This whole thing about equal rights doesn't pass the smell test to anyone who is objective.  What is marriage.  That's a fundamental question.  From the point of view of the state its a legal binding of two people.  THAT'S IT!  So you can save all the hearts and flowers about devotion and freedom of intimacy blah blah blah.  Technically speaking, that was legal before the supreme court made its ruling.   No one was talking about arresting gay people for buying wedding rings.  no one was trying to stop gay people from having wedding ceremonies.  No one was trying to stop same sex couples from cohabitating.  While I strongly disagree with those lifestyles, I would make the argument that the right to express them was covered clearly in the first amendment under freedom of religious expression. 

 

At the same time, Marriage is an institution that fundamentally has to be defined.  Just like a 401k has to be defined, or an IRA or a life insurance contract, or the terms of any other legally binding contract, partnership or institution that seeks to be recognized and endorsed by the state.  As such, it is fundamentally incumbent on the people and or their elected representatives considering all compelling factors should determine how each state defines and recognizes marriage.  Even if you want to talk about interstate commerce, then the federal elected representatives should have final say in fundamentally defining marriage.  The idea that 5 men in black robes have the unilateral ability to overturn the expressed democratic will of the people, with respect to the fundamental definition of marriage, is inherently divorced from the democratic process. 

 

As for the idea of comparing this to general minority rights, that doesn't even reach first base.  First, in the very writings of the founders we find a contiguous lament about the institution of slavery and a desire to eventually see it abolished.  It was those writings that were quoted when the 13th 14th and 15th amendments to the constitution were passed and also they fought a pretty public war in which all parties clearly understood that one of the major points of contention was the right to keep and bear slaves defining people as less than deserving of their inalienable human rights based solely on their melanin content.   later during the 60's you had a massive bipartisan coalition between a president and his opposing party pass the civil rights act and the voting rights act as affirmation of the protections of the 14th ammendment.  While there were several important court cases that aided in the plight of minorities at the time, those court cases were based on the laws and amendments that were not being enforced, not conjuring them out of whole cloth. 

 

 

And last but not least, I think that the most hypocritical position of this century is the left claiming the banner of civil rights and human decency because they rush to absorb support of the lgbt community, when in reality it was the left that philibustered the civil rights act, the voting rights act, put MLK under surveillance, a democratic president called him a [BAD WORD REMOVED] the southern states who left the union were mostly democrat and oh yes, last but not least, the democratic party today as we speak has argued and maintained that before we have the right to be gay straight marry or life a bohemian lifestyle we don't fundamentally have the right to breathe or exist as humans in our mothers womb.  This alone has led to the inane slaughter of some 70 million people, most of whom were women and minorities.  That's six times greater than the holocaust.  I don't want to hear anyone lecture me about freedom and equal rights while lynch mobs are closing down bakeries and flower shops that THEPY won't tolerate and standing idly by while we slaughter over a million unborn children a year for simple convenience. 

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