Okay, time for a more advanced lesson in civics.
The Supreme Court decides cases and controversies that litigants bring before it. In so doing, it usually issues an opinion that states what the Court's decision is and the rationale for the decision. Technically speaking, the Court's decision is binding only on the parties. However, as a practical matter, the rest of the country usually abides by the Court's ruling, anticipating that if they were to bring the same issue to the Court, it would decide the issue they same way again, based on a principle called
stare decisis.
There are an uncountable number of issues that the Supreme Court has not ruled on. However, many issues that the Court could potentially rule on can be resolved by appealing to rules of general application that the has Court pronounced in making its various rulings. What's more, when deciding a case before it, the Court tries to find rules of general application from past cases on which to base its decision.
As an example, the the case I described above,
Loving v. Virginia, concerned a white man married to a black woman. Based on the reasoning that the Court laid out in striking Virginia's miscegenation statutes, one can anticipate what the Court's ruling would be in a hypothetical case where Mississippi, say, was trying to prosecute a black man for marrying a white woman in violation of its miscegenation statute.
You are correct (amazing as that sounds) when you say that in the
Lawrence case and the
Loving case the Court did not rule on gay marriage. However, it did lay out some principles of general application that are relevant in considering whether the Equal Protection Clause requires states to allow gays to marry, and whether it requires the U.S. to recognize those marriages for purposes of federal law.
And the law says that homosexual marriage will not be recognized. The United States Congress has said that marriage is defined as being between a man and a woman.
I assume you are talking about DOMA here. What DOMA says is that the federal government will not recognize gay marriage. It does not say that no state may recognize gay marriage. Congress doesn't have the authority to pass a law telling the states what it can and cannot recognize as marriage. All it can do is say what the federal government will recognize for purposes of federal law.
DOMA also says that a state doesn't have to recognize a gay marriage from another state. There is a serious objection about whether Congress has the authority to say that, but since no state has to recognize a gay marriage from another state anyway, it's a rather moot point.
What DOMA doesn't say is that the Constitution doesn't require states to recognize gay marriages. Congress could pass a law that says that, but that law would not be binding on the Supreme Court.
You keep talking about the Constitution, not me.
I keep talking about the Constitution because it guarantees to people in this country certain rights. What that means is that even if a state or federal government says one thing, if the Constitution says the opposite, it's the Constitution that controls.
I then ask you to back up why ANY Amendment pertains to homosexual marriage. You have avoided answering it like the plague because surely you know that by doing so, you would in effect be making a moral judgment.
I haven't avoided anything. I've explained in painstaking detail what the argument is that the Equal Protection Clause requires states and the federal government to recognize gay marriage. What's more, I did that without making any kind of moral judgment. All I'm talking about is what the Constitution says.
I suppose I can understand your confusion. There are people who are intellectually incapable of understanding the difference between legal and moral. The two are not coterminous. There are many moral imperatives that are not included as legal imperatives, and there are legal imperatives that have nothing whatsoever to do with morality.
For example, the Constitution does not say that it's moral for
Hustler magazine to print a parody piece detailing Jerry Falwell's first sexual experience as consisting of a quickie behind the barn with his mother. But it does say that
Hustler has a right to print it.
If you are unable to understand the difference between legal and moral, you will continue to be reprimanded for being off topic on this thread.
Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin Franklin
We see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat
™ Version 4.2