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Originally Posted by Tex
No? Keeping in mind that it was only a random example, educate me.
If McDonald's chose to bar blacks or women from its restaurants, I'm fairly confident it would be illegal. I'm not sure that it matters to me whether it's merely against a state or federal statute, or against the Constitution itself.
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The Civil Rights Act doesn't extend to gays. There's no question about that. But the reason we need a Civil Rights Act is that the Bill of Rights doesn't address private conduct.
We're talking here about marriage that constitutes government action so clearly the Constitution is implicated. The specific and narrow question Waters raised--prompted by the recent Cal. Supreme Court decision--was whether gays are being deprived a Constitutional right by being treated differently from heterosexuals in terms of freedom to marry.
Now, you may call the analytical framwork I set forth legaleze. But it does represent how the Supreme Court goes about addressing questions such as Waters raised. The effort is to be systematic and principled. People can sit around all day and assert "marriage is a right" or not, but that doesn't get us anywhere, does it. (I think it's funny how many Mormons I've seen--Mormons of all people!--assert "marriage is not a right." All the sophistry employed to avoid just saying "gay sex is a sin! an abomination! that's why I don't want gay marriage" is amusing. Cowardly hypocrites. Mormons are once again on the horns of their desire to be accepted into the mainstream including perported belief in reason, and their enjoyment of atavistic peculiarity.)