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Appeals court upholds laws against gay marriage in Michigan, 3 other states

Because laws haven't been corrected doesn't mean that others shouldn't be corrected as they come up.

Plus, I'm willing to bet you could buy handguns on plenty of streets in NY state, it just wouldn't be legal.

shhhhhhhhhh dont point out the meaninglessness of his failed point
 
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The problem is that they treat everyone the same. I don't agree with such laws either, but they are almost impossible to challenge under an equal protection claim, like marriage bans are being challenged under. It comes down to can the law be challenged and who has standing to do so. Same sex marriage bans can easily be challenged due to you can easily show that some group is being treated unequally by the law, due to the law or that it violates some other right specifically guaranteed by the US Constitution.


States must only defend their laws when those laws are challenged and the person challenging them can show standing.

I must disagree. A day shift worker can stop by a bar and enjoy a drink/game of pool on the way home from work, a swing shift worker to a much lesser extent and a night shift worker not at all. What was the state interest to make this be so?
 
And Sutton is wrong. The same sex couples have standing under the 14th Amendment because they are being treated differently by the laws based on their relative genders, the fact that their genders together do not constitute what others consider "marriage" eventhough their relative genders/sexes do not conflict legally with actual marriage laws.

No, I disagree. Gender, Which Walker used to form his opinion, was fatally flawed, and unsupported by the finding of fact, even though he found it (I guess) sufficient to draw his conclusions. There are two genders, men and women, and both of them are subject to the same conditions regarding marriage. They are both equally limited and privileged with respect to marriage. A homosexual is a male or a female that is "attracted" to someone of the same gender, yes, but society has decided, in this case, that this arrangement is not suitable, or preferred in granting the marriage privilege? Opposite genders compliment each other in unequivocal material ways that benefit society, whereas homosexuals do not, at least not nearly in the same way.


Tim-
 
The SCOTUS has recognized a right to a state recognizer marriage, many times.
So says the echo chamber, yet despite the "many times" this has occurred, you all seem to have a difficult time producing evidence of a single case?
 
I must disagree. A day shift worker can stop by a bar and enjoy a drink/game of pool on the way home from work, a swing shift worker to a much lesser extent and a night shift worker not at all. What was the state interest to make this be so?

Then they should challenge those laws. OR perhaps the merchants should challenge the laws. The point still is that the fact that other laws exist that are stupid, pointless, or bad laws doesn't mean that we still shouldn't use the Constitution to strike down other laws that have been challenged and violate the US Constitution.
 
No, I disagree. Gender, Which Walker used to form his opinion, was fatally flawed, and unsupported by the finding of fact, even though he found it (I guess) sufficient to draw his conclusions. There are two genders, men and women, and both of them are subject to the same conditions regarding marriage. They are both equally limited and privileged with respect to marriage. A homosexual is a male or a female that is "attracted" to someone of the same gender, yes, but society has decided, in this case, that this arrangement is not suitable, or preferred in granting the marriage privilege? Opposite genders compliment each other in unequivocal material ways that benefit society, whereas homosexuals do not, at least not nearly in the same way.


Tim-

And there are several different races that were told there were specific conditions of marriage, they fell under the same conditions in many states that banned interracial marriage, white people can marry white people but black people cannot marry white people. Nothing about marriage legally requires that difference in the sexes/genders, so it is inherently unequal.

A man can do something a woman cannot do, marry a woman, and this is solely based on his sex/gender. That is treating the genders differently. Doesn't matter that a woman can also do something that a man can't do, marry a man. That too is treating the genders differently without any state interest being furthered by doing so.
 
I love the fear equal rights generates and all the false claims and fallacies "like marriage isnt a right" that come with that fear.

facts and court cases prove marriage to be a right if ANYBODY can bring ONE fact to the table proving different please do so now, we would all love to read this fact that says that SCUTOS and all the other court cases are wrong and we should go with you opinion lol

fact remains marriage is a right, but if anybody disagrees please bring your proof forward now
 
Opposite genders compliment each other in unequivocal material ways that benefit society, whereas homosexuals do not, at least not nearly in the same way.

