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Marriage Equality

The GOP made a huge tactical error in going all in opposing gay rights. If they had backed civil unions with all the benefits of marriage, they wouldn't have damaged their brand for a generation. They overestimated the strength of their position and over reached and consequently face a backlash. Amendment One was completely blatant-they outlawed marriages (and threatened pro-gay religions), made no allowance for civil unions, and knew it was such a shaky proposition that they moved the vote to the GOP primary because they were terrified of the electoral turnout in a general election.
 
Rube, they have gone way past marriage. The GOP in state after state supports and writes laws that legalize overt and intentional discrimination against gays. How a gay person could vote Republican for the next decade baffles me and shows a high degree of self-loathing.

How can any LGBT American consider voting for anyone in a party that promotes laws that allow you to be fired just being who you are? How can any non-self-loathing LGBT person vote anyone in party that laws that legalize apartment owners or builders denying you the right live where you want to and can afford?
 
Wakeforest22890 said:
In this context, Clinton was a bigot. He was also just politically inclined to make the decision based on advice from "political experts" around him.

I think Romer is one of the most interesting opinions and decisions in recent memory for the Court. I think it serves, and quite effectively, to add something to the rational basis test where there is something substantive attached to the "rational" portion. These are just judicially created tests in the first place, so I don't have any problem with tweaking them.

The Colorado amendment had no "rational basis" whatsoever:

"The amendment provided in part that neither the state nor any of its political subdivisions "shall enact, adopt or enforce any statute, regulation, ordinance or policy whereby homosexual, lesbian, or bisexual orientation, conduct, practices or relationships shall constitute or otherwise be the basis or entitle any person or class of persons to have or claim any minority status, quota preferences, protected status or claim of discrimination"

I suppose that this could have been struck down on the traditional rational basis test, as there is legitimately no rational basis that can even be read into this by the Court since the express purpose, admittedly by proponents, was discrimination against minorities of all kinds. I just don't have a problem with Kennedy adding to the decision by making it an overarching concept that a desire to harm a politically unpopular group, or an amendment/legislation solely aimed at stripping rights to a specific group, can never be "rational."

I'm not even entirely sure that it changed the test that much, it just added clarification on how far "rational" would extend. And if you look at the definition of the word, can it be "rational" to ensure that minority groups cannot use the political process to enact change?

Just curious, what would decision on Romer had been?
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The amendment in Romer didn't discriminate against anyone, at least not insofar as "removing rights that others have." All it did was place homosexuals on equal footing as every other non-protected class. And there was a clear rational basis for doing so--moral opposition to homosexuality. I know that the Supreme Court later overruled Bowers, but, at the time of Romer, Bowers was still good law. Thus, if an act can be criminalized, surely a state can take the less drastic step of placing homosexuals on equal footing as everyone else.

It won't surprise you to learn that I also think Lawrence was wrongly decided. Thus, I think Romer was too.

I suppose I should add that, although I think Lawrence was wrong, I also wouldn't vote for the law at issue in that case had I been a legislator. I wouldn't vote for a law criminalizing sodomy because I don't think the state should be in the business of regulating the private sexual activity among consenting adults on the basis of moral opprobrium alone. That said, I don't think it is unconstitutional for a state to pass such a law. To question moral opprobrium as the basis for criminal laws is really to divorce our constitution from the era that produced it. I'm not willing to make that leap.

I'm sure this will satisfy exactly no one, but the irony is that, while I am conservative jurisprudentially, I am moderate politically (at least on this issue). All of the outrage--OUTRAGE--against me (and Wrangor) on this issue is, therefore, entirely overblown.
 
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How is moral opposition to homosexuality not an animus against a group of people?

If you want to parse it as "love the sinner, hate the sin" then maybe it's not.
 
RJKarl said:
Rube, they have gone way past marriage. The GOP in state after state supports and writes laws that legalize overt and intentional discrimination against gays. How a gay person could vote Republican for the next decade baffles me and shows a high degree of self-loathing.

How can any LGBT American consider voting for anyone in a party that promotes laws that allow you to be fired just being who you are? How can any non-self-loathing LGBT person vote anyone in party that laws that legalize apartment owners or builders denying you the right live where you want to and can afford?
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Indiana and Nevada GOP quietly dropped the anti-gay marriage planks in their state platforms. Appears to have been a factor in the GOP dropping Las Vegas as a potential site for the 2016 Convention. Mitch Daniels is a much wiser pol than Mike Pence and the IN GOP appears to be following Daniels's lead rather than Pence's. Pence still wants a state and federal same-sex marriage constitutional ban, but the IN GOP killed that statewide for at least another three years. Social conservatives don't seem to get that support for gay rights (70% approved removal of don't ask don't tell in 2011, support for marriage equality is 59% now) is multiples larger than the percentage of gays in the general population. Conservatives apparently don't believe in polling, but it's pretty hard to ignore more than a dozen straight federal court decisions against them. North Dakota's the only state that doesn't have a pending case.
 
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