# How Many states before SC Forced To Rule on SSM? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 20, 2014, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-states-before-sc-forced-to-rule-on-ssm/688820 "2014-05-20T12:27:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-states-before-sc-forced-to-rule-on-ssm/688820/41 "2014-05-23T14:25:20Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > I rather hope they don’t rule on it. If they were to reverse all the courts that have struck down SSM bans, I think we;d have riots in the streets. Public opinion has swung so quickly and so dramatically in favor of gay rights that to have such a reversal from the Supremes would shake the republic to its core. Do you think this is a real possibility, though? ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-states-before-sc-forced-to-rule-on-ssm/688820/42 "2014-05-30T15:26:37Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > You don’t see how? I’m sure you’ve been alive long enough to know that not all men are the same and not all women are the same. A far cry from saying there are no differences between men and women in general that could possibly effect child-rearing. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-states-before-sc-forced-to-rule-on-ssm/688820/43 "2014-05-30T15:39:46Z")
> [@David42](#): > > A far cry from saying there are no differences between men and women in general that could possibly effect child-rearing. Even if we grant that, it has nothing to do with the question of whether SSM should be recognized. ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-states-before-sc-forced-to-rule-on-ssm/688820/44 "2014-05-30T15:42:31Z")
> [@Ambrosio\_Spinola](#): > > We also have demonstrable evidence of some groups which, on average, have worse parenting outcomes than average - people in poverty, for instance. And yet there is no movement demanding that poor people not be permitted to marry (in fact you hear complaints that they’re not marrying _enough_.) Even if same-sex couples had worse parenting outcomes than average - and it’s not clear that they do - they should still have an individual shot at proving themselves exceptions, just like everyone else. First we have to accept that poor people are going to reproduce anyway. And since they are, we also need to recognize that marriage tends to improve financial situations. From the scientific standpoint–as far as proving themselves good parents, (and I recognize you talked about individuals but I am not) I am very sympathetic to the claim of the gays that since they have always had the deck stacked against them in parenting, that it is somewhat unfair to claim they are bad parents in general. From a standpoint of getting to the bottom of that question, it makes sense that gay parenting be encouraged so there will be sufficient numbers to random sample from (Regnerus found only one out of 1500? the only random sampled study I know of) but the flip side of this coin is that the best way to get to the bottom of the question is to compare, with long term random sampled studies, gay parenting in a state with gay marriage to a state without it. I somewhat suspect the “All fifty states right now” demand has something to do with obscuring any possible negative results by blaming some other factor. This is also relevant for studying what effects gay marriage will have in general. I understand the argument of ending the violation of a fundamental right needs to be immediate, but I am far from convinced that there is any fundamental right involved, especially since no-one has ever been able to explain to me how SSM is “fundamental to our very existence and survival,” as heterosexual marriage has been declared to be by the Supreme Court. ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-states-before-sc-forced-to-rule-on-ssm/688820/45 "2014-05-30T15:44:43Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Even if we grant that, it has nothing to do with the question of whether SSM should be recognized. I agree that question does not stand in a vacuum alone to answer the question, but I do not think it should be ignored, either. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-states-before-sc-forced-to-rule-on-ssm/688820/46 "2014-05-30T15:46:27Z")
> [@David42](#): > > I somewhat suspect the “All fifty states right now” demand has something to do with obscuring any possible negative results by blaming some other factor. This is also relevant for studying what effects gay marriage will have in general. What a bizarre suspicion. It has to do with the fact that gay people live in all 50 states and want to be able to get married if they choose to. > [@David42](#): > > I agree that question does not stand in a vacuum alone to answer the question, but I do not think it should be ignored, either. It’s not relevant to this issue. If you wanted to debate it in a vacuum in a way that wasn’t related to the recognition of same-sex marriage, I guess you could do that. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-states-before-sc-forced-to-rule-on-ssm/688820/47 "2014-05-30T15:46:47Z")
