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Loving v. Virginia ruling of 1967:Prior to the court's decision, 16 states still had miscegenation laws in place that prohibited marriage between persons of different races. These states had defined marriage only as a union of a man and woman who were of the same race. These laws were often challenged in court. However, "...
in case after case, legislation prohibiting racial inter-marriage was justified
as unbending tradition rooting in received natural law." 1 Blogger Jack M. Balkin wrote:
One could speculate that if a challenge to Prop. 8 made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, it could conceivably be declared unconstitutional because it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution on two grounds:
Romer v. Evans ruling of 1996:"In early 1991, a group of citizens in Colorado Springs became concerned over the passage of local ordinances in several Colorado municipalities." 3 The ordinances granted equal protection for persons of all sexual orientations: homosexual, bisexual and homosexual. There was also a governor's executive order regarding state employment, an entry in the state insurance code, and policies at two colleges -- all prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and all protecting heterosexuals, bisexuals and homosexuals equally. The concerned citizens formed Colorado for Family Values, a group of conservative Christians motivated by a desire to prevent ordinances, orders, and policies that outlawed discrimination against homosexuals and bisexuals. The sponsored, and succeeded in having the voters narrowly pass, Amendment 2 -- an anti gay, lesbian and bisexual revision to the Colorado Constitution. It prohibited:
One perhaps unexpected result of the amendment would be that a city hall employee would have to refuse a request by a bisexual man for a marriage license to marry his girlfriend (or vice versa). Now, that would have made an interesting court challenge! A coalition of LGBT groups (lesbians, gays, bisexuals transgender persons, and transsexuals), civil liberties groups, and representatives from some Colorado municipalities launched a lawsuit that challenged Amendment 2. They won at the trial court and before the Colorado Supreme Court. The state appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The plaintiffs again won. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, said:
He also wrote: "... that Amendment 2 did discriminate against an identifiable class of people and violated their rights to due process and equal protection under the law. The court held that Amendment 2 was based in 'animus,' or hatred, against a specific group of people." 3 Justice Scalia wrote the dissenting argument. He referred to Amendment 2 as "Colorado's reasonable effort to preserve traditional American moral values."
Lawrence v. Texas ruling of 2003:This decision decriminalized same-sex sexual behavior in private between consenting adults. Two gay males had been arrested by Texas police under the state's Homosexual Conduct Law. It defined anal or oral sex between two men or two women as deviate sexual intercourse. However, the same behavior by a man and and a woman was considered legal. The men were tried, convicted, and fined. They appealed their case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. One day before the Supreme Court ruling, Ken Connor, then president of the fundamentalist Christian Family Research Council issued a media advisory. He wrote: "In the amicus brief FRC filed for this case and in every public statement we have made, we have acknowledged that this case is not just about Texas' law banning homosexual sodomy. With their ruling in this case, the Supreme Court will either protect the sanctity of marriage or they will put this country on the fast track to recognizing same-sex marriages.Connor's wishes were not to come to pass; the plaintiffs won. Almost invariably, ethical and moral rulings by that court are decided by a 5 to 4 vote. This case was an exception; the vote was 6 to 3. Justice Anthony Kennedy again wrote for the majority. using an argument that the wording of the U.S. constitution does not state, but implies, that citizens have a right to some degree of privacy from government intrusion. He stated:
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor agreed with the majority decision, but disagreed with portions of Justice Kennedy's rationale. In a separate opinion, she indicated that the law should have been declared unconstitutional because it violated the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which guarantees equal protection for all persons. The majority ruling argued from the concept of personal privacy and had ignored the 14th Amendment implications of the case. 7 Justice Antonin Scalia is a strict constructionist who interprets that U.S. Constitution literally, using the mindset of its 18th century authors. Those authors lived in a time when human slavery was legal, when women were prohibited from entering many professions, or voting, or running for office, and when sexually active homosexuals were given very long jail sentences. The culture has changed from those days, but Justice Scalia views the Constitution as fixed. He sees no right of privacy implied in the document. He wrote the minority opinion, saying:
Justice Scalia wrote that the majority Justices pretended that they have left enough freedom:
He said that laws against bigamy, adultery, prostitution, bestiality and obscenity were now susceptible to challenges. 10 This might be extended to same-sex marriage and polygamous marriages.
References used:The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.
Copyright © 2009 by Ontario Consultants on Religious
Tolerance
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