Monday, January 6, 2014

Ban against Same-Sex marriage UNCONSTITUTIONAL ?

In Salt Lake City, Utah there was a law that was recently banned. There ban against same sex marriages was said to unconstitutional because it conflicted with guarantees of equality and equal protection among all citizens. This effected the state of Utah so much that even an openly gay state senate vowed to not marry his partner until they are able to marry in Utah. After making this law what attributes made them decide to make this unconstitutional? Well, in the constitution it states in the fourteenth amendment that  in The Equal Protection Clause requires each state to provide equal protection under the law to all people within its jurisdiction. This clause was the basis for Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Supreme Court decision that precipitated the dismantling of racial segregation which was the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. This separation may  have applied to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, riding on a bus, or even in the rental or purchase of a home. But what a lot people seem to forget or look over is that this equal protection clause also meant the the same for many other decisions rejecting irrational or unnecessary discrimination against people belonging to various groups that excluded the issue of race.

There are several different types of state constitutional amendments banning legal recognition of same-sex unions in U.S. state constitutions, and this has been a growing trend over the years since about 1996. These laws are able to be made because lawmakers interpret the amendments to define marriage as only a union between one man and one woman which means they prevent civil unions or same-sex marriages from being legalized. But what about the opinions of the people and what if that doesn't seem very equal? This is what can cause people to feel that this is unconstitutional.

So what makes this unconstitutional is that it can come off to people who agree on same sex marriage that they aren't being treated equally or the same as people who agree on marriage of the opposite sex. They feel that they will possibly be deprived of the the same rights as others who look at what they are doing as wrong. So with these strong opinions floating around it is easy to recognize how these laws can seem unfair and also unconstitutional to the outlines of the fourteenth amendment of the constitution

No comments:

Post a Comment

Followers