this case counsel for governor in that case about the fact that the marriage ban is critical because this is about sending a message to different sex parents into different sex to fathers and that that sets a very important social norm i think windsor answers that argument very powerfully there's only one message sent by an exclusion of same sex couples from marriage and it's the message of indignity and stigma said by exclusion it's class  wrong kind of family and that their families are real like every other family is justice kennedy said makes it more difficult for them to understand the integrity and the closeness of their own family and it's concord with all other families in the community and also like to pick spouses and it also makes crystal clear that seems that couples can share equally in the dignity and the attributes of marriage are related argument that the interviewer has made in this case has to do with the claim of deinstitutionalisation  interviewer put in the briefs and i have to say respectfully this is really no different than what justice ginsburg was confronted with in the united states versus virginia where in that case very similar claims were made about the  women to attend the virginia military institute in fact in very similar terms the arguments by virginia were that it would radically transform the adverse a system of education that would destroy that system for men and she said we've seen these claims before we saw them when women were going to be put into the bar and when they were going to be allowed to study medicine and she knew not to credit and there and the courts shouldn't credit them here point another way the interviewer has claimed that allowing same sex couples not many decisions have picked up on this argument if you look at the decisions that have actually reached the question and have declined to rule on that basis what they have tended to do simply note the fact of the nation and stop there that's the argument that protection of the fourteenth amendment does indeed belong to the it's the phrasing of the amendment itself and loving itself reject the idea that equal application which of course was argued in that case as well it said this law would be no less repugnant fourteenth amendment even assuming an even handed state purpose to protect the integrity of all races and i thought we can also look at the decision to sell a piano where court down the ability to use expats print per strikes and of course it didn't so even though that practice doesn't in here to the greater advantage or disadvantage of women or men as a whole and so that tells us again that the protection belongs to the individual  dealing with clearly stereotypes there's a whole that's right and in fact the ears see itself has started to issue decisions recognizing that indeed discrimination against same sex couples can be understood in two different ways a sex based discrimination formally if beverly could marry her one true love but simply because she's black really she cannot but there's nothing about the sex that relates to her ability to be equally devoted and loving spouse and of course there's also a stereotype notion that are the underpinning for the exclusion of same sex couples and respectfully we would submit that the interest papers in this case are rife with them i also want to talk a little bit about the idea that this is just a caution response to  problems the court said there were crystal balls in lobbying as well and i think that transcendent analysis really should inform what the court should do in this case two arguments about children and parenting or rest of the court and loving and i saw them as a bstract rejected and there perhaps even more importantly the very same arguments were raised in windsor for the lag bipartisan legal advisory group that defended doma raised arguments the same ones about procreation and about the welfare of children and windsor tells the courts exactly how much weight to give those interests and that is zero because one does not affect the other allowing loving committed same sex couples to marry in the state of nevada will have absolutely no that doma was a law that should be understood as merely a reaffirmation that different sex couples should marry that they should raise their children in marriage and windsor saw very clearly that there was only one effect of a law like do and the same is true of this marriage amendment as well the only effect is to exclude same sex couples it has no effect on different sex couples it creates no greater incentive in fact the only way that you can actually get there is to do with the district court decision  this case this was a pretty windsor priest kline decision and what the court accepted as an appropriate rationale was the idea that if same sex couples could marry heterosexuals my sister valued the institution as highly and fewer of them excluding same sex couples from marriage have to do with that as the tenth circuit found it is illogical to believe that allowing same sex couples to marry will have any effect whatsoever on the most profound life altering intimate decisions of a lifetime participate in present arguments in presuppose stage and it seems consistent with what happened in windsor where the parties were aligned in that way as well blair was permitted to argue in present briefs even though the court accepted the circuiting united states so we're not aware now the law is crystal clear and this is how it's working but the interviewer certainly could not petition for cert they have no standing to do that and so in this case if the court were to rule for the plaintiffs stay with you procreate because there is the coalition agrees fully with ms bradley's brilliant analysis of the article three issue and our position here in bringing the necessary concrete advers actually the plaintiffs initially filed an objection to it but they later withdrew that the court entered its word or and we have been a first class party in this proceeding what did what did black present and what it did not present as a close student of of flags presentation it did not present the social institutions the fence that the coalition is advancing on behalf of nevada's marriage because of an insight justice kennedy had and that insight was the power to define marriage constitutionally and practically resides in the states want to stay in that case new york decided to lay down the first pick and pick up the second stick as new york had every right to do at that moment federal law had no constitutional authority to try to thwart that that is to preserve the  it undermined significantly it undermined significantly the man with his marriage institution and it's important message that we refer to in short as the child's bonding r not that much similarity in the actual that's how it is not inconsistency it is the function of a robust serious and intellectually serious debate you know the great chain of one of the great champions these unions for many and nevada has a full complete domestic partnership absolutely it does but you have to understand that the question is