What document guarantees that two people of the same gender can marry? Where in all the documents of the Republic even mentions marriage? How does long standing law deny freedom when in fact gay marriage is a modern invention?
It was the Supreme Court that declared, on at least three occasions, that marriage is a fundamental right.
Women owning property within a marriage is modern invention. Non arranged marriages are a modern invention. Interracial marriage is a modern invention. Age of consent laws are a modern convention. There are a whole lot of "modern inventions" we took on when we broke away from Mother England.
Everyone in the country has the right to marriage within parameters set by the STATE governments.
Okay...13 states have done that for same sex couples, included them in their parameters.
Cousins can't marry by law.
And that's another one of dem dere "modern inventions". you was talkin' about.
Cousin marriage was legal in all states before the Civil War. However, according to Kansas anthropology professor Martin Ottenheimer, after the Civil War the main purpose of marriage prohibitions was increasingly seen less as maintaining the social order and upholding religious morality and more as safeguarding the creation of fit offspring. [...]
hese developments led to 13 states and territories passing cousin marriage prohibitions by the 1880s. Though contemporaneous, the eugenics movement did not play much of a direct role in the bans, and indeed George Louis Arner in 1908 considered the ban a clumsy and ineffective method of eugenics, which he thought would eventually be replaced by more refined techniques. Ottenheimer considers both the bans and eugenics to be "one of several reactions to the fear that American society might degenerate".[22] In any case, by the period up until the mid-1920s the number of bans had more than doubled.[7] Since that time, the only three states to add this prohibition have been Kentucky in 1943, Maine in 1985, and Texas in 2005. The NCCUSL unanimously recommended in 1970 that all such laws should be repealed, but no state has dropped its prohibition since the mid-1920s.
Wiki: Cousin Marriage
But not all states got rid of their prohibitions...
Twenty-five states prohibit marriages between first cousins. Six states allow first cousin marriage under certain circumstances, and North Carolina allows first cousin marriage but prohibits double-cousin marriage. States generally recognize marriages of first cousins married in a state where such marriages are legal.
State Laws Regarding Marriages Between First Cousins
A man can not marry more then one woman by law.
That is correct. They are welcome to try and fight for it and get it passed through State Legislature and have it challenged at the SCOTUS. Best of luck to them.
The point being society and the state sets the laws concerning marriage. The truth is that the gay community wasn't getting it done through the legislative process as laws are passed.
Now hold on there buckaroo, that isn't true. There have been quite a few states that have passed same sex marriage laws through legislation. Do you believe the Federal Government should treat those marriages differently than they treat legal marriages between heterosexuals? If you marry in Alabama isn't your marriage also legal in California? Well, my legal marriage in CA isn't legal in AL. Do you get why these things are being challenged in court? Do you have even just the smallest inkling of how Equal Protection applies?
When the people voted on the issue gay marriage was universally turn down, even in the liberal state of CA.
And interracial marriage would have been "turned down" if the people had voted on it. Should that have happened in 1965?(when the SCOTUS struck down all anti-miscegenation laws) Should the SCOTUS have just let the "will of the people" decide when blacks could marry whites?" How about when courts decided that women could own property inside of the marriage separate from her husband? What do you think would have happened if "the people" had voted on that? Keep in mind, those court cases occurred before women could vote.
The gay community can scream all they want about freedom and rights but they were denied NONE because they did not exist. Now we have the SCOTUS defeating laws that were legitimately passed something that Obama railed against when it came to Obamacare.
In Prop 8, rights
already granted were taken away by a people's initiative. While the law was indeed "legitimately passed", the law itself was unconstitutional. It would be just as if the voters of CA passed any other unconstitutional initiative. There is a reason for the three,
separate, branches of government and why we have a judicial system to challenges violations of our individual rights.
Setting aside the sexual aspect of gay marriage
Why was it even something you considered and had to set aside? Is the sexual aspect something you ponder upon a great deal?
there is a HUGE economic impact. Could it be that the state of CA and its voters saw the economic impact and decided it was just too big? Of course that is highly probable for the state of CA but that ain't how the picture is painted.
Yes, it will have an impact...a positive one by ALL reports and studies.
However, more than a decade of research by myself and other economists and analysis by the Congressional Budget Office under the direction of Douglas Holtz-Eakin suggests just the opposite: that state and federal budgets will actually get a positive boost if gay couples are allowed to marry. Any additional state and federal spending on benefits would be outweighed by savings from lower cash assistance and Medicaid spending. Moreover, many same-sex couples would also discover - unhappily, one imagines - the marriage penalty in the federal income tax system, resulting in a likely increase in tax revenue.
And here's something the government might consider in reckoning the bottom line with regard to legalizing gay marriage: Hundreds of thousands of excited couples would start planning weddings, generating at least $1.5 billion, by my calculations, in spending on flowers, cakes, bands, meals, photographers, hotels, tourism in general, suits and gowns (not to mention those one-off gowns for the members of the bridal party). And of course all those purchases generate millions in sales tax revenue for state and local governments.
The Economic Benefits of Gay Marriage
Opening Marriage to Same-sex Couples in Washington Will Boost the State and Local Economy by $88 million
Extending marriage to same-sex couples will reduce the States public assistance expenditures. Just as married spouses are obligated to provide for one anothers basic needs, a same-sex spouses income and assets would be included in assessing an individuals eligibility for means-tested public benefits after entering a marriage. This will reduce the number of people eligible for such benefits. We estimate that extending marriage to same-sex couples will save the State at least $3.4 million per year and as much as $7.3 million in its spending on public benefit programs, depending on how much discretion the State is granted to determine whether the income of same-sex spouses is included in Medicaid eligibility standards.
The Impact on Maines Budget of
Allowing Same-Sex Couples to Marry
And finally, if we had marriage equality on a national level...
CBO: The Potential Budgetary Impact of Recognizing Same-Sex Marriages
The $9.5 Billion Gay Marriage Windfall
It is a sad day when the SCOTUS makes law, such as when they ruled on Dred Scott and Roe vs Wade and now this.
But when they make laws like money is speech and corporations are people, that's A-Okay.
