> That's not what pluralism is. The key is in ensuring that minority opinions are heard and reasonably considered, not "upheld".
I disagree, but only slightly. Civil liberties are upheld on Constitutionality, on strict (or in today's society, intermediate) scrutiny. This means that the rights of minorities are to be upheld, unless there's a really damn good reason why they shouldn't be. Religious freedom is held fairly paramount in this country, but if I established a religion that allowed me to kill others, it would not be, because of its conflict in relation to the rights of others; it wouldn't uphold even strict scrutiny. However, in regards to gay marriage, the Winstead case was upheld because the state could not even issue plausibility of a rational basis for why the rights of gays should be curtailed. In short, it didn't harm anyone, and as such, the state could not curtail her civil liberties on grounds of Constitutionality.
> Nothing in the Constitution actually says that people have equal rights.
The fourteenth amendment says exactly that, actually. "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
> That's why, when they tried to write an amendment to ban gay marriage, they didn't have to include any deletions, because it would have contradicted nothing.
That's not really why. I've got another very long argument on here about this subject, but in short, the legal theory behind that is implied repeal, or "leges posteriores priores contrarias abrogant", which means that newer laws supersede older laws where they conflict with each other. As a result, a new amendment needn't specifically repeal a prior provision of the Constitution to have full weight.
> Gays should have rights because we say they should, and if the Constitution doesn't, then maybe it fucking should.
I disagree that it doesn't, but if it should (and I agree that it should), there's a ratification process for that, which means that it can.
> Your error is that you think moral opinion is static.
Respectfully, I disagree there completely.
> but the last several years have been full of "LOOK! GAY PEOPLE ARE NOT EVIL! ISNT THAT GREAT!"
And the problem is that the Constitution has been inequally applied for so long that we even had to. It should have been de facto applied as a matter of course that of course they have the right to marry. The problem is that, for too long, people weren't advocating for gay rights because they had moral objection to homosexuality. Whether or not someone is uncomfortable with someone else's sex life should not give them the authority to disallow them from exercising that behavior in whatever they see fit.