Is marriage a right or a privilege? Constitution makes no mention of it.

[dumpdabaggers]

This is what is so funny to me about the entire marriage "definition' argument. If we took the Constitution the way the right wingers do, there is no right to marriage in the Constitution.

[Renew Deal]

1. Interesting question.

You can't be legally married without a government issued marriage license. Does that make it a privilege?

[VMI Dem]

2. Where does it mention water fountains?

[dumpdabaggers]

3. Or Socialisim, Communism, "free market," or Capitalism.

Right wingers act like "Captitalisim" is a religious sacrament.

[VMI Dem]

5. My point is lost.

[freddie mertz]

4. Exactly! + 1000000!! nt.

[DJ13]

6. Like driving, the government considers anything that requires a license a privilege

[WCGreen]

7. It's neither...

A marriage is a contract between two consenting adults.

[slackmaster]

11. You're right, it is a contract, however...

All adults have a right to enter into such a contract, except where proscribed by due process.

[Bluenorthwest]

8. According to the SCOTUS in VA vs Loving, a right.

From that decision: "Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival...."

[unpossibles]

9. not specifically but the Constitutional problem with not allowing equal rights

is that marriage rights ARE considered to be within the scope of the 14th amendment and that is not supposed to allow unequal rights to different citizens. In other words, marriage contracts are sanctioned by the state, and offer certain rights and protections, and to deny some class of citizens the same rights given to others seems to go against the Equal Protection Claus of the 14th amendment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

[slackmaster]

10. Anything not mentioned in the Constitution is by default a right

Any behavior that hasn't been proscribed by due process is a right.

If we took the Constitution the way the right wingers do, there is no right to marriage in the Constitution.

Leftist authoritarians take the same view as RW authoritarians - That only rights specifically enumerated in some government foundation document exist. But that is totally at odds with our legal system.

[LiberalFighter]

12. Marriage was not a requirement until states decided it was necessary for public policy.

It really wasn't about religion that they were strongly encouraging marriage. It was a matter of making sure the states weren't stuck with women getting dumped when the men got tired of them or they moved on to a different job. Making sure the states didn't get stuck with the expense of children as a result of men and women splitting up.

[patrick t. cakes]

17. also inheritance rights,

and many times only for the upper classes.

[Old Troop]

13. Why should the state be involved at all? It's a personal decision.

[Dr Morbius]

14. In my view, the Constitution does not because it should not.

I'm a ninther; I remind people all the time that they have many rights not enumerated in the Constitution. You have no Constitutionally protected right to justice, to free thought, to vote or to marry. These are rights, however, and the fifth and fourteenth amendment can be read to protect them (and a right to justice can be inferred from the fourth through the eighth); liberty cannot be deprived without due process, and the freedom to think, vote or enter contracts counts as liberty in my book.

It isn't and shouldn't be necessary for a Constitution to enumerate all one's rights. I don't think it's possible anyway. Government should stay well out of the marriage business. I hold that there should be a wall of separation between family and state, and I'd throw religion on the family side. No need for two walls, after all! Marriage is legally a contract, and any consenting adults should be allowed to enter such a contract, with the caveat that local governments should be allowed to make things like bigamy and polygamy illegal (as they typically involve some kind of abuse).

Marriage is also a religious institution, and that's where the problem lies. Religious institutions should be free to marry whomever they please, or not, as they please. But what is marriage where government is concerned? A contract, and not a religious institution. So there is a conflict within government over the definition; get government to stay out of marriage altogether and there's no problem.

[hayu_lol]

15. Interesting thread since more and more...

people are just opting to live together without either the license or the ceremony. Don't know yet just what this means for the future, but there are a lot of households across the country where people live together, have children together, and then bail out for greener pastures without proper division of assets or the protection of the children of the relationship.

This bodes ill for the future when relationships are merely temporary arrangements set up on the immediate whims of the participants.

[ruggerson]

16. The Supreme Court has said it's a fundamental right - a "basici civil right"

n/t

[patrick t. cakes]

18. seems throughout history its been a privilege

for those who could afford it.

[boppers]

19. Ahem.

'Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.'

and

'There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification. The fact that Virginia prohibits only interracial marriages involving white persons demonstrates that the racial classifications must stand on their own justification, as measures designed to maintain White Supremacy.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia

[Prism]

20. This is my surprised face. n/t