Re: Texas AG Says Workers Can Refuse Marriage Licenses to Gays
The authority of the states and the authority of the people of each state to set policy within their state on those matters in which the U.S. Constitution are silent, per the 10th Amendment, has absolutely been violated.
Umm...no. The 10th Amendment clearly states: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,
nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Recall that the Constitution includes "Amendments," and the 14th Amendment states: "
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
That is known as the Equal Protection Clause. It is why the legal opinion of the SCOTUS majority in the recent ruling on same-sex marriage is valid. Prior to the decision, if an opposite sex couple married in New York and then moved to Ohio, their marriage was honored as legally binding in the State of Ohio even though that State did not issue a marriage license. However, if a same-sex couple was married in one of the 17 states where it was legal, it would NOT be honored as legal if the couple moved to Ohio.
The ruling, identifying marriage as a
civil right protected under the Equal Protection Clause, now requires that all states honor same-sex marriages as legally binding, and by extension, same-sex couples have the Constitutionally protected right to marry in all states of the Union.
So, the ruling does not violate the 10th Amendment. Clear?