peck420 peck420:
DanSC and stratos,
See, this is where I get very confused.
How does the US have one law (that is supposedly the highest law) state that all Citizens(not male, not female, not gay, not straight, but all citizens) be treated equally under the law, then have State laws that say otherwise?
Is that not a contradiction bound to cause conflict until fixed?
DanSC,
It is my understanding that marriage was not defined in most(all?)States as a single man and woman until DOMA in 1995. Which would be after the first gay marriage requests were made. Does that not make DOMA (and the derivatives) unconstitutional since they amended the law to exclude specific Citizens?
Over the last 200 years the Supream Court has rulled that this applies to all religons, races and genders but not in regards to weather same sex marriage is covered by this. Thus all the court cases going through the system right now. The way it works is basicly if you think your position is covered by any statuet in the Constitution and are being denied that right you start out in the lower courts and fight you way to the top court. Some rights are restricted such as free speach. Hate crimes cover hate speach yet it says that one has the right to free speach. There are many more examples of this but thats the first one that comes to mind.
A lot of times its how the law is writen that comes under fire. Legaly a white male between the ages of 18-45 can not be discriminated against. It's because of the way the laws are written. It does not say so but the laws covers every age group and race besides the 18-45 white males thus in the eyes of the law it is very hard to prove that as a white male you have been discriminated against because of your race and or gender.
I hope this explains it a bit why even though the Consitution says one thing in reality it is not always the case. A lot of it is do to rulings that have set presedents over the years. Varying judges have had varying views on all the issues thus from one era to another how laws are enforced if at all come and go.