There are no laws that ban same-sex couples from getting married. Not a single one. There are laws that say for a married couple to receive benefits from the government they must be of the opposite sex. They are two completely separate things.
Absolutely incorrect. There are laws all across the country that stipulate that in order to get a marriage license issued the applicants must be male and female -- regardless of how many, or even any, benefits or recognition are granted by the government. Suppose marriage went nowhere... you apply, it's approved, a justice of the peace marries you, and beyond that the government recognizes nothing. This is
still limited only to opposite-sex couples in 44 states.
I beg to differ..the decision was sent to the Iowa supreme court n they are in fact the one's who ruled it "lawful", against the will of the people. The govenor then signed it right away, against the will of the people. He lost his job too along with the judges.
Oh for god's sake, the Iowa Supreme Court did nothing but read the state constitution right back to the citizens the way it was written. Your problem isn't with the judges, it's with the constitution, which dictated equal treatment of all citizens and did not ban same-sex marriage. And in any event, when the US Supreme Court eventually rules that marriage is a fundamental right of Americans regardless of sexual orientation, all those bans will be invalidated, just as miscegenation laws were. Or are you still upset over that "voters' right" being taken away from you?
The "will" of the people here is no more relevant to this fundamental right than it is to the right of left-handed people to marry, or blacks to marry whites.
You don't get to vote on civil rights. We live in a constitutional democracy (one where the federal constitution trumps state constitutions), not a popular democracy.
it isn't splitting hairs. There is no requirement as to someones sexual preference when applying for a marriage license.
A false argument. Your idea no doubt is that the clerk doesn't care what you do in your bedroom, only that the two parties seeking a license are male and female. The
real question is, how does it help me achieve the fulfillment of my "right" to choose a life partner and marry when the choice is so severely limited as to be useless? Conservatives look at it exclusively from their perspective: "Hell, I don't want any new right to marry another man! I like the law just as it is! Suits me fine!" Well, the law isn't about you, or me, or any individual. It's about being fair to
all citizens as long as government has decided it's in the marriage business. And like it or not, the government needs to be responsive to its gay and lesbian constituents as well as its straight constituents. The point of civil marriage is to allow you to form a recognized partnership with your mirror image, your alter ego -- someone with the same capacity to enter into the relationship (thus, no minors or dogs or fire hydrants). As there's only one of you, there's only one of them. And only
you can determine from the pool of available life partners which one is going to fulfill your right to and needs/objective in forming a couple. It is cruel and disingenuous to tell me, a gay man, that my most intimate life choice is limited to the pool of females. It's no different than telling straight men that, unfortunately, women are off-limits as far as licenses go and your only marriage option is to another male. As long as government confers and recognizes "marriage", limiting my life partner options to only half of the available population is dictating to me what my fundamental orientation should be.
I still don't buy all the excuses as to why two men or two women in a committed relationship cannot marry their partner. Not brothers and sisters, not three people, not Fluffy or Fido, not 900 other substitutes or twisted comparisons to try and blur the subject, but partners. The gay people who will marry each other first are the ones who have known each other for years and built a life around one another. How is it in the best interest of anyone to make it as difficult for these couples as possible to live together?
When I was a kid, maybe 10 years old, I had the notion that every adult should be able to choose one husband and one wife. You didn't have to have both, or either, but marriage would be limited to one of each. Obviously, your spouse could also have one of each -- so your wife would never have any husband but you, of course. She might have no other partner, or she could have a wife. Who in turn may or may not have a husband. It would address gay, straight and bisexual orientations. It might make for interesting communal parenting and families, as well as allow for traditional two-parent families and couples (and obviously singles, too); and hopefully open people's eyes and minds to new ways of relating to each other.
As an adult I came to understand that marriage was about finding that one counterpart to yourself who completes the couple, without causing any distraction of your attention, devotion or support. Just your two eyes looking into their two eyes. Yet as I get older, I wonder whether this is optimal or even practical. People fear more options, but should they? Especially if the government part of the equation gradually diminishes, as perhaps it should.