@LEVI:

What is interesting is the could rule that the states have the right to restrict granting marriage license to same sex couples, however, they don't have the right to not recognize a same sex marriage performed in another state.

The court  asked the parties to brief these two questions:

Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to license a marriage between two people of the same sex?

Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-state?

Other states do not have recognize anything from another state.  California does not even recognize the fact you have paid state tax in another state thanks to the multistate compact.  California requires you pay California state tax in addition to the other state in even if you are incorporated in another state.  California does not recognize driver's licenses from other states either.  Washington now allows recreational use of marijuana, but that does not mean you will not get in trouble if you are a Washington resident smoking pot in another state.  The main point here is marble cake federalism.  http://www.apstudynotes.org/us-government/vocabulary/chapter-3-american-federalism/

The States were given sovereignty over many things to prevent the federal government from becoming too powerful.  The states can in fact refuse to recognize other states laws.

http://www.msnbc.com/alex-witt/watch/supreme-court-to-decide-on-gay-marriage-385734723904

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/my-husband-divorced-me-for-his-gay-lover-then-took-our-children

Every time a new state redefines marriage, the news is full of happy stories of gay and lesbian couples and their new families. But behind those big smiles and sunny photographs are other, more painful stories. These are left to secret, dark places. They are suppressed, and those who would tell them are silenced in the name of “marriage equality.”

But I refuse to be silent.

I represent one of those real life stories that are kept in the shadows. I have personally felt the pain and devastation wrought by the propaganda that destroys natural families.

The Divorce

In the fall of 2007, my husband of almost ten years told me that he was gay and that he wanted a divorce. In an instant, the world that I had known and loved—the life we had built together—was shattered.

I tried to convince him to stay, to stick it out and fight to save our marriage. But my voice, my desires, my needs—and those of our two young children—no longer mattered to him. We had become disposable, because he had embraced one tiny word that had become his entire identity. Being gay trumped commitment, vows, responsibility, faith, fatherhood, marriage, friendships, and community. All of this was thrown away for the sake of his new identity.

Try as I might to save our marriage, there was no stopping my husband. Our divorce was not settled in mediation or with lawyers. No, it went all the way to trial. My husband wanted primary custody of our children. His entire case can be summed up in one sentence: “I am gay, and I deserve my rights.” It worked: the judge gave him practically everything he wanted. At one point, he even told my husband, “If you had asked for more, I would have given it to you.”

I truly believe that judge was legislating from the bench, disregarding the facts of our particular case and simply using us—using our children— to help influence future cases. In our society, LGBT citizens are seen as marginalized victims who must be protected at all costs, even if it means stripping rights from others. By ignoring the injustice committed against me and my children, the judge seemed to think that he was correcting a larger injustice.

My husband had left us for his gay lover. They make more money than I do. There are two of them and only one of me. Even so, the judge believed that they were the victims. No matter what I said or did, I didn’t have a chance of saving our children from being bounced around like so many pieces of luggage.

A New Same-Sex Family—Built On the Ruins of Mine

My ex-husband and his partner went on to marry. Their first ceremony took place before our state redefined marriage. After it created same-sex marriage, they chose to have a repeat performance. In both cases, my children were forced—against my will and theirs—to participate. At the second ceremony, which included more than twenty couples, local news stations and papers were there to document the first gay weddings officiated in our state. USA Today did a photo journal shoot on my ex and his partner, my children, and even the grandparents. I was not notified that this was taking place, nor was I given a voice to object to our children being used as props to promote same-sex marriage in the media.

At the time of the first ceremony, the marriage was not recognized by our state, our nation, or our church. And my ex-husband’s new marriage, like the majority of male-male relationships, is an “open,” non-exclusive relationship. This sends a clear message to our children: what you feel trumps all laws, promises, and higher authorities. You can do whatever you want, whenever you want—and it doesn’t matter who you hurt along the way.

After our children’s pictures were publicized, a flood of comments and posts appeared. Commenters exclaimed at how beautiful this gay family was and congratulated my ex-husband and his new partner on the family that they “created.” But there is a significant person missing from those pictures: the mother and abandoned wife. That “gay family” could not exist without me.

There is not one gay family that exists in this world that was created naturally.

Every same-sex family can only exist by manipulating nature. Behind the happy façade of many families headed by same-sex couples, we see relationships that are built from brokenness. They represent covenants broken, love abandoned, and responsibilities crushed. They are built on betrayal, lies, and deep wounds.

This is also true of same-sex couples who use assisted reproductive technologies such as surrogacy or sperm donation to have children. Such processes exploit men and women for their reproductive potential, treat children as products to be bought and sold, and purposely deny children a relationship with one or both of their biological parents. Wholeness and balance cannot be found in such families, because something is always missing. I am missing. But I am real, and I represent hundreds upon thousands of spouses who have been betrayed and rejected.