That is of course just your opinion that homosexuals do not benefit society.
 
So says the echo chamber, yet despite the "many times" this has occurred, you all seem to have a difficult time producing evidence of a single case?

Posted at least once in this thread alone, but I'll post again for you.

Video: 14 Supreme Court Rulings on Marriage | American Foundation for Equal Rights

Your specific claim is that marriage is not a right (note: that is marriage alone).

SCOTUS disagrees with you.

Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 12 (1967): “The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.”

Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur, 414 U.S. 632, 639-40 (1974): “This Court has long recognized that freedom of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life is one of the liberties protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

These and many more are from SCOTUS decisions that prove you wrong.
 
Opposite genders compliment each other in unequivocal material ways that benefit society, whereas homosexuals do not, at least not nearly in the same way.

Tim-

... In what material ways do homosexuals not compliment each other? Do they not buy homes together or purchase the same things heterosexual couples do? Do they not pay taxes?
 
That is of course just your opinion that homosexuals do not benefit society.

Of course it is, but not quite. I didn't say they did not benefit society, even though I really don't see any upside to homosexual relationships, I'm sure there are some that disagree. The point of Sutton pointing out this in his opinion was not what you might initially think. He mentions it because he eloquently leads up to the inescapable fact (At least in this decision) that the cases cited do not constitute a 14th and due process challenge (Something I've been saying upon deaf ears for almost a decade), and further, that a legislative body coming to this conclusion about what compliments society "better" is arrived upon with careful, lucid, and rational basis. Similar to, IMO, why courts consistently avoid challenges from would-be fathers to decide the fate of their unborn children, should the mother choose to abort. Although I fervently disagree that only the women gets to decide, I at least see the rationale behind it.


Tim-
 
... In what material ways do homosexuals not compliment each other? Do they not buy homes together or purchase the same things heterosexual couples do? Do they not pay taxes?

My questions are can they not make medical decisions for each other? Can they not legally take care of end of life decisions? Should they not be allowed to be recognized as the legal kin of their partner? Should they not be allowed to claim their partner's family as their inlaws? Should they not be covered under the Family and Medical Leave Act? Should they not be allowed to inherit their loved one's, mate's, significant other's property, in the absence of a will saying otherwise, due to their being two men or two women vice a man and a woman? These are all things that are actually covered by marriage/spousal laws, not personal beliefs on what people believe marriage should be about. These are the things that legal marriage is really about because these are the things covered by the laws.
 
Of course it is, but not quite. I didn't say they did not benefit society, even though I really don't see any upside to homosexual relationships, I'm sure there are some that disagree. The point of Sutton pointing out this in his opinion was not what you might initially think. He mentions it because he eloquently leads up to the inescapable fact (At least in this decision) that the cases cited do not constitute a 14th and due process challenge (Something I've been saying upon deaf ears for almost a decade), and further, that a legislative body coming to this conclusion about what compliments society "better" is arrived upon with careful, lucid, and rational basis. Similar to, IMO, why courts consistently avoid challenges from would-be fathers to decide the fate of their unborn children, should the mother choose to abort. Although I fervently disagree that only the women gets to decide, I at least see the rationale behind it.


Tim-

He is wrong. There is a valid constitutional issue here, unequal treatment under the laws because the laws of marriage itself, that cover spouses, in no way distinguish between what "wives" do as legal spouses and what "husbands" do, and why you need one of each in a marriage for it to legally operate. Legally speaking, marriage is not "fundamentally changed" at all, despite Sutton claiming as such. Marriage is only changed for those who believe that marriage should be a certain way that is not actually found in the laws regarding marriage and spouses.
 
Then they should challenge those laws. OR perhaps the merchants should challenge the laws. The point still is that the fact that other laws exist that are stupid, pointless, or bad laws doesn't mean that we still shouldn't use the Constitution to strike down other laws that have been challenged and violate the US Constitution.

