Licenses are not required to exercise a right.
Marriage is therefore a privilege and not a right.

Article 1, Section 7 (b) of the California Constitution states:

“A citizen or class of citizens may not be granted privileges or immunities not granted on the same terms to all citizens.”

Federal law was changed (Nov 2009) and law now protects homosexuals from discrimination in employment. This change establishes homosexuals as a class of citizens.

Proposition 8 modified the California Constitution by granting a class of citizens (hetrosexuals) the privilege of marriage and excludes the same privilege to other citizens
(homosexuals), which violates Article 1, Section 7 (b) of the California Constitution.

Does one’s age place them into a class of citizens.
Discounts are given to seniors based upon age.
One can not drive a car based upon one’s age.
One can not join the military based upon one’s age.

Would you permit males to marry at the age of 15 or older and females to marry at the age of 13?
A 25 year old man marrying a 13 year old girl is perceived as inappropriate so by law most governments restrict marriage by age, thus making it a privilege, not a right.

Can the privilege to marry be taken away?
Yes. In most places if you are already married, or if you are clinically and legally designated as being incapable of making rational decisions.

None of this has anything to do with religious marriage. Religions can set their own rules as they choose. Governments however must work within the framework of their constitution and not permit rules of any particular religion to cross over into law.

In addition, since some religions do permit same-sex religious marriage, laws that prohibit same-sex government marriage violate the US Constitution that prohibits laws from interfering with religious beliefs and practices.

The constitution of the united states is clear it has not been fully enforced by congress however there has been amendments and ratification to even define what is clearly stated in laymans terminology simple as even a child could understand.

ALL THAT APPLYS TO THE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES>
THE 14TH AMENDMENT

NO STATE SHALL MAKE OR ENFORCE ANY LAW WHICH SHALL ABRIDGE THE PRIVILEDGES , OR IMMUNITY OF THE CITIZEN OF THE UNTITED STATES; NOR SHALL ANY STATE DEPRIVE ANY PERSON OF LIFE, LIBERTY, OR PROPERTY, WITHOUT DUE PROCESS OF LAW, NOR DENY TO ANY PERSON WITHIN ITS JURISDICTION EQUAL PROTECTION UNDER THE LAWS .
ARTICLE IV – THE STATES
SECTION 1
EACH STATE TO HONOR THE ALL OTHERS FULL FAITH AND CREDIT SHALL BE GIVEN TO EACH STATE TO THE * PUBLIC ACTS, RECORDS, AND JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS OF EVERY OTHER STATE *AND CONGRESS MAY BY GENERAL LAWS PERSCRIBE THE MANNER WHICH SUCH ACTS, RECORDS AND PROCEEDINGS SHALL BE PROVED AND EFFECTS THEREOF.
SECTION 2
THE CITIZENS , EXTRADITIONS
*THE CITIZENS OF EACH STATE SHALL BE ENTITLED TO *ALL PRIVILEGES AND IMMUNITIES OF THE CITIZENS IN SERVERAL STATES.
ARTICLE VI
*THIS CONSTITUTION AND LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES WHICH SHALL IN PURSUAUNCE THEREOF; AND ALL TREATIES MADE OR WHICH SHALL BE MADE UNDER AUTHORITY OF THE UNITED STATES SHALL BE THE SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND *AND EVERY JUDGE IN EVERY STATE SHALL BE BOUND THEREBY ANYTHING IN THE CONSTITUTION OR LAWS OR LAWS OF ANY STATE TO THE CONTRARY NOT WITHSTANDNG.
THE *SENATORS AND *REPRESENTATIVES BEFORE MENTIONED AND MEMBERS OF THE SEVERAL STATES LEGISLATURES AND ALL EXECUTIVES AND JUDICIAL OFFICERS, BOTH OF THE UNITED STATES AND OF SEVERAL STATES *SHALL BE BOUND BY OATH OR AFFIRMATION TO SUPPORT TO SUPPORT THE CONSTITUTION * BUT NO religious TEST SHALL *NEVER BE REQUIRED AS A * QUALIFICATION TO ANY OFFICE OR PUBLIC TRUST UNDER THE UNITED STATES.
SECTION 8 THE POWER OF CONGRESS.
TO EXERCISE LEGISLATURE IN ALL CASES WHATSOEVER, OVER SUCH DISRICTS ( NOT EXCEEDING 10 MILES SQUARE) AS MAY BE CESSION OF PARTICULAR STATES, AND ACCEPTANCE OF CONGRESS BECOMES THE SEAT OF GOVERMENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND TO EXERCISE LIKE AUTHORITY*OVER ALL PLACES PURCHASED BY THE CONSENT OF LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE IN WHICH THE SAME FOR THE CORRECTION OF FORT,MAGAZINES, ARSENAL, DOCK-YARDS AND BUILDINGS:* AND
TO MAKE ALL LAWS WHICH SHALL BE NECESSARY AND PROPER FOR CARRYING INTO EXECUTION THE FORE GOING POWERS, AND ALL OTHER POWERS VESTED BY THIS CONSTITUTION IN GOVERMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OR ANY DEPARTMENT OF OFFICE THEREOF.

