Prev/Next


Fun for the whole Family:
www.fojin.com

"No, It's a vicious lie!"






Archives:

2014-Today
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002

June 26, 2013 - 11:24 p.m.
"supreme court" or "historic cases"

Hey Journal!

This morning I went to work at the usual time, and I was happy to arrive a little early. The morning was quiet, which was good for me because I wanted to watch the Supreme Court stuff and hear the decisions on the two cases they've been dragging their feet with!!

I put the SCOTUSBlog up on my computer, and had ABCNews on the TV. At 10:00, they started reading their decisions. Meanwhile, someone in the blog's chat asked a question about Ruth Bader Ginsburg riding a unicorn, which I personally thought was a funny question, however many of the other viewers did not! They didn't think it was funny! Geez! Lighten up!

I waited in suspense, even though we all pretty much knew how it was going to turn out! As soon as the news came out about DOMA, everyone went crazy on Facebook! I kept refreshing and seeing more and more and more status updates and postings about it! It was wild!

Then when the Prop 8 decision came down, it was definitely less of a frenzy, especially on SCOTUSBlog because they announced it kinda in a weird way, and it wasn't clear which case they were talking about!

So, after the decisions, I have still heard a lot of weird reports about what actually happened, and why. I feel like some of the people reporting don't even know what happened... So i am going to explain what happened. Given that I have absolutely no legal knowledge, I think it'll make sense to those who don't either!

The first case which dealt with DOMA was brought by a woman who was seeking to not pay taxes on the money left to her by her wife who had passed away. She said that because she was legally married in the state where she lived, the Federal government should also recognize that marriage. Because of DOMA, the Federal government could not. She sued, and the justices in a 5-4 ruling, decided that if a state decides to acknowledge a marriage, and marriage has always been a state issue, that the federal government has no business interfering with the state's decision, and can't choose not to acknowledge those marriages. Basic states rights, there!

So, the decision doesn't really have to do with "allowing gay marriage" or not allowing it. It has to do with who has the authority to decide who is married and who isn't.

Next up, the challenge to Prop 8. Now, this is the one where most people get confused...and reporters get it wrong. The Supreme Court didn't say that Prop 8 was unconstitutional (under the California Constitution), they also didn't say that California must begin allowing gay marriage. They simply say the case before them was invalid. So....go back..... the votes in California passed Prop 8 back in 2008. Someone sued, saying it wasn't right. The smaller court ruled in their favor, and Prop 8 was gone. Then, a group of citizens formed a group to appeal that decision and bring it to a higher court. The higher court said that the law was constitutional, and could be enacted. THEN, it went to the Supreme Court, where they decided that the people who were arguing to defend the law didn't have the grounds to do so in the Supreme Court OR the one before that. In that case, the decision that it was a valid law was vacated, and the ruling of the smaller court saying it was not valid, was upheld.

Therefore, Prop 8 is invalidated, and marriages can begin again in California!!

Yay! I hope you followed me there! I feel like, in both cases, the rulings were very procedural, and dealt with the technical issues of HOW the cases were brought, moreso than the justices wanting to legalize gay marriage.

ANYWAY... it was a very exciting and, as many say, historic day!

And all before 11am! Wow!

The rest of the day was busy at work. Lots to do, random stuff to get done. I had to go over to the cemetery in the early afternoon to get Andie's signature on something and also to get the Corporate Seal! Unfortunately, when I got there, we realized Andie didn't have it!! She had given it to Steve for the closing of a loan back in March, and he still had it!!

He said he had seen it recently in his car, but his car was being worked on, so the seal was unavailable!

When I got back to work, I went down to the maintenance department to take a look at their timeclock. It wasn't working...AGAIN! I have no idea what's going on with that stupid wireless internet things. Some days it just decided not to get a signal, other days it works completely fine. I don't know what to do about it! I reset it, and everything was working perfectly again.

I headed back to the office and when Steve's car was back from being worked on, we went out and found the corporate seal. We put it on the paper, and I went off to Fidelity to open the new account.

I left work at 4 to head there, and I was done a little before 5. I headed home and watched the news while I waited for Dan to get home and then we went to the gym.

Gym Report:
50 Crunches at 50lbs
1 mile on the Treadmill in 13mins
1 mile on the Treadmill in 15mins
1 miles on the EBike in 4mins

Tonight on World News that had lots of stuff about today's Supreme Court cases, and they even had a special opening to the show. Somehow, I feel like the special opening to World News is a little bit of a letdown. I was really excited to see the headlines of today's Supreme Court cases in the normal World News format, but the weird opening just took away some of the excitement!

After the gym we came home, got showered up, and then watched Monday's Teen Wolf. It was getting late, so we didn't have time for all of The Lookout, but we watched part of it while I had some soup for dinner.

Now it's past my bedtime, so I'd better get to sleep!

Until tomorrow...

Goodnight. :)