I agree but simply because a law is stupid, pointless, bad or excludes some desired minority personal choice does not make them unconstitutional. The "valid state interest" test should include the desire of the majority unless specific language in the constitution expressly prohibits that law/class of laws (which can only be added/changed by majority vote). Most zoning laws, that evolve over time, fail that "valid state interest" test but it is time and popular (majority) opinion that cause them to be changed. I seriously doubt that bans on SSM (or marijuana) will survive much longer, however, not due to any change in what constitutes a "valid state interest" but due to a change in the attitude of the majority (which I consider to be the ultimate valid state interest).
 
I agree but simply because a law is stupid, pointless, bad or excludes some desired minority personal choice does not make them unconstitutional. The "valid state interest" test should include the desire of the majority unless specific language in the constitution expressly prohibits that law/class of laws (which can only be added/changed by majority vote). Most zoning laws, that evolve over time, fail that "valid state interest" test but it is time and popular (majority) opinion that cause them to be changed. I seriously doubt that bans on SSM (or marijuana) will survive much longer, however, not due to any change in what constitutes a "valid state interest" but due to a change in the attitude of the majority (which I consider to be the ultimate valid state interest).

No, it should not include the desire of the majority, since that is the way the law was enacted to begin with. That is counter to the entire point of having the law reviewed for whether it was constitutional or not. If someone has standing under the Constitution, then that would mean that the law might conflict with their rights, which means it should not matter how that law was put into place, only whether it violates the rights of a person/group or not.
 
Posted at least once in this thread alone, but I'll post again for you.

Video: 14 Supreme Court Rulings on Marriage | American Foundation for Equal Rights

Your specific claim is that marriage is not a right (note: that is marriage alone).

SCOTUS disagrees with you.





These and many more are from SCOTUS decisions that prove you wrong.
No, I have not claimed that marriage isn't a right. I've stated that there is no right to have your marriage recognized by the state. It would not be unconstitutional for a state to decide to do away with the idea of civil marriage altogether.
 
Of course it is, but not quite. I didn't say they did not benefit society, even though I really don't see any upside to homosexual relationships, I'm sure there are some that disagree. The point of Sutton pointing out this in his opinion was not what you might initially think. He mentions it because he eloquently leads up to the inescapable fact (At least in this decision) that the cases cited do not constitute a 14th and due process challenge (Something I've been saying upon deaf ears for almost a decade), and further, that a legislative body coming to this conclusion about what compliments society "better" is arrived upon with careful, lucid, and rational basis.

There are lots of things that could be "better" (which is subjective to say the least). However, there is not an interest in state bans on gay marriage considering that homosexual relationships are not illegal, gays rasising children is not illegal, homosexual sex is not illegal, etc. You can't cite morality as being the reason because the act of homosexuality is legal and that is considered immoral by some. Face facts, the anti-SSM folks have lost this one.

Similar to, IMO, why courts consistently avoid challenges from would-be fathers to decide the fate of their unborn children, should the mother choose to abort. Although I fervently disagree that only the women gets to decide, I at least see the rationale behind it.

There are also no laws forcing the male to finiancially support the female DURING the pregnancy nor are there any laws forcing the male to provide food and shelter for the pregnant woman during the pregnancy. You look at the fact the male has no say in the "aborting" of the fetus, but then again the male doesn't have ANY obligation LEGALLY to the female during the pregnancy either.

It's ironic how the pro-life folks always point to the woman's olbligation and they try LEGALLY to obligate her to the pregnancy, but there isn't ONE pro-lifer bill to obligate the male to provide for the female during the pregnancy. Why the discrimination against females huh?
 
No, it should not include the desire of the majority, since that is the way the law was enacted to begin with. That is counter to the entire point of having the law reviewed for whether it was constitutional or not. If someone has standing under the Constitution, then that would mean that the law might conflict with their rights, which means it should not matter how that law was put into place, only whether it violates the rights of a person/group or not.

correct the majority or minority is 100% meaningless to equal rights or constitutionality of a law. See loving vs Virginia over 80% or the country didn't favor interracial marriage . . . meaningless because it was a rights issue.
 
No, I have not claimed that marriage isn't a right. I've stated that there is no right to have your marriage recognized by the state. It would not be unconstitutional for a state to decide to do away with the idea of civil marriage altogether.

Those cases, especially Loving, Turner, and Zablocki, were all about having their marriages recognized by the state, which has been upheld by the SCOTUS.

