> I can't even imagine the activist justices on the bench breaking from so much precedent to allow it. I'm completely with Dave here; leave it up to the states (this is the exact position taken by the Democratic nominees as well as Dick Cheney). The fact is, a lot of states are going to make it illegal, though there is significant support for civil unions. That seems like a pretty good compromise to me.
>

It sounds like a good compromise to you, but same-sex couples don't exactly enjoy being "separate but equal". (see below)

> Commie_bat is a Canadian (and also a communist, apparently) so perhaps that explains why he or she wants the Supreme Court to decide the case. I know almost nothing about the Canadian government, but I assure you it would be pretty bad if this were to happen in America.
>

No, not a communist. The name started out as a silly joke in a chat room a few years back, and somehow caught on.

As I see it, there are two problems. One is that equality rights should not be a matter of popular opinion, and the other is that the US Supreme Court, who is supposed to be minorities' last line of defense for their Constitutional rights, isn't all that fond of gay rights. I agree that solving one wouldn't solve the other.

> Even when the Court makes controversial decisions for which there is a fair amount of public support (e.g. Brown v. Board of Education, ending racial segregation in public schools or Roe v. Wade, granting a constitutional right to abortion), actual enforcement of those decisions has been very spotty.
>

I don't think this would be terribly difficult to enforce. It's a simple matter of performing marriages, and it'd be pretty clear if somebody was not complying. It's a lot less subtle than picking one of 40 white applicants out of 50 people who apply for a job. There aren't even plausible excuses for refusing two people a marriage license.

> No, we're best off leaving the issue to states to decide, because that will let people more easily choose what works best in their area. Personally, I agree with Mina that the state should be out of the marriage regulating business entirely, but the chances of that happening are about the same as Justice Scalia deciding that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees the right for gays to marry.
>

The problem is, some level of government has to be in the marriage regulating business, because you can get married civilly. So at some point, there has to be a definition of who can or can't marry. If that definition is discriminatory, that's when the Courts have to step in.

> And, before anyone says anything, civil unions are not even substantially similar to the "separate but equal" doctrine that applied to blacks before the 1950s. There's a world of difference between actual, separate facilities and having a different word to define the same legal concept.
>

First of all, gay people feel like they're being treated separate but equal, so the creation of a separate type of union for them directly impacts their dignity as human beings, in exactly the same way as a black person who has to drink from a separate but perfectly operational water fountain.

Second, if it's possible (and relatively simple, if someone wanted to) to give them the same rights as married people while calling it the same thing (i.e. make them equal without being separate), what's the point of giving them a separate label?

^v^:)^v^
FB