Yes, and those guidelines were provided with the explicit purpose of restricting the rights of a group of individuals.
No, they weren't. Rights are
negative, not positive in nature. Had they been passing laws saying "anyone who attends a gay wedding goes to jail or pays a fine", then you would be accurate. Since the only people
who had their actions restricted were
employees of the government, you are incorrect.
The state does not have a right to discriminate based on either sexual orientation or the religious beliefs of its politicians. That's really what was struck down at the end of the day.
No, what was struck down at the end of the day was a particular decision made by the states that was within their purview as per the 10th Amendment of the Constitution, because 5 Justices on the Supreme Court didn't like it.
Sure I do. I don't have a right to benefit from California's tuition programs while my residence is in another state. You don't have a right to collect money from another state's social programs. Poor people in Connecticut can't collect state benefits in Florida. I can't have a business in New York while taking advantage of tax incentives in Vermont. People are denied rights based on residence literally all of the time.
No, you are confusing
things you receive with
Rights. You don't have a
Right to California's tuition program whether you live in California or not. You don't have a
Right to state benefits from Florida whether you live in Florida or not. You don't have a
Right to tax benefits from Vermont whether you live in Vermont or not.
Your
Rights are universally applicable
because they are inherent to you.
I don't have a problem with that. It seems though, that there is a problem with a state simply denying its own residents the right to these programs and institutions.
Because
it isn't a right. You don't have positive rights to take things from others via the State. We may choose to do that, but that does not create a Right to it.
Come on, man. We just went over this a year ago. It was gay marriage bans which were struck down. It wasn't whatever you think the bans were about.
Take a look at what was actually banned.
Or, if you like, a simple acid test: Churches in these area's who believed in them continued to perform gay weddings. People continued to have them. Name a single individual who conducted or attended or participated in a gay wedding who was subsequently arrested or fined for their behavior.
The actual activities that were restricted were those of the government actors, not homosexuals, and not people who had gay weddings.
I am stating that your understanding of the issue is either misguided or dishonest. It's up to you to pick one so that we may solve the issue.
No, my understanding is accurate. Yours has two major problems and one major inconsistency:
1. You are pretending that rules that in no way restricted activities were, in fact, bans on them.
2. You wish to create (from thin air) positive rights and apply them to the receipt of marriage licenses from the states.
3. Having created the right to receive a marriage license,
you still wish to deny this right to groups of whom you do not approve.
In the end, it was never really about whether State A wanted to recognize a gay marriage in State B. It was about the fact that State A's refusal to recognize a legal marriage was not based on any legal objections per-say. It was based on a clearly discriminatory practice and provided no realistic alternative to a whole section of the electorate (gay people).
No more so than current practice discriminates against Muslims (or other polygamists), or incestual relationships. Why are you so quick to deny them the rights you claim that they have?
I think you need to understand that gay people weren't going to marry somebody of a sexual orientation that is incompatible with theirs anymore than you are. They certainly weren't going to do that so that another group of people can feel good about their religion. That the state simply refused to ignore this and ban their marriages -- was what in the end was struck down. As I said, the states could have simply decided to legislate gay marriage much in the way they do abortion services. They refused because November is important month and well, now we're left with gay marriage being legal in all 50 states; while you refuse to acknowledge that it wasn't a matter of recognition.
I have no idea what you are referencing with regard to November, but what you are describing is a political decision that belongs at the State level, not a Constitutional decision that belongs at the SCOTUS level.