–Kyra

When women achieved equal rights with men, women were granted equal rights without being identified as “men”. Men were allowed to retain their unique traditional “men” descriptor, and women kept their unique traditional “women” descriptor, and equal rights are enjoyed by both.

When minorities achieved equal rights with majorities, minorities were granted equal rights without being described the same as majorities, e.g., whites were allowed to retain their traditional unique “white” descriptor, and blacks were allowed to keep their unique traditional “black” descriptor, and equal rights are enjoyed by both. Women and minorities achieved equal rights without foregoing their unique descriptors, and without taking on the traditional descriptors of those who had rights ahead of them, otherwise today all women would be “men”.

Why can’t gay couples achieve equal rights as traditional married couples have without taking on the traditional “marriage” descriptor of straight couples? Equal rights can be had by all government sanctioned couples, whether they are straight marriages, domestic partner couples, joined couples, bonded couples, unioned or whatever they might be called. Men and women already retain equal rights while checking different boxes on government forms for passports, social security, etc., e.g., “___ Male”, “___ Female”, and they still have equal rights. For marriage licenses why not check one box for “___ Marriage of a man and a woman”, or “___ Bonding of two same gender persons”?

If gays adopt “marriage” for their government sanctioned union descriptor, traditional married couples lose their traditional unique he/she and man/woman descriptor and are forced to become “Party A” and “Party B”, no different than a gay couple. By allowing gay couples to be “married”, then rather than just granting all government sanctioned couples equal rights we destroy the long-standing tradition of bride and groom, mommy and daddy, married and marriage, etc. For governmental purposes, by letting all couples check one box or the other (e.g., married straights or bonded gays) we allow organizations, churches, etc. to do as they wish for subsequent descriptors as long as they follow appropriate guidelines similar to those used for men’s and women’s rights and minorities’ rights.

Certainly there are many other legal issues and dilemmas, but my sole interest in this argument is protecting and continuing the marriage descriptor as applying to only straight couples while granting equality for other government sanctioned unions (SSM). Laws and regulations had relatively little difficulty in granting equal rights to women and minorities without major unreasonable re-writes and without calling women “men”, and without calling minorities the same descriptor as majorities. Why can’t we get through this and retain the traditional meaning of marriage for straight couples?

That said, thank you for this entry! I’ve been banging my head against a wall for a long time now, trying to get people to realize that marriage is not a right, it’s a privilege! But so many people can’t seem to tell the difference anymore. That’s really unfortunate, as it gets in the way of people being able to reason this issue out and come to a mutually beneficial conclusion.

Beyond even that, though, I think you hit the nail on the head when you urged the gay community to “respect” their adversaries. That, I believe, is the whole problem. No one respects anyone else anymore. No one seems to have realized that tolerance does not equal acceptance. No one seems to understand that you can still respect someone even though you disagree with them. That’s called being reasonable, that’s called being mature, that’s called being an adult! Until we all grow up and realize that we need to respect one another before we’ll ever get anywhere, then we’re just going to end up seeing more temper tantrums like the ones currently going on in California. Until we can get past that, we’re only going to be setting each other back on our road toward mutual understanding and true tolerance.

Thanks for your blog! You have a new reader.

I have nothing against gays (I have much empathy for them), and even support civil unions. But allowing same-sex marriage, i believe, is essentially equalizing homosexuality with heterosexuality. That is unreasonable, and can have dire consequences.

By that logic, pedophilic, polygamous, and incestuous marriages should be allowed to, since they theoretically “wouldn’t” affect the societal benefit.

Laws that simply forbid gay couples from marrying are not “tailored” to serve the ends they are purported to serve.

Unfortunately for that argument, the laws do not say gay couples are forbidden to marry; they say that only the unions of a man and a woman of age, of unrelated bloodline, and only to each other are recognized by the states as marriage.

The laws do exactly what they are tailored to do, which is to recognize only the appropriate male-female couplings as marriage and entitled to all the legal privileges thereof. There is nothing that says a man like yourself who is gay cannot get married; it only says that you must marry a woman. The fact that that is inconvenient to your sexual preferences is irrelevant — unless, of course, you now wish to argue that your sexual preferences should determine who you wish to marry.

In constitutional law terms, what you have here is a “tailoring problem.” Laws that simply forbid gay couples from marrying are not “tailored” to serve the ends they are purported to serve. Since they also intrude upon a recognized fundamental individual right, they are unconstitutional.

