[1] Windsor was already Decided June 2013. And in it the Court first formally recognized states' sovereignty to define marriage under the question of gay marriage. Then it used that assigned jurisdiction and declaration of "unquestioned authority" to strike down part of DOMA.
In other words you cannot have your cake and eat it too. You cannot as an LGBT cultee declare "victory!" on Windsor and then say "oh...but wait!" on Windsor's assignment of state sovereignty on the question of gay marriage.
The Court didn't say that "states can only say yes to gay marriage". All that was said as to the 14th was "unless the 14th ....Loving...applies". They didn't say it did apply in Windsor BTW. In fact at the end of the Opinion the Court openly declared that as of It's Decision, only some states had legal gay marriage. [2] So if you're looking for a vote of confidence on Them applying the 14th to gay sexual behaviors' cult, don't get your hopes up...
[3] But the real question of this thread is once the Court reminds everyone [including activist judges] that ignorance of Windsor is no excuse for violating it, what "marriages" will remain legal, if any, who defied Windsor [that made this state power retroactive to the founding of the country]?
You cite that the fed got involved in denying Utah statehood unless they dropped polygamy. Polygamy technically was not voted on by all members of the territory of Deseret [Utah's old name] which was a fledgling state back in the day. Actually it was a territory. So it didn't have state sovereignty at all at the time. The fed saw mormonism as a cult and polygamy as intrinsic to that cult. More than a statement about marriage, the fed was trying to "break the cult mentality" by attacking one of its main components.
[4] So since you brought up the Utah/statehood question, what date do you think would be the retroactive assignment of state sovereignty on marriage?
The emboldened parts of your thread in order as they are key.
(1)
And in it the Court first formally recognized states' sovereignty to define marriage under the question of gay marriage.
Yes. I get that. But my response to that cannot be properly understood without grasping the foundational imperative of constitutional law. That imperative
is the Anglo-American tradition of natural law on which this nation was founded, which is not merely the stuff of philosophizing, but is the most practical and tangible means possible by which we may know what the limits of a legitimate government's powers are. As divorced from that foundation, the Constitution can be made to mean virtually anything one wants. That foundation is absolute. Natural law is not compatible with the state's official approbation of homosexuality in any way, shape or form. Government need not sanction/suppress homosexuality or the private expressions thereof, but legitimate government has no authority to ever embrace it. The nature of homosexuality is moral and sexual relativism. The absolute imperatives of liberty, i.e., the assertion of the inalienable rights of the individual, and the government's seal of approval on homosexuality at any level of governance cannot co-exist. Hence, neither the federal government nor those of the several states have the authority/power to do such a thing, certainly not under natural law and not under constitutional law.
(2)
So if you're looking for a vote of confidence on Them applying the 14th to gay sexual behaviors' cult, don't get your hopes up...
Yes. I follow the contents of that paragraph, particularly the emboldened portion. That's not my argument, my hope, or my expectation, necessarily. That will be Lefty's in the pending cases. My only point is that the Court might run off the rails of
stare decisis again. Certainly, that is the wont of the Court's leftist members. Kennedy will be the key vote. How far does he intend to take this? I don't know what he's going to do on the grounds of Fourteenth Amendment' Equal Protection Clause, whether the Court sufficiently open the door to its application in
Windsor or not, do you? I don't think it did either. It wouldn't immediately follow, but from the jump the entire enterprise is irrational.
(3)
[3] But the real question of this thread is once the Court reminds everyone [including activist judges] that ignorance of Windsor is no excuse for violating it, what "marriages" will remain legal, if any, who defied Windsor [that made this state power retroactive to the founding of the country]?
Indeed. But given the Court's reasoning in Windsor, it is not necessarily a forgone conclusion that it will continue down the line of
Windsor's apparent logic. I actually wrote more on this point, as in fact your observation here is the heart of the matter, but withheld that until you responded to the portion in the above. I’ll post that latter.
(4)
So since you brought up the Utah/statehood question, what date do you think would be the retroactive assignment of state sovereignty on marriage?
Well, yes, that's my point, Utah was
not a state and was
not going to become a state unless it formally banned polygamy first, though I was not cognizant of the fed's central motive. Thank you for making me aware of that historical nuance. In any event, it's relevance goes to the fact of what legitimate marriage
is and to the fact of the fallaciousness of the Court's anticipatory counterargument, which merely obscures the fact of the Court's illegitimate and historically retroactive allegation that the several states had the power to redefine marriage.
As for the several state's sovereignty on marriage, they’ve always had that, but only insofar as regulating heterosexual marriage goes. Once again, the issue here does not pertain to
the regulatory sovereignty over marriage, but to
the definition of marriage. Marriage is defined by nature and nature's God, not by the government or even the people thereof, and it cannot be legitimately regulated on any other basis but the physiological and biological facts of heterosexual union. The redefining of marriage by government is a depraved act of tyranny. But none of the leftists on this forum will ever get that. Neither will our over-enthusiastic libertarians, though liberty can be preserved in the face of "homo marriage" as long as the state gets out of the business of regulating marriage altogether in terms of taxation and public accommodation. But that's never going to happen now free of the strife of litigation and civil disobedience.