Ninth Circuit rules Prop 8 unconstitutional.

[Bacon King]

This was actually a HUGE loss for the homosexual activists.

The decision was extremely narrow. Which is shocking considering that Reinhardt wrote the opinion and his sock puppet was on the panel.

It applies ONLY to California and the unique circumstances in which Prop 8 was passed. It does not apply to any other State in the Ninth Circuit.

I'm reading through the decision now, so I can't say any about the rest of your post, but regarding the limits of the decision, Reinhardt made it fairly clear he would have more broadly allowed marriage equality if the facts of the case permitted.

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[Bacon King]

Overall thoughts after reading the majority opinion:

It's a fairly strong ruling, and one I think the Supreme Court would uphold if it reaches them. Reinhardt using the logic from Romer v. Evans to uphold Walker's decision makes a lot of sense. And it doesn't hurt Reinhardt's chances for this ruling to be upheld that Kennedy wrote the majority opinion there, haha. Also, on that note, I literally laughed out loud when I saw the random quotation on p.72 from a Kennedy concurrence completely unrelated to the topic at hand.

I've only skimmed through the dissent so far (I'll read it more in detail later), but I think the Baker v. Nelson argument is weak. The precedent from a summary dismissal should be taken as narrowly as possible; I don't get how he interprets Baker more broadly than Romer. I find it amusing that Smith fishes for a 58 year old case on eminent domain to find a Supreme Court quote that says states can use police power to regulate morality. Also funny that he felt the need to quote a 1888 case about divorce in the Oregon Territory to highlight the importance of marriage. I'm glad he agreed with the majority that Justice Walker didn't need to recuse himself, though.

[Bacon King]

The reasoning of the court seems to be that when the state awards the moniker "marriage" to a status,  that cannot be taken away absent changing the substantive basket of rights and duties along with the name change. But just taking away the name once conferred, and no more, is simply not rational, and meant to demean, and therefore violates some fundamental right violative of the Equal Protection clause because it's simply unadorned gay bashing (but somehow it wouldn't be if the rights attending civil unions were made lesser than that of "marriage" - I guess because Reinhardt wanted a "narrow" even if moronic decision).

I don't see that sort of implication in the decision at all; it's just Reinhardt being as narrow as possible with the ruling (and a bit understandably, too, considering the Supremes unanimously gave him a smack-down twice last month for judicial overreaching). My understanding of the decision is that for Romer to not apply, Proposition 8 had to be a legitimate state interest. The court references the argued justifications of Prop 8, only to point out that they're irrelevant because all non-marriage rights are maintained for gays; the decision explicitly points out it isn't even considering the hypothetical constitutionality if it did so:

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I agree this will probably be granted cert, but I think this decision is narrow enough for Kennedy to be comfortable with it (though admittedly, you're far more knowledgeable than I with all of this stuff). I don't see the national implications, though, because it's not as if this ruling even touches on DOMA (even though it is, IMO, blatantly unconstitutional).

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I agree that the Romer case was decided over matters that were more concretely significant (legal access to remedies for blatant discrimination is important, of course) but I think that the title of marriage does have a very signficant symbolic meaning for a lot of people, and on that note Reinhardt made a pretty good argument that this case was about more than a simple moniker.

[Bacon King]

The will of the people of California is that gay marriage be banned. The Federal Government has no right to legislate from the bench. Article One Section Eight of the Constituition says nothing regarding social issues thus the Tenth Amendment is invoked thus the Ninth Circuit was in the wrong regarding this decision. They said it (the ban) violates the 14th Amendment. If the left wants to play that game, we on the right can use that to ban ALL abortions.

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How is taking the right to get married away from gays not a state "making or enforcing a law abridging the priveleges... of citizens of the United States," and how exactly can you ban abortion with an amendment that defines personhood at birth?

[Bacon King]

milhouse: Consummation is not legally required for a marriage to be binding, and is not grounds for annulment or divorce under US law (the only exception to this is when one partner is physically unable to consummate the marriage, this condition is incurable, and that this condition was known but withheld from the other spouse prior to the marriage). Marital rape is indeed a rape. Regardless, this issue is entirely separate from marriage fraud, which I highly doubt is as common as you seem to think.

If someone's getting married for government benefits, it's not like they can just sign a contract and be done with it- even courthouse marriages without some big ceremony still get published in the newspaper, no? This would mean that everyone would know they're married, so they'd still have to commit wholesale to this "fraudulent" marriage. And this applies doubly to homosexual couples, because someone isn't going to pretend to everyone that they're gay just so they can get foodstamps or whatever you think people are doing.

Besides, most legal benefits to marriages are not financial anyway, but pertain to things like child custody, adoption, hospital visitation, and other things that grant them legal acceptance as a member of their spouses family.