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Is Gay Marriage a Constitutional Right in the U.S.?

Is Gay Marriage a Constitutional Right in the U.S.?

  • Total voters
    64
I voted other because I don't believe marriage is the place of the government to regulate. I have no problem with the government being involved with civil unions and do believe that the 14th precludes discrimination based on the genders involved. Marriage, on the other hand, is something that I think should be solely between the individual church/temple and the persons to be married. It shouldn't carry any tax benefits - only civil unions should.
 
Jerry said:
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.
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Ok, but I was simply restating the question so that some people would see fit to actually debate rather than just mope about how liberals only talk about constitutional rights.
 
Jerry said:
Abortion and interracial marriage are still an issues, you'll be waiting a long time.
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What a Debbie Downer:2wave:
 
teamosil said:
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?
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No. I'm saying both institutions should be struck down as unconstitutional, but if gay marriage proponents are going to ignore things like minority grants or affirmative action then they have no credibility in my mind.

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.
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Then you should be advocating the abolition of state-sanctioned marriage instead trying to alter its legal definition.

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?
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Grants.gov - Find Grant Opportunities - Search Grant Opportunities

Enter "minority" into the search bar.
 
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Ethereal said:
Grants.gov - Find Grant Opportunities - Search Grant Opportunities

Enter "minority" into the search bar.
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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?
 
teamosil said:
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.
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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.

Grants.gov - Find Grant Opportunities - Opportunity Synopsis

To me it seems a clear violation of "equal protection" under the law, as do state-sanctioned marriages.

But, regardless, this isn't really relevant. Sounds like we both agree that bans on gay marriage are unconstitutional, right?
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No, as I do not believe state-sanctioned marriages to be constitutional. Personally, I don't much care if there is gay marriage or not. It wouldn't bother me but I do not see it as a right.
 
Ethereal said:
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.
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No, you're misreading it. You couldn't apply for the grant because you're not a school. :) It's a grant schools can apply for to supplement their funding in training medical students in cardiovascular, pulmonary, hematologic, and sleep disorders. The grant can only be applied for by schools that qualify as 'minority serving institutions' (MSI). The definition of an MSI is that at least 25% of the student population is minorities.

So, it doesn't violate equal protection for a couple reasons-

1) It's for schools, which aren't citizens protected by the 14th
2) Anybody of any race can attend the schools that recieve the grant, so nobody is being denied anything

25% minority is a bar that would be met by virtually any school. They're just saying they won't give the money to a school that appears to be flagrantly discriminating in favor of white students- schools that don't serve minorities. In some ways, they need a clause like that in there to ensure that they aren't violating equal protection by giving federal funding to schools that engage in blatant discrimination. From that link above it sounds like a rule that was passed around the time of the civil rights act, presumably to prevent the federal government from funding segregated white colleges which were still very common at the time.

Ethereal said:
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.
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That's not neccesarily true. For example, say they find that current financial aid programs are not equally reaching a specific category of students for some reason. They could rectify that by establishing a financial aid program targetting the population they were previously underserving.
 
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Metternich said:
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.
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The Constitution gets trumped for all sorts of reasons. The right wing uses all sorts of language and legal technicalities to bypass its meaning in order to serve social conservatism; the left uses it to impede upon things like the second amendment, and people's choices in daily life.

I've done the intellectual debates so many times. I probably know more about this issue than most of the people on these boards. The fact is, if people supported gay marriage, the law would find some way to make it happen. That's what democracy is. There's nothing in the Federal Constitution or the State Constitutions which inherently say the government cannot pass new marriage laws. Most of it comes down to the legislature and people's votes... so people vote no (mostly).

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 now you have voters actually changing their state Constitutions to define marriage, which is an obscenity and a mark of evil upon what the Constitution is supposed to mean.

There is no logical argument to deny gays the right to marry. Not one. Gay couples have families now. They deserve the same privilege as heterosexual parents to raise their children with maximum benefits. Either the states grant those privileges, or the privileges should not be in state hands whatsoever. It's unfair to treat it any other way.
 
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Orius said:
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...
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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.

There is a case working it's way up to the supreme court right now (Perry v Schwarzenegger) making the same argument that was made in Loving v Virginia.

Ultimately, what the argument will likely come down to is whether sexual orientation is a level 1 protected class. If it is, then all laws prohibiting gay marriage will have to be struck down. Thus far, the supreme court has avoided deciding whether sexual orientation is a protected class like race or religion or whatnot. In Lawrence v Texas they overturned sodomy laws. The case really should have dealt with the question of whether sexual orientation was a protected class or not, but the SCOTUS basically chickened out and came up with some technical reasons to overturn sodomy laws without actually declaring whether or not sexual orientation is a protected class. The majority opinion didn't say either way, the minority opinion said that it was a protected class, but minority court opinions don't form precedent. Could be that the court is now prepared to rule on it, or it could be that they keep avoiding the issue with some legal evasions...

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.
 
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teamosil said:
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.
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Loving said equal protection was achieved, but that the prohibition needed to stand on it's own merit. If an intelligent rational were behind interracial bans, rather than this racial purity nonsense, Loving may not have struck those laws down.

What I'm saying is those laws were not shot down for the vauge reason of equal protection as you claim.

teamosil said:
Ultimately, what the argument will likely come down to is whether sexual orientation is a level 1 protected class.
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As with Loving, heteros are prevented from marrying the same sex also, hence no discrimination against sexual orientation. Hetero can marry hetero just as white can marry white. Hetero can marry gay just as white can marry black. Gay marriage can only be likened to Loving if someone is claiming that only people of the same orientation can marry. But no one is saying that. Not even close. And before you go there, no, there is no sexual equivalent to protecting racial purity, so don't even try.

teamosil said:
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.
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Gay-marriage is not a civil rights issue. It never was.
 
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Gay-marriage is not a civil rights issue? Are you nutz?
 
Jerry said:
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.
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That's totally incorrect. The SCOTUS decision explicity declares that it violates the 14th:

Virginia'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.
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FindLaw | Cases and Codes

Jerry said:
If an intelligent rational were behind interracial bans, rather than this racial purity nonsense, Loving may not have struck those laws down.
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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.
 
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I don't think marriage is a Constitutional right at all.
 
Toothpicvic said:
I don't think marriage is a Constitutional right at all.
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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.
 
teamosil said:
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.
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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.
 
Toothpicvic said:
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.
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Constitutionally that would work. Practically I'm not so sure. For example, if somebody is in a coma, who makes decisions for them? Or if one spouse dies with no will, who gets the estate? You could theoretically cover all those kinds of issues with individual contracts, but that seems like a more cumbersome way to do the same thing.
 
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Kandahar said:
The 14th amendment protects privileges though.
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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.
 
teamosil said:
That's totally incorrect. The SCOTUS decision explicity declares that it violates the 14th:

FindLaw | Cases and Codes
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From your quote:

To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes....
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It's almost like I've read the ruling a thousand times before ;)

teamosil said:
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.
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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.
 
Jerry said:
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.
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I don't follow. Family relation is not a protected class.
 
teamosil said:
I don't follow. Family relation is not a protected class.
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It sure is. Why do you think we keep bringing up incest? Do you think we're just stupid?

Here's a quick link: [ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class[/ame]
 
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Goobieman said:
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.
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Is Right to Contract a "Constitutional" right?
 
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