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Justices mum on whether to review same-sex marriage constitutionality

JC_CT said:
No, it couldn't. It provides EQUAL protection, not ANY protection.
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It's a mistake to read the Equal Protection Clause too literally. The Supreme Court has sometimes upheld laws that subjected similarly situated persons to grossly unequal treatment. In Nordliner v. Hahn, a 1978 decision, it upheld a California law known as Proposition 13, which gave a property tax break to longtime residents. In the case that prompted the suit, a homeowner had been charged several times as much property tax as another person who owned a nearly identical house nearby but had lived in it longer. Not unconstitutional. How do you like that for "equal protection?"
 
apdst said:
You made a false statement. Carry on.
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You refuse to discuss your statements, which leads me to believe you're unable to defend them. Carry on.
 
matchlight said:
Baloney. State marriage laws do not discriminate by sex in excluding same-sex partners. They no more allow two men to marry each other than they allow two women to marry each other.
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They said exactly this about interracial marriage. "Everyone has equal right to marry someone of the same race!"

Same ****, different decade.
 
radcen said:
Really. This. I don't think it matters what side you or I or anyone else is on, it's an important current issue and it needs to be done once and for all. IMHO, to not rule on it is willful shirking of duties and obligations.
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Where a majority of the residents of any state favor changing their marriage law to include same-sex couples, they are perfectly free to do that--always have been. What need there is to federalize the issue is never explained.

If the Supreme Court pulls another Roe v. Wade and concocts a constitutional "right" to same-sex marriage, I can't see how excluding incestuous partners can any longer serve a legitimate government interest, especially if the partners were of the same sex. Avoiding the increased risk of genetic defects in offspring has traditionally been a basis for requirements that marriage partners not be more closely related by blood than some specified degree. Where the marriage cannot produce offspring, that consideration is out the window.

It would also be out the window if one or both prospective incestuous partners had voluntarily been irreversibly sterilized, which is not uncommon today. And the Court has already said that furthering the belief of a majority of a state's residents that an act involving sex is immoral and unacceptable is no longer a legitimate government interest. What's left? Nothing that I can see.
 
matchlight said:
Where a majority of the residents of any state favor changing their marriage law to include same-sex couples, they are perfectly free to do that--always have been. What need there is to federalize the issue is never explained.

If the Supreme Court pulls another Roe v. Wade and concocts a constitutional "right" to same-sex marriage, I can't see how excluding incestuous partners can any longer serve a legitimate government interest, especially if the partners were of the same sex. Avoiding the increased risk of genetic defects in offspring has traditionally been a basis for requirements that marriage partners not be more closely related by blood than some specified degree. Where the marriage cannot produce offspring, that consideration is out the window.

It would also be out the window if one or both prospective incestuous partners had voluntarily been irreversibly sterilized, which is not uncommon today. And the Court has already said that furthering the belief of a majority of a state's residents that an act involving sex is immoral and unacceptable is no longer a legitimate government interest. What's left? Nothing that I can see.
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Does lack of ability to marry stop people intent on incest?
 
matchlight said:
Where a majority of the residents of any state favor changing their marriage law to include same-sex couples, they are perfectly free to do that--always have been. What need there is to federalize the issue is never explained.

If the Supreme Court pulls another Roe v. Wade and concocts a constitutional "right" to same-sex marriage, I can't see how excluding incestuous partners can any longer serve a legitimate government interest, especially if the partners were of the same sex. Avoiding the increased risk of genetic defects in offspring has traditionally been a basis for requirements that marriage partners not be more closely related by blood than some specified degree. Where the marriage cannot produce offspring, that consideration is out the window.

It would also be out the window if one or both prospective incestuous partners had voluntarily been irreversibly sterilized, which is not uncommon today. And the Court has already said that furthering the belief of a majority of a state's residents that an act involving sex is immoral and unacceptable is no longer a legitimate government interest. What's left? Nothing that I can see.
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Marriage isn't sex, dude. And, yeah, actually, your personal moral disapproval is not by itself a good enough reason to suppress individual liberty. Sorry this offends you. If you want to continue banning same-sex marriage or polygamy or the wearing of blue t-shirts, you need a better reason than your holy book says so.

