# Predict how the Supreme Court will Decide the Same Sex Marriage Cases **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 25, 2013, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936 "2013-03-25T18:12:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 22
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/421 "2013-04-03T15:30:33Z")
> [@David42](#): > > To fight my ignorance I’ll tell you, it’s a tough slog. You are all over the board, jumping from one thought to the next, with no coherence to your points, or seemingly any understanding of one points relevance to the next. This makes it very frustrating to try and pin you down to one point, especially when you continue to misstate our opinions. I am not saying that procreation has nothing to do with marriage. What I am saying, and have said, is that marriage is a fundamental right. The fact that control over your own procreation is also a fundamental right does absolutely nothing to disprove that marriage is a fundamental right. And the fact that Loving cites Skinner does nothing to disprove it either. You simply ignore the entirety of the holding of Loving, as well as the language I cited (and bolded) twice for you. Here it is again: “The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.” Nothing about procreation, childbearing, or Skinner. You simply overlook that, just as you do the entirety of the holding of Loving, the difference between the Equal Protection and Due Process discussions in the ruling, as well as the citation to the other cases (Maynard v. Hill), and the other cases I cited (Zablocki and Turner). You take one sentence and one half of the citations of that sentence in one ruling and pretend it speaks for the entirety of the discussion. That’s simply not how one should do constitutional analysis. And it’s certainly not how you should debate. ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/422 "2013-04-03T15:34:27Z")
> [@David42](#): > > I’d like to address this bit more fully. > > No-one, when they say the right to marriage flows from the right of procreation, suggest that you must have children to marry, as in it must be a listed requirement in the staute. This would wreck the entire purpose because it first requires children born-out-of-wedlock and that’s the main thing we try to prevent. > > Even if an intention to have children was required in the statute, no-one has a crystal ball to peer into to know which will actually bear children. Attempts to find out ahead of time would be violations of privacy. > > I hear instead that the purpose of marriage is primarily “love and commitment.” For this to be true, on the same standards that gay activists thrust on heterosexual marriage schemes, it would have to be written as a requirement in the statute, and they are not. And you’d have to prove you were in love and committed, which I do not see a way to effectively do. How does this have any relevance to anything we’ve been discussing? We’ve been discussing same sex civil marriage, not what people think of when they hear the word “marriage”. Could you try and draw your ideas together with something even vaguely resembling coherence? The lack or existence of “love” in a marriage has nothing to do with whether sexual orientation should be a suspect class (thanks for giving up on your position on that one, though), whether marriage is a fundamental right under the Due Process Clause, or whether or not Prop 8 violates the Constitution. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/423 "2013-04-03T15:35:48Z")
> [@David42](#): > > No-one, when they say the right to marriage flows from the right of procreation, suggest that you must have children to marry For the moment, it amuses me to play with someone who Gish-gallops on a horse with barely sufficient blood in its amphetamine stream. Such a beast can perform truly marvelous leaps, such as the miraculous separation of a statement from its inescapable logical corrolary, as in the above quote. > [@David42](#): > > Even if an intention to have children was required in the statute, no-one has a crystal ball to peer into to know which will actually bear children. Attempts to find out ahead of time would be violations of privacy. Nonsense. There are many people whose sterility can be readily ascertained without invasion of privacy (e.g. some people will talk about their impotence, vasectomy, hysterectomy, or whatever as freely as they talk about the weather or the Chicago Cubs’ pennant prospects), but who are nevertheless free to marry; it takes but one such to utterly dismiss this argument as irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/424 "2013-04-03T15:41:44Z")
More to **David42** ’s point, lemme requote that phrase from Loving v Virginia that he’s harping on about: > [@](#): > > While the state court is no doubt correct in asserting that marriage is a social relation subject to the State’s police power, Maynard v. Hill, 125 U. S. 190 (1888), the State does not contend in its argument before this Court that its powers to regulate marriage are unlimited notwithstanding the commands of the Fourteenth Amendment. Nor could it do so in light of Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390 (1923), and Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U. S. 535 (1942). Instead, the State argues that the meaning of the Equal Protection Clause, as illuminated by the statements of the Framers, is only that state penal laws containing an interracial element. You keep fixating on _Skinner_ but ignoring _Meyer v Nebraska._ You claim it’s because _Skinner_ is all about the procreation, right and thus marriage must have procreation? But this falls apart because then marriage has everything to do with a common English language if we’re holding that to be true. \*Meyer v Nebraska \*mentions marriage once. Actually, it really doesn’t even do that, it just says “marry”. In fact, [here’s the text:](http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/262/390/case.html) > [@](#): > > While this Court has not attempted to define with exactness the liberty thus guaranteed, the term has received much consideration and some of the included things have been definitely stated. Without doubt, it denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint, but also the right of the individual to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, **to marry,** establish a home and bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and generally to enjoy those privileges long recognized at common law as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men. Now please fight your way out of the wet paper bag and explain how Warren’s **two** cited cases make sense in your _ **one** _ asinine point. ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/425 "2013-04-03T15:42:52Z")