In reality, given the nature of our laws surrounding family and the hierarchy in which we place the significance of legal kin when it comes to a person's life, it could actually be considered unconstitutional for a state to decide to do away with civil marriage while still recognizing other legal kin. It would prevent a person from choosing their closest legal next of kin, relying solely on blood relations. Unless they provided something else, they couldn't get rid of civil marriage.
 
No, it should not include the desire of the majority, since that is the way the law was enacted to begin with. That is counter to the entire point of having the law reviewed for whether it was constitutional or not. If someone has standing under the Constitution, then that would mean that the law might conflict with their rights, which means it should not matter how that law was put into place, only whether it violates the rights of a person/group or not.

That is the entire problem that I have with this level of judicial review. First of all, even if one "has standing" there is still absolutely nothing to compel a judge to hear/review a case. In other words, the squeaky wheel gets the grease ONLY if that issue appeals to a given judge.

Surely one can see that many (if not most) laws tend to restrict freedom and few of them have a compelling state interest, other than that is what the folks wanted at the time the law was passed, and even fewer can be shown to be the least restrictive means to attain the desired end. The 2A defines the same "right of the people" yet has more state to state variations (restrictions or infringements) than marriage laws do; not many 2A cases ever make it to the federal courts, much less to the SCOTUS.
 
No, I have not claimed that marriage isn't a right. I've stated that there is no right to have your marriage recognized by the state. It would not be unconstitutional for a state to decide to do away with the idea of civil marriage altogether.

The distinction is important and again addressed in Sutton's brilliant opinion.
E.

Fundamental right to marry.

Under the Due Process Clause, courts apply more muscular review—“strict,” “rigorous,” usually unforgiving, scrutiny—to laws that impair “fundamental” rights. In considering the claimants’ arguments that they have a fundamental right to marry each other, we must keep in mind that something can be fundamentally important without being a fundamental right under the Constitution. Otherwise, state regulations of many deeply important subjects—from education to healthcare to living conditions to decisions about when to die— would be subject to unforgiving review. They are not.

See



San Antonio Indep.



Sch. Dist. v. Rodriguez

, 411 U.S. 1, 35 (1973) (public education);

Maher v. Roe

, 432 U.S. 464, 469 (1977) (healthcare);

Lindsey v. Normet

, 405 U.S. 56, 73–74 (1972) (housing);

Glucksberg

, 521 U.S. at 728 (right to die). Instead, the question is whether our nation has treated the right as fundamental and therefore worthy of protection under substantive due process. More precisely, the test is whether the right is “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition” and “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,” such that “neither liberty nor justice would exist if they were sacrificed.”

Glucksberg

, 521 U.S. at 721 (internal citations omitted). That requirement often is met by placing the right in the Constitution, most obviously in (most of) the guarantees in the Bill of Rights.

See id

. at 720.



But the right to marry in general, and the right to gay marriage in particular, nowhere appear in the Constitution. That route for recognizing a fundamental right to same-sex marriage does not exist. That leaves the other option—that, even though a proposed right to same-sex marriage does not appear in the Constitution, it turns on bedrock assumptions about liberty. This too does not work. The first state high court to redefine marriage to include gay couples did not do so until 2003 in

Goodridge

. Matters do not change because

Loving v. Virginia

, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), held that “marriage” amounts to a fundamental right. When the Court decided

Loving

, “marriage between
















Nos. 14-1341/

3057/ 3464/ 5291/ 5297/ 5818



DeBoer v. Snyder

Page 29 a man and a woman



no doubt [was] thought of . . . as essential to the very definition of that term.”

Windsor

, 133 S. Ct. at 2689. In referring to “marriage” rather than “opposite-sex marriage,”

Loving

confirmed only that “opposite-sex marriage” would have been considered redundant, not that marriage included same-sex couples.

