Prop 8?

The supemes have been very clear that they have no intention of getting into the middle of cultural struggles, so until this debate reaches some conclusion I would not expect the court to rule on the question of homosexual behaviour being a constitutionally protected individual freedom.

"Your comments below are nothing more than ill-informed opinions unsupported by any facts or reference to any authority"

"Loving dealt with MARRIAGE."

There are many married homosexual couples in Massachusetts, California, and Connecticut that have "consummated" their marriages.

Marriage is a fundamental right....Every denial or deprivation of a fundamental right must be necessary to serve a compelling state interest. Each denial or deprivation must be analyzed on its own merits.

How can you look at yourself in the mirror with a straight face?
Marriage for heterosexual couples vs. Civil Unions or domestic partnerships for homosexual couples. That's separate and unequal.

That's like saying if freedom of speech was a fundamental right, then the state could never punish defamation or fighting words.

mandates compulsory attendance under the penalty of law

Education at public expense is not a right.

The government must serve and protect ALL the people--EVERYONE--even disfavored classes of people.

You are lying again. Your statement has no basis in fact or in law.

Our courts are mandated to decide cases and controversies brought before them by individuals who are injured by state-sponsored oppression.

Debra you obviously have some issue deep at heart that troubles you and makes you say mean things to complete strangers. Your need to always be right, regardless the cost, is understandable, but I think unecessary. So, you can leave your strawman and ad hominem arguments at home.

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You are lying again. Your statement has no basis in fact or in law.

Our courts are mandated to decide cases and controversies brought before them by individuals who are injured by state-sponsored oppression.

The justices routinely give interviews about the court (as in most every one does and does so many times over their career on the bench), many times the video ones are on CSpan. I have seen several of these from different justices, and they all say that the court is reluctant to engage in culture wars, that if at all possible the court wishes to wait till the citizens have made up their minds. You will also hear the justices say that they have not accepted a direct challenge to Roe v Wade for the vary same reason. You will also hear from many quarters that it was a mistake for the court to get involved in the 2000 election, and that they hurt themselves by doing so and this are unlikely to get into another squabble where the citizens are roughly divided. The Court cannot function unless its mandates are followed, and they can ill afford to squander more legitimacy by getting out ahead of the country on abortion or homosexuality, by getting out of their lane again.

The people decide, the courts follow......courts usurp their role in society at a cost to their power, and can not do this on a regular basis. For the supremes to support gays marriage when the people have not overwhelmingly done so they must do it only if the issue is of over riding importance to the constitutional framework. Despite claims that society grossly violates the constitution by limiting gay rights, there is well over 200 years of precedence for doing exactly that ( Precedence being a concept that the courts take very seriously, especially supreme court justices). I can't see the SC getting all in a tizzy about homosexual rights, I think that they will stand back and let other institutions in the societal governance system work.

By alleging there is something wrong with me, YOU are attempting to make YOURSELF feel better about being a bigot who willfully advocates and participates in the oppression of your fellow human beings.

The highest court in the land--the UNITED STATES Supreme Court--has already ruled that consensual homosexual conduct is an individual liberty interest that is protected by the Constitution.

Loving did not deal with marriage. It dealt with the criminlization of miscegenation. Its reference to marriage as a right was dicta, meaning not a part of its ruling.

The leading decision of this Court on the right to marry is Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967). In that case, an interracial couple who had been convicted of violating Virginia's miscegenation laws challenged the statutory scheme on both equal protection and due process grounds. The Court's opinion could have rested solely on the ground that the statutes discriminated on the basis of race in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. Id., at 11-12. But the Court went on to hold that the laws arbitrarily deprived the couple of a fundamental liberty protected by the Due Process Clause, the freedom to marry.

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Marriage is a fundamental right....Every denial or deprivation of a fundamental right must be necessary to serve a compelling state interest. Each denial or deprivation must be analyzed on its own merits.

Where is your citation for this one? Because you are confusing several issues of Constitutional Law. When refering to Equal Protection and discrimination, the courts use that test ONLY when the class is "SUSPECT", or meets three criteria....

When a statutory classification significantly interferes with the exercise of a fundamental right, it cannot be upheld unless it is supported by sufficiently important state interests and is closely tailored to effectuate only those interests. See, e. g., Carey v. Population Services International, 431 U.S., at 686 ; Memorial Hospital v. Maricopa County, 415 U.S., at 262 -263; San Antonio Independent School Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S., at 16 -17; Bullock v. Carter, 405 U.S. 134, 144 (1972).

. . . if a law neither burdens a fundamental right nor targets a suspect class, we will uphold the legislative classification so long as it bears a rational relation to some legitimate end. . .

Abstract:
This Article argues that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is not unconstitutional - at least not yet. DOMA provides that States need not recognize same-sex marriages (or judgments in connection with such marriages) performed in sister States. The Article first shows that the Supreme Court's recent opinion in Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down as unconstitutional state laws that criminalized sodomy, has not invalidated the DOMA. Lawrence is best understood as having left undecided the constitutional status of same-sex marriage, and the Article explains the benefits of the Court's having held back its constitutional judgment on this subject at this time.
The Article then debunks the many arguments that numerous scholars proffered before Lawrence that DOMA exceeded Congress' authority. Claims that the DOMA violates state sovereignty by interfering with a family law subject that appropriately falls to the domain of the States are premised on a mischaracterization of the DOMA: the statute does not regulate family law as such, but serves the quintessentially federal function of determining the extraterritorial effect of State law. Arguments that the DOMA undermines Full Faith and Credit's fundamental principle of unifying the country overlook a second animating principle behind Full Faith and Credit with which the DOMA is fully consistent - the preservation of meaningfully empowered States. Furthermore, while virtually all scholarly critiques have assumed that the DOMA authorizes States to deviate from Supreme Court precedent regarding the enforcement of judgments, the Article shows that DOMA actually fills a gap in the Court's jurisprudence in a manner that is consistent with precedent. Even were this not so, DOMA would not be unconstitutional, the Article argues, because Congress has authority to legislate full faith and credit rules that vary from those identified in Supreme Court opinions.

