The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity.* * *The centrality of marriage to the human condition makes it unsurprising that the institution has existed for millennia and across civilizations. Since the dawn of history, marriage has transformed strangers into relatives, binding families and societies together. Confucius taught that marriage lies at the foundation of government. 2 Li Chi: Book of Rites 266 (C. Chai & W. Chai eds., J. Legge transl. 1967).* * *To [gay marriage foes], [same-sex marriage] would demean a timeless institution if the concept and lawful status of marriage were extended to two persons of the same sex. Marriage, in their view, is by its nature a gender-differentiated union of man and woman. This view long has been held—and continues to be held—in good faith by reasonable and sincere people here and throughout the world.The petitioners acknowledge this history but contend that these cases cannot end there. Were their intent to demean the revered idea and reality of marriage, the petitioners’ claims would be of a different order. But that is neither their purpose nor their submission. To the contrary, it is the enduring importance of marriage that underlies the petitioners’ contentions. This, they say, is their whole point. Far from seeking to devalue marriage, the petitioners seek it for themselves because of their respect—and need—for its privileges and responsibilities. And their immutable nature dictates that same-sex marriage is their only real path to this profound commitment.* * *
Recounting the circumstances of three of these cases illustrates the urgency of the petitioners’ cause from their perspective. Petitioner James Obergefell, a plaintiff in the Ohio case, met John Arthur over two decades ago. They fell in love and started a life together, establishing a lasting, committed relation. In 2011, however, Arthur was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. This debilitating disease is progressive, with no known cure. Two years ago, Obergefell and Arthur decided to commit to one another, resolving to marry before Arthur died. To fulfill their mutual promise, they traveled from Ohio to Maryland, where same-sex marriage was legal. It was difficult for Arthur to move, and so the couple were wed inside a medical transport plane as it remained on the tarmac in Baltimore. Three months later, Arthur died. Ohio law does not permit Obergefell to be listed as the surviving spouse on Arthur’s death certificate. By statute, they must remain strangers even in death, a state-imposed separation Obergefell deems “hurtful for the rest of time.” App. in No. 14–556 etc., p. 38. He brought suit to be shown as the surviving spouse on Arthur’s death certificate.* * *The ancient origins of marriage confirm its centrality, but it has not stood in isolation from developments in law and society. The history of marriage is one of both continuity and change. That institution—even as confined to opposite-sex relations—has evolved over time.For example, marriage was once viewed as an arrangement by the couple’s parents based on political, religious, and financial concerns; but by the time of the Nation’s founding it was understood to be a voluntary contract between a man and a woman. See N. Cott, Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation 9–17 (2000); S. Coontz, Marriage, A History 15–16 (2005).* * *Under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, no State shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The fundamental liberties protected by this Clause include most of the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights. See Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145, 147–149 (1968). In addition these liberties extend to certain personal choices central to individual dignity and autonomy, including intimate choices that define personal identity and beliefs. See, e.g., Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S. 438, 453 (1972); Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479, 484–486 (1965). The identification and protection of fundamental rights is an enduring part of the judicial duty to interpret the Constitution.* * *The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times. The generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions, and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning. When new insight reveals discord between the Constitution’s central protections and a received legal stricture, a claim to liberty must be addressed.In Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1, 12 (1967), which invalidated bans on interracial unions, a unanimous Court held marriage is “one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.” The Court reaffirmed that holding in Zablocki v. Redhail, 434 U. S. 374, 384 (1978), which held the right to marry was burdened by a law prohibiting fathers who were behind on child support from marrying. The Court again applied this principle in Turner v. Safley, 482 U. S. 78, 95 (1987), which held the right to marry was abridged by regulations limiting the privilege of prison inmates to marry. Over time and in other contexts, the Court has reiterated that the right to marry is fundamental under the Due Process Clause.