Same-sex marriage is a civil right. The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), on May 21, 2012, named same-sex marriage as "one of the key civil rights struggles of our time." In 1967 the US Supreme Court unanimously confirmed in Loving v. Virginia that marriage is "one of the basic civil rights of man."
At this important moment in the U.S. debate over same-sex "marriage" and the likelihood of a long campaign to try to add a marriage amendment to the Constitution, it is important to evaluate the grounds of the arguments. In particular, we need to be clear about what constitutes a civil right.
A Right to Marry? Same-sex Marriage and Constitutional Law A Right to Marry? Same-sex Marriage and Constitutional Law Martha Nussbaum ▪ Summer 2009 (Ted Eytan / Flickr) . Marriage is both ubiquitous and central.
Gay marriage rights should be equal to those attained by opposite sex couples. Otherwise, there is no such thing as equal rights. Domestic partnerships, same sex marriages and civil unions should all be considered equal to marriage. There are no fundamental reasons for forbidding gay marriage rights.
The public national discussion around same-sex marriage first began in 1993 when the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that laws denying same-sex couples the right to marry violated state constitutional equal protection rights unless the state could show a "compelling reason" for such discrimination.
In a historic development for gay rights and the institution of marriage, the Supreme Court has ruled that same-sex couples have the constitutional right to marry. Specifically, the 5-4 ruling in
This effectively made same-sex marriage a right under federal law. The court did not overturn the foundational premise that marriage is a civil right. Lower courts, even when relying on disparate state-level constitutional language, have acknowledged the right to marry.
The NAACP, the leading African-American civil rights organization, has pledged its support for gay rights and same-sex marriage, stating that they "support marriage equality consistent with equal protection under the law provided under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution" and declaring that same-sex marriage is a civil right.
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