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Well Luis, you are a judicial activist on steroids. What I take it you are saying is that drawing a distinction between laws that pertain to the marriage of two of the opposite gender versus two of the same gender, lacks a rational basis, and that therefore drawing such distinction is indeed unconsitutional. Wow. The court on only a couple of instances has ever stuck a law down as lacking a rational basis, and in both instances, it was because the court was being dishonest (shocking I know), and what they really meant, but didn't have the guts to say, is that the distinction being drawn was being viewed as a suspect class by the court. (One was a decision striking down a zoning law that restricted the use of private homes as old age homes, or for homeless youth, or for nutters, or something.)

Other than that, when SCOTUS or a federal appellate court applies the rational basis test, it means that the law is going to be upheld. That is because almost every legal distinction that is incorporated into law has some rational basis, because the folks that pass laws are not irrational nutters (nutters in the sense that they have no idea about what means are potentially connected to intended ends).

If you start using the rational basis test everywhere as a tool for striking laws down, then the legislature really does have an attenuated role, or should have, in our governance, on your planet.

There are of course all kinds of rational bases for one to draw a distinction between opposite sex versus same sex marriages - cost, tradition (we have always done it that way is a rational basis), the need to foster procreation in a good environment along with the attendant impracticability of sorting out the fertile from the non fertile, a concern that giving legal sanction to marriage of same sex couples might encourage homosexual behavior that is a health risk, and empirically leads to less happy lives, etc. One does not need to endorse any of these rationales for the distinction as being persuasive from a policy standpoint (and I do not), to admit that they are clearly a rational bases for the polity to draw the distinctions.

And there you have it.

Well...

I guess you told me.

In my life, I have traveled down many roads, all leading me to this point in time; along the way, and as we all have, I formed opinions on many subjects. I was not always real comfortable in expressing those opinions for fear that someone glibber, more educated, with more gravitas would put them down, and consequentially me with them; I spent a whole lot of time fretting about how I would be perceived if I chose to voice my opinions.

For a while, I merely parroted others whom I believed to be more qualified; I felt secure in behaving in that manner.

I had a discussion, an argument actually, a few years ago with my younger brother, the one place were I always felt free to express myself being around my family; we disagreed on some political issues as I found him to be too far to the left for my taste, I berated him and he left nearly in tears.

I commented to my father that I was dumbfounded that the son of people who fled Communism could have such leftist ideals, and suggested that he and I needed to bring him to our side of the issues; what Dad said next floored me, it took me months to actually figure out what he meant.

He said that he had no problem with my brother's opinion on politics, and that he was OK with his seemingly leftist leanings, "I brought you here so that you could become a Communist if you so wished".

I was floored.

Like the idiot that I am, I failed to understand that what he actually said was that he had brought us to a place where I had the freedom to choose my political ideology, and left behind a place where your only choice was to become a communist.

In my world, laws serve as an ombudsman to justice, laws without justice are immoral.

In my world, society has no rights, but individuals do. Genderless, colorless, ageless individuals, the weakest fetus to receive the same protection of his rights to life, as the oldest have their right to dignity protected.

In my world, Courts of Justice engage in the "constant and perpetual will to secure to every one HIS OWN right"; "and in a Court of Justice, where there are two parties present, justice demands that the rights of each party should be allowed to himself, as well as each party has a right, to be secure and protected by the Court."

John Quincy Adams arguing that a Court of law has the duty to gauge the impact of laws on the individual, and not on society.

In my world, I would dishonor my father by not freely voicing my opinion because of fear of disapproval from others.

But more importantly, in my world Justice is served however the circumstances require that Justice to be served, and in my world, I would welcome an act of runaway judicial activism that terminated the notion that murdering the unborn is a "right", and make abortion illegal in our country; I imagine most people in here would as well.

In my world, if I welcome Judicial activism when it suits my agenda, then I am required to equally welcome it when it doesn't, because to do otherwise, in mine or anyone's world, would amount to nothing less than monumental hypocrisy