If my husband had chosen to stay, I know that things wouldn’t have been easy. But that is what marriage is about: making a vow and choosing to live it out, day after day. In sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, spouses must choose to put the other person first, loving them even when it’s hard.

A good marriage doesn’t only depend on sexual desire, which can come and go and is often out of our control. It depends on choosing to love, honor, and be faithful to one person, forsaking all others. It is common for spouses to be attracted to other people—usually of the opposite sex, but sometimes of the same sex. Spouses who value their marriage do not act on those impulses. For those who find themselves attracted to people of the same sex, staying faithful to their opposite-sex spouse isn’t a betrayal of their true identity. Rather, it’s a decision not to let themselves be ruled by their passions. It shows depth and strength of character when such people remain true to their vows, consciously striving to remember, honor, and revive the love they had for their spouses when they first married.

My Children Deserve Better

Our two young children were willfully and intentionally thrust into a world of strife and combative beliefs, lifestyles, and values, all in the name of “gay rights.” Their father moved into his new partner’s condo, which is in a complex inhabited by sixteen gay men. One of the men has a 19-year-old male prostitute who comes to service him. Another man, who functions as the father figure of this community, is in his late sixties and has a boyfriend in his twenties. My children are brought to gay parties where they are the only children and where only alcoholic beverages are served. They are taken to transgender baseball games, gay rights fundraisers, and LGBT film festivals.

Both of my children face identity issues, just like other children. Yet there are certain deep and unique problems that they will face as a direct result of my former husband’s actions. My son is now a maturing teen, and he is very interested in girls. But how will he learn how to deal with that interest when he is surrounded by men who seek sexual gratification from other men? How will he learn to treat girls with care and respect when his father has rejected them and devalues them? How will he embrace his developing masculinity without seeing his father live out authentic manhood by treating his wife and family with love, honoring his marriage vows even when it's hard?

My daughter suffers too. She needs a dad who will encourage her to embrace her femininity and beauty, but these qualities are parodied and distorted in her father's world. Her dad wears make-up and sex bondage straps for Halloween. She is often exposed to men dressing as women. The walls in his condo are adorned with large framed pictures of women in provocative positions. What is my little girl to believe about her own femininity and beauty? Her father should be protecting her sexuality. Instead, he is warping it.

Without the guidance of both their mother and their father, how can my children navigate their developing identities and sexuality? I ache to see my children struggle, desperately trying to make sense of their world.

My children and I have suffered great losses because of my former husband’s decision to identify as a gay man and throw away his life with us. Time is revealing the depth of those wounds, but I will not allow them to destroy me and my children. I refuse to lose my faith and hope. I believe so much more passionately in the power of the marriage covenant between one man and one woman today than when I was married. There is another way for those with same-sex attractions. Destruction is not the only option—it cannot be. Our children deserve far better from us.

This type of devastation should never happen to another spouse or child. Please, I plead with you: defend marriage as being between one man and one woman. We must stand for marriage—and for the precious lives that marriage creates.

Janna Darnelle is a mother, writer, and an advocate for upholding marriage between one man and one woman. She mentors others whose families have been impacted by homosexuality.

Genes can be altered and genes control everything.

Since the eurozone’s inception, its survival has rested on a paradox. On the one hand, the stability of the single currency hinges on the market’s faith in its irreversibility. It was to restore this faith that European Central Bank President Mario Draghi promised in 2012 to do “whatever it takes” to keep the bloc together. On the other hand, the stability of the eurozone also requires that the possibility of an exit from the euro is real, if only as a way of enforcing discipline among members, particularly those facing financial difficulties.

The current political crisis in Greece is testing this paradox to the limit. No one wants Greece to leave the euro, least of all the Greeks themselves, 74% of whom want the country to remain in the single currency, according to a poll last week. Even the radical leftist party Syriza, which polls suggest will win the Jan. 25 election and which flirted with a policy of euro withdrawal in 2012, now recognizes that “Grexit” would be catastrophic.

Quitting the euro and repudiating existing debts will not magically revive the economy. The government would likely be forced to tighten rather than loosen fiscal policy, as the current small primary budget surplus rapidly turned into deficit amid declining confidence and credit, plunging the country back into recession.

Nor is devaluation likely to bring much respite. Whereas Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Italy have increased exports as they have regained competitiveness, Greek exports have so far received little boost from the country’s substantial internal devaluation. This suggests that structural obstacles rather than prices are what is holding back export growth.

Worse, devaluation would lead to a period of high inflation—possibly hyperinflation, if the government couldn’t borrow to fund its activities or recapitalize the banking system and was forced to rely on the Bank of Greece to print money, undermining confidence in the new currency. Financial instability would deter the foreign investment that is Greece’s best hope of exiting the crisis.

These might be short-term risks worth taking if there were any realistic prospect that a post-exit Greek government might deliver the economic reforms needed. But that seems unlikely: Grexit would be a victory for all those vested interests that have resisted reform in an effort to preserve their privileges.

