Well, the Bill of Rights protects a woman's right to choose and guarantees equal protection under the law...

All I'm going to say is the Catholic Church needs to handle their issues about moving priests who have abused people to new areas before they start dealing with marriage or adoption, or they will be bankrupt from the lawsuits it won't matter what they think or feel about marriage or adoption.

I do know that in many places Mormons have to have a wedding by a judge or at a court house because their temple weddings (sealings for all eternity) are not "public" and therefore temple weddings where only Mormons with a temple recommend are present are not legally valid. For those who don't live near a temple there may be a legal marriage long before a religious marriage.

Where? The Bill of Rights are the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution. Which one gives a woman the right to choose?

Well it was argued by the court during Roe v Wade that either the 9th or the 14th amendment gave it. It gets confusing unless you are a student of the law.

Not trying to make any friends in here I see.

Why the Bill of Rights? It's not a super-Constitution; it's part of the Constitution, no more and no less important or binding, legally speaking.

The right to choose, according to the Supreme Court, is guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, though the case law on that issue, and on the broader right to privacy, sometimes invoke the Ninth Amendment. That amendment, which is part of the Bill of Rights, states that the fact that only some rights are enumerated in the Bill of Rights doesn't mean that the government can violate other, non-enumerated rights that the people have.


I agree, though, with what some others have said: that this is an issue made much more complicated by the way civil marriage and religious marriage are intertwined and entangled in our current system. I think that's why this isn't the problem in, say, Catholic Spain that it can be here -- in Spain, a civil marriage is a completely seperate thing from a religious marriage, and the civil marriage is the only one that has any legal effect. Here, a religious marriage has legal effect.

I always wondered about that. To me the process for recognition here in the US is more Civil than Religious in respect that you must have a license, must be married in the US to make it legal, and in some states must be done 30 days from filing the license for it to be recognized. Don't know from state to state, but it seems for some of the states I have experience with, it could be argued that the recognition has nothing to do with religion but by an state recognized officiant.

That's why i say this whole thing is political because certain interest see gay marriage as against their financial interest.

Against whose financial interest is it?

On Maddow's show, she mentioned that gay marriage is expected to pump a little over $100 million into NYC's economy, in part because NY State has no residency requirement for getting married. To me, it seems like it's in a lot of people's financial interests.

The bolded is what I'm talking about. In every state, so far as I know, a religion-related officiant (priest, minister, rabbi . . . ) is a state-recognized and state-empowered officiant, so that the religion-related officiant's participation in the marriage ceremony (and signature on the marriage license) makes the marriage legally recognized and legally binding.

In many countries, this is not the case. In Spain, to continue the example I was using, a church wedding means that the couple are married in the eyes of the church, but they are not married in the eyes of the state. They must be married by a civil authority for the state to consider them married. So what happens is that to get married, a couple goes first to the civil authority (the magistrate's office or whatever) and gets married civilly. They then go to the church for the religious ceremony, if they want that.

Hardly a scientific survey, I know, but almost every member of the clergy I have heard express an opinion on the subject dislikes the way we do things here. They dislike being agents of the state and would rather keep civil marriage and religious marriage separate.

This decision is controversial and I believe it tramples on states rights. It also does not recognize the child as a viable being/person deserving protection. It is all opinion and hence the reason I stated specifically the Bill of Rights and not all amendments. It is the reading/interpretation of the amendments that I disagree with. I suspect that if Roe v. Wade were to come up now a different opinion might be forthcoming. I simply do not read the 14th as the court did. The 9th has been ruled to not have bearing on abortion so that argument is most probably moot.

The XIV Amendment also states "without due process" so one may be denied life, liberty etc if the States deem it. States restrict polygamy, bigamy, drugs, gambling (I can't legally gamble in NC, does this restrict liberty?) and many other actions so my reasoning is that a State can make a law restricting abortion. Hence the same argument which has haunted us since the decision was handed down. What is "due process", really? Books have been written on this so we will not resolve it in these threads.

Bottom line with me is that I would support a States right to abolish abortion as well as a States right to allow abortion and anything in between. I would not, however, live in the State that allowed it if it were truly an option available. Same with "gay marriage" as it should be up to the States.

I line up with White and Reinquist in their dissents. IMO this was Judicial activism with no true Constitutional foundation. The Justices should have left it to the States as it was at the time.

There is no question that the decision in Roe is controversial, nor is there any question that lots of legal scholars -- including many who support abortion rights -- think that Roe is terrible decision, both in its legal analysis and its jurisprudence. That said, it's still (at least in part) valid precedent, so whether you or I or anyone else agrees with it or not, it's the law and will be the law until the Supreme Court reverses its position or the Constitution is amended.

But I still don't get why you singled out the Bill of Rights as opposed to all amendments. The amendments that come after the Bill of Rights amend the entire Contitution, including (often) the Bill of Rights. The question shouldn't be "does it violate the Bill of Rights"; it should be "does it violate the Constitution." By what legal basis do the Bill of Rights take precedence over the rest of the Constitution?

Yes, but also in many states, the person does not have to be religious as well be it a justice of the peace, judge, ship captain (LOL) that's why I said it could be argued we are not so much in bed with religion as we think we are sometimes.

That's nice, Maddow is biased so I take her opinion and counter with another opinionated source that is contrary, Fox News (LOL); the cost it places on healthcare to cover domestic partners and blah blah.

I'm sure somebody smarter and more opinionated on the counter can answer it better.

I'm under the understanding that the current legal precedent is set by Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

Well, she had to get those numbers from somewhere. :D

This is from the New York Daily News--hardly a hotbed of elite liberalism:

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011...ge-gay-couples

Their projection--$184 million--is a little higher than I've heard.

My question remains--in whose "best financial interest" is it to not legalize gay marriage? The cost it would take to cover same-sex partners isn't that much more than it would be now, considering most gay households consist of dual-income earners (both of whom typically carry their own insurance).