Prop 8 is Constitutional

From CON: "My computer was on the fritz last night, and I wasn't able to put this debate through. Do you mind if we do a re-do?" I am afraid I don't have a desire to redo this since it has already began and there are others who want or wanted to debate this topic waiting in line. However, I will not hold this forfeiting of the round against CON. So to the audience, DO NOT GIVE MY OPPONENT A CONDUCT VIOLATION ON THIS DEBATE WHEN YOU VOTE. Lawrence v. Texas: The Supreme Court did not sanction homosexual sex in Lawrence, rather the Court merely held that Texas could not criminalize private sexual conduct between consenting adults of the same sex: "The present case does not involve minors. It does not involve persons who might be injured or coerced or who are situated in relationships where consent might not easily be refused. It does not involve public conduct or prostitution. It does not involve whether the government MUST GIVE formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter."[1] Lastly, In Lawrence, to justify his vote Kennedy mentioned a case called Dudgeon v. United Kingdom that dealt with bans on sodomy that was ruled by the European Union of Charter of human rights where they also overturned bans on sodomy. The significance of this is that the European court also decided a gay marriage case and they unanimously rejected the claim that there was an universal right to gay marriage. In both cases, the European court distinguished between criminalzing private relationships and recognizing a relationship within the public institution of marriage, which I think Kennedy and the rest will also do in this situation. In addition, this is was not the case in Loving v. Virginia. In Loving, they actually did criminalized interracial marriages as well as denied public access. Romer v. Evans: The circumstances that involve prop 8 are nothing like the Romer case for several reasons. First reason, Prop 8 was proactively put on the ballot before the decision with a different ballot summary. It was only afterwards where a biased attorney general wrote "eliminating rights" on the ballot following the decision. In Romer, they REACTED to the situation on impulse upon the right being given. However, When it came to bans on interracial marriage, they directly targeted interracial relationships because it was actually in WRITING. In addition, regarding the 18,000 marriages being left in legal limbo. The Yes on 8 campaign along with Eleven attorney generals from eleven different states begged and pleaded the court to wait after the election before they made there decision so it would not come to this. However, they refused to do that even though they new all along it was going to be on the ballot. Second, in Romer they took away so many rights that it made gays and lesbians complete strangers to the law. There is no fundamental right to gay marriage and they had the domestic partnerships, The only right that was taken away by prop 8 was the additional right to marry a person of the same sex created by the California supreme court. Lastly, the intentions of prop 8 was based on a well established compelling state interest that was articulated by virtually every U.S. supreme court in the history of Civil marriage. In Romer, it was considered unprecedented and there was not any basis for it under any scrutiny. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org...