Loving

did not change the definition. That is why the Court said marriage is “fundamental to our very existence and survival,” 388 U.S. at 12, a reference to the procreative definition of marriage. Had a gay African-American male and a gay Caucasian male been denied a marriage license in Virginia in 1968, would the Supreme Court have held that Virginia had violated the Fourteenth Amendment? No one to our knowledge thinks so, and no Justice to our knowledge has ever said so. The denial of the license would have turned not on the races of the applicants but on a request to change the definition of marriage. Had

Loving

meant something more when it pronounced marriage a fundamental right, how could the Court hold in

Baker

five years later that gay marriage does not even raise a substantial federal question?

Loving

addressed, and rightly corrected, an unconstitutional eligibility requirement for marriage; it did not create a new definition of marriage.

Tim-
 
That is the entire problem that I have with this level of judicial review. First of all, even if one "has standing" there is still absolutely nothing to compel a judge to hear/review a case. In other words, the squeaky wheel gets the grease ONLY if that issue appeals to a given judge.

Surely one can see that many (if not most) laws tend to restrict freedom and few of them have a compelling state interest, other than that is what the folks wanted at the time the law was passed, and even fewer can be shown to be the least restrictive means to attain the desired end. The 2A defines the same "right of the people" yet has more state to state variations (restrictions or infringements) than marriage laws do; not many 2A cases ever make it to the federal courts, much less to the SCOTUS.

So you keep filing until you find a judge that recognizes your standing if it is really an issue. That is the best you can do. There are certainly some flaws, but that doesn't mean the system should be completely thrown out, particularly when there is no other way being given for how to handle this. Unless you want to just throw out the Constitution altogether and just trust the government to ensure everyone's rights are upheld.

Also, you seem to continue to be going off on tangents here. None of this has anything to do with the specific case we are discussing, which is same sex marriage and whether those who are challenging the same sex marriage bans are having their rights violated by these specific laws. They have standing, evidenced by the fact that their case has been heard and ruled on multiple times now (for each one, at least twice). The fact that other groups who feel that laws are violating their rights have not been found to have standing (or have, but have not had it ruled on in their favor) doesn't matter in any way to this particular case/issue.
 
The distinction is important and again addressed in Sutton's brilliant opinion.

Tim-

There is nothing "sound" or "brilliant" about his argument at all. Striking down the bans to same sex couples getting married does not "fundamentally change" marriage at all, nor does it change any legal definition of marriage itself, unless you consider the legal definition of marriage to be based in how it is restricted, which means you could not legitimately use such a definition as a legal argument for why that restriction should not be in place since the argument itself relies on the restriction being in place for the definition not to be changed. It is circular reasoning, and not legally legitimate.
 
No, I have not claimed that marriage isn't a right. I've stated that there is no right to have your marriage recognized by the state. It would not be unconstitutional for a state to decide to do away with the idea of civil marriage altogether.

This is why the 'government should get out marriage' nonsense needs to stop. That. Is. Not. Going. To Happen. Constitutional or unconstitutional, there isn't a single federal/state government that would even consider doing away with civil marriage. Not only would the political ramifications leave a giant black hole in civil law (as well a child adoption, custody and property laws) it would also mean that the government isn't in the business of recognizing and enforcing social contracts between individuals. Do you people think of this before you try and steer the conversation away from what is actually in question here? Again, your imaginary world where marriage can be done away with, isn't real.
 
Those cases, especially Loving, Turner, and Zablocki, were all about having their marriages recognized by the state, which has been upheld by the SCOTUS.
Those are equal protection cases that allowed access to the legal mechanism in place. They do not assert that the existence of the mechanism itself is a constitutional right.

I don't understand the resistence to this - people talk all the time on this forum about "government getting out of the marriage business" and though many (myself included) have provided reasons for why this is a bad idea, I've never come across claims that it would be illegal or unconstitutional.

In reality, given the nature of our laws surrounding family and the hierarchy in which we place the significance of legal kin when it comes to a person's life, it could actually be considered unconstitutional for a state to decide to do away with civil marriage while still recognizing other legal kin. It would prevent a person from choosing their closest legal next of kin, relying solely on blood relations. Unless they provided something else, they couldn't get rid of civil marriage.
As you allude to in that last sentence, there are a myriad of vehicles that could be used to accomplish this, the concept of "civil marriage" is convenient, but hardly necessary, much less constitutionally required.
 
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