The US Supreme Court on Marriage

   

 The interior of the United States Supreme Court

(photo credit: John L Marino,  August 2007, public domain)

Sometimes all I have to do is be listening to the news and hear someone discuss an event with a time attached to get me all into the mix.

That's what happened today (which would be your yesterday by the time you read this). The news story was about the Supreme Court hearing arguments on the subject of California's Proposition 8, the ban on 'same-sex' marriage on March 26th at 10 a.m.


So off I went to the Court's website, where I found this posted, describing the Prop 8 case.

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12-144 HOLLINGSWORTH V. PERRY

QUESTION PRESENTED: Whether the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the State of California from defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

In addition to the question presented by the petition, the parties are directed to brief and argue the following question: whether petitioners have standing under Article III, subsection 2 of the Constitution in this case. 

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So I thought to cast an electional chart for the occasion. Electional astrology is one of those handy-dandy forms of astrology which, given a specific time, place and date you know of in advance gives you a clue as to the outcome.

So here's the chart for the Supreme Court's 10 a.m. session on March 26th:

 March 26, 2013 - 10 a.m. (EDT +4) - Washington, DC

Zero Cancer is presented here on the 2nd cusp (with Cancer lapsing over into the 3rd house) - which obviously means that zero Capricorn is on the 8th house cusp, lapsing over into the 9th. "Double-sign" houses (two houses in succession with the same sign) always denote the energy of the first house being 'carried out' in the second house.

Any way you look at it, this is a pretty clear astrological picture of both sides of the argument as has been bandied about in the press: "traditional family values" against uniformity of civil rights and the right of people to love whoever they love against marriage as a procreative function. It's all there.

Now I'm no lawyer. But I am an astrologer. And the first thing which really jumps out of this horoscope is the position of the Moon. In Electional Astrology (in particular) the Moon serves as a 'timer.' And in this chart, the Moon is at 25 Virgo.

What does that mean? Well, just look around at the rest of the planets (nothing else, just planets) and you will see there isn't any planet with a number higher than 25 of any sign in this particular chart. And that means that this particular Moon is what's astrologically known as a "Void of Course Moon," meaning that because there are no planets at a degree higher than that of the Moon, there are no more aspects for the Moon to strike to any planet prior to reaching the next sign.

A Void of Course Moon (often simply abbreviated "VOC") means 'no action' or 'no response.' And while that's something you probably want when you're mailing your taxes or leaving a message from someone you really don't want to talk to, its debatable (read: it depends on which side of this argument you're on) whether you want to have a VOC Moon in a chart for a Supreme Court argument.

Having listened to all the newspeople had to say about Supreme court rulines, evidently with the Supreme Court there can be various reasons why the Justices decide not to hear the case in full. So that may well be what we're seeing with the VOC Moon and it's traditional interpretation as 'no action' or 'no response.'

(It may simply be that last note about 'whether the petitioners have standing' under the cited section of the Constitution which gets things off base, who knows!)

Once we get past that, everyone in the United States knows this issue of gay (i.e., gay and lesbian) marriage is going to end up being adjudicated by the Supreme Court. But this may not be the day for California's Proposition 8 to get it's full day in court.

But there is always DOMA. Arguments on DOMA (the 'Defense of Marriage Act') are to be heard on the following day - at the same time, 10 a.m. - which yields the following chart:

 March 27, 2013 - 10 a.m. (EDT +4) - Washington, DC

In this chart the Moon has moved on into early Libra, giving all sorts of room for discussion (figuratively and literally). With there being a Moon-Pluto-Mars t-square in cardinal signs, this is an image of fierce opposition, with the same general ideas being at stake...though Pluto in Capricorn in the 8th house tends to suggest that issues of inheritance, finance, wills and other such legal-financial matters will get into this mix. And there's also this - the court's statement on this matter:

  

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 12-307 United States v. Windsor

Question Presented: Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) defines the term "marriage" for all purposes under federal law, including the provision of federal benefits, as "only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife." 1. U.S.C. 7. It similarly defines the term "spouse" as "a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife." ibid. The question presented is:

Whether Section 3 of DOMA violates the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection of the laws as applied to persons of the same sex who are legally married under the laws of their State.

In addition to the question presented by the petition, the parties are directed to brief and argue the following questions: whether the Executive Branch's agreement with the court below that DOMA is unconstitutional deprives this court of jurisdiction to decide this case; and whether the bipartisan legal advisory group of the United States House of Representatives has Article III standing in this case.  

