BREAKING!!!......Republicans Sign Legal Brief Supporting Gay Marriage.............
At least 75 top Republicans have signed a legal brief to be submitted to the Supreme Court this week, arguing that gay marriage is a constitutional right, according to The New York Times, which got a copy of the document.This is potentially a big deal. It gives cover to a swing justice or two who may be sitting on the fence about marriage equality.
The court is preparing to take on the subject of gay marriage late next month, when it will hear oral arguments on the constitutionality of California's gay marriage ban, Proposition 8, and the Defense of Marriage Act. It is expected to render a decision in early summer.
The signers of the document are mostly out-of-office Republicans or former top officials, including former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, former Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio), former Massachusetts Govs. William Weld and Jane Swift, and former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman.
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It is telling how many of these politicians are no longer in office and how many of them opposed gay marriage when they were in a positions of power and had to worry about elections.
It speaks volumes to the fear Republicans have of the extremists who wield so much influence in their party and how easily they cave to it.
Just think of your spouse, if you currently now have one. Like many people, I know what my spouse is about and I celebrate it everyday. She tells me what she would never tell her family. We are a team.
I'm thankful that regardless of trusts and wills, the law defaults to my oversight of her wishes and needs should anything happen to her. I will honor "her" wishes, no matter what. I'm sure many of you know this feeling.
Currently gay couples, in most states, do not have this basic right. National recognition of the validity of gay marriage will codify this right, in a way that wills, trusts, or contracts cannot compare.
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Instead of worrying about the deficit or the unemployment lets worry about Gay marriage instead cause that is more important than millions out of work.
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Republicans doing their best to save their political lives at the risk of losing the 30 million Christians which will of course eliminate the Republican Party from contention. Either way the Republicans can blame themselves for destroying the Republican Party.
Who cares except some tiny minority that already have every right listed under the bill of rights where does it end ? This move is to legalize sodomy which even animals don't practice aren't humans suppose to be superior to animals.
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If you click through to the source article on NYT, you see a better description of the importance of this document. As noted above, it is an brief laying out an argument in support, but based on more conservative viewpoints. The intent is to help persuade more conservative leaning justices.
This is no small matter. The Supreme Court, by its nature, does often look at prevailing social opinion about topics such as this. We are in the middle of a shift in thinking similar to the 1950s and 1960s. Support for marriage equality is growing rapidly, and it is quite strong among voters under 30. The Supreme Court is going to consider this, even if some of the justices won't admit to it. That the support is coming from multiple political perspectives is going to reinforce that.
One reason that the justices will consider these things is that part of the legal wrangling focuses on the level of scrutiny that is used for determining constitutionality. Often, laws must make distinctions based on certain groups, such as legal age to drive a car. Some distinctions are more suspect than others, and thus the test of constitutionality varies. This variation in the test is referred to as the level of scrutiny.
When a law makes distinctions based on a protected class, such as race, then typically the government must show that the law serves a compelling (very important or crucial) purpose. This is called strict scrutiny. Certain other classifications, such as gender, are subject to what is called intermediate scrutiny, which requires that the law serve an important purpose (but not necessarily a crucial one). Other classifications require only that the law make some rational sense, even if it isn't proven to be accurate.
This last level, put simply, amounts to "there are some distinctions that make sense, and laws need to be allowed to make these distinctions". For example, age based laws are very common. Historically, orientation has typically fallen in this last level. In other words, until recently, courts have viewed orientation as an unprotected class. Part of what is at issue is whether that level of scrutiny should be raised.
Showing that orientation is not merely choice and also society as a whole views this as a matter of equality could go a long way to helping someone like Roberts, or possibly even an Alito, to shift their views.
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