The quote is from a link to the DU topic@
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5833429&mesg_id=5833429 Gays have no constitutional right to marriage, or recognition of their marriages by other states:
Plaintiffs are married, and their challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act ("DOMA") poses a different set of questions: whether by virtue of their marital status they are constitutionally entitled to acknowledgment of their union by States that do not recognize same-sex marriage, and whether they are similarly entitled to certain federal benefits. Under the law binding on this Court, the answer to these questions must be no.
Read more:
http://www.americablog.com/2009/06/obama-justice-depart... Here is the pit our fearless leader and proclaimed Constitutional lawyer cum professor is finding himself. The USSupCt has ruled from its inception that marriages are the bailiwick of the states. Take Utah for example, one of the conditions that had to be met before they would be allowed statehood was to make polygamy illegal. Why? Because the other states would have to recognize legal marriages made in Utah. The fact is that this issue may bring on a minor constitutional crisis and result in a constitutional amendment.
It is one, probably the prime reason that the term 'civil union' is pushed so hard by both moderate repugs, and Dems. But that isn't a solution either, it grants tax relief (such as it is for married couples), Social Security survivor benifits and some other smaller crap...BUT even those tokens will require the Congress to pass laws declaring and defining a 'civil union'.
NONE OF WHICH makes the constitutional issue of the states right to regulate marriage within its borders. Which brings us right back to the Utah issue of over a hundred years ago.
I voted for Obama, although I knew he was not politically well connected, lacked meaningful experience, and had some really really close interaction with some seedy small time political racketeers, because of his education and his academic studies of Constitutional Law. As it turns out he is not a Wm O. Douglas, nor Cardoza, but may just possibly be more along the lines of you fill in the blank ________. One thing is not just apparent but is demonstrable fact, he is more an ordinary lawyer, than a constitutional scholar, and I say that because he has chosen to defend the powers of the Executive Branch, which were literally taken forcibly by Bush/Cheney. You cannot deny this, for in every instance where an executive order or an executive policy has favored the Executive Branch over the Legislative or the Judiciary, Obama has landed squarely on the side of the Cheney/Bush dung heap. Whaich all adds upto one thing...don't look for anything but roadblocks from the Whitehouse on the issue of same sex marriage.