Prop 8 Revisited

I hope the SC takes the case. It's absurd that we have gay marriage legal in some places and not in others - people move. It's also dumb that if you live in a state that allows gay marriage, you get to check the married box for state forms (like income taxes) but the single box for federal forms.

I believe that District and Circuit courts can only make decisions that apply to the state bringing the case (I'm sure dmc will correct me if I'm mistaken). I think the only way you can get a decision that would apply to all the states is if it goes to the Supreme Court. The SC has previously not heard the case because it was in appeals to the District Court, although they did hint that they would take the case if it were appealed beyond the District Court.

 

As a CPA it will make my life easier once they are allowed to marry everywhere. I'm with Aldeth, The SC really needs to make a ruling on this to end this nonsense (one way or another).

 

I think it should be up to the individual churches with no state or federal laws at all. If a church doesn't want to marry gay couples, fine. If another one wants to, fine. This should never have been a government issue to begin with.

 

damedog, you're ignoring civil marriages, which I believe the law also covers.

 

In the case of civil marriages it should pretty much be up to the states in my opinion. If your state doesn't allow a civil marriage just get married in a church that allows it and there you go. I don't think the state should have a right to not recognize your marriage just because it won't provide it itself. That way, if someone really has a problem with it their right to not perform it is respected, and the rights of gays to be able to have their relationship recognized is also respected. No one should have the right to deny anyone else their rights, and in that sense this would be the best solution IMO, because no one is making anti-gay priests and officials have to marry them if they don't want to and it's not letting the anti-gay people push their beliefs on others.

 

First of all, this ONLY applies to civil marriages. No ruling is going to make a Catholic priest marry two people of the same sex. The separation of church and state does still play a role. States that currently allow gay marriage allow to people of the same sex to be married by a Justice of the Peace. There's no law in any state that requires a religious institution to marry someone who does not meet whatever qualifications they set.

To state that it should be an issue left to the states would at this point require a rather peculiar SC ruling. You see, Prop 8 was challenged as it violated their right to equal protection in the California Constitution, and the Equal Protection Clause in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The 14th Amendment has been used as a basis of argument in SC cases ranging from right to privacy, contraception, and even Roe v. Wade.

So I don't see it very likely that the SC will rule it to be an issue for individual states to decide, because in that case, the legal system HAS decided in California. So to kick it back to the states, the SC would effectively be ruling that California Constitution violated their right to equal protection, but that the U.S. Constitution did not, despite the nearly identical wording in the two documents.

 

I thought it was also about recognizing church marriages? For example, if a church did marry you in a no-gay marriage place, as far as the state was concerned you weren't married and didn't get any of the benefits. I know it wasn't likely that the SC would rule the way I think it should, it was just my opinion really.

 

OK, I didn't think that was the way you were going with it. I thought you meant that if a state allowed gay marriages it would force churches to allow gay marriages. You're actually asking the opposite - if a church feels gay marriage is acceptable but the state doesn't, what happens then?

That's actually pretty simple. The only reason people can get married in churches and have that marriage be allowed by the state (as opposed to having to perform a separate civil ceremony) is because the state provides for this in law. The way it's written in every code I've seen is that a state will recognize any marriage performed by a church, so long as it meets the standards set forth by the state. This does not prohibit the church from imposing additional standards beyond what the state sets forth, such as requiring the two people being of the opposite sex.

From a historical standpoint, I believe that the state setting forth a law that they'll recognize church marriages so long as they comply with the state rules was aimed at setting legal minimum ages for marriages. In many religions you become an adult in the eyes of your religion prior to becoming an adult from a legal perspective. That law was placed on the books so that if you became an adult from the viewpoint of your religion at age 14, you couldn't be legally married by your church and have that recognized by the state.

So to sum it up, the state sets the minimum. If marriage is limited by state law to a man and a woman, and a church agrees to perform a same sex marriage, it won't be recognized by the state, because it doesn't meet the state requirements. (Note, I'm not aware of this being at issue in most cases - it's usually the other way around as I initially interpreted your comment, although I'm sure it's happened somewhere.) OTOH, a church is free to put additional standards on who they chose to marry - above and beyond the sex of the two people. (As an obvious example, a Catholic priest would probably chose not to marry two people if neither of them were Catholic.)

 

I'm essentially under the opinion that the government should not be regulating anywhere near subjects of religious significance such as marriage unless it is a matter of public welfare. Making sure girls aren't being married off before they are of legal age should certainly be done in my book, making the decree that marriage is only allowed to be with a man and woman is not.

 

Well, at the risk of opening up the whole “marriage as a religious institution” debate we had here a couple of years back, I agree with you insofar as the marriage is performed in a church. However, marriage is not strictly a religious ceremony, and in a civil marriage, religion is out of the picture entirely.

The issue isn’t so much whether two people call themselves married; it’s whether they are entitled to the legal benefits that society allows married couples to get. And since the legal benefits are largely dictated by government, it seems reasonable that government should be able to say who is allowed to consider themselves married under the law, providing that government does violate other laws (such as the constitution) in doing so.

 

I'm with Splunge here. Not all marriages are religious in nature. Furthermore, you could make the argument that the government already IS out of religious aspect of people getting married. Under current law, each state sets up their rules for what constitutes a valid marriage in the eyes of the state - i.e., what the state sees as a legal, recognized marriage. They then state that if you prefer to get married by some religious authority as opposed to a judge or a justice of the peace, we'll recognize those too provided that they meet the legal requirements we have set forth. If the religious institution places additional requirements on two people wishing to marry, that's fine and dandy, but the state doesn't really care so long as their standards are met.

On a local note, Governor Martin O'Malley signed the bill legalizing gay marriage in Maryland yesterday.