They keep going...

...and going...

Explaining the Wide Range of Answers on When the Right to Same-Sex Marriage Was Created
Orin Kerr • August 9, 2010 10:56 pm

In an earlier reader poll, I asked readers who believe that the Constitution requires states to recognize same-sex marriage to indicate when the Constitution began to require it. The results were fascinating: Readers disagreed widely as to the answer, with responses spread pretty evenly among the different centuries and periods of U.S. constitutional history. What, if anything, does that suggest?

...and going...

A Question for Readers Who Think The Constitution Required States to Recognize Same-Sex Marriage Before 1900Orin Kerr • August 9, 2010 5:42 pm

This is a follow-up to my post below on the reader polls about attitudes toward same-sex marriage. In the fourth of the four polls, I asked readers who think that the Constitution requires states to recognize same-sex marriage to say when the Constitution began to require it. Slightly more than half the readers who answered that poll answered that the requirement began before the year 1900.

and going...

Interesting Similarity Between Two VC Reader Polls
Orin Kerr • August 9, 2010 9:54 pm

I had a sense of deja vu reading over the results of the VC reader poll on same-sex marriage. Here are the key results. First, as a matter of policy:


Favor same-sex marrriage: 61%
Oppose same-sex marriage: 33%
Don’t know: 6%

Second, as a matter of constitutional law:


Laws banning same-sex marriage are constitutional: 54%
Laws banning same-sex marriage are unconstitutional: 39%
Don’t know: 9%

So VC readers who responded and who have an opinion on the topic think that a law banning same-sex marriage is a bad idea by about 2–1, but a slight majority thinks such laws are constitutional.

That rough breakdown reminded me of another VC reader poll on another big constitutional question, albeit on a totally different issue. Back in January 2008, I asked readers about their policy and constitutional views about a hypothetical law permitting the death penalty for child rape(in light of a then-pending Supreme Court case, Kennedy v. Louisiana). To be clear, obviously I’m not suggesting that there is any connection between gay marriage and either the death penalty or child rape.

I don't know. I smell animosity in the water, myself.

ADDED: I wonder if Ross Douthat stoops so low to listen to common gossip circles. Like the one about Peter Orszag's families...

So if Anthony Kennedy follows Walker and finds that the traditional legal understanding of marriage is unconstitutional — and, by extension, that it’s irrational and bigoted to think otherwise — it’s just naive to say that this won’t have a ripple effect in the culture as a whole. The space for arguing for the distinctiveness of lifelong heterosexual monogamy will shrink, and the stigma attached to such arguments will grow. Old-fashioned beliefs about marriage will be regarded more and more like old-fashioned beliefs about race. And as with the stigma against racism, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to define where the legal regime ends and the cultural norm begins.

The cultural norms, they are a' changin'. For better or worse.

No fair to permit Peter, but rationally discriminate against Saul and Paul. (or Patty and Maddie; you get the idea.)

And I say that as a one-shot believer, but a realist, myself.