Saturday, April 17, 2004
at de novo, i wrote:
I've been thinking about Burdick v. Taskushi, in reference to terrence's post about the 997 benefits of gay marriages that can't be accomplished with, say, living wills and well-drafted partnership agreements.
In Burdick, the court rejected the right to vote for the person of your choice, although this would seem to be a fundamental right like the right to marry the person of your choice. The court looked at the availability of alternatives (enter a primary, be an independent, be a minor party candidate), applied lax review, and denied that there was a right to a write-in vote.
So a gay marriage case -could- turn on this sort of analysis, looking at whether the alternatives are close enough to satisfy due process.
So I'd like to have a better grasp of what gay marriage accomplishes that can't be done in some other way. Is there a list somewhere?
(I'm relatively uninterested in the marriage penalty or the deductibility of medical insurance; these problems could be fixed with changes to the tax code. I'm also not too interested in symbolic statements, more in concrete consequences.)
I'm -not- saying that there aren't things that can only be accomplished by gay marriage, I'm just not clear on what those are.
I've been thinking about Burdick v. Taskushi, in reference to terrence's post about the 997 benefits of gay marriages that can't be accomplished with, say, living wills and well-drafted partnership agreements.
In Burdick, the court rejected the right to vote for the person of your choice, although this would seem to be a fundamental right like the right to marry the person of your choice. The court looked at the availability of alternatives (enter a primary, be an independent, be a minor party candidate), applied lax review, and denied that there was a right to a write-in vote.
So a gay marriage case -could- turn on this sort of analysis, looking at whether the alternatives are close enough to satisfy due process.
So I'd like to have a better grasp of what gay marriage accomplishes that can't be done in some other way. Is there a list somewhere?
(I'm relatively uninterested in the marriage penalty or the deductibility of medical insurance; these problems could be fixed with changes to the tax code. I'm also not too interested in symbolic statements, more in concrete consequences.)
I'm -not- saying that there aren't things that can only be accomplished by gay marriage, I'm just not clear on what those are.
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