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I don't know about you, but the minute I read something which names all three branches of the US Federal government, my instinct is that Pluto is in the 8th house of this chart for a reason. It really sounds like a giant legal headache.

But a further note there. Pluto is extraordinarily strong in this position at the 't' of the t-square. But the ruler of that Pluto (being in Capricorn) and the 8th and 9th houses of this chart, both of which have Capricorn on the cusp, is ruled by Saturn.

And Saturn is intercepted in the 6th house of this chart.

As I have said, I'm no lawyer. But when I look at each piece of this astrological puzzle and follow it to its end - which is represented by the planet with the highest degree number (in this chart Mars) this strikes me as some sort of conversation which is for the rights of the individual but which isn't as 'declarative' as one might want.

IF this matter turns out to be anything but a clean slice one way or the other, that will - to me - suggest that Pluto's having been 'downgraded' to dwarf planet while retaining it's right as a 'full fledged' planet (among astrologers) means all the other dwarf planets should have 'full fledged status as well.

And if that's true, then the highest degree among the collective of planets-and-dwarf-planets becomes MakeMake at 28 Virgo, which is the image of something new and fertile arising out of the old.

And that 'new' thing would be...? 

We'll see what happens. Who knows...we may not just be on the way to a new moment in law but also a new moment in astrology.

Personally, I'm all for planets having equal rights. 
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CHART USA (Pt. One): A National Divorce

 

The Signing of the Declaration of Independence by John Turnbull

 

I want to go on 'instant record' here saying I’m not a historian. Frankly, I kept my high school US History textbook for years simply because it was the one thing knew I could just look at with the guarantee I would be asleep very, very soon.

Five minutes, max: no drugs required. 

Yet after listening to umpteen astrological debates I began to puzzle. No one seems to know what the chart of the United States really is. There are several charts for July 4, 1776 - that famous date of declaring independence. But should the chart be cast for the moment when people began signing? Or when the last quill hit parchment on that date, leaving its inky scrawl?

And maybe you're not aware that all those signatures at the bottom of the document didn't sign that day.

Fed Ex being a century yet to come, it took months to get everybody signed on.
 
Then there are those who like the idea of a US which became a nation while bewigged forefathers were dunking crumpets into tea while chatting over  Continental Congress doings. That was an even less official occasion, so good luck with that chart.

Into all this comes Robert Hand, esteemed astrologer, good guy and fine scholar.

Being his usual pithy self, Rob pointed out (during a lecture to a packed auditorium) that every one of the 1776 charts has Mercury retrograde and/or a Void of Course Moon - which would describe the US as a hesitant, even shy nation which never gets anything done.

Shy? Hesitant? Does this sound like the US you know? Okay, so we don't always like what the US does. But we gotta go with the concept that the modern US we know and sometimes cheer and sometimes groan about is generally neither subtle nor shy about things. There are even days when we think it might be better if it was.

As for Rob, he had similar objections to all the other charts as yet proposed, too.

Still, when one looks at the premises under which the U.S. was originally founded, the 1776 ‘we’re gonna sign this here-now document’ let's-begin-to-sign-this-thing chart is pretty darn good. It's elitist Aquarian Moon and a self-editing Mercury retrograde really fit the time and day.

How's that, you ask? Well maybe you don't know but back then the United States-ians were really grand about talking freedom, but not so good on delivering it. Considering that slavery was allowed, obviously not everybody actually got to be free. And then there were those rules which said only some could own land. And only some being allowed to vote.

It was plainly not the nation of today.

So what happened? To answer this fine question we should start by considering what a US national chart is really about. The United States is not a single entity: it’s a unity of individual states - a marriage of separate entities.

And when we consider the United States in that light,  the whole thing slowly begins making sense.

Look at it like this...try thinking of the US as a (poly-state) marriage. A marriage chart is calculated for the time and place when a ceremony ‘fixes’ the bond and two people ‘become one’...even though plainly they still remain two separate people.

So if we look at the US this way, its bond is all about a  ‘federal marriage’ or national fusion – a joint acceptance of risks and possible rewards being taken on by each and every state (allegedly for better and for worse, in sickness and in health, etc. etc.).

That being mutually invested this is a very Scorpio idea. In light of that, it makes sense that a lot of astrologers favor US charts with Scorpio Suns or Scorpio risings.

But if the US as a national structure is akin to a marriage, that means we have to also consider the 'traditional' marriage exit door - meaning divorce. How does that work?

