Gay marriage in... Utah? Update: on hold for now

[gergroy]

whatever said:

Kasz216 said:

Fascinating.

It seems like what ironically "doomed" conservatives in this case was that they passed a law specifically making it illegal when previously there just wasn't a legal standard for it.


Which is pretty funny really.

Had their not been a specific law specifically banning something that couldn't of happened in the first place it probably would of never went to court.

This is partially true.  While some laws have existed for a long time, a lot of the state laws and state constitutional amendments against gay marraige were pushed through after the Massachusetts supreme court decision to allow it based on the Massachusetts constitution.  So a lot of states decided they had better get something into their constitutions so a similar court decision didn't happen in their state.

You know, I was just reading about prop 8 and evidently I have been thinking about this wrong.  I thought the supreme court overturned prop 8, but all they did was dismiss the case because the state was no longer representing the case.  If this utah law goes all the way to the supreme court, it would actually be the first time the supreme court ruled on the issue.  If the supreme court finds in favor of gay marriage, it would in fact overturn all of these amendments in the states.  Should be interesting few months...