But just because Grexit would be disastrous doesn't mean it can’t happen. The risk of an accidental Grexit is real.

Greece’s current bailout program with the European Commission, the ECB and International Monetary Fund—collectively known as the Troika—expires at the end of February, after Prime Minister Antonis Samaras secured a two-month extension in December. Whoever wins the election will need to rapidly secure a further extension to buy time to negotiate the long-term deal with the Troika that eluded Mr. Samaras.

A further bailout extension is essential partly because Greece must repay €1.5 billion ($1.77 billion) to the IMF in March and faces more debt redemptions in coming months.

Without a deal with the Troika either to release earmarked bailout funds or to boost its borrowing, Greece might soon find itself forced to default on its debt. Worse, the ECB requires Greece to be in compliance with an agreed bailout program as a condition of the substantial support it is currently providing to the country’s banking system. If the ECB refused to continue to fund the banks, the government would have to issue its own currency to keep the economy from imploding—and Greece would be out of the euro.

Nor is this an idle threat: Greek banks suffered €3 billion of deposit outflows at the end of last year and this trickle could turn into a flood during a prolonged period of uncertainty. The ECB showed in the case of Cyprus that it won’t be deterred by the election of a new government to do what it thinks is necessary to protect its balance sheet.

The risk is that Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras may find the scale of the U-turn necessary for him to strike a deal with the Troika too much in the time available. As a minimum, the Troika will surely insist that he does not reverse the current government’s reforms to the public administration, tax codes, product and labor markets, all of which Syriza opposed. The Troika may also insist Mr. Tsipras commit to the same future reforms that it demanded of Mr. Samaras as a condition for any long-term deal, particularly if Mr. Tsipras is to have any chance of securing his goal of debt relief. Even in the disreputable world of Greek politics, where election commitments can mean so little, Mr. Tsirpras’s credibility could hardly survive such a swift and humiliating climb down.

Eurozone policy makers appear surprisingly relaxed about the risk of failure. Some argue that the eurozone now has plenty of experience at handling such brinkmanship and expect Mr. Tsipras swiftly to buckle when confronted by reality.

Some are also willing to bet that even if he doesn’t yield the eurozone could withstand the shock of Grexit. Greece is better ring-fenced today than in 2012 and the eurozone has more credible weapons to fight contagion, including bailout funds and new ECB facilities, such as a QE program that could start as soon as next week.

Investors seem to share this optimistic assessment, judging by the lack of market contagion to the rest of the eurozone.

But if Mr. Tsipras wins the election, both he and eurozone policy makers will have to tread very carefully to avoid an outcome that no one wants and is in no one’s interest.

The consequences of an accidental Grexit may be far-reaching. After all, it would destroy the necessary illusion of the eurozone’s irreversibility, a shock from which it may struggle to recover.

Write to Simon Nixon at [email protected]

When your problem becomes somebody else's problem as well, then that person looses the right to decline medical help.  It is now a group problem and the group now has a say in your problem.

That does not seem a lot of money to me.  There is a $2,600 tax burden surplus per capita in Idaho.  That means the court costs were paid for by using taxes from 175 taxpayers in Idaho.  $455,000 / $2,600 = 175.  In Missouri, they have a tax surplus of $3,800 per capita.  That means that the court costs were paid by using only 9 taxpayers.  $31,875 / $3,800 is approximately 9.

http://www.statedatalab.org/library/doclib/2010_FSOS.pdf

@raphjd:

Believing in god, just in case, is extremely dishonest.

It is not "just in case".  It is choosing to believe based upon the reasons stated earlier.  Dishonest to whom?  Definitely not to God, because he would know anyway.

@nordicblue:

The possibilities defined by Pascal's Wager can be thought of as a decision under uncertainty with the values of the following decision matrix.

| | God exists (G) | God does not exist (¬G) |
| Belief (B) | +∞ (infinite gain) | −1 (finite loss) |
| Disbelief (¬B) | −∞ (infinite loss) | +1 (finite gain) |

The wager uses the following logic (excerpts from Pensées, part III, §233):

God is, or God is not. Reason cannot decide between the two alternatives.
   A Game is being played… where heads or tails will turn up.
   You must wager (it is not optional).
   Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing.
   Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. (...) There is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite. And so our proposition is of infinite force, when there is the finite to stake in a game where there are equal risks of gain and of loss, and the infinite to gain.
   But some cannot believe. They should then 'at least learn your inability to believe...' and 'Endeavour then to convince' themselves.

I think Jeeps are gay because they are too cute.  Gay cars tend to be non-functional (have more bits and bobs than necessary) as opposed to having a functional no nonsense style car.  Really expensive trucks seem like a compensation mechanism.  The Jeep Commander and Jeep Nitro are extremely gay to me.  They are like pretty versions of an off-road vehicle that doesn't go off-road.