* * *The Court, like many institutions, has made assumptions defined by the world and time of which it is a part. This was evident in Baker v. Nelson, 409 U. S. 810, a one-line summary decision issued in 1972, holding the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage did not present a substantial federal question.* * *A first premise of the Court’s relevant precedents is that the right to personal choice regarding marriage is inherent in the concept of individual autonomy. This abiding connection between marriage and liberty is why Loving invalidated interracial marriage bans under the Due Process Clause.* * *The nature of marriage is that, through its enduring bond, two persons together can find other freedoms, such as expression, intimacy, and spirituality. This is true for all persons, whatever their sexual orientation.* * *As all parties agree, many same-sex couples provide loving and nurturing homes to their children, whether biological or adopted. And hundreds of thousands of children are presently being raised by such couples. See Brief for Gary J. Gates as Amicus Curiae 4. Most States have allowed gays and lesbians to adopt, either as individuals or as couples, and many adopted and foster children have same-sex parents, see id., at 5. This provides powerful confirmation from the law itself that gays and lesbians can create loving, supportive families.Excluding same-sex couples from marriage thus conflicts with a central premise of the right to marry. Without the recognition, stability, and predictability marriage offers, their children suffer the stigma of knowing their families are somehow lesser. They also suffer the significant material costs of being raised by unmarried parents, relegated through no fault of their own to a more difficult and uncertain family life. The marriage laws at issue here thus harm and humiliate the children of same-sex couples.* * *
Same-sex couples are consigned to an instability many opposite-sex couples would deem intolerable in their own lives. As the State itself makes marriage all the more precious by the significance it attaches to it, exclusion from that status has the effect of teaching that gays and lesbians are unequal in important respects. It demeans gays and lesbians for the State to lock them out of a central institution of the Nation’s society. Same-sex couples, too, may aspire to the transcendent purposes of marriage and seek fulfillment in its highest meaning.* * *Many who deem same-sex marriage to be wrong reach that conclusion based on decent and honorable religious or philosophical premises, and neither they nor their beliefs are disparaged here. But when that sincere, personal opposition becomes enacted law and public policy, the necessary consequence is to put the imprimatur of the State itself on an exclusion that soon demeans or stigmatizes those whose own liberty is then denied. Under the Constitution, same-sex couples seek in marriage the same legal treatment as opposite-sex couples, and it would disparage their choices and diminish their personhood to deny them this right.* * *[T]he right to marry is a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of the person, and under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment couples of the same-sex may not be deprived of that right and that liberty. The Court now holds that same-sex couples may exercise the fundamental right to marry. No longer may this liberty be denied to them.* * *There may be an initial inclination in these cases to proceed with caution—to await further legislation, litigation, and debate. The respondents warn there has been insufficient democratic discourse before deciding an issue so basic as the definition of marriage. In its ruling on the cases now before this Court, the majority opinion for the Court of Appeals made a cogent argument that it would be appropriate for the respondents’ States to await further public discussion and political measures before licensing same-sex marriages. SeeDeBoer, 772 F. 3d, at 409.Yet there has been far more deliberation than this argument acknowledges. There have been referenda, legislative debates, and grassroots campaigns, as well as countless studies, papers, books, and other popular and scholarly writings.* * *
The dynamic of our constitutional system is that individuals need not await legislative action before asserting a fundamental right. The Nation’s courts are open to injured individuals who come to them to vindicate their own direct, personal stake in our basic charter. An individual can invoke a right to constitutional protection when he or she is harmed, even if the broader public disagrees and even if the legislature refuses to act.* * *The respondents also argue allowing same-sex couples to wed will harm marriage as an institution by leading to fewer opposite-sex marriages. This may occur, the respondents contend, because licensing same-sex marriage severs the connection between natural procreation and marriage. That argument, however, rests on a counterintuitive view of opposite-sex couple’s decisionmaking processes regarding marriage and parenthood. Decisions about whether to marry and raise children are based on many personal, romantic, and practical considerations; and it is unrealistic to conclude that an opposite-sex couple would choose not to marry simply because same-sex couples may do so.* * *
