Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules

Are you trying to say multiple adults can't all agree on something? Your argument is based on ignorance and you're no better than the people who oppose gay marriage. You've been fed Christian and feminist propaganda to make you believe that only two consenting adults can love each other and that if you happen to love more than one person you shouldn't have the same rights as other people who don't.

You basically don't think polygamists are equal. Now let's see you do a full 360 from being pro-equality to using the same arguments the bigots used against you.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf

>Applying these established tenets, the Court has long held the right to marry is protected by the Constitution. In Loving v. Virginia , 388 U. S. 1, 12 (1967), which invali - dated bans on interracial unions, a unanimous Court held marriage is “one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.” The Court reaffirmed that holding in Zablocki v. Redhail , 434 U. S. 374, 384 (1978), which held the right to marry was bur - dened by a law prohibiting fathers who were behind on child support from marrying. The Court again applied this principle in Turner v. Safley , 482 U. S. 78, 95 (1987), which held the right to marry was abridged by regulations limiting the privilege of prison inmates to marry. Over time and in other contexts, th e Court has reiterated that the right to marry is fundamental under the Due Process Clause. See, e.g., M. L. B. v. S. L. J. , 519 U. S. 102, 116 (1996); Cleveland Bd. of Ed. v. LaFleur , 414 U. S. 632, 639–640 (1974); Griswold , supra , at 486; Skinner v. Okla - homa ex rel. Williamson , 316 U. S. 535, 541 (1942); Meyer v. Nebraska , 262 U. S. 390, 399 (1923).

>A first premise of the Court’s relevant precedents is that the right to personal choice regarding marriage is inherent in the concept of individual autonomy. This abiding con - nection between marriage and liberty is why Loving inval - idated interracial marriage bans under the Due Process Clause. See 388 U. S., at 12; see also Zablocki , supra, at 384 (observing Loving held “the right to marry is of fun - damental importance for all individuals”). Like choices concerning contraception, family relationships, procrea - tion, and childrearing, all of which are protected by the Constitution, decisions concerning marriage are among the most intimate that an individual can make. See Law - rence , supra , at 574.

>ee App. to Brief for Appellant in Reed v. Reed , O. T. 1971, No. 70–4, pp. 69–88 (an extensive reference to laws extant as of 1971 treating women as unequal to men in marriage). These classifications denied the equal dignity of men and women. One State’s law, for example, pro- vided in 1971 that “the husband is the head of the family and the wife is subject to him; her legal civil existence is merged in the husband, except so far as the law recognizes her separately, either for he r own protection, or for her benefit.” Ga. Code Ann. §53–501 (1935). Responding to a new awareness, the Court invoked equal protection prin - ciples to invalidate laws imposing sex-based inequality on marriage. See, e.g., Kirchberg v. Feenstra , 450 U. S. 455 (1981); Wengler v. Druggists Mut. Ins. Co. , 446 U. S. 142 (1980); Califano v. Westcott , 443 U. S. 76 (1979); Orr v. Orr , 440 U. S. 268 (1979); Califano v. Goldfarb , 430 U. S. 199 (1977) (plurality opinion); Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld , 420 U. S. 636 (1975); Frontiero v. Richardson , 411 U. S. 677 (1973). Like Loving and Zablocki , these precedents show the Equal Protection Clause can help to identify and correct inequalities in the institution of marriage, vindicating precepts of liberty and equality under the Constitution.

Opinions among historians seem to vary, but the impression I've gotten (albeit not with any careful study) has been that the slave states likely would have been extremely slow to abolish slavery, because:

1) the dollar value ascribed to enslaved people represented a huge proportion of the wealth of politically-powerful slave owners; and

2) many non-slave-owning voters in the slave states --- all white males, of course --- aspired to become slave owners and thus tended to sympathize with the interests of slave owners.

Indeed. You, or any other religious group, can have whatever prohibitions you believe in your own lives, homes and churches. Different groups can have different prohibitions. However, they must therefore be kept separate and out of the public law and state, because that space can only accomodate one or zero religions. The US constitution specifies zero: no establishment of religion. This enforces a ceasefire between the doctrines that would otherwise fight to be the one doctrine that has control of the state, as Europe experienced during the Reformation and Islam is experiencing in the Sunni-Shia conflict.

For decades if not longer it was non-straight people who were deemed unworthy and not allowed freedom from persecution by the religious supermajority. There really isn't a desire to put the boot on the other foot - provided you don't condemn people.

Perhaps if the spiritual and temporal benefits of marriage were entirely separable this wouldn't be a problem. But the UK tried it with civil partnerships and it was so obviously a "separate but equal" (ie not equal) arrangement that full equal marriage was enacted.