> [@stpauler](#): > > Follow the language from _Skinner_ where marriage is mentioned all of once: > \*\*[Marriage and procreation are fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race.](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/316/535/case.html) \*\* > “Marriage and procreation” does not mean “marriage with procreation” nor does it say that one necessitates the other. Obviously one does not have to be married to procreate and one does not need to procreate to be married. Neither of those things have ever been found to be true at the Supreme Court level. Inferring Warren’s meaning that it does mean that is even more overarching than claiming that citing it does one way or another. In fact, look at his words where he just mentions where marriage can or cannot be defined: > > You’re claiming a rope is connecting the two when there isn’t even a thread. > > And it’s **stpauler**. Not St.Pauler. So–to clarify–with not “even a thread” connecting “marriage and procreation” and Skinner having nothing to do with marriage, the mention of marriage would be mere dicta? If so, are you claiming that _Loving_ cites _Skinner_ for its dicta? Maybe Warren overlooked that he was citing dicta with no precedential value? If this is not so, it still goes unexplained why a case that says procreation is a fundamental right supports a case that marriage is a fundamental right? Why bring up procreation when not “even a thread” connects procreation to marriage? You also forgot my other question, which you must satisfactorily answer as well to fight my ignorance: In what way is marriage fundamental to our very existence and survival, if not being bound with the right to procreate? Please explain how the human race would go extinct if we did not have love, or companionship, or any of the other purported purposes of marriage other than procreation? Would we fail to survive if we were all single? No, we would procreate and replenish the race regardless, with or without love, with or without commitment, with or without companionship. ---
**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:** [April 3, 2013, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/426 "2013-04-03T15:48:26Z")
You are reading “fundamental to our very existence and survival” absurdly literally. Spoken language is fundamental to our existence and survival but we wouldn’t all die without it. ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/427 "2013-04-03T15:51:50Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > For the moment, it amuses me to play with someone who Gish-gallops on a horse with barely sufficient blood in its amphetamine stream. Such a beast can perform truly marvelous leaps, such as the miraculous separation of a statement from its inescapable logical corrolary, as in the above quote. > > Nonsense. There are many people whose sterility can be readily ascertained without invasion of privacy (e.g. some people will talk about their impotence, vasectomy, hysterectomy, or whatever as freely as they talk about the weather or the Chicago Cubs’ pennant prospects), but who are nevertheless free to marry; it takes but one such to utterly dismiss this argument as irrelevant. I do not appreciate the implication that my reasoning involves the use of drugs. Kind of a personal insult, it seems. It appears you do not understand the difference between a state forcing information out of someone and someone volunteering it. Simply because couple A talks about their fertility does not mean couple B wants to. it is an area the state cannot pry into, see Griswold v. Connecticut. Once again, a denial of privacy for straights, but I suspect you would make a big deal of privacy for homosexuals re _Lawrence_. Do you also argue that the state can force confessions from criminals, on the grounds that some criminals have volunteered confessions? ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/428 "2013-04-03T15:54:40Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > You are reading “fundamental to our very existence and survival” absurdly literally. Spoken language is fundamental to our existence and survival but we wouldn’t all die without it. If the race would survive without language, language is not fundamental to our existence. Yet the race WOULD go extinct if there was no procreation. We come into existence by procreation and no other means. Not persuasive. You mistake quality of life for the ability to exist in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/429 "2013-04-03T15:56:47Z")
There’s nothing private about 80-year-old women being post-menopausal and incapable of bearing children. ---
**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/430 "2013-04-03T15:57:42Z")
> [@David42](#): > > So–to clarify–with not “even a thread” connecting “marriage and procreation” and Skinner having nothing to do with marriage, the mention of marriage would be mere dicta? > > If so, are you claiming that _Loving_ cites _Skinner_ for its dicta? Maybe Warren overlooked that he was citing dicta with no precedential value? > > If this is not so, it still goes unexplained why a case that says procreation is a fundamental right supports a case that marriage is a fundamental right? Why bring up procreation when not “even a thread” connects procreation to marriage? He didn’t. > [@David42](#): > > You also forgot my other question, which you must satisfactorily answer as well to fight my ignorance: Your satisfaction is not of my concern. > [@David42](#): > > In what way is marriage fundamental to our very existence and survival Let’s go through what he actually said: [QUOTE=Warren] Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival. [/QUOTE] Maybe if you look back to Maynard, you’ll get your explanation: > [@](#): > > Marriage is something more than a mere contract, though founded upon the agreement of the parties. When once formed, a relation is created between the parties which they cannot change, and the rights and obligations of which depend not upon their agreement, but upon the law, statutory or common. It is an institution of society, regulated and controlled by public authority. Legislation, therefore, affecting this institution and annulling the relation between the parties is not within the prohibition of the Constitution of the United States against the impairment of contracts by state legislation. Why is Maynard a case about property and not about procreation? Could it be that marriage is not binary solely about procreation or not? ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/431 "2013-04-03T15:59:09Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/432 "2013-04-03T16:12:52Z")
> [@stpauler](#): > > More to **David42** ’s point, lemme requote that phrase from Loving v Virginia that he’s harping on about: > You keep fixating on _Skinner_ but ignoring _Meyer v Nebraska._ You claim it’s because _Skinner_ is all about the procreation, right and thus marriage must have procreation? But this falls apart because then marriage has everything to do with a common English language if we’re holding that to be true. \*Meyer v Nebraska \*mentions marriage once. Actually, it really doesn’t even do that, it just says “marry”. In fact, [here’s the text:](http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/262/390/case.html) > Now please fight your way out of the wet paper bag and explain how Warren’s **two** cited cases make sense in your _ **one** _ asinine point. He is citing two cases for the proposition that marriage is a fuindamental right. One shows a connection to procreation, the other does not, having no need to. Are you suggesting that the case with _less_ information about marriage is _more relevant_ to the purpose of marriage than the one with more? I don’t understand the principle of law you’re expounding. Are you saying that _Meyer_ somehow makes _Skinner_ of no or lesser value? On the grounds that _Meyer_ and \*Skinner \*don’t say exactly the same thing? ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/433 "2013-04-03T16:26:21Z")
> [@stpauler](#): > > He didn’t. > > Your satisfaction is not of my concern. > > Let’s go through what he actually said: > > Maybe if you look back to Maynard, you’ll get your explanation: > > Why is Maynard a case about property and not about procreation? Could it be that marriage is not binary solely about procreation or not? And here I thought that the purpose of SMDB was to fight ignorance, which, if that is what you think you are doing, means you should care whether your expalnations are satisfactory to someone who cannot see your point. I notice you are STILL avoiding, as everyone else, to point to a purpose in marriage that makes it fundamental to our very existence and survival, and dancing around instead saying “MAYBE” the answer is in _Meyer_. IN.A.NUTSHELL. what of marriage’s purposes, what makes marriage “fundamental to our very existence and survival?” We survive without love, we survive without companionship, we survive without the dignity of homosexuals, even though society may be better with those things. They are simply not survival of the race matters. Procreation is. ANSWER and quit dancing around with distractions about “MAYBE” the answer is somewhere else… ---
**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:** [April 3, 2013, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/434 "2013-04-03T16:43:50Z")
> [@David42](#): > > If the race would survive without language, language is not fundamental to our existence. Yet the race WOULD go extinct if there was no procreation. You already conceded that marriage is not necessary for procreation. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/435 "2013-04-03T16:49:07Z")
Nor is procreation necessary for marriage. ---
**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/436 "2013-04-03T18:08:44Z")
> [@David42](#): > > I notice you are STILL avoiding, as everyone else, to point to a purpose in marriage that makes it fundamental to our very existence and survival, and dancing around instead saying “MAYBE” the answer is in _Meyer_. I didn’t say "maybe the answer is in Meyer. I said “Maybe if you look back to Maynard, you’ll get your explanation”. If you can’t read and comprehend, your ignorance is just going to be exhausting. Now go back to my questions. Oh, you can’t? Didn’t think so. In case you missed it: \*\*Why is Maynard a case about property and not about procreation? Could it be that marriage is not binary solely about procreation or not? \*\* ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/437 "2013-04-03T18:31:07Z")
As half of a married couple (marriage valid in all 50 states) a bit over a week short of our 38th wedding anniversary, who has never sired children of my loins, but fostered the throwaways of others, may I say that procreation is neither necessary nor sufficient for marriage, but the desire to commit one’s life intimately to another willing person of one’s choice is, that we hope before we die to see our GLBT brothers and sisters achieve full marital equality, and that some people have no concept of the meanings of marriage, religion, Chrost’s commandments, constitutional law, justice, or mercy? ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/438 "2013-04-03T18:45:19Z")
“Chrost’s commandments?” When did you change? ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/439 "2013-04-03T18:58:02Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > “Chrost’s commandments?” > > When did you change? past participle. 😛 Either that or a typo. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/440 "2013-04-03T19:02:07Z")
I think it would do us all some good to remember Chrost’s sacrifice on the chriss. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936.md?page=21) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936.md?page=23)