The same is not true of laws that you mention concerning marriage with children, animals, etc. There, you have a state interest in discouraging bestiality, child rape, etc. Assuming those are legitimate state interests, laws that forbid marrying children and animals are actually tailored to advance those interests.

Now if you think that simply discouraging same-sex marriage is a legitimate state interest, then current marriage laws might pass constitutional muster, because they undoubtedly are tailored to serve that end. But in this day and age I think you are unlikely to hear a state attorney general make that assertion. Instead, they are likely to say something like you said–that current marriage laws simply encourage heterosexual marriage. But then we are back to our tailoring problem…

But to get back to the point of my original post, the right to marry is, indeed, a right, not a privilege. It has been recognized as such in a consistent series of Supreme Court decisions going back decades. GPW and Mr. Sowell apparently disagree, but they aren’t able to point to much in support of their position–other than the fact that it’s what they personally believe.

Funny; the Supreme Court has also consistently upheld that this so-called “fundamental individual right” can be denied to individuals based on their choice of marriage partners, i.e. children, animals, their blood relatives, and those who are already married.

Your point that marriage is a privilege also ignores the fact that the U.S. and most state constitutions have equal protection clauses that prohibit conferring special privileges on certain classes of citizens to the disadvantage of other classes.

And yet, affirmative action, which deliberately confers special privileges on certain classes of citizens to the disadvantage of others, survives.

I believe the argument is that the societal benefit of affirmative action is such that it outweighs the disadvantage it causes to others. The same would logically apply to marriage, given that the societal benefit of encouraging heterosexual relationships to form, create permanent partnerships, and procreate provides a societal benefit that far outweighs the “disadvantage” it causes to gay relationships, which cannot and will never naturally procreate.

Easy. The Constitution has no less than three amendments establishing race as illegitimate grounds for discrimination.

Meanwhile, for the rest, you are attempting to spin and ignore the question. You have publicly stated that no person can be denied marriage for any reason and that doing so is a violation of “equal protection”. Since you have also stated that it is illegal for people to vote to limit marriage and that doing so is against minority rights, please state publicly that you oppose bans on polygamous, pedophilic, incestuous, and bestialist marriages.

Or admit that you have no problem restricting marriage when it’s people that you don’t like and of whose behavior you don’t approve.

So what is exactly is the basis for your claim that marriage is a privilege and not a right? Where do rights come from, in a society governed by laws, if not from the law itself? Seems the law of the United States is pretty clear.

Your point that marriage is a privilege also ignores the fact that the U.S. and most state constitutions have equal protection clauses that prohibit conferring special privileges on certain classes of citizens to the disadvantage of other classes. So even if you were right that marriage is a privilege and not a right–and as a matter of constitutional law you are clearly wrong–it still wouldn’t be OK for the state to confer that privilege on the straight majority while denying it to the gay minority.

Your problem, I think, is that you are focused exclusively on “marriages” and not at all on “people.” People are affected by marriage laws. If those laws intrude upon fundamental rights or confer special privileges on a few, they are unconstitutional.

I didn’t realize I was speaking on the “public record”; are my comments here going into the Library of Congress?

Personally I’d like to know, for the sake of argument, how far one intends to take this “privilege not a right” position. For example: driving is a privilege. If a state passes a law banning gays from getting driver’s licenses, do we not consider the Equal Protection clause applicable then? Speaking of slippery slopes …

(or if we really want to be technical, just banning “gays in relationships,” so then we can make obtuse comparisons to polygamy, incest, etc.)

As to your rather demanding direct question of me — for the public record, of course — I feel the burden might be on you to show how polygamy, incest, and underage relationships bear any resemblance to consensual gay relationships and, more so, to explain how eliminating miscegenation laws on similar grounds would not also necessitate allowing same. While we’re at it.

Also what do the ACLU and whomever you linked to have to do with the price of tea in China? Are you trying to link me, an anonymous poster here, to some groups you deem radical? That seems a waste of time.

Therefore, since you insist that it is a violation of “equal protection” to prevent anyone from marrying whomever they want and say that it is wrong to limit marriage, please state for the public record that you consider bans on underage marriage, incestuous marriage, and polygamous marriage to be unconstitutional.

And be glad to know that the ACLU and the liberal gays agree with you.

The people who passed the equal protection clause did not want the clause to apply to gays (or anyone else other than males and blacks). Why do you pervert their legislation? What gives you the right to violate the real meaning of the Constitution?

“nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

14th amendment, written plain as day.

Sure, many people say gay people enjoy the “privilege” of marriage just the same — they can marry the opposite sex. Of course in the era of Jim Crow, a black person could vote, if only they had learned to read.

I’ll take the position that the term “equal protection” was meant in a manner based somewhat on common sense and therefore the gay rights position is beyond reproach. We demand equal rights, not an additional privilege.