wager? conservatives come out in favor?
There are many ways to skin a cat. First, you can gain total marriage rights by legislative action. Second, you can seek to have the court declare marriage a fundamental right of association of free people, and any combination should be allowed with only compelling state interests requiring restrictions. This means something more than a rational basis for a classification system. So exactly what is the financial impact of expanding the traditional classifications of marriage? How will it impact retirement benefits, if any two people without regard to the central purpose of marriage which is argued should be to establish a foundation for raising children and create stable environment for the same can be married as a fundamental right.
I think that the court may argue that the institution of marriage is a legislatively created institution, and to bootstrap fundamental rights to this legislative creation is premature. I think there are numerous roadblocks to an equal protection approach to creating the right of marriage between any person when this type of classification is best suited for legislative remedy, and the right to marry someone is not a fundamental right, but one that the state imposes with restrictions to age, and other classification systems which do not deny a fundamental right. So if a State said Catholics cannot marry......this is well settled, and clearly an unlawful distinction as was the miscegenation marriage laws.......but to say that a 12 year old girl cannot marry a 40 year old man, or that a man cannot marry a man......well those are legislative classifications which must have a rational basis.......which does not require a compelling state interest to create the classification and with that lower standard......the supremes in my opinion are going to suggest this issue is better resolved by legislative cures.
Home