> [@](#): > > …no-one has ever been able to explain to me how SSM is “fundamental to our very existence and survival,” as heterosexual marriage has been declared to be by the Supreme Court. Those words are taken out of context (as they were in _Loving_, in fact.) They were quoted from Skinner v. Oklahoma, where the court said “Marriage and procreation are fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race.” Procreation is fundamental to the survival of the race; marriage is fundamental to its existence. Anyway, that’s irrelevant. Fundamental rights are not limited to those which are fundamental to our survival. We could clearly have a society with no marriage at all and get on just fine - just as we could a society without guns. _But we don’t have to._ ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-states-before-sc-forced-to-rule-on-ssm/688820/48 "2014-05-30T16:04:08Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > You realize there is a huge excluded middle here? You can express a preference for one type of family unit without _banning_ others. > > Anyway, this kind of puts the lie to the rhetoric of “traditional marriage” supporters. What do all the state constitutional bans on SSM say? “A marriage is one man and one woman as husband and wife”, or words to that effect. And yet the (alleged) point of all those bans is a stable/balanced childrearing unit - a purpose that is never mentioned anywhere until things go to court. Why don’t you collect any number of random statutes and see how many express the purpose of the law within the law itself. They do not tend to. Nor do I see the logic used to explain marriage has nothing to do with procreation used anywhere else. Procreation: The generation of children. One of the principal ends of marriage is the procreation of children. lust. tit. 2, in pr. Black’s Online Law Dicitonary 2nd Edition. Also Bouvier’s Law Dictionary and the Free Legal Dictionary. It is pointed out that not all married couples procreate, and many procreate outside of marriage for reasoning that marriage cannot primarily be a procreational institution. Do we do this anywhere else? Is the purpose of licensing the drivers of automobiles an attempt at achieving safe highways? Without doubt. So we say that because some people with licenses do not drive, and since some drive without licenses, that the purpose is any other? There are always exceptions to any law–none are perfect. If theft laws punish only some thieves, and sometimes punish the innocent instead, is the purpose of theft laws not to secure property, since it also fails perfection? I have never seen the Supreme Court require perfection in a law before: “A State “does not violate the Equal Protection Clause merely because the classifications made by its laws are imperfect,” Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 485 (1970).” “Even if the classification . . . is to some extent both underinclusive and overinclusive, and hence the line drawn . . . imperfect, it is nevertheless the rule that . . . perfection is by no means required.” Vance v. Bradley, 440 U.S. 93, 108 (1979). Legislatures are permitted to use generalizations so long as “the question is at least debatable.” Heller, 509 U.S. at 326 (quotation omitted). “It is no requirement of equal protection that all evils of the same genus be eradicated or none at all. [Citation omitted.]” Railway Express v. New York, 336 U.S. 106, 110, 93 L. Ed. 533, 69 S. Ct. 463 (1949). the Constitution “does not require that a regulatory regime singlemindedly pursue one objective to the exclusion of all others.” Coyote Publ’g, Inc. v. Miller, 598 F.3d 592, 610 (9th Cir. 2010); see also Mohamed v. Palestinian Auth., 132 S.Ct. 1702, 1710 (2012) (“No legislation pursues its purposes at all costs . . . .”). In all events, it is well settled that a law “is not invalid under the Constitution because it might have gone farther than it did.” Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U.S. 641, 657 (1966). ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-states-before-sc-forced-to-rule-on-ssm/688820/49 "2014-05-30T16:30:29Z")
And strange it is how we throw procreation back into the mix when it is explained how SSM couldn’t possibly lead to incestor marriage–now, it seems, procreation must be required for incestors in a marriage, and since they are required to procreate (not my idea, it’s the gays who insist that marriage REQUIRES procreation to have anything to do with it, and since procreation has something to do with banning incestor marriage, it must be required of them, as far as I can tell.) and that procreation is more likely to have birth defect, we must ban it. This is a weak argument for a group that says procreation and marriage are not related. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-states-before-sc-forced-to-rule-on-ssm/688820/50 "2014-05-30T16:31:08Z")
