DOMA and the Voting Rights Act: Abstractions Still Win People Over!

A Fascinating (and Logically Flawed) Day 2 of Abstraction at the Supreme Court:

There have been two big Supreme Court decisions in two days, both dealing with the "federalism" abstraction, a division of power between a nation and its parts.  One struck down the Voting Registration Federally-imposed Regime on the South dating from the Civil Rights Era in 1966 and the other struck down a Federal marriage definition. 

I'll look into the civil rights case, Shelby County v. Holder another time.  Here is the 77 page DOMA decision reduced to logical summaries.  This summarizes only the 5-4 Majority Decision.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-307_g2bh.pdf

• The nation recognized "traditional marriage" at the founding of the country. (See the Syllabus of the decision)
• The nation recognized that some powers are reserved to the states from the founding of the country to present.
• States have the constitutional and historical right to define marriage.
• Some states allow "same-sex marriage," which is a different definition than present at the founding of the country.
• The 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) puts "traditional marriage" as THE national marriage definition.
• DOMA's marriage definition is used by all Federal departments, including the Internal Revenue Service, which has specific tax designations for married couples that are affected.
• DOMA was a statute conforming to the generally-recognized definition of marriage since the founding of the country.
• The Federal gov't can't refuse to recognize a state's new definition of marriage.
• The Federal gov't enforces equal protection of different marriage definitions.
• The Federal gov't can't enforce uniform statutes of marriage between disagreeing states.
• Some states do not allow same-sex marriage.
• The federal government may not enforce "same-sex" or "traditional marriage" definitions in any state.

Some Rhetorical Questions about these abstractions as they come from the top of my head:

• Will people feel more equal when they voluntarily enter into a relationship after each one of 50 states defines "marriage" themselves and not as 1 united country? 
• Does a broadened legal definition of just ONE relationship type expand belief in the "equality" abstraction?
•  Isn't the freedom of association abstraction still dominant when judging interpersonal relations between people?
• Isn't a same-sex relationship protected under the freedom of association abstraction?
• If any two people have the right to enter into a non-legal relationship, does society have a right to determine what benefits society gives to those of any class of two voluntary relatives?
• Isn't there a difference between legal and non-legal relationships with the former being more select and the later more open?
• Are there other intangible factors that are part of relationships that make them indefinable?
• If there are indefinable qualities to a relationship, like "love" or "commitment," should we somehow codify these abstractions? 
• Can we accurately show "love" legally?
• By broadening the possibilities of the marriage relationship by broadening the legal definition to any two people, do we create a system whereby "marriage" is simply two people showing intent to enter into a legal relationship?
• Does the legal intent to enter into a relationship equate to the "love," "equality," or "commitment" abstractions?
• Can any two willing people enter into a legal relationship so long as they, and not society, define their relationship as "committed" or "loving"?  Should we have it this way?
• Is it beneficial for American society to create laws that separate people based on certain characteristics and the benefits society gets by promoting that separate class?  
• Can we make laws that protect one class of people (ex. a married couple of whatever definition) and give them special benefits if we reduce the differences between that class of people and those not receiving the benefit?
• What is the societal incentive to having less distinction between a protected class of people that retain specific benefits if there is less reason to protect that class of people?
• Is there still a societal benefit to a voluntary relationship where any two people can express legal intent and receive special class designation?    
• Can and should we afford this?

Ok, so after US vs. Windsor, marriage law is just as complicated as ever.  Now we can't have uniformity, other than a new tax designation refund on IRS forms and more tax refunds for a larger protected class of "married" people in 11 states.  That's the problem with abstractions, they're just ideas that drive you to act as opposed to some new reality that magically appears.  The world is still complex because ideas are NOT reality, only our interpretation of a small part of it.  And we've now opened a legal relationship to individual interpretation of marriage with less separation between the supposedly beneficial class of "married" and the unprivileged class of "unmarried."

The complexity is fascinating!  Anyone know what's best??  Feel free to comment.