strictly hard line on social "moral" issues.

Their appointees to the Supreme Court will clearly be anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage and in favor of a "Christian's" right to refuse service to gay couples.

What I am wondering is will they attempt to return to the individual states the ability to say marriage is between one man and one women? We could then end up with a total mess as some states recognize gay marriage and others do not.

Trump will get to appoint at least one and based on the ages of the liberal justices probably 2 or 3 Supreme Court judges - which could make the court socially conservative for a generation.

At this point there is little we can do other than wonder and speculate - but I was curious what others thoughts are - now that gay marriage has been legal can they "put the genie back in the bottle" and make it illegal again?

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Where do you get the idea that gay rights are more important that religious rights?
Forcing individuals to do something against their will should be an anathema to the gay community.
The Constitution of the United States spells out what the government can't do, not what the people can do. We have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If you want a gay wedding cake and someone won't bake it for you, tough. Find someone else. We need to respect other peoples opinions and feeling first if we want them to respect ours.
I grow weary about the alleged hardships endured by gay people, the slurs, sideways glances etc. Try living in Saudi Arabia and tell me how that works out. Frankly, most people don't care and aren't interested in your private life. Do what you do, be with whom you wish and pray the government stays out of your business, all our business. The minute you engage the government to mediate in your private business matters they will continue to do so even when you don't want them there. To wit, the election of President Trump. I seem to recall a supporter of our lame duck president saying something about "chickens coming home to roost".
Well gay America, you asked for the government to interfere, don't cry about it now.

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You have pointed out a few very valid issues.

Yet, the most essential function of the government is to regulate the public sphere.

And every government will do it as much as they possibly can. It is their very raison d'etre.

It is up to me to befriend or not whites, blacks, Asians, LGBT of straight people on a private level and spend my time and money with them under the conditions of reciprocal consent. Our private life is our private business. Relatively very few governments get involved it telling people living under their jurisdictions whom to be friends with/spend their time together with, socialize with etc.

Once I open a bakery and start serving general public, I submit myself to a very different set of laws and regulations that are very likely to prevent me from discriminating against my potential clients and customers. This is where every known government steps in on one way or the other and does it very BIG TIME!

KD

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In no way do I believe gay rights are more important than religious or any other rights.

However as KewlDewd66 points out - if you are going to be in a position of working with the public you should not let your personal views be your guide.

Should the government do nothing if a business says they are not going to serve Blacks? Or Hispanics? Say instead of 2 gays wanting a wedding cake it was a mixed race couple and since the baker believes people should only marry in their same race they refuse them service?

Personally I agree with you - if I wanted a gay wedding cake I would not want to support a bakery that was against gay marriage - but that does not mean the bakery should have the right to say "We are good Christians - we will not sell cakes to Jews" or any other group.

Everyone has the right to believe whatever they want - but it is the job of the government to make sure that a persons individual bias does not allow them to treat any group as second class citizens.

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Governments do it for a reason bigger than fairness itself. They are in business of collecting taxes and paying themselves out of the taxes they levy. The more cakes sold the more taxes collected.

The anti-discriminatory, all-inclusive policies do carry a strong economic/fiscal component with them. Some of it may be for the love of justice and fairness. Much of it has to do with the love of money, too!

Putting it somewhat plainly, I admit...

KD

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I'd started to write something when I first saw this discussion, but I realized I was short on time - still am! - and had to come back later.

To jonn3's original question about same-sex marriage, I doubt the Trump Administration can do too much to change it, or at least not immediately, and I'm not sure if Trump would.

The five justices who were the majority in Obergefell v. Hodges, the same-sex marriage decision, are all still alive and serving on the US Supreme Court. The late Justice Scalia whose passing created an open seat was in the minority on this decision. If someone who shares Scalia's views were appointed to replace him, he or she would go through the confirmation process in the US Senate.

So, what matters here is two things, and they are not the immediate need to replace Justice Scalia.

The first is that Justice Kennedy, appointed by President Reagan, has become in today's context the moderate swing vote who decides among the others, with four Justices each to his right and his left. He remains on the Court.

