subgenius wrote:Darth J wrote:Subgenius, find me a case that interprets Skinner v. Oklahoma as substantively defining what marriage is.
i now realize that you consider the 14th amendment as just cause for restructuring marriage via legislation (there is that smell again).
Case law is not "legislation." Also, nobody who thinks that equal protection requires same-sex marriages to be recognized wants marriage to be "restructured." There is nothing to be restructured, because there is nothing about the domestic partnership called marriage anywhere in the United States that requires the parties to be of opposing sexes.
oh, and by the way,
here is the case as requested:
Baker v Nelson, 1971 (Minnesota supreme court) - Minnesota is a state, correct?
where we read:
"The institution of marriage as a union man and woman, uniquely involving the procreation and rearing of children within a family, is as old as the book of Genesis. Skinner V. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, 316 U.S. 535, 541, 62 S.Ct. 1110, 1113, 86 L.Ed. 1655, 1660 (1942), which invalidated Oklahoma's Habitual Criminal Sterilization Act on equal protection grounds, stated in part: "Marriage and procreation are fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race." This historic institution manifestly is more deeply founded than the asserted contemporary concept of marriage and societal interests for which petitioners contend. The due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is not a charter for restructuring it by judicial legislation."
....
"We hold, therefore, that Minn.St. c. 517 does not offend the First, Eighth, Ninth, or Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.
Affirmed."
You really made that too easy
i like how you posture yourself as some sort of legal eagle, but you are just a dodo like the rest of us.
1.
Baker was decided a year before the U.S. Supreme Court decision in
Esienstadt v. Baird, which held that "If the right of privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual,
married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child." The Supreme Court determined that the rights regarding procreation at issue in
Skinner were not limited to married people. The
Baker court could not possibly have addressed
Esienstadt because it had not been decided yet.
2.
Baker cited
Skinner in the same breath that it cited Genesis. The Book of Genesis is not law. Regarding the definition of marriage under Minnesota state law,
Skinner is not law, either. Under Article III of the Constitution, federal courts can only decide actual cases and controversies that are before them. Defining what the legal parameters of marriage are was not before the court in
Skinner, so the Supreme Court had no authority to address that issue. Under the 10th Amendment, the federal government cannot decide what marriage means under state law. The
Baker court was not citing
Skinner as binding precedent. It was citing
Skinner for the same reason it was citing the Bible: as a proposition about societal views regarding marriage.
3. If
Skinner really means what you keep saying it means, and the U.S. Supreme Court really did define marriage as being for the purpose of procreation, then all of the states that have legalized same-sex marriage could not have done so. The state courts that have ruled their own state constitutions require same-sex marriages to be recognized would have been constrained by the supremacy clause to recognize the U.S. Supreme Court's substantive determination of what marriage is in the United States. That would be totally ridiculous in the federalist system that this country follows. Similarly, state legislatures that have recognized same-sex marriage would have had to seek a federal constitutional amendment to override the substantive law you are claiming was decided in
Skinner. That also would be ridiculous in a federalist system.
even the simplest of inspections reveal that this Skinner version of marriage was fundamental to subsequent cases like Loving v Virginia. They stood on the foundation of marriage as it was being defined in Skinner. While Loving proved that all state restrictions were not beyond the reach of the 14th, it did not indicate that all state restrictions were, or even that they should be.
So for the sake of argument, if what you're saying is true, then you'll agree with me that the U.S. Supreme Court gets to substantively define what marriage is in the United States, and thus there is no legal reason why the U.S. Supreme Court could not rule that there is a substantive due process right to same-sex marriage, much like how the Supreme Court overruled its previous determination about same-sex relationships in
Bowers v. Hardwick when it decided
Lawrence v. Texas.
In commonsense and in a constitutional sense, there is a clear distinction between a marital restriction based merely upon race and one based upon the fundamental difference in sex.
the real issue is that you are unable to discern this simple notion.
No, because I have never argued a basis for same-sex marriage being recognized that requires homosexuality to be treated as a suspect classification. Subgenius, you don't know enough about what you're talking about to know when you are making it obvious that you don't know what you're talking about. If you did, you would not be confusing a substantive due process argument with a rational basis argument. Nor would you refer to judicial review as "legislation."
Does the failure to have children void a marriage? Yes or no?
oooooh...i just love "ultimatum" questions.
both of your questions here are absurd and reflect nothing of the position i have been taking on this thread.
That question is fundamental to your assertions about what you think
Skinner v. Oklahoma means.
But the marriage benefit applies to people who do not have children, which is the point.
maybe you would prefer having the conversation by yourself, you are already making a great effort to do so.
Given that you think
Skinner determined that marriage is for the purpose of having children, why does federal tax law allow benefits to married couples who do not have children?
Subgenius, find me a case that interprets Skinner v. Oklahoma as substantively defining what marriage is.
done to the point of your embarrassment.
Then there's no legal reason why the U.S. Supreme Court cannot substantively redefine marriage as between two men or two women, since, according to you, the Supreme Court can define the legal elements of marriage.
No, that is the issue, period, full stop. That is what equal protection means. That is the basis on which the 9th Circuit upheld Perry v. Schwarzenegger.
Just because you "ant" it to be the issue, does not make it so.....
and yet Baker v Nelson looms over you.
you know what i remember about the the "sith"?, his defeat.
Oh, of course. That recent 9th Circuit decision didn't really happen, and wasn't based on the same reasoning I've been talking about on this board for over a year. I'm just making it up.
Would anyone else on the board like to volunteer his or her opinion on whether the underlined statement makes any sense?
why? do you need their help?
let me dumb it down for you....just because you are forced to subsidize Oaks does not mean that i should to be forced to subsidize LGBT marriages.
Just because you do not protest your situation does not mean i can not protest mine.
That has nothing to do with the issue. If marriage is about having children, then neither childless marriages nor same-sex marriages should get any tax benefits.
Tell you what, Subgenius: would you be in favor of a public referendum that said any marriages that fail to produce children within a given period of time are void?
no, why would i?
you really are deeply entrenched my friend.
If
Skinner means what you keep saying it means, then what legal basis would you possibly have to oppose such a referendum?
Subgenius, as consistently and repeatedly demonstrated in your posts, neither I nor anyone else is infringing on your right to make a fool of yourself.
a freedom you obviously take full advantage for yourself.
Your "I know you are but what am I?" response would be more impressive if you were not contradicting yourself by claiming that
Skinner v. Oklahoma substantively determined for the states that marriage is for the purpose of procreation, but at the same time you think heterosexual marriages that do not produce children should be legally valid.
And as sentimental as your allusion to Jean Valjean is,.....
my only sentiment is that you thinking you are smart is far above where you actually are.
Your rather clumsy insistence that somehow the 14th applies to your argument is amusing, but it is just mostly unfounded. The Constitution does not require things which are different in fact or opinion to be treated in law as though they were the same.
Okay. So what is there about Dallin H. Oaks' or Russell M. Nelson's geriatric, childless second marriages that a same-sex couple could not also do?
oh by the way....did i mention Baker v Nelson?
Yes, so I guess it's lucky that Elder Oaks and Elder Nelson did not decide to have their second marriages performed in Minnesota, since under
Baker there is no reason for their marriages to be legally recognized.