Interesting observation:
Anti-equality types often argue that same-sex couples can't marry because they can't have children. But first cousins often are allowed to marry only if they are unable to have children.
 
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Deuce said:
They said exactly this about interracial marriage. "Everyone has equal right to marry someone of the same race!"

Same ****, different decade.
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Your ignorance is showing--again. There is no parallel at all.

Invidious discrimination against blacks by states is the very thing the Fourteenth Amendment was primarily intended to prevent. That is why it was not all that hard for the Supreme Court, in Loving v. Virginia, to hold a law unconstitutional because it made an act (entering into marriage with a white person) a crime solely on the basis of the actor's race.

The notion that the Fourteen Amendment was meant to make homosexuals a protected class, on the other hand, doesn't even pass the laugh test.
 
matchlight said:
Your ignorance is showing--again. There is no parallel at all.

Invidious discrimination against blacks by states is the very thing the Fourteenth Amendment was primarily intended to prevent. That is why it was not all that hard for the Supreme Court, in Loving v. Virginia, to hold a law unconstitutional because it made an act (entering into marriage with a white person) a crime solely on the basis of the actor's race.

The notion that the Fourteen Amendment was meant to make homosexuals a protected class, on the other hand, doesn't even pass the laugh test.
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Gender. Not sexuality. Marriage is being prevented on the basis of gender, not sexuality.

Marriage isn't sex.
 
Deuce said:
Marriage isn't sex, dude. And, yeah, actually, your personal moral disapproval is not by itself a good enough reason to suppress individual liberty. Sorry this offends you. If you want to continue banning same-sex marriage or polygamy or the wearing of blue t-shirts, you need a better reason than your holy book says so.

Interesting observation:
Anti-equality types often argue that same-sex couples can't marry because they can't have children. But first cousins often are allowed to marry only if they are unable to have children.
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Don't be familiar--whoever you are, I don't know you personally and don't want to.

And do not take that smart-mouthed personal tone with me. You have not the faintest idea what offends me, or what I consider immoral, or what I personally want to prohibit by law, or whether I look to any holy book, or any other damn thing. Pretending you do is your way of personally insulting me from a safe distance, and I doubt it meets the civility standards of this site.
 
matchlight said:
Don't be familiar--whoever you are, I don't know you personally and don't want to.

And do not take that smart-mouthed personal tone with me. You have not the faintest idea what offends me, or what I consider immoral, or what I personally want to prohibit by law, or whether I look to any holy book, or any other damn thing. Pretending you do is your way of personally insulting me from a safe distance, and I doubt it meets the civility standards of this site.
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Tone fallacy to hide the inability to respond to any particular point.

So let's be civil. Why don't you calmly explain to me what other aspects of personal liberty you think it's ok to suppress based on nothing other than a moral disapproval of 51% of the population? Because if nobody can identify any actual problems caused by legalizing same-sex marriage, why on earth should I expect the United States government to prevent it? How does that align even remotely with the principles on which this country was founded?

Try to explain these things in a civil fashion. You know, without calling me ignorant.
 
Taylor said:
To my knowledge, marriage in this country has *never* been defined in that manner, and most certainly not 'virtually always' - perhaps you can provide evidence (e.g. text of an old statute)?
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WOW. The fact that there has never been a marriage in this country between two people of the same sex prior to the last decade or so should have tipped you off but I suppose if you want to believe something badly enough, reality doesn't pose a serious obstacle to self-delusion.
 
apdst said:
But, then again, they may realize that they will have no recourse to decide that they'll have to over-turn all the lower court decisions.
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If they have no recourse to decide then the lower courts made the correct legal decision.
 
Papa bull said:
WOW. The fact that there has never been a marriage in this country between two people of the same sex prior to the last decade or so should have tipped you off but I suppose if you want to believe something badly enough, reality doesn't pose a serious obstacle to self-delusion.
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I was referring to the claim that " marriage used to 'virtually always' be defined as 'one man and one woman of the same race,' "
 
Taylor said:
I was referring to the claim that " marriage used to 'virtually always' be defined as 'one man and one woman of the same race,' "
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Most states had interracial marriage bans at some point. And when they defended those bans in court, it was all of the same arguments. It's traditional, interracial marriage bans are the will of the people, they're the will of God, interracial marriage is unnatural, etc etc.
 