The second is that both Justice Kennedy and liberal Justice Ginsburg are 80 years old or older. Justice Breyer, also counted among the liberals, is 78. How long they will serve and whether Trump will choose replacements who will be confirmed is unknown, along with what sort of replacements he would choose.

Recall that Trump made multiple conflicting statements in both the primaries and the general election. I don't expect him to feel bound by the list of possible Supreme Court nominees his campaign had released.

As I write this, the GOP will have 51 or 52 seats in the Senate in 2017, with Louisiana's "jungle primary" last Tuesday causing a runoff on December 10 to determine whether a Republican or a Democrat will hold that seat. There had been multiple Republicans and Democrats running along with Independents and a Libertarian.

Although the majority party can confirm a Supreme Court Justice with a majority vote, the incoming Republican majority will not have enough seats to prevent a possible filibuster by Democrats. As we saw with Ted Cruz awhile back, filibusters can be broken.

I sense we are beginning to see the "businessman" Trump backing away from some of the most extreme blustering statements he made in the primaries and general election campaign. He is a venal man who uses loud talk and vulgarity to attract attention, and he successfully mobilized a segment of America who felt forgotten, voiceless, and undervalued.

What we'll actually see from a President Trump remains to be seen. He has no personal allegiance to the Religious Right, although he used them to gain the Presidency.

I remember being surprised as a child when President Nixon, who made his career opposing Communism, opened détente with the Soviet Union and later visited Beijing. Later as a student of Government and Political Science I kept running into the saying, "Only Nixon could go to China."

Honestly, we truly and simply don't know and won't know until we know it.

Also, I don't think I need to pile on to the answers to trainnut. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, of course, but there is an appropriate time and place for it. Whether this moment and this virtual space is the best place is for each person to judge - and it isn't necessary to pile on with judgement, pro or com. To me it seemed overly harsh, but that's simply my own opinion.

I will add that the Freedom of Religion is only one of the Rights enumerated in our Bill of Rights. It's balanced against Freedom of Expression (i.e., "Speech"), Freedom of Association (i.e., "Assembly"), and other Constitutional provisions such as the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

Examples: Freedom of Religion does not give a husband permission to rape his wife. Freedom of Religion does not give a man permission to have multiple wives. Freedom of Religion does not give a man permission to force a child into marriage with him or with another man. I believe we saw all these come into play not too long ago with the controversies and prosecutions around the FLDS Church.

I could write for hours, but I truly need to catch up on delayed other work.

~ Bob

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I truly enjoy a spirited debate, no need to apologize.
If I can maintain my lifestyle as I do I can take the slings and barbs on this forum.
The biblical command to "do on to others" is eternal.
Various groups thought the good times of Democrat control would go on forever and they forgot that elections have consequences.
The LGBT community needs to reflect on their actions in the past and think did they change minds and hearts or just bully their opponents? I submit they were bullies and used the force of law to make changes suitable to their agenda. But what congress giveth Congress can taketh.
Hopefully we can all learn lessons and build a future based on consensus and good will rather than pure political power.

Trainnut

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Bob -

I agree that Trump could probably care less - my concern is with Pence - a religious fundamentalist who believes in his version of the bible above the constitution.

I also fear that with Justice Kennedy (80) and Justice Ginsburg (83 who is a cancer survivor) that new appointments to the court could allow them to overturn Roe V Wade and send gay marriage back to each state to decide.

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The reply above seems to lack perspective. The Supreme Court is to review law and determine if it is in accordance with the Constitution.
Abortion, gay marriage and transgendered bathrooms are no where to be seen in the founding documents. All of these items belong to the states as the 10th amendment allows.
The Nation was founded as a confederation of independent states with a weak federal government to administer interstate commerce, national defense and international affairs. The whole DC enterprise has metastasized to the leviathan we have today where we have to have a presidential election to determine to fate of relatively minor court cases. All citizens should demand a return to the prominence of the states. Imagine, Jonn3, California would easily pass any gay friendly legislation the community could create. States such as Utah would be free to continue defining marriage as traditionally understood, bakers could decline to bake gay cakes and freedom would expand. If your state passed or failed to pass laws you want you can vote with your feet.
We should stop trying to change the way we were founded and use the existing mechanisms to affect the laws we want

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I can imagine it....

