Prop 8 is Constitutional

THE DUE PROCESS CLAUSE CONT.... Let me first respond to the logic behind CON's argument about gay marriage being a fundamental right because he seems to have committed the Question Begging fallacy here. YES, it has been determined that you have a fundamental right to marry by the supreme court that doesn't mean you have a right to marry your sister or marry polygamously. For example, a bisexual who has this simultaneous feeling for both genders may argue that he has a fundamental right to marry. The answer would be YES, however , at this point in time, he does not have a right to marry two people in a threesome. The point is marriage has a legal conventional definition to it. The right to marry someone of the same sex would have to be established by the Supreme Court first, which leads me to address the Lawrence case he mentioned. 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] Also, 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. Not to mention, this was not the case in Loving v. Virginia. In Loving, they actually did criminalized interracial marriages as well as denied public access. EQUAL PROTECTION CLAUSE Let me make something very clear here first. The U.S supreme court case law is the supreme law of the land and , As I explained before, they have always defined marriage between one man and one woman for responsible procreation and rearing of children. Prop 8 does not only say "Same sex couples are not allowed to get married". In other words, this is not about whether a law banning same sex marriage is constitutional or whether we should legalize gay marriage based on the supposed effects as a matter of public policy as CON is suggesting. The legal issue that is before us is whether traditional marriage laws are based on invidious, arbitrary, discrimination involving prop 8. JUSTICE UNDER THE LAW Now, I demonstrated already that gay marriage is not legally a fundamental right and logically cannot be a right. In addition, Sexual orientation has not been ruled to be a suspect or quasi-suspect class and ,thus, rational basis is only required . Nevertheless, Let's pretend for the sake of argument that they are a suspect class ,which would require passing strict scrutiny from my side. Even if this is the case, my arguments would still pass the strict scrutiny test. I showed earlier how there's a compelling state interest for traditional marriage laws and addressed the infertile couples objection; now I will show how they are fully narrowly tailored: GAY MARRIAGE INTERFERES WITH THIS PURPOSE My argument, in a nutshell against gay marriage is this, where the possibility of natural children is nil in law, the meaning of marriage is nil. If marriage is allowed between members of the same sex, then the concept of marriage has been emptied of content except to ask whether the parties love each other. There would be no reason to have public recognition of marriage. Let me explain precisely how and why: If the state were to call same sex unions a marriage in conjunction with opposite sex couples, the law would publicly declare that, from now on, Marriage can be understood apart from responsible procreation and natural parenthood. Since the well-being of children would no longer be a component of the concept of marriage, the social stigma within choices (like divorce, cohabitation, fatherlessness etc.), which serves as a natural deterrent, would decay and its effect would basically be eliminated. This is because marriage ends up ONLY becoming a matter of choice between consenting adults who want to express their love a certain way. THE CLAIM THAT GAY MARRIAGE IS A CIVIL RIGHT Not only would the state no longer be able to encourage incoming generations of heterosexuals to create stable environments, as I previously explained, but it would end up discouraging them as well. If the court rules that traditional marriage laws are based on invidious, arbitrary, discrimination under the equal protection clause, then the likely hood of the next generation holding and practicing this idea of marriage in the future would be virtually impossible. In conclusion, since same sex couples are fundamentally different, an important governmental distinction between the two relationships would be reasonable in order to continue advancing this interest. The state uses the traditional definition to encourage procreation and rearing of children to take place within a marriage to each generation while the state can encourage homosexuals to adopt and stay together with civil unions. JUSTICE is applied EQUALLY in each case. 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 the ballot language was changed. 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. Second, in Romer they took away so many rights that it made gays and lesbians complete strangers to the law. In this case, 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. REBUTTAL I am afraid CON is straw-manning my argument. I never said that the purpose of marriage is for procreation in the first place. I made it clear that the purpose of marriage is to encourage couples to procreate and rear children inside a marriage just in case they do procreate naturally or not. There is a difference. In addition, when I say "encourage", I meant it in a indirect sense rather than directly by force. For example, The mere appearance and understanding of a green/ red traffic signals helps us know when to make the right choice to drive so drivers won't harm themselves and others. Now, our understanding that green light means "go" encourages to drive and red light means "stop" to discourage us from driving. Our understanding that marriage is between a man and a woman encourages us to procreate inside a marriage and not outside of it. However, unlike traffic signals and lights, we have the freedom to marry and procreate or to not do so. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org...