weaken the the marriage institution and a great champion of grand women marriage like the moral said john of the right don't do it but then on the other side you had great  marriage we called it black it professor budget as saying no it's not going to hurt the marriage institution and you had people like george bush who was george w bush was very strong in favor of man woman marriage who said no it's not going to hurt the institution so you had people of good faith and kenan like them both sides debating that issue nevada made one policy decision by the home and the other policy decision they sustaining anyone in your marriage and not injure that institution by having a domestic partnership where that was their policy choice has anyone able to say with any definitive ability  that one policy decision is right and the other one is wrong on that key issue that's why it's left to the democratic process as happened in nevada as is continuing to happen in nevada i and i think we have preached that thoroughly on both sides we stand by our reading of smith kline does it call for heightened scrutiny yes or calls for wins or heightened scrutiny if you want to use that phrase which because when there was an animus case applies in and so then you're back to the standard rational basis review but i think most important for us and if that is good reason for scrutiny because we believe that if the state wants to send messages isn't the way to send a message by sending a message i e i mean that's  meaning it's like it's so much more powerful it is so much more powerful and what good is a billboard when the state suddenly withdraws all official and public support increase in fathers as a great great tragedy a creature of g d and to avoid that would certainly qualify as a compelling government interest does anybody have a crystal effective in idaho relatively speaking and we think that when should this isn't about whether children will be born or not it's a question about when they are born will they no one be raised by the two people who brought them into this world and whose family and biological heritage are a key part of their very being built around the same number of that is not an issue or a concern people have focused on that haven't thought about that haven't argued whether this thing we're going to have an increase or a dig decrease in the birth rate that's not what we're arguing is that three or four  you just your second right family no absolutely not and i and i disagree with that strongly your honor we have said repeatedly this is not about comparing the quality of parenting going on in olson when the institution of marriage developed historically people didn't get around and say let's have this institution but let's keep out  institution developed to serve purposes that by their nature didn't include sexual couples this meaning that it's been grafted upon on the meaning that maybe except that your transforming for both parents and children if you're going to create a child and bring a child into this life to it in the stable committed relationship in this marriage so nothing in any of the windsor decisions suggests that his take on this was rejected by any of the justice or anybody except  the child's bonding right in the life of a child only then did option statutes come into play i think the school will the question i'm going to apologize if this is explicit in your briefing and i just missed that bu the that is a shorthand phrase that i just defined at the very beginning of my argument in the i don't care it's it's a shorthand phrase to refer to the powerful institutionalized message create children because the child deserves that kind of a stable relationship and the ability yes and no i don't think so i'm just using it i'm not talking positive law i'm not talking positive although there are able people who have identified the child's bonding right in international human rights documents and i'm referring to david blankenhorn i'm referring to margaret somerville i'm using it here though only as and i'm not disagreeing with their take on international human rights documents i'm just using it here is a good shorthand phrase there's an obligation side there's a right side belonging to the child as an obligation side belonging going through but thank you very much thank you you're honest that same sex couples can now marry in one thousand states and the district of columbia does not mean that men who have children are full that they are unimportant to their marriages or that they are to value to their marriages more devalued as parents the only effect of this law is to give value sex couples and their children want to pick up on a point that just a moment ago this question of where is this idea of fatherless families coming from where these children come from i think this is really difficult to understand because there is no way to think about the marriage ban as having any effect on who is a parent in nevada think the married couples in this case just unwind this for a moment is it really an argument that these married couples look at divorced and will search las vegas for different sex couples to raise their children there just is no effect here and that's why under any level of review this argument just can't sustain the marriage ban instead as windsor tells us what the fourteenth that the four than a tenth circuit picked up that there's another equal protection harm here and that is discrimination with respect to the fundamental right in fact all of these core constitutional gay these are violated and the court should rule on all of them and we can it from windsor where he wins or herself never raised the due process argument and yet justice kennedy issued a decision recognizing that both core constitutional guarantees of equal protection and due process were violet turning just for a moment to shoot the reason that that case came out differently was that the court was examining a law of it for the use of the classification unlike in windsor which now tells us that when same sex couples are excluded from marriage that is indeed a targeted classification of them and their families for unequal treatment surely doesn't mean that tomorrow voters in virginia could reenact a ballot initiative that would ban interracial marriage it didn't change loving that it wouldn't change windsor actually before i talk about that i should address a point that the interviewer raised the intervenor i think trying to argue that's my point is really limited to cases of animus but nobody believes that the lawyer who struck that you're going for gear he had gay people or was motivated by bigotry cleburne which talked about enemas and these cases all really reaffirmed that it isn't required it's never been required either for heightened scrutiny or to find an equal protection violation it isn't as if the city council hated says that sometimes the courts reach a legal conclusion that voters or decision makers might have been motivated by insensitivity or want of careful rational reflection that's certainly what we have here but it isn't necessary to find out to see that