When a marriage fails, the date of the final divorce decree indicates when the two partners become free to marry other people. But the reality of the marriage (the emotional commitment to the union) is over long before any judge's gavel hits decree. As anyone who's been through (or around) the process knows, the marriage as it was is over when the parties first file for the divorce.

Even if they overcome their differences, the innocence and purity of intent which gelled in that original bond...that's gone. Indeed, if things have gone far enough that the court has become involved, the marriage is re-established not when they kiss and make up (or whatever they do) but when on that date when the court approves dissolution of the suit.

Astrologically, this means a new “marriage chart” is required once any original pledge is quit (i.e., broken). Yes, the original vows become a romanticized ‘shadow’ chart the partners always remember (that being here perhaps that Aquarian Moon/Mercury retrograde 1776 chart)…but the reality of the marriage lived from that time forward is built on a new agreement.

And hopefully wiser people, yes.

So how would this apply to the United States? There seems little debate about whether the country started out as that Mercury retrograde and Aquarian Void of Course Moon kind of place. That's all over the history books.

But then came the Civil War: divorce American national style. And a bloody divorce it was too.

Civil War uniforms, flags and weapons Union and Confederate.

Now there are some who will argue that it wasn’t really until the passing of the Civil Rights Act (some hundred years after the Civil War) that the US really became the nation (or even began becoming the nation) it claimed to be in its original Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Yet astrologically, that just doesn’t work.

Why not?

Because said Civil Rights Act was not part of creating a nation. It thus therefore cannot generate a new national chart. It's a 'working inside the given’ sort of document, which astrologically means it should coincide with a transit to any valid US chart. The Civil Rights Act was a big deal so the transit should be a major transit. But it isn't the sort of motion which creates a new chart.

No, the United States only broke apart once - with the beginning of the Civil War, a national divorce action if there ever was one. The South filed and moved out. And to be sure, the North contested said divorce. But the moment that the Confederacy declared itself and established its capital, leader and constitution, the 1776 ‘marriage’ – for all astrological purposes it was over.

And no, there is no divorce court for nations. It might be better if there was, but there isn't.

Following the 'it was over' logic, the union we now call the United States would have been be ‘born’ when war ended and the nation was officially remade into one - the ‘remarriage,’ if you will.

And when was that? That chart would be timed by General Robert E. Lee approving the document of surrender at war’s end, an event which took place in a private home borrowed from a gentleman named McLean in a little Virginia spot known as Appomattox Court House.

McLean Residence in Appomattox Court House

Records show the meeting between Lee and Grant began at 1:30 p.m. on April 9, 1865. But Lee didn’t finalize his (the South’s) side of the peace treaty until ‘just before 4 p.m.’ - the delay being due to rewording Lee required before signing on.

According to reports by persons in the room, after surveying the document one last time, Lee approved, accepted the stated terms then stood up to have a short conversation with Grant. After that he left, with the time of his departure being noted as 4 p.m. In light of these reports (with additional checking of events against both resulting chart axis) the reasonable rectification therefore puts the time of signing at 3:53 in the afternoon.
 

Actually the Treaty was not actually signed at this moment, due to (of all things!) a lack of ink and paper to recopy General Lee’s requested changes. And this for some may recall President Obama taking his Oath of Office twice. The answer to 'which is right?' here lies in the moment of commitment: when when we actually commit to something is the moment for which the chart should be erected reflecting that event. The Obama Administration thus began when the President took the  Oath of Office the first time - just as the Civil War ended when General Lee accepted Grant's terms for peace.

And never mind the ink...in that moment the South laid down arms. In that moment, soldiers on both sides rushed to embrace each other as country and kinsmen once again. In that moment the North’s supply corps began moving in to feed an estimated 25,000 hungry Confederate troops. That's the end of a war.

But if we need more validation, we have that too - in the form of a governmental nod from President Lincoln. Upon returning from Richmond to news of Lee's  surrendered, Lincoln walked out onto the White House balcony and with fireworks exploding overhead, made a short speech acknowledging that as the South surrendered at Appomattox, war had ended and the nation had again become one.

That unity bond in federal marriage is reflected in the chart below, horoscope erected for 3:53 on that fateful afternoon in Appomattox Court House, Virginia.

Chart USA(ppomattox) - End of Civil War 

It's an interesting chart, this Chart USA(ppomattox). And yes, the events of a nation in years since are seen reflected by transits to its various points.

Starting tomorrow we'll start walking through just what this chart says. But in the meantime, to Robert Hand: 'look Rob - no VOC Moon and no Mercury retrograde!'  

See you all tomorrow back here at astroPPM.