I never quite understood how the equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment didn't apply to gay marriage anyway...

The clause grants all people "equal protection of the laws," which means that the states must apply the law equally and cannot give preference to one person or class of persons over another.

Always seemed pretty cut and dry to me...

Man....we are all agreeing...........what the heck is going on?

Actually, I use to be against "Gay Marriage" until a colleague of mine (gay) explained it this way.

"What is marriage about, from a secular perspective?" Hmmmm, I thought..."it is a contract between two adults about property and certain rights between the two adults about medical etc."

"Well," says he, "is having children required of married people? What if one or both are barren?" Hmmmm, I thought, "it has no bearing."

"Now," he asked, can two "straight people" engage in a contract and buy a house?" Hmmmm, I thought, indeed they could.

"So," he said, "is it the governments business what two consenting adults do in the bedroom?"

"hmmmmmm," says I,and "No, none of the governments durn business."

Ergot...two consenting adults can engage in a contract about their property and what they do in the bedroom is none of the governments business...unless we live in a theocracy, of course.

Truth in advertising, I still prefer term "Partnership" and not "marriage," but as my gay friend said...what does a word matter?

I do believe, however, that the Supreme Court will uphold prop 8 and ban gay marriage.

Al:

I appreciate your position. But the government cannot force churches to recognize or perform gay weddings even if Prop 8 is overturned by the SC--in the same way the government could (and can) not stop churches from performing gay weddings in states where it is illegal.

The case is simply about whether the government will acknowledge these relationships; and will grant marriage licences.

1st Amendment, seperation of church and state, these protect churches from being forced to recognize these relationships.

I do not want to push the example too far, but when the laws against interracial marriage were overturned, no laws were passed that forced certain religous denominations to perform interracial marriages. I imagine that there are some groups that would still refuse to do a marriage between, say, a black and a white. It is the nature of freedom that they can refuse.

I do understand the concern, however.

To no one in particular.

Here's where it gets dicey ....

Now that this has been ruled as it has, what's next? Will the next step be demanding that churches perform these ceremonies? Let's say, for example, that a same gender couple happens to be Mormon, or Catholic, or some other faith that does not honor these unions wants to get married in that faith. Will the law then force the church to do so? Can they legally do that?

I think a larger can o' worms has now been opened.

• Al C Said:

OK, let's say I'm a male Buddhist, and my (female) fiance is Jewish. For some reason we want to be married in a Catholic church by a priest, but we have no desire or intention of converting to Catholicism. I'm assuming the priest would refuse to perform the ceremony. Can/would the government force him to do so, because we have the civil right to get married as a heterosexual couple?

The situation is a bit different, but the principle is the same. The 1st Amendment would prevent the situation you describe.

I thought..."it is a contract between two adults about property and certain rights between the two adults about medical etc."

• chf Said:

Actually, that couple would be turned away first because neither is Catholic nor plan to be.