Finally, it must be emphasized that religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned. The First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths, and to their own deep aspirations to continue the family structure they have long revered. The same is true of those who oppose same-sex marriage for other reasons. In turn, those who believe allowing same-sex marriage is proper or indeed essential, whether as a matter of religious conviction or secular belief, may engage those who disagree with their view in an open and searching debate. The Constitution, however, does not permit the State to bar same-sex couples from marriage on the same terms as accorded to couples of the opposite sex.* * *
No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.
美国东部时间2015年6月26日，美国宣布同性恋合法！美国白宫推特和脸书官网头像全变成彩虹标志，奥巴马发表言论说现在我们终于可以毫无条件地表示，我们使美国又更加接近完美了，Love just won.几乎是第一时间，有网友发微博称：美国联邦最高法院承认同性婚姻的判决中引用了儒家思想，用以论证婚姻制度的重要性。纳尼？观察者网查询肯尼迪大法官的多数判决意见书发现，果然引用《礼记•昏义》中一段，有图有真相：
判决意见书开头部分，即第8页中，一段英文是这样写的：Confucius taught that marriage lies at the foundation of government.2 Li Chi：Book of Rites 266.额…孔子教导说，婚姻是政体的根基。《礼记•昏义》竟真的被判决意见书引用，泪崩~
奥巴马高呼：爱战胜了一切！但其实还有来自中国古代大佬的神助攻？想起南海造岛时美国人说起风水，想不到，乃们研究中国传统文化这么深入。
美国学者Sam Crane痴迷中国古代哲学，曾出版《Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Dao: Ancient Chinese Thought in Modern American Life》一书，提及中国儒家和道家如何看待同性婚姻。
他认为，儒家伦理可能会接受同性婚姻，因为它更多关注婚姻而不是关注性。两个人公开承诺然后在日常生活里履行承诺，完全符合儒家善的理念。至于道家，他们可能根本不在乎同性还是异性婚姻，道家的思想里有阴阳的观念，但阴阳并不必须要用单一性别来呈现，因为我们每个人都包含有阴阳的元素。
有没有被震惊到！
肯尼迪大法官这一引用孔子为同性婚姻撑腰，是引经据典，还是牵强附会？《礼记》有云：礼，其政之本与！在《哀公问》章中，鲁哀公问政于孔子，谈到“大昏礼”：古之为政，爱 人为大；所以治爱人，礼为大；所以治礼，敬为大；敬之至矣，大昏为大。大昏至矣！大昏既至，冕而亲迎。
所以…婚姻是政体的根基，是这个意思吗？
只是，孔子还曾这样说过：“昏礼者，将合二姓之好，上以事宗庙，而下以继后世也。故君子重之。”“男女有别而后夫妇有义，夫妇有义而后父子有亲，父子有亲而后君臣有正。故曰：昏礼者，礼之本也。”
中国人认识中，虽然孔子周游列国十四年，妻子亓官氏没有随他同行，但孔子十九岁结婚，二十岁有了儿子，其言论中也非常重视夫妇关系，并将其视作人伦之始、为政之本。
《易•序卦》中有一段可视作孔子婚姻思想的注脚：“有天地然后有万物，有万物然后有 男女，有男女然后有夫妇，有夫妇然后有父子，有父子然后有君臣，有君臣然后有上下，有上下然后礼义有所错，夫妇之道不可以不久也，故受之以恒，恒者久也。”
果然，美国最高法院的判词接着写道：“应当诚实且必要地指出，这些（对古人的）引用是基于婚姻是两性之间的结合的认识之上”（It is fair and necessary to say these references were based on the understanding that marriage is a union between two persons of the opposite sex.）
大法官肯尼迪
细细翻看，美国法官的判决书除了引用孔子名言，还有西塞罗、托克维尔等人的言论，以论证婚姻对于社会和秩序的重要性，似乎是说明美国支持同性婚姻合法并非矫揉造作的浅薄。但值得注意的是，这些先贤的说法在判决意见书中被引用，但均未构成判决的实质性内容。（文/观察者网关文平）
奥巴马：爱战胜了一切
5:4
2015年6月26日，美国最高法院以5:4裁决同性伴侣在美国具有婚姻权，使得同性婚姻在美国全境合法化。为了支持美国成为全球第 21 个同性婚姻合法化的国家，美国社会各界进行了一场盛大狂欢。奥巴马总统也称赞这一决定：“这是美国的胜利。这一裁决证明了美国人民的信念，那就是让更多的人被平等地对待的时候，我们会更加的自由。”
美国的同性婚姻是怎样一步一步走到了今天？下面一张图让你看懂美国同性婚姻合法化进程。
当地时间26日，美国最高法院做出一项历史性裁决：9名大法官以5比4的结果裁决，同性婚姻合法。一时全球哗然，津津乐道于“基、腐”文化的中国网友更是热情高涨，观察者网的每条相关新闻中都充斥着支持与反对双方的“战斗”。美国人的事情还得美国人自己决定，当天中午，美国总统奥巴马在白宫玫瑰园发表讲话，对这一裁决表示欢迎，将其称为“美国的胜利”。观察者网合作伙伴@空耳同传君第一时间译制了这段演讲。
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTI3MjQwODk3Ng==.html
部分设备无法播放视频请点击这里观看
奥巴马的核心观点是这样的：“人人生而平等”是美国的基本原则，且美国宪法保障公民的婚姻平等；只要是美国公民，“无论他们是谁，无论爱的人是谁，也无论如何去爱”，都应该平等地得到美国宪法之承认与保护。因此，裁定美国同性婚姻合法贯彻了美国的基本原则和宪法权威，使同性恋群体可以掌握自己的命运，也使美国变得更平等、更自由、更强大，是“美国的一个胜利”。
奥巴马在演讲中引用了美国前总统罗伯特·肯尼迪的名言，“微小的举动犹如鹅卵石投入平静的湖水，漾开希望的涟漪改变世界”，这些让美国变得更美好的细微改变令他感到自豪。与此同时，奥巴马也不忘对“源于真诚的信仰”的反对声音表达了理解和尊重，但“即使有各种分歧也是一家人”，只要美国人民团结在一起，就有可能理解乃至改变彼此的想法。
（观察者网讯 文/赵岳行）
The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity.
The centrality of marriage to the human condition makes it unsurprising that the institution has existed for millennia and across civilizations. Since the dawn of history, marriage has transformed strangers into relatives, binding families and societies together. Confucius taught that marriage lies at the foundation of government. 2 Li Chi: Book of Rites 266.
To [gay marriage foes], [same-sex marriage] would demean a timeless institution if the concept and lawful status of marriage were extended to two persons of the same sex. Marriage, in their view, is by its nature a gender-differentiated union of man and woman. This view long has been held—and continues to be held—in good faith by reasonable and sincere people here and throughout the world.The petitioners acknowledge this history but contend that these cases cannot end there. Were their intent to demean the revered idea and reality of marriage, the petitioners’ claims would be of a different order. But that is neither their purpose nor their submission. To the contrary, it is the enduring importance of marriage that underlies the petitioners’ contentions. This, they say, is their whole point. Far from seeking to devalue marriage, the petitioners seek it for themselves because of their respect—and need—for its privileges and responsibilities. And their immutable nature dictates that same-sex marriage is their only real path to this profound commitment.
| 欢迎光临 二维码.cn/搜一搜.cn/才能 (http://n.xn--g4tw0k.cn/hxcg/) | Powered by Discuz! X3.2 |