I am not religious and I am not gay or bi sexual but I did have a dog in this race and so did you.
It was about equality, plain and simple since the Government has decided that it should treat married people differently from everyone else then they can’t (constitutionally speaking) place restrictions on who can and who cannot get married.
I get that this is a hot button issue but it is a prime example of what happens when the religious folks push to get the government legislate religious institutions into law. The minute it becomes law it is no longer a religious institution, it is a government institution and it is open to political whim and most importantly on this one, constitutional review.
Had the “church” kept it’s marriage as a religious institution and not allowed the government to legislate it in any way then the first amendment protection of freedom of religion prevails.
As it stands we have a case of Unintended Consequences
When the immortal declaration that “All men are created equal” was made in the Declaration of Independence, It did mean ALL of us and in the eyes of the law we must ALL be treated equally.
The Supreme Court got it right the only way they could have gotten it more right was to rule that laws against gay marriage are patently unconstitutional (they are) but that wasn’t the question before the court.
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The court ruled, in the prop 8 case that the people bringing the case to the court had no standing to do so. They did not rule on prop 8 itself, they simply ruled that since the people bringing the suit had no right to appeal the case to court, then the lower court ruling stands. They did not rule on wheter the law passes constitutional muster.
And yes, gay people should have just as much right to be as miserable as anyone else.
yes i know that I was really more referencing DOMA
I think eventually all such laws against gay marriage will be stricken….Obama is right on this one, the government cannot enshrine discrimination in a law.
The SCOTUS didn’t rule on the constitutional muster of Prop 8, but a lower Federal court has, and the SCOTUS refused to hear the case. Had they wished to rule on the issue they could have found a way to do so. The fact that they did not pretty much says they are in agreement with the prior ruling, or at least not so adamantly opposed to set precedent in order to hear the case.
Toby it’s rare that you and I disagree and in a way here we do and we dont. I think SCOTUS was being very very careful in the prop 8 case to avoid the appearance of legislating from the bench. Sure they could have struck it down but i think the justices rightly decided that to arbitrarily do so would be a questionable use of the courts power. better to make sure that all of the i s are dotted and t s crossed. With Lawrence v. Texas hanging like a sword of Damocles the court will be very careful with this one I think.
Ruling that those who brought the suit to the SCOTUS did not have standing to do so was a path of least resistance. It gave the justices an easy out that still effectively blocked Prop 8 without setting new precedent.
agreed on that one 100% but i think the court knows, as do you and I that this question will be back….at some point they will have to rule on the constitutionality of a ban on same sex marriage. In an odd way though this is probably good, while it does seem to take them a long time to finally get a ruling right, taking that time seems to prevent public opinion from swaying the court into a possibly wrong decision.
I wonder if the gay side of the industry will produce more gay porn aimed at gay couples?
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Well, standing is a critical aspect of the subject matter jurisdiction of federal courts–it’s not just a technical rule, it’s actually enshrined in the Constitution itself (the cases and controversies clause). Federal courts may not take a case just because someone doesn’t like a law or an judicial decision. There needs to be a real injury.
If these pro-Prop8 fools had been allowed to go forward with their case, then the courts would be flooded with religious lunatics of every stripe insisting that they are “injured” by this or that law, just because it doesn’t chime with their religious beliefs. That can’t happen. You need to be able to show that you are REALLY injured. Not just that you don’t like it.
So the Prop 8 case was correctly decided. There were actually similar procedural problems with the DOMA case as well–but that case had a much more complex procedural posture, with parts of the government wanting the case to go forward, parts of it not, and something like a colorable “injury” to the government since it was being ordered to pay the plaintiff back for the estate taxes she paid.
I don’t think it’s right to say that the court “punted” on the prop 8 case. They simply decided it correctly. If they had permitted it to go forward, it would have opened a door that really ought to stay permanently shut.