The constitution forbids discrimination based on race under the 15th amendment.
His point, I think, was that the 15th Amendment wasn’t added to the Constition until 1870, 89 years after the Constitution itself was adopted. Which means that it’s entirely possible for sexual orientation, at some (hopefully near) future time, may also be added as a protected class.
I have no idea why you don’t think that civil unions cannot be legally equal to marriage in every single way other than the use of the word marriage. But assuming I somehow convinced you that it was possible to craft a law that gave gay coples in civil unions all the same rights that straight couples had in a marraige other than the use of the word marriage, then would you be happy to leave it at civil unions?
Why is the word ‘marriage’ so important? If all else is equal, why not just it to them? I don’t understand why there could be a difference in the name but have everything else completely identical.
As for your question, I have no dog in this fight, I was just saying why others may not agree with you.
Not to burst anyone’s bubbles but if they can’t pass the equal rights amendment constitutionally prohibiting discrimination based on gender, I can’t imagine that we will find 2/3 of the states and both houses of congress passing such an amendment.
However, assuming that they did pass such an amendment, then I believe it would not be constitutionally permissible to distinguish even in verbiage between the union between a gay couple and a straight couple. However without such an amendment, it is a state law issue to be determined under the constitution of each state as faithfully interpreted by its judiciary.
I agree with you. I think it is the stupidest argument in the world IF we can get to the point where homosexual marriages have all the other legal bell and whisltes that go with heterosexual marriages (and we are not anywhere near there). But when you recognize that that the DOMA passed a fairly evenly divided house and senate by 342 to 67 and 85 to 14 respectively, you HAVE to be willing to compromise and say that all you really want are the rights and let the ignorant masses keep the stupid stuff that doesn’t count.
ALL the rights? Including portability? If Utah decided that it wasn’t going to recognize marriages performed in Nevada, because of all the quickie wedding chapels, how do you think that would go over nationally? IF the “civil unions” are going to be treated exactly as civil marriage is by the legal system, then I’m all for it. If the whole notion of making them identical except in name is going to be an impediment to the (entirely justified) judicial overthrow of DOMA, then I have a problem.
Because I believe that at least some of this argument is about receiving the imprimatur of social acceptance. I would support federal legislation that prevented discrimination based on sexual orientation but this seems like the homosexual community is insisting that just having all the exact same rights as a straight couple is not enough, that SOCIETY has to embrace them the same way they accept straight couples.
And not only wil we have problems with little old ladies marrying their cats so that they won’t get hit by the estate tax (anything you leave to your spouse is transferred tax free), we will have those cats marrying the little old ladies nephews so that the little old lady can transmit her welath to her nephews without the estate tax bite. Yet another reason to eliminate the estate tax. Bill gates will divorce his wife and marry his dog so that his dog can later marry his kids after he dies, it’ll be anarchy, at one point cats may even be marrying dogs. What happens when this slippery slope leads us to not only consensual polygamy but consensual pedophilia etc. Of course it was a joke.
Yep including portability. And yep much of DOMA is unconstitutional.
Maybe you need a better ananlogy. I don’t think “quickie marriages” in LV are very popular in much of the country. 
But even calling it “marriage” doesn’t make it portable to other states. No state currently recognizes SSM from MA.
You competely lost me on that comment. I don’t think it would be fruitful to revisit the issue of wether or not DOMA is constitutional, but I’m just curious about what you meant.
Perhaps it wouldn’t be fruitful on a message board, but I really believe that DOMA would not stand up to judicial review. That is, of course, a layman’s opinion and may be (via obvious self-interest) more than a tad optimistic. You’d think I’d know better than to depend on the better nature of anyone. (That’s not a comment aimed at you personally, John, just a general observation about humanity)
Oh, now I get what you were saying. And as a side note, maybe I haven’t debated the constitutional issue with you-- it was probably Miller or one of the other openly gay memebers here (you all look alike in print ). That’s why I thought it wouldn’t be fruitful-- we’d just be covering the same ground again.
At any rate, the worst thing in the world for the SSM cause would be for SCOTUS to overturn DOMA. Instead of a law, we’d have a constitutional amendment in about 3 months-- exactly what happened in Hawaii, except on a national scale. But there’s no way this SCOTUS (or any thus far) would overturn DOMA, if you ask me. No way.
On constitutional grounds or out of fear/tradition?
Lack of explicit constitutional protection hasn’t been a Supreme Court show-stopper for women’s rights. I see no reason to abandon hope.
Compromise on equal rights? Perhaps we can call it three-fifths of a marriage?
Do you seriously believe that if the Supreme Court found an Equal Protection right to same-sex marriage in the federal constitution, the Federal MArriage Amendment would not quickly be passed to reverse the effects of their decision?
I don’t think it’s a sure bet one way or the other. And no, I’m not ready to place that wager just now. But I still have hope for the future.
Leaving aside the word “quickly” regarding the amendment process, do you seriously believe 3/4 of the states would ratify it?
But the numbers suggest a certain popular trend, do they not?
States that have adopted their own constitutional amendments:
Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada, Montana, Oregon, Utah, Nebraska, Missouri, Michigan, North Dakota, Ohio, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Kansas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Texas, Alabama. Twenty-one.
States that will adopt the anti-SSM constitutional measure next week:
South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Wisconsin, South Dakota. Eight.
States where a popular vote has rejected the anti-SSM amendment: Zero.
States that permit same-sex marriage: Massachusetts. One. (Maybe New Jersey)
States that permit, or will shortly permit, civil unions: Connecticut, Vermont, New Jersey. Three. (Two if New Jersey goes the marriage route).
“Trend”, or temporary rear-guard backlash? IOW, the “anger” state of the change process, followed by more careful consideration and eventual acceptance? Been through that here in MA already, going through it in other states, it’s just human nature.
It only takes 13 state legislatures to get a bare majority to say “No, we don’t believe in writing discrimination into the Constitution”, and the amendment you’re so sure of is dead. Care to reconsider?