However, the judiciary can strike down or accept a law if they deem the societal benefit of said law (or of striking down the law). Louis Brandeis used to include social impact information when he decided upon a ruling. I recently read the SC's ruling on partial-birth abortion, and they used social benefit information to rule on that law, also. The judiciary uses whatever information they can to make decisions.
I know of no case where they
struck down a law based only or even chiefly on societal benefit. They do so for the reasons I said above. If you know of one, please indicate it.
Laws may be
upheld because the societal benefit outweighs the protection of a right -- such as with a ban on partial-birth abortion -- but courts do not strike down laws based on public policy reasons alone. That's not a court's place.
Look, this is basic separation of powers in a tripartite government. Public policy is a matter for the political branches, not the judicial. In the case of partial-birth abortion, the policy had been decided on by the legislature. They did not substitute their own.
There are two issues, here. The first is to have the Supreme Court strike down DOMA. This has been attempted via discrimination lawsuits, but not via a social benefit attempt. Based on past SC behavior, this is a far more logical attack and, IMO, would have more of a chance of striking down the law.
And we're back to the same problem. It's not a basis on which they
can strike down a law.
Second. IF a GM law were passed, either federally or in a state and an attempt to strike it down were made, the social benefit defense holds more water than the discrimination defense. In both cases, judicially or legislatively, the discrimination position is not strong, but the social benefit position is.
I already said that if same-sex marriage is passed, there are few, if any, judicial recourses to challenge it. There would be no reason to reach any public policy questions, because the case would be dismissed on
other grounds long before it ever reached them.
Not necessarily, though probably.
Your construct of passing same-sex marriage and then bringing suit over absolutely DOES require that it be passed.
What I said was a broad stroke, but ultimately, it IS that simple.
Not from anything I've seen concerning public attitudes toward the subject.
I agree, though it is the most logical position.
The "logic" of a position depends entirely on what you're trying to accomplish. The "logical" thing to do toward one end is not necessarily the "logical" thing to do toward a different one.
No, as I explained above.
What can I say? You're simply wrong. Psychiatry is not my bailiwick, but the law is, and what I've explained about the place of the courts vis-a-vis public policy questions is correct.
Irrelevant. The analogy addresses your point of what could happen if we found that something was ruining society that had been in existence for a long time. It applies.
No, as we're talking in "public policy" terms, the idea of taking a
car away from a family is absolutely
not the same thing as telling a family that they're not a family anymore.
Of course it has... just as much as many other things have.
How could the benefits of something which has never existed on a societal level have been studied on a societal level?
Reasonable sample sizes and universally consistent results. This is what is needed to identify credibility in research... which this research has.
I'm not arguing what the research currently says; I never have. I'm simply saying that once the whole thing reaches a level that's never existed before, things could well change.
What would be the problem with that? That would be a GOOD thing, changing something that needs changing.
Then
you be the one to tell a married couple that the government says they can't be married anymore, because it isn't such a good idea. Are you willing to do that personally? If not, then you see the problem.