A very similar Supreme Court decision was made decades ago striking down bans on interracial marriage. At the time, very similar arguments were being made in favor of the interracial marriage bans (it's not God's way, states should decide, etc). In both instances, the reason the bans are struck down are the same. States don't get to say "We declare discrimination against Group X legal because Bigger Group Y says so."

You might learn that our Constitution was written to LIMIT the powers of our GOVERNMENT. It was NOT written as a list of the "fundamental rights" of the citizens.

And thank goodness is was written in this way or every technological progression would come with more and more limitations. "Yes, I know you have a Constitutional right to free speech in face to face communications and in hand-written letters, but the Founders never addressed the telephone and Internet so you have no free speech rights there!"

For thousands of years, marriage was defined as "Parents of a girl gave her to some guy in an exchange of property in order to win some sort of social or political favor." So obviously, we can't ever change the errors of the past and must continue to treat women like property instead of equals in marriage!

I was shaking my head with his dissent. It basically read "How dare the Supreme Court decide whether a law is constitutional or not!" Um... that's the Supreme Court's primary function! They were asked to rule on a gay marriage ban and they said such bans are unconstitutional. Way to read your job description, Scalia!

If Scalia had his way, it would still be legal for a state to declare interracial marriage illegal.

I'm still hoping the Republican party will tear itself in two. The kooks will become the "Tea Party GOP" and will slowly spiral into oblivion as we all laugh while munching popcorn. The actual sane Republicans (yes, there are some of those left) will form the "We're Sane Again GOP" and will field actually viable candidates that don't see their primary demographic as ultra-religious, old white guys.

Here's why this is a big deal for everyone: because excluding people from getting married based on sexual orientation means that the Government, at its own discretion, can create arbitrary groups that it can discriminate against based on any number of grounds, for any reason, so long as enough people or deep enough pockets can lobby for it.

Exactly this. Let's say we allowed the gay marriage bans which are primarily based on "Christian values" (as expressed by some Christians). What's to stop those same people from saying "the only legal marriage is a Christian marriage"? So if you want to get married in the Jewish tradition, or Muslim, or even without any clergy but just a Justice of the Peace, that's not valid. After all, if you're not accepting Jesus (where Jesus = their particular interpretation of Jesus) then your marriage isn't approved. You can't legislate based on "my holy book says X is wrong so X should be illegal for everyone whether or not other people follow my holy book."

A lot of these "failing schools" are located in poor neighborhoods and the poor performance can be directly traced back to kids worried about issues like whether they'll have a home to go back to, whether mom/dad will keep their job, whether they'll have dinner tonight, etc. When kids are worried about basic life issues like this, their grades suffer

As far as attracting students goes, right now we tend to place students in schools based on neighborhoods. It sounds like you're advocating more of a private school philosophy of "you apply to school X and hope you get in." The problem with this is that schools in poor neighborhoods aren't going to attract anybody. So they will get the people that the other schools don't want - the kids with the most issues and problems. Meanwhile, the wealthier neighborhood schools will be able to pick and choose who they accept which means they'll get the higher performing students. So the rich schools do better and the poor schools do worse.

Look, the Confederate flag means slavery, hatred, bigotry and treason against the USA. It has no business being flown by any US government authority. But that is not sufficient reason to stop selling it to civilians. This is a country founded on the idea of Free Speech.

Exactly this. A government agency (state, local, or federal) has no business flying a Confederate flag any more than they can fly the US flag upside down while lit on fire. Citizens, however, have free speech and can use that to express themselves in almost any way they want so long as that way doesn't hurt someone else. If you want to paint a big Confederate flag on your truck while wearing a Confederate flag jacket and a "The South Shall Rise Again" pin (with Confederate Flag), go ahead. Of course, the rest of us have our rights to form opinions of you based on your Confederate flag obsession.

All in all, I think the flag issue is a side track. Yes, it's partially related to the church shooting, but it's not the whole problem. You could ban and burn every single last Confederate flag in existence and it wouldn't solve the problem. So by all means take it off of government buildings, but then let the issue rest and move on to more important issues related to what happened.

Follow the $$$

Actually, from what I've read, the real force behind the "no anonymous domains" push is the MPAA. If you set up PiratedMovies.com and make your WHOIS information private, it makes it harder for the MPAA to sue you. Not impossible, mind you. They can do it, but it takes a court order and the domain registrar giving the information to the court. The MPAA just wants to look up WHOIS to find who to threaten to sue.

They know they'll lose right now if they push to have all private WHOIS information banned, so they're trying to claim that a website with an ad on it is a commercial business. (Even if said ad only covers hosting costs.) If they're successful with this, look for the definition of "commercial" to expand even more until every website is a "commercial" site and private WHOIS information is done away with.

They are claiming that running ads on your website turns it into a commercial domain. So if you have a private blog but run an ad or two to cover hosting costs, congratulations! You would need to give your real address in the WHOIS information.

Happens so rarely it is pretty much a non-issue.

It's happened to me so this is definitely not a non-issue for me. I had someone harass me online making all sorts of accusations of "crimes" I've committed and threatening to report me to the police. She claims god talks to her - so no use arguing with her. Do I actually think the police would do anything based on "Hi I'm RANDOM PERSON and god told me this guy's evil?" Of course not. She could make my life a living hell, though if she knew my real name and address. (She was harassing me on a site where I use a pseudonym.)

In case you think she couldn't do this, she was harassing someone else (one of many people she's targeted) and knew his real name and place of employment. She called his job (he's a teacher) and claimed he is a pedophile (a serious accusation in any case, but needless to say, a career killer if you're a teacher). Luckily, he notified his employer beforehand of her and they brushed her off. She also used Facebook to track down all of his relatives (and people with similar last names) and tell all of them that he's a criminal.

Luckily, this person isn't the "travel to your home and take matters into her own hands" type, but who knows when she might get frustrated that the police aren't following up on her "god told me" claims? At one point, she might decide that showing up at my front door is god's will. I definitely wouldn't want to be broadcasting my home address to her and every other sicko online.

*writes "built-in smoke screen" on the features list*

It can go across any terrain! Of course, the enemy will hear you coming from twenty miles away and your troops will need to wear constant ear protection since we essentially had to strap jet engines to the thing. This also means they won't be able to hear anything including incoming fire or communications with other troops. But it HOVERS!!!!

More like: If you commit a crime, we'll imprison you and let your clone take over your life. If your clone commits crime, a clone of your clone will take over your life while your clone is imprisoned. And so on.

Cue criminal being released from prison after his sentence is finished and finding that everyone likes Clone better than Original. Original kills Clone, is convicted of murder, put in prison, and Clone 2 is created to take over Original's life. (Someone needs to write this sci-fi story now!)

Can you identify as being from another planet, declare yourself that planet's ambassador, and get diplomatic immunity? And what if you do something that would normally result in the ambassador being kicked out of the country? What are they going to do, send you back to the planet you claim to be from?