Deuce said:
Most states had interracial marriage bans at some point. And when they defended those bans in court, it was all of the same arguments. It's traditional, interracial marriage bans are the will of the people, they're the will of God, interracial marriage is unnatural, etc etc.
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And they all got overthrown too. Any that are still on the books would never be enforced, the states don't want to waste the money. It's a done issue, the only people who don't get it are the ones whose ridiculous religious beliefs are likewise dead as a doornail.
 
Papa bull said:
WOW. The fact that there has never been a marriage in this country between two people of the same sex prior to the last decade or so should have tipped you off but I suppose if you want to believe something badly enough, reality doesn't pose a serious obstacle to self-delusion.
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On the contrary, there have been many since the states first started recognizing legal changes in gender since at least some of those people who got legal gender changes were married to someone who was of the opposite sex prior to the legal gender change. Some of the first court cases involving this issue where the court ruled in favor of the person seeking or after having gotten a legal gender change were in the 1970s, which means there likely have been cases, at least in some states, of people legally being married to someone who is legally the same sex since the 80s if not before.
 
Deuce said:
Most states had interracial marriage bans at some point. And when they defended those bans in court, it was all of the same arguments. It's traditional, interracial marriage bans are the will of the people, they're the will of God, interracial marriage is unnatural, etc etc.
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Banning interracial marriage is not the same thing as defining marriage as between a man and a woman of the same race. Quite the contrary. There is no need to ban a marriage that is not really a marriage, or invalidate a marriage that is not really a marriage. Interracial marriage doesn't redefine marriage the way that same sex marriage does.
 
Taylor said:
Banning interracial marriage is not the same thing as defining marriage as between a man and a woman of the same race. Quite the contrary. There is no need to ban a marriage that is not really a marriage, or invalidate a marriage that is not really a marriage. Interracial marriage doesn't redefine marriage the way that same sex marriage does.
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Semantics. They "defined marriage as between a man and a woman of the same race," if that makes you feel better. They didn't consider interracial marriage to really be a marriage either. They even said allowing interracial marriage was redefining marriage.
 
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Deuce said:
Semantics. They "defined marriage as between a man and a woman of the same race," if that makes you feel better.
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Well, no... because it was never defined that way. They were seeking to regulate marriage, not define what it means to be married.

They didn't consider interracial marriage to really be a marriage either.
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Of course they did, or they wouldn't have written statutes invalidating these marriages. There would have been nothing to invalidate.
 
Taylor said:
I was referring to the claim that " marriage used to 'virtually always' be defined as 'one man and one woman of the same race,' "
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Again, the reason it is false is because you added "of the same race".
 
Deuce said:
Most states had interracial marriage bans at some point. And when they defended those bans in court, it was all of the same arguments. It's traditional, interracial marriage bans are the will of the people, they're the will of God, interracial marriage is unnatural, etc etc.
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And the reason those arguments failed was because race was a suspect class for discrimination and because aside from race, interracial marriages were just like any other (e.g. one man and one woman joined together in marriage). Homosexual marriage is something quite different, but we'll see how it works out.
 
AlabamaPaul said:
Why is the government involved in the marriage debate in the first place?
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While we can discuss the merits or legality of whether or not government SHOULD be involved, the fact it IS involved is what we have to deal with now.

Most people didn't have a problem with the government being involved with marriage until the government started saying gays could get married.
 
Taylor said:
Banning interracial marriage is not the same thing as defining marriage as between a man and a woman of the same race. Quite the contrary. There is no need to ban a marriage that is not really a marriage, or invalidate a marriage that is not really a marriage. Interracial marriage doesn't redefine marriage the way that same sex marriage does.
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Those that banned interracial marriages did not believe that those marriages, those relationships were "really a marriage", really a relationship, just as you and others believe that same sex marriages aren't really a marriage, aren't really relationships. All subjective beliefs about what constitutes marriage that does not fit reality, especially not the legal function of marriage.
 
TheNextEra said:
While we can discuss the merits or legality of whether or not government SHOULD be involved, the fact it IS involved is what we have to deal with now.

Most people didn't have a problem with the government being involved with marriage until the government started saying gays could get married.
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But some restrictions are still ok, like underage, incest, plural, and multiple marriages, right?
 
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