# SSM states-rights advocates- what if all 50 disallow it? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 11, 2004, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ssm-states-rights-advocates-what-if-all-50-disallow-it/233676 "2004-03-11T10:12:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ssm-states-rights-advocates-what-if-all-50-disallow-it/233676/1 "2004-03-11T10:12:40Z")
My stance- Against the Episcopal gay-bishop-elevation & SSM, For civil unions & the Supreme Court strikedown of anti-sodomy laws, Uneasy about amending the Constitution over SSM. Now, for the SSM advocates who champion states-rights- what if every state either amended its constitution or had referendums disallowing SSM, would you then be against federal authority over the issue, or would you take it to the Supreme Court & US Congress? ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ssm-states-rights-advocates-what-if-all-50-disallow-it/233676/2 "2004-03-11T10:14:31Z")
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**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ssm-states-rights-advocates-what-if-all-50-disallow-it/233676/3 "2004-03-11T13:50:15Z")
Part of the SSM issue _is_ is at the federal level (immigration rights, taxes, et al.) so why _shouldn’t_ it go to the Supreme Court? Even in the unlikely event that all 50 states accept SSM with open arms, it may still have to go to SCOTUS for rulings on the above issues. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ssm-states-rights-advocates-what-if-all-50-disallow-it/233676/4 "2004-03-11T14:15:47Z")
> [@Attrayant](#): > > Part of the SSM issue _is_ is at the federal level (immigration rights, taxes, et al.) so why _shouldn’t_ it go to the Supreme Court? > > Even in the unlikely event that all 50 states accept SSM with open arms, it may still have to go to SCOTUS for rulings on the above issues. Yep, it would eventually go to the Federal Judiciary _no matter what_, probably several times over and over more than one lifetime, in a process involving reversals and reversals-of-reversals and fine-tunings and all that. Segregation, Affirmative Action, Abortion, SOCAS, the Sodomy Laws, Accused’s Rights, even the Pledge of Allegiance, did not just get nailed down once and forever when one or another side “prevailed” on either statutory or constitutional grounds. If under “state rights” all 50 states disallow SSM, it would probably be a question of strategic regrouping and some years later bringing it up again under some “penumbral” US-Constitution basis. If there is no SSM but there are “Civil Unions”, there will one day come a questioning as to whether CUs can be made binding across state lines, or if some states granted a CU a particular right and the Feds decided to pull a “drinking age” type stunt on them and limit some funding or program only to states that don’t, and about whether if a _hetero_ couple enters a CU it’s really a trick to avoid the “marriage penalty” in taxes or the joint credit history report when they really should be considered married. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ssm-states-rights-advocates-what-if-all-50-disallow-it/233676/5 "2004-03-11T16:30:48Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Yep, it would eventually go to the Federal Judiciary _no matter what_, probably several times over and over more than one lifetime, in a process involving reversals and reversals-of-reversals and fine-tunings and all that. No doubt \*\*Dewey \*\* will be by shortly to explain the error of your ways. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ssm-states-rights-advocates-what-if-all-50-disallow-it/233676/6 "2004-03-11T17:20:52Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > No doubt \*\*Dewey \*\* will be by shortly to explain the error of your ways. The answer is very simple, but my guess is you are unwilling to accept the parameters of the OP. He’s specifically asking those who, like Kerry, are advancing a “State’s Rights” argument, and want to keep the feds out. There are plenty of pro-gay marriage folks (probably like you) who are already thinking that the “fundamental right” to marry must be defended at the federal level. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ssm-states-rights-advocates-what-if-all-50-disallow-it/233676/7 "2004-03-11T19:20:05Z")
I really am not the target audience for this question: I am not a big state’s rights person and I’m mixed/neutral on SSM although big on civil union with all the same legal ramifications of marriage. To me it is fair game to ridicule anyone who is big on state’s rights about their hypocrisy in being for state’s rights when it is the right to do something that you agree with but not when you disagree with what they want to do. Consistency is key. I am for the federal government stepping in for issues of civil rights and liberties and not for the federal government mandating a particular moral or religious perspective. To me the first is a just federal interest and the second is not. Defining marriage as heterosexual doesn’t meet the first critera but does the second (that I do not like). I am not sure if mandating SSM be allowed meets that first critera either, although I believe that civil union being allowed does. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/13edae/32.png) [@Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ssm-states-rights-advocates-what-if-all-50-disallow-it/233676/8 "2004-03-11T20:01:07Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > No doubt \*\*Dewey \*\* will be by shortly to explain the error of your ways. I’m not sure what part of **JRDelirious** ’s post I would consider error – he wasn’t _advocating_ judicial intervention, he was just _predicting_ that the judiciary would be involved at some point. And that’s a pretty safe assumption to make – after all, there is no shortage of willing plaintiffs in this country, or of lawyers willing to seek overly-expansive interpretations of the constitution. He is also correct that, even in the event of wholly legislative action, there will be legal questions and ambiguities that need resolving in the context of civil unions vis-a-vis marriage, so yes, the courts will necessarily be involved in untangling those questions as well. As for the OP, if all states elect to explicity disallow same-sex marriage, the answer is simple – same-sex marriage proponents will simply have to redouble their efforts to change the law at the state level. A state – or all fifty states’ – decision shouldn’t be undone just because you dislike the decision. Expressing commitment to the resolution of social issues at the state level only if that resolution goes in a direction you favor isn’t really a belief in state autonomy – it is instead advocating a false choice, akin to Henry Ford’s pitch that “customers can have any color car they like, so long as it is black.” ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ssm-states-rights-advocates-what-if-all-50-disallow-it/233676/9 "2004-03-11T20:26:27Z")
That’s all I was ever trying to tell _you_, either. Good to see you’ve finally dropped the invective and now agree. **John** , as a \*practical \* matter, this is yet another of the many subjects that cannot be effectively handled at a “states rights” level, as the hard-cons’ fondest dreams would have it, putting as they do states rights above human rights. My view that is has to be federal is based mainly on simple realism, not ideology, but the equal protection clause does provide a guide to its resolution. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/13edae/32.png) [@Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ssm-states-rights-advocates-what-if-all-50-disallow-it/233676/10 "2004-03-11T20:31:09Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > That’s all I was ever trying to tell _you_, either. Good to see you’ve finally dropped the invective and now agree. May I ask what in the holy hell you are referring to?