In the end, the Article's analysis suggests that if and when the Court strikes down the DOMA, its unconstitutionality is appropriately grounded in Lawrence-type liberty grounds rather than on the basis of the Full Faith and Credit Clause; the Full Faith and Credit Clause should not be used to thwart differences across states in respect of substantive policies that themselves are not unconstitutional. In the interim, DOMA is best understood as an instance of congressional participation in the process of defining our country's constitutional culture; the Court has not yet decided the constitutionality of same-sex marriage, and the DOMA reflects the political branches' contribution, by means of the institutional tools at their disposal, to the process of deciding how American political culture should deal with the incidents of gay life. DOMA's actual effects on constitutional culture remain to be seen: will it shape societal views, prompt angry opposition, or something else? Certainly until the Supreme Court takes a definitive position, and perhaps even after, other societal actors (including States and citizens themselves) are entitled to react to Congress' currently reflected views on same-sex marriage and thereby participate in the ongoing development of American constitutional culture.

If they don't know basic definitions of words, how do you expect them to define liberty or freedom? Answer: in their myopic, contrived world they have decided that they know best. Their judgement supercedes the constitution and the Supreme Court.

in Lawrence v texas the supremes ruled that consenting adults are protected by the privacy clause of the constitution when conducting homosexual behaviour BEHIND CLOSED DOORS.....it says nothing about societies right to police itself in the public sphere. Saying the you can **** a person of your sex in your bedroom in private is far far away from saying that you are constitutionally protected for all typically homosexual behaviour.

To say that the issue in Bowers was simply the right to engage in certain sexual conduct demeans the claim the individual put forward, just as it would demean a married couple were it to be said marriage is simply about the right to have sexual intercourse.

In addition to being a liar (which has been proven), you're ignorant.

The case does involve two adults who, with full and mutual consent from each other, engaged in sexual practices common to a homosexual lifestyle. The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives. The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime

Americans continue to find civil unions for gays and lesbians more palatable than full-fledged marriage. Fifty-five percent of respondents favored legally sanctioned unions or partnerships, while only 39 percent supported marriage rights. Both figures are notably higher than in 2004, when 40 percent backed the former and 33 percent approved of the latter. When it comes to according legal rights in specific areas to gays, the public is even more supportive. Seventy-four percent back inheritance rights for gay domestic partners (compared to 60 percent in 2004), 73 percent approve of extending health insurance and other employee benefits to them (compared to 60 percent in 2004), 67 percent favor granting them Social Security benefits (compared to 55 percent in 2004) and 86 percent support hospital visitation rights (a question that wasn't asked four years ago). In other areas, too, respondents appeared increasingly tolerant. Fifty-three percent favor gay adoption rights (8 points more than in 2004), and 66 percent believe gays should be able to serve openly in the military (6 points more than in 2004).

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In addition to being a liar (which has been proven), you're ignorant.

Illuminating *sarcasm*....I've got the executive director of the ACLU on my side, who have you got? http://books.google.com/books?id=STJjDJJsXT0C&pg=PA129&lpg=PA129&dq=homosexual+rights+%22supreme+court%22&source=web&ots=ivOq-Cs5CR&sig=9xqNVFS38p9c5Yc8jykNVXy7c5w&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result

furthermore Kennedy himself said

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The case does involve two adults who, with full and mutual consent from each other, engaged in sexual practices common to a homosexual lifestyle. The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives. The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime

To say that the issue in Bowers was simply the right to engage in certain sexual conduct demeans the claim the individual put forward, just as it would demean a married couple were it to be said marriage is simply about the right to have sexual intercourse.

When sexuality finds overt expression in intimate conduct with another person, the conduct can be but one element in a personal bond that is more enduring. The liberty protected by the Constitution allows homosexual persons the right to make this choice.

Two principal cases decided after Bowers cast its holding into even more doubt. In Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992), the Court reaffirmed the substantive force of the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause. The Casey decision again confirmed that our laws and tradition afford constitutional protection to personal decisions relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, child rearing, and education. Id., at 851. In explaining the respect the Constitution demands for the autonomy of the person in making these choices, we stated as follows:

“ These matters, involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State.” Ibid.

Persons in a homosexual relationship may seek autonomy for these purposes, just as heterosexual persons do. The decision in Bowers would deny them this right.

Still, those who applauded last week's ruling for "confirming the dignity" of homosexuals were setting the bar rather low, given the barriers that remain. "It's one thing to say there's a fundamental right to sexual intimacy," observes Harvard law professor Richard Fallon, "and another to say there's a fundamental right to marriage." Vermont's civil-unions law is still a kind of "separate but equal" equivocation; the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy instituted in 1993 has not stopped 9,000 service members from being discharged since then. And in most states, gays do not enjoy the same protection from employment discrimination that others do. Even as he welcomed "the homosexual emancipation," David Smith of the Human Rights Campaign lamented that "you can still be fired from your job for being gay."

Thus the activists' notion that gay marriage is an inevitable outcome of the ruling may be little more than wishful thinking. "When people say the decision means a lot," says Mary Coombs of the University of Miami law school, "what they're doing is not so much saying what it means but what they are going to argue it means. Part of what this will do is energize both the gay-rights movement and the Christian Fundamentalist right." --Reported by Perry Bacon Jr. and Mark Thompson/Washington, Jeffrey Ressner/Los Angeles and Andrea Sachs and Jyoti Thottam/New York