gays were never restricted from marrying. That has been well established
When one makes the absurd statement that “gays already have equality “because they can, like anyone else, marry someone of the opposite sex, they are presuming that a gay person can decide to live as a straight person and have a fulfilling life with someone of the opposite sex. The other possibility is that you do not believe that fulfillment or love in marriage is a right or a reasonable expectation., at least not for gays.
In any case they are, in effect dehumanizing gay people, portraying them as being devoid of emotion and t
In addition, they are reducing the institution of marriage to a loveless business arrangement while for the vast majority of people it is much more. It devalues marriage in a way, much more profoundly than feared by the anti-equality bigots, who bemoan the demise of traditional marriage simply because it is being expanded to include gays.
Heterosexuals are able to choose a marriage partner based in part on sexual attraction and romantic interests. That is a choice, that gay people do not have, if denied legal marriage. Sure they can choose to forgo marriage in order to be with the person who they desire, but to do so would require that they forfeit the legal security, economic benefits and social status that goes with marriage That, is really not much of a choice at all and many courts have agreed.
One of the best illustrations of that is the opinion of the 10th Circuit Court of appeals ruling to uphold the lower court which invalidated Utah’s ban on same sex marriage. Selected passages follow:
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF UTAH (D.C. No. 2:13-CV-00217-RJS)
Kitchen V. Herbert
On cross motions for summary judgment, the district court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. It concluded that “[a]ll citizens, regardless of their sexual identity, ha
ve a fundamental right to liberty, and this right protects an individual’s ability to marry and the intimate choices a person makes about marriage and family.” Kitchen v. Herbert, 961 F. Supp. 2d1181, 1204 (D. Utah 2013).
Two landmark decisions by the Supreme Court have undermined the notion that the question presented in Baker v. Nelson ( which was overturned by the Obergefell decision) is insubstantial. Ba
ker was decided before the Supreme Court held that “intimate conduct with another person . . . can be but one element in a personal bond that is more enduring The liberty protected by the Constitution allows homosexual persons the right to make this choice.” Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558, (pg. 17)
Windsor is the other case referred to above
DOMA “impose[d] a disadvantage, a separate status, and so a stigma upon all who enter into same-sex marriages . . . .” Id. The statute “undermine[d] both the public and private significance of state-sanctioned same-sex marriages” by telling “those couples, and all the world, that their otherwise valid marriages are unworthy of federal recognition.” Id (pg.21)
It is already apparent that the courts see marriage as much more than a impersonal business arrangement. Even prisoners have the right to marry:
The Turner Court’s description of the “important attributes of marriage [that] remain . . . after taking into account the limitations imposed by prison life,” 482 U.S. at 95, is relevant to the case at bar: First, inmate marriages, like others, are expressions of emotional support and public commitment…………. (pg 29)
We must reject appellants’ efforts to downplay the importance of the personal elements inherent in the institution of marriage, which they contend are “not the principal interests the State pursues by regulating marriage.”
We nonetheless agree with plaintiffs that in describing the liberty interest at stake, it is impermissible to focus on the identity or class-membership of the individual exercising the right. See De Leon, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 26236, at *58-59
A state “cannot define marriage in a way that denies its citizens the freedom of personal choice in deciding whom to marry, nor may it deny the same status and dignity to each citizen’s decision” (quotations omitted)). “Simply put, fundamental rights are fundamental rights. They are not defined in terms of who is entitled to exercise them.” Pg.37)
In summary, we hold that under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the United States Constitution, those who wish to marry a person of the same sex are entitled to exercise the same fundamental right as is recognized for persons who wish to marry a person of the opposite sex, and that Amendment 3 and similar statutory enactments do not withstand constitutional scrutiny.
