I disagree, the law isn't set in stone as you suggest at all.
I never argued that the law was 'set in stone'. Quite the opposite. I've argued that even using your rational, the law makes millions upon millions of exceptions for straight couples. And that if it makes them for straights, it should make them for gays.
It certainly wasn't the intent of the framers of the 14th Amendment to allow interracial marriage, much less same sex marriage.
The framers of the 14th amendment intended the amendment to apply the Bill of Rights to the States. And the 9th amendment makes clear that there are reserve rights that are unemumerated, yet still held by the people. Marriage is among them, recognized by the USSC as a fundamental right.
If you're going to deny that right to gays and lesbians, you'll need a very good reason.
So you can make your appeal based on equality, but you can't make it on the law as you claim.
Obviously you can. As the framers of the 14th wanted all privileges and immunities of federal citizens protected from state interference. They demanded equal protection in the law. They didn't list which laws, they indicated merely 'the law'. The type of explicit cherry picking you're doing is something the framers of the 14th amendment never did.
And of course, the courts don't accept as valid. Rendering your standards irrelevant, both historically, logically, and legally.
Also, the whole question where homosexuals are protected class is an issue.
Read Romer V. Evans and especially Windsor v the US if you want an indication of whether or not gays are protected. Pay special attention to those sections of the Windsor rulings on the harm to children done to children of gay parents when their parent's marriages aren't recognized under the law. Many of the same arguments I've made here were made by the justice that wrote both rulings: Justice Kennedy.
Or as I like to call him 'Mr. Swing Voter'. The man who most often breaks the ties in the USSC's most controversial cases. So to answer your question or whether or not gays are protected, the answer is a definitive 'yes'.
Than the question arises, are homosexuals denied the right to marry(enter a union with someone of the opposite sex)? No, there is nothing stopping someone based on their orientation from entering into a marriage contract. So even if we accept your premise, which I disagree with, that homosexuals are a protected class under the 14th Amendment, your conclusion doesn't necessarily follow.
That's the same reasoning that was used to justify interracial marriage bans. Where since whites and blacks were both restricted to their own race, there were no equality conflicts, as the limitations applied to both whites and blacks equally.
Problem is....there was no valid reason for the restriction. Gay marriage bans run into the same problem. You'll need a valid state interest and a rational reason for the restriction. And gay marriage opponents have neither.
As the millions upon millions of the infertile or childless that are either married or are allowed to marry demonstrates, there's clearly a valid basis of marriage that has nothing to do with children. And in fact no one is required to have children or be able to have children in order to get married.
Why then would we invent a standard that applies to no one, exempt all straights and then apply it exclusively to gays? There's simply no reason.
Gays and Lesbians can adopt children or create children with a surrogate, but the two partners can't have children.
Nor can infertile couples. Or those that choose to adopt rather than have their own children. But no one would insist that these aren't their children because of issues of fertility or adoption. Nor would that have any relevance to their parents ability to get married.
If they're straight, that is.
If they're gay, then your argument is quite common. And quite invalid. As you're holding gays to a completely different standard than you do straights. The children of gay couples are the children of gay couples, regardless of whether or not both are the biological parents. Or in the case of adoption, regardless of either are the biological parents.
And these children are harmed by the state refusing to recognize the marriages of their parents.
Just because we have already let the rabbit out of the hat and allowed homosexuals to care for children, doesn't mean we have to sanction these unions through state license.
Why wouldn't we allow homosexuals to care for children? They have children, you know that right? Why would we not allow them to care for their own kids? And under what rational would we prevent them from adopting?
I'm not quite following your logic.
I agree, children generally are more harmed growing up with same sex parents than with biological parents or adopted heterosexual parents.
And on what rationale would you base this conclusion upon? You feel this to be true because.....
....you feel it to be true, apparently. But denying gays and lesbians the right to marry because you feel something you have no evidence to support isn't a very good reason.
As for the discussion about children not receiving inheritance. Shouldn't they have thought of that by creating a will before time, or going through the proper adopting channels and gaining full parental rights on hospital issues?
Why should gay parents have to do any more or less 'thinking' about children than straight parents? The existence of such unjust restrictions doesn't actually justify such unjust restrictions.
None of this is necessary for marriage, and it is a disingenuous argument that is supposed to pull at our heart strings so we give sanction to their immoral lifestyle.
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The person you're arguing with isn't me. Its Justice Kennedy. As I very, very closely paraphrased his own ruling in the Windsor case.
The differentiation demeans the couple, whose moral and sexual choices the Constitution protects, see
Lawrence,
539 U. S. 558, and whose relationship the State has sought to dignify. And it humiliates tens of thousands of children now being raised by same-sex couples. The law in question makes it even more difficult for the children to understand the integrity and closeness of their own family and its concord with other families in their community and in their daily lives.
Under DOMA, same-sex married couples have their lives burdened, by reason of government decree, in visible and public ways. By its great reach, DOMA touches many aspects of married and family life, from the mundane to the profound. It prevents same-sex married couplesfrom obtaining government healthcare benefits they would otherwise receive. See 5 U. S. C. §§8901(5), 8905. It deprives them of the Bankruptcy Code’s special protections for domestic-support obligations. See 11 U. S. C. §§101(14A), 507(a)(1)(A), 523(a)(5), 523(a)(15). It forces them to follow a complicated procedure to file their state and federal taxes jointly. Technical Bulletin TB–55, 2010 Vt. Tax LEXIS 6 (Oct. 7, 2010); Brief for Federalism Scholars as
Amici Curiae 34. It prohibits them from being buried together in veterans’ cemeteries. National Cemetery Administration Directive 3210/1, p. 37 (June 4, 2008).
DOMA also brings financial harm to children of same-sex couples. It raises the cost of health care for familiesby taxing health benefits provided by employers to their workers’ same-sex spouses. See
26 U. S. C. §106; Treas. Reg. §1.106–1, 26 CFR §1.106–1 (2012); IRS Private Letter Ruling 9850011 (Sept. 10, 1998). And it denies or re-duces benefits allowed to families upon the loss of a spouseand parent, benefits that are an integral part of family security. See Social Security Administration, Social Security Survivors Benefits 5 (2012) (benefits available to a surviving spouse caring for the couple’s child), online at
http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10084.pdf.
Justice Kennedy delivering the Majority Decision
Windsor V. US (2013)
UNITED STATES v. WINDSOR LII Legal Information Institute
You can dismiss the majority decision of the USSC as a 'disingenuous argument that is supposed to pull at our heart strings so we give sanction to their immoral lifestyle". But I doubt you're going to see much legal progress with such an argument.
And of course, what about gays and lesbians getting married or raising children is 'immoral'?