huh? ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-states-before-sc-forced-to-rule-on-ssm/688820/51 "2014-05-30T16:38:16Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > You realize there is a huge excluded middle here? You can express a preference for one type of family unit without _banning_ others. Now some say similarly that marriage can be procreational for some but not for others, that there is no need to insist it has to be that way for all. nevertheless, it seems important to the EP argument that marriage be found non-procreational as a matter of law so that that same sex relationships will appear similarly situated in all relevant respects. Well, for EP, marriage has to either be about procreation or it isn’t. The idea of “procreational for some but for others not” as a matter of law does not work for EP. I’d be glad to say that marriage can take different forms for different couples, if gays weren’t up in court proving they are the same in all relevant respects because marriage doesn’t have anything to do with procreation. That’s biggest objection–they’re not in court proving there are many different types of marriage with different purposes. They’re in court trying to prove only one kind of marriage which must have procreation removed to make sense of the claim that people are entitled to marry the same sex. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-states-before-sc-forced-to-rule-on-ssm/688820/52 "2014-05-30T16:40:55Z")
You do know that same-sex couples can have children, don’t you? Many do. And you also know that many mixed-sex couples do not and never will, don’t you? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-states-before-sc-forced-to-rule-on-ssm/688820/53 "2014-05-30T16:42:09Z")
> [@David42](#): > > That’s biggest objection–they’re not in court proving there are many different types of marriage with different purposes. They’re in court trying to prove only one kind of marriage which must have procreation removed to make sense of the claim that people are entitled to marry the same sex. To quote A Great Man: “huh?” ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-states-before-sc-forced-to-rule-on-ssm/688820/54 "2014-05-30T16:44:35Z")
“Incestors”? Do they work on Ball Street? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-states-before-sc-forced-to-rule-on-ssm/688820/55 "2014-05-30T16:45:56Z")
Incestors did the banking for the Habsburg family. ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-states-before-sc-forced-to-rule-on-ssm/688820/56 "2014-05-30T16:47:50Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > huh? If I say marriage has a procreational purpose, you say procreation is not required in the law–as though to have a procreational purpose, it must be required. I am pointing out how you cannot consider how incestors might NOT procreate, and since marriage is not related to procreation, I am wondering all of sudden you require procreation to have a reason to ban icnestor marriage. You cannot handle your own reasoning thrown back at you. Incestor marriage is qualified to refer to consenting adults. Great concern is shown for the impact of children raised in families that the people raising them cannot marry–if it’s gay. But a father and his brother raising a kid (I know two families built like this) are only entitled to second-class status (once again your argument) due to moral, religious and traditional considerations. (By “YOU” I mean you either argue this or do not object to and support others who do.) But I suspect you were capable of figuring this out. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-states-before-sc-forced-to-rule-on-ssm/688820/57 "2014-05-30T16:48:19Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Incestors did the banking for the Habsburg family. I want no part of their mutual funds. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-states-before-sc-forced-to-rule-on-ssm/688820/58 "2014-05-30T16:50:38Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > I want no part of their mutual funds. It’s the insider trading _I_ worry about. ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-states-before-sc-forced-to-rule-on-ssm/688820/59 "2014-05-30T16:51:06Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > You do know that same-sex couples can have children, don’t you? Many do. And you also know that many mixed-sex couples do not and never will, don’t you? You’re not addressing the Supreme COurt holdings I showed which prove this an invalid argument. Whoever the “homosexual” has a procreative relationship with is the relationship we want to protect. Besides the fact it makes no sense to trot bisexuals into the argument when you optherwise couch it in terms of someone who cannot be attracted to the opposite sex. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-states-before-sc-forced-to-rule-on-ssm/688820/60 "2014-05-30T16:52:27Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > I want no part of their mutual funds. That’s a good choice. The funds are very, very mutual. > [@David42](#): > > I am pointing out how you cannot consider how incestors might NOT procreate, and since marriage is not related to procreation, I am wondering all of sudden you require procreation to have a reason to ban icnestor marriage. You cannot handle your own reasoning thrown back at you. My response is that you’re trying to change the subject because you can’t actually argue about the subject at hand. If you want a thread about anti-incest laws, start one. > [@](#): > > But I suspect you were capable of figuring this out. I haven’t seen you post in a while, **David42** , but from what I remember, it’s usually _very_ difficult to figure out what you mean. Your last couple of posts are no exception. Eschew obfuscation! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-states-before-sc-forced-to-rule-on-ssm/688820.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-states-before-sc-forced-to-rule-on-ssm/688820.md?page=4)