Congrats on finding the Wiki page. You are conflating rational basis and rational basis plus.
My only nitpick here would be that Romer merely said it was decided on rational basis grounds, but it wasn’t…
I think we might end up arguiing semantics, but I’d aver that ‘rational basis’ is what the Court says it is. If they have of late decided to invest it with “teeth” and make it a bit more meaningful than “legislatures get almost a free pass to do anything not otherwise prohibited and not rising to an intermediate or strict scrutiny situation”. And I’d argue that Romer was in fact decided on rational basis grounds.
Purely for the sake of argument, advance a rational basis for Colorado’s Amendment II -=- anything the legislature might reasonably have advanced by way of legislative purpose in passing it, had they been so inclined. Good conservative Republicans reading this, please give your perspective on what that basis might be. I’ve tried, and I cannot come up with one.
The best one, which was mentioned up thread, is to preserve the traditional notion of marriage.
Some say (see post 171) that this isn’t a legitimate interest. But a few Justices on the Court might disagree.
The promotion of traditional sexual morality/the desire not to imply state sanction of homosexual sodomy?
Romer wasn’t really about marriage. It was about extending anti-discrimination laws to gay people.
The problem was that Colorado’s Amendment II went well beyond simply marriage. It purported to reach into every single aspect of Colorado law.
Right, so it’s not even rationally related to the interest I provided. And neither is it related to the interest Captain Amazing offered. It goes beyond the promotion of traditional sexual morality as well.
I didn’t say my answer was a satisfactory basis, just the best one.
What I love is the willfull blindness of the States’ “Rights” brigade on this.
The federal government passes a law that says “we aren’t going to recognize same sex marriages performed by any state,” despite the fact that marriage has always been a state law matter, and that the federal government has always given federal recognition to the choices of the states here. If the state has said A & B are married, then A & B are married for federal purposes.
I guess States’ “Rights” are a little less important than hating on the homos.
Your location says you’re in Virginia. Know of any landmark SCOTUS cases involving your state and interstate marriage?
Which doesn’t go against what I say at all.
Loving was a very different matter. I said that, previously:
What Loving did was correctly say that not allowing interracial marriage discriminated in an unconstitutional fashion. It was saying if you allow WW or BB to marry, then you must allow WB. What it didn’t do, which DOMA did, is say that even while a state has the power to allow MM or FF unions as well as MF unions, the federal government will choose to not recognize the state’s choice.
Loving required states to exapand their definition of marriage - it did not say to a state that its choice of who was considered married was irrelevant.
Hypothetically - What happens when a future president chooses not to defend the Health Care Mandate?
Here’s the actual amendment 2, just for reference:
So I think the “promotion of traditional sexual morality” rationale works there. It’s a way to say to gay people, “We don’t want you being gay in our state, and if you are gay in our state, and you suffer because of it, don’t expect us to protect you.”
Yeah, people are hypocrites about a lot of things. One thing about DOMA though, is that has 2 parts. One part says the feds don’t have to recognize state marriages, but the other part says states don’t have to recognize each other’s marriages. The latter part is, I believe, the biggest concern of the homo haters and is the real "states rights’ issue.
Somebody else will do it. There’s an almost inexhaustible supply of PACs willing to put up the money to defend almost any law.
Just to be clear, the part about states not having to recognize same-sex marriages from other states is not being challenged in any of the current lawsuits.
Justice hasn’t said it will stop defending the constitutionality of the part you list second. It is only the first part - the federal part. And the people who cry bloody murder when the federal government tries to do anything they think infringes on states are more than happy to have the federal government destroy much of the practical effect of a state’s power to define marriage within its own borders.
I guess I’m just not seeing the “states’ rights” issue in the federal part, then. Can you elaborate how you see that being a “states’ rights” issue?
Traditionally the definition of marriage has been in the hands of the states. There are, to the best of my knowledge, approximately 2,000 federal benefits that flow from being married. In the past, the federal government has been very hands off, and said to the states “if you say these two people are married, then these two people are married - here, have 2,000 benefits.”
What DOMA does, or this part of DOMA, is say to the states “we no longer consider you the arbiter of who is married.” Or, to be more accurate, “we still think you are capable of determining when a man and woman is married, but if you determine that people of the same sex should be allowed to marry, we are going to ignore your decision and treat the people as unmarried.”
Yes, but I’ve never heard of “states’ rights” as being anything other than the feds telling the states what to do or not to do. Not the other way around. Can you give another example where it’s been a states’ rights issue for the feds to act in a certain way? Now, if DOMA said the states couldn’t issue marriage licenses to gays, and I’m sure there are “states’ rights” Congresscritters who would be more than happy to do that, I could definitely see that as hypocrisy.