In Utah we can be married to multiple 14 year old wives!

In Georgia we can get the return of Whites and Colored drinking fountains!

In South Carolina we can get interracial marriage outlawed!

And throughout the land we can follow the Constitution and go back to counting Blacks as 3/5ths of a White Man...

The Constitution is considered a living document - it was not carved in stone and handed down from the mount - it was meant to grow and have it's interpretation change as the world did.

You will NOT get any disagreement from me that the Federal Government has grown way to large and is totally out of control - but one of the jobs the Federal Government does have is to ensure the fair and equal treatment of its citizens.

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On this I agree completely. I believe that type of consensus and good will requires a lot of listening without interruption, compassion, avoiding quick reaction, and putting oneself in another person's shoes.

Those qualities are seen less and less often in public life and social media these days.

I excerpted this to save space, not to censor. I wonder if perhaps to a degree you conflate the philosophy behind the Articles of Confederation with that behind the US Constitution. I know there were many chasms among the proponents of a weaker or stronger central government among the men who wrote the Constitution.

Let's recall that ever since 1803's Marbury vs. Madison the Supreme Court has been expanding its role slowly but inexorably beyond the literal words of the Constitution. In the very same year, the Louisiana Purchase took Presidential power to a place many said was not envisioned in the Constitution. The House of Representatives tried to defeat the Louisiana Purchase but failed by a two-vote margin.

One could make a case that part of the American story through the Nullification Crisis of 1832, the Civil War, Reconstruction, increased Federal regulation under both Republican and Democratic Roosevelt Presidents and onward through the Civil Rights movement to today is a story of a nation growing more interconnected, less parochial, and more needing a centralizing Federal government to coordinate and regulate to counterbalance other large national and global forces in our lives.

This is the Constitution as adopted in 1789 nor even as followed in 1803, but we live in a world of increasingly rapid change. Can we, should we, roll back to the original vision? Would the alternative - what we have now - truly require a Constitutional Convention or a vast number of Amendments, all unlikely to happen?

This has been America's central ongoing political debate for many many years. In recent years, especially this year, we've seen it at its most vitriolic possibly since the mid-1800s.

Add to that the Internet, social media, blogs and opinion-oriented "news" sites, and the current style of cable and network news reporting all seem to be geared to amplify emotion and hard feelings while making it more difficult to hear and understand the life experience and views of others.

I recall in my childhood Federal regulations expanded under Presidents Nixon and Ford, not just under Democrats. Carter promised to streamline regulation and budgeting, did that with some, but added others. As a young man I saw Reagan's Administration limiting expression on social issues, such as women's health and family planning clinics discussing abortion. And on and on it continued...

No matter who runs the White House and Congress and the Court, I can't see the clock turning back on these kinds of actions by the Federal Government. It might be Ted Cruz's utopia, though perhaps he too may have exceptions.

Beyond that, I honestly don't know and I happily admit I can be wrong and change my mind. Now I must stop and catch up on the work I was unable to do yesterday.

~ Bob S.

About the work undone, here's note I had put on the Sex Listings Home Page: "As Editor & Manager of CFS I will be away for further medical reasons much of Tuesday, November 15, just as I was on November 11. Expect further delays publishing new Reviews, etc. on CFS."

I honestly can't say if I'll be here working or away doing something else from day to day or - more frequently - working at night. I appreciate everybody's patience.

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The Constitution is the basis for all US Law. No where is it written or implied that it is a living document. I find it dangerous to consider our founding document as just a "guideline". With that logic a President Trump with a Republican Congress could pass all sorts of laws in violation of the Constitution as written but dismiss concerns as the will of the people, since they elected us and the old paper is actually a living document.
No thank you, lets keep things as they are. A Constitution that is eternal, a touchstone, a marker to keep us grounded to the ideals on which our Nation was founded.
Are we perfect, hardly. But in the history of the world no place has been better for minorities including the LGBT than the USA.

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