Re: Should Civil Unions Be Legalized?
But our Supreme court held, in Loving v. Virginia, that "Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia
Now there are people who say that Loving cannnot be extended to same sex marriages (or civil unions) especially because of the focus on procreation but we don't require that all people who marry now be able and willing to procreate before we allow them to marry. Further, the fact is that in the Hawaii Supreme Court same sex marriage case, Baehr v. Miike, the Court also held that it was a violation of the State Constitution's equal protection clause and that the opponents did not provide a compelling reason (which I take to mean a compelling non-religious reason) for denying same sex marriage. This case was ultiimately mooted by us amending our Constitution to give the legislature the right to restrict marriage to one man and one woman. As I suspect Lingle is well aware, this Constitutional amendment will bar her "everyone should vote on such an important issue" stance since the last time every qualified voter got to vote on the issue, the voters reserved the right to define marriage to the legislature. Unless we amend our Constitution yet again.
Originally posted by salmoned
View Post
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia
Now there are people who say that Loving cannnot be extended to same sex marriages (or civil unions) especially because of the focus on procreation but we don't require that all people who marry now be able and willing to procreate before we allow them to marry. Further, the fact is that in the Hawaii Supreme Court same sex marriage case, Baehr v. Miike, the Court also held that it was a violation of the State Constitution's equal protection clause and that the opponents did not provide a compelling reason (which I take to mean a compelling non-religious reason) for denying same sex marriage. This case was ultiimately mooted by us amending our Constitution to give the legislature the right to restrict marriage to one man and one woman. As I suspect Lingle is well aware, this Constitutional amendment will bar her "everyone should vote on such an important issue" stance since the last time every qualified voter got to vote on the issue, the voters reserved the right to define marriage to the legislature. Unless we amend our Constitution yet again.
Comment