The one Supreme Court paragraph on love that gay marriage supporters will never fet - The Washgton Post

Contents:

• AMERINS’ SHIFTG ATTU ON GAY RIGHTS
• THE ONE SUPREME COURT PARAGRAPH ON LOVE THAT GAY MARRIAGE SUPPORTERS WILL NEVER FET
• JAPAN’S SUPPORT FOR GAY MARRIAGE IS SOARG. BUT CAN IT BEE LAW?

AMERINS’ SHIFTG ATTU ON GAY RIGHTS

AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTPooja Mandagere, left, and Natalie Thompson outsi the Supreme Court on Friday after led favor of same-sex Mills/The New York TimSli 1 of 14 Pooja Mandagere, left, and Natalie Thompson outsi the Supreme Court on Friday after led favor of same-sex Mills/The New York TimJune 26, 2015WASHINGTON — In a long-sought victory for the gay rights movement, the Supreme Court led by a 5-to-4 vote on Friday that the Constutn guarante a right to same-sex marriage. ”Gay rights advot had nstcted a reful ligatn and public relatns strategy to build momentum and brg the issue to the Supreme Court when appeared ready to le their favor.

Gay rights advot, the chief jtice wrote, would have been better off wh a victory achieved through the polil procs, particularly “when the wds of change were heng at their backs.

THE ONE SUPREME COURT PARAGRAPH ON LOVE THAT GAY MARRIAGE SUPPORTERS WILL NEVER FET

Risg natnal support for legal same-sex marriage reflects steady creas among most subgroups of the populatn, even those who have tradnally been the most ristant to gay marriage. On May 21, 2009, the California Supreme Court closed another chapter the state’s long-nng fight over same-sex marriage when upheld a 2008 voter-approved ballot iative, known as Proposn 8, which amend the California state nstutn to ban gay marriage. As the California and Iowa lgs suggt, while the gay marriage ntroversy has many elements, cludg disagreements over relig and social norms, much of the bate is a legal one.

JAPAN’S SUPPORT FOR GAY MARRIAGE IS SOARG. BUT CAN IT BEE LAW?

Durg the 1970s, a gay rights movement, patterned many ways after the civil rights and women’s rights movements, veloped momentum as the sexual revolutn spurred new social and sexual mor, which turn prompted legislatur to repeal many state laws regulatg sexualy. In a strongly word dissent, Jtice Blackmun dismissed the majory’s ntentn that the se ultimately volved a “fundamental right to engage homosexual sodomy. ” Ined, he acced the majory of “distort[g]” the ultimate qutn before the urt by ignorg the fact that the Geia statute outlawed sodomy between heterosexuals as well as homosexuals.

Evans, an important gay rights lg that, while addrsg a different qutn than the Bowers se, ultimately proved to be a strong ditor of how the urt might le if revised the sodomy qutn.

In the Romer se, the urt nsired a challenge to an amendment to the Colorado Constutn (approved by the state’s voters 1992) that nullified lol anti-discrimatn protectns for homosexuals and prohibed passage of any such anti-discrimatn laws the future.

In particular, he found, “the [Colorado] amendment impos a special disabily upon [homosexuals], ” who are “forbidn the safeguards that others enjoy or may seek whout rtrat. Fally, Kennedy wrote, gay people have a “liberty unr the Due Procs Clse [that] giv them the full right to engage [timate] nduct whout terventn of the ernment. Dpe the creatn of DOMAs and other state legislative actns precedg Lawrence, the Lawrence cisn dramatilly changed the same-sex marriage landspe by articulatg a nstutnal amework that uld provi robt rights for gay and lbian upl.

After fightg a long and ntent battle over Romney’s proposal, the legislature approved a promise amendment 2004 that prohibed gay marriage but created civil unns for same-sex upl. The reasong the Goodridge and California cisns, however, differed one fundamental rpect: Whereas the Massachetts urt Goodridge found a right to same-sex marriage on the ground that there is no ratnal basis for nyg maral rights to same-sex upl, the California urt went signifintly further, elevatg gays and lbians to have the same protected legal stat as racial mori and women. Seekg to overle this cisn, same-sex marriage opponents placed Proposn 8, a measure to alter the California Constutn to ban gay marriage, on the November 2008 state ballot.

Followg expensive and ntent polil mpaigns waged by both supporters and opponents of the iative, California voters passed the proposn by a narrow marg – effectively outlawg gay marriage California. Gay-rights advot argued that bee the right of gays and lbians to wed is a fundamental right, banng the practice required a nstutnal revisn, not jt an amendment. After upholdg Proposn 8, the urt turned s attentn to the stat of the 18, 000 gay and lbian upl who had legally wed durg the roughly five-month perd between the May 2008 high urt cisn legalizg same-sex marriage and the early November passage of the proposn banng .

The lg overturned an earlier cisn by a Connecticut trial urt that had found no vlatn of the state’s Equal Protectn Clse bee the state had enacted a civil unn law givg gay and lbian upl the same legal rights as married upl. But the majory of the Connecticut Supreme Court disagreed, lg that offerg homosexual upl civil unns li of marriage amounts to unequal treatment “bee the stutn of marriage rri wh a stat and signifince that the newly created classifitn of civil unns do not embody. ” In addn, the Connecticut Supreme Court elevated the legal stat of gays and lbians, givg them greater protectn agast discrimatn than was granted the Massachetts cisn, but not the hight level of protectn that was tablished the California lg.

And, as Connecticut, the urt Iowa tablished the “termediate strict scty” tt when asssg laws – cludg the DOMA – that discrimate agast gays and lbians, meang that the laws n only be upheld if they substantially further an important ernment tert. Bee of such ncerns, a number of proment gay rights groups, such as the Human Rights Campaign and Lambda Legal, have publicly qutned the cisn by Olson and Boi to file the su, argug that such a se may be premature or even dangero to the succs of the same-sex marriage movement.

At the same time, is more difficult to predict the vot of their two nservative lleagu, Chief Jtice John Roberts and Jtice Samuel Alo, bee Roberts and Alo were not on the urt when earlier gay rights s, such as Lawrence, were cid.

The urt’s more liberal jtic, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bar Gsburg and John Pl Stevens, have voted favor of gay rights claimants every gay rights se they have nsired.

However, the prr cisns, cludg Lawrence, never explicly addrsed whether the Constutn guarante the right to gay marriage, makg difficult to know exactly how the jtic might ultimately vote a same-sex marriage se.