Caedon
Member
- Joined
- Sep 22, 2009
- Messages
- 151
- Reaction score
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- Gender
- Undisclosed
- Political Leaning
- Libertarian
You enhancement shammies just think buffs are everything...
Can all the wow kiddies please stay out of SWTOR? Thanks!
You enhancement shammies just think buffs are everything...
Yes.
There is no obvious reason to assume children will result from the union, so there is no compelling interest in violating the gay couple's right to privacy.
It's rather quite noble for the state to recuse itself from relationships it has no business melding in.
Can all the wow kiddies please stay out of SWTOR? Thanks!
Abortion and interracial marriage are still an issues, you'll be waiting a long time.
Rightly so....
Am I correct that your argument is that housing grants targetting minorities violate equal protection, therefore we shouldn't apply equal protection in the case of gay marriage either?
If so, that logic is flawed. If we are violating the constitution in one case, that doesn't mean we should just throw away the whole thing, it means we should aim to correct the case where we are violating it.
But, what minority housing grants are you referring to? I'm not aware of any government program that gives housing grants on the basis of race. Can you name the specific program or provide a link to a governmental site detailing it?
Grants.gov - Find Grant Opportunities - Search Grant Opportunities
Enter "minority" into the search bar.
Just enter it in the query box? Doing that got me 40 hits. Most of them have the word 'minority' somewhere in the text though. Like grants available to universities to produce a study on the differential levels of health care in minority communities and whatnot. I'm sure that there is some grant somewhere in government that is only available to minority applicants though. It certainly isn't common, but yeah, I'm sure something like that exists.
That said, we'd need to analyze a specific case before we could determine whether it might violate equal protection. We'd need to show, not that it was helping somebody on the basis of race, which is perfectly constitutional, but that somebody was being denied equal protection of the law based on race. Generally speaking, it's hard for me to imagine a significant government program exists that clearly violates equal protection which hasn't been challenged in court yet. At least not one that's existed for long. If you have a particular example you'd like to talk through, I'd be happy to.
But, regardless, this isn't really relevant. Sounds like we both agree that bans on gay marriage are unconstitutional, right?
If the government offers a grant or tax credits or money or any financial aid on the basis of race, relationship type, age, etc. it is inherently discriminatory. The following grant is only available to students at "minority serving institutions", which means I could never apply for it; the reason being my race.
If the government offers a grant or tax credits or money or any financial aid on the basis of race, relationship type, age, etc. it is inherently discriminatory.
Glad to see anti-intellectualism has such a strong wing in Gay Rights.
Yes, who cares about Rule of Law, all this "Constitutional Garbage!" Let's all bow down to your feelings and what your 'gut' is telling you.
There's nothing in the Federal Constitution or the State Constitutions which inherently say the government cannot pass new marriage laws. [...]
The Constitutional arguments are all garbage, because the Constitution does not govern marriage. Non-constitutional law does, and those laws can be changed on a whim...
But if those laws conflict with the consitution, then the supreme court can strike them down. That's what they did in Loving v Virginia- they struck down all the state laws that prohibited inter-racial marriage because those laws violated the equal protection clause.
Ultimately, what the argument will likely come down to is whether sexual orientation is a level 1 protected class.
So, it could either be decided in the courts or through democratic process. Could be that the states will ban it and the courts overturn those laws anyways, could be that the courts allow the states to decide. Issues like this have historically been decided about half one way, half the other. For example, the civil rights act went through congress, school desegregation came from the courts, slavery was ended by the legislature, interracial marriage bans through the courts, and so on.
Loving said equal protection was achieved, but that the prohibition needed to stand on it's own merit. [...]
What I'm saying is those laws were not shot down for the vauge reason of equal protection as you claim.
FindLaw | Cases and CodesVirginia's statutory scheme to prevent marriages between persons solely on the basis of racial classifications held to violate the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment [...]
To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.
These convictions must be reversed.
It is so ordered.
If an intelligent rational were behind interracial bans, rather than this racial purity nonsense, Loving may not have struck those laws down.
I don't think marriage is a Constitutional right at all.
Personally I want marriage to be completely out of govt. I don't think marriage in the legal sense should even exist - it should just be a personal thing.No it's not. But equal protection of the law is. So that's the legal question- whether laws banning gay marriage violate equal protection.
Personally I want marriage to be completely out of govt. I don't think marriage in the legal sense should even exist - it should just be a personal thing.
The question at hand:The 14th amendment protects privileges though.
That's totally incorrect. The SCOTUS decision explicity declares that it violates the 14th:
FindLaw | Cases and Codes
To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes....
Perhaps what you're thinking of is that the courts do need to decide whether a particular class is protected or not. So, if there are legitimate interests of society that are served by discriminating on the basis of something, they do weigh that in when deciding whether to make it a protected class. So, theoretically, they could rule that sexual orientation is not a protected class. Maybe they could even do that because of the stuff about procreation or something. Or, they could rule that homophobia is just as ludicrouse as racism and rule that it is a protected class. If they decide that it is a protected class, the game is over and from that point forward no laws treating gays or homosexual relationships differently than they treat heterosexuals or heterosexual relationships will be legal.
The reason you shouldn't rest on the 'protected class' argument is that current federally protected classes can not marry either, such as familial relation.
Being a federally protected class does not mean you get to marry.
I don't follow. Family relation is not a protected class.
The question at hand:
Is Gay Marriage a Constitutional Right in the U.S.?
From your response, I take it you agree with my argument that it is not.