What the Supreme Court Isn't Seeing in the Prop 8 Case and What it Should See

First reports coming back from the Supreme Court hearings today about same-sex marriage have started to outline a mixed court, a Supreme Court that seems to still be trying to find its way around the argument rather than trying to find its legality. The trouble seems to be not on interpretation of statutes or relating the issue to the true ideals of the founders. It is instead the issue of states’ rights, not the issue of gay marriage. That is to say, a decision will hang in the balance not because of civil rights, but instead on the never-ending battle between the federal and states’ government.

If you feel something is wrong with that picture, don’t worry, you’re right. The issue of what effect a Supreme Court ruling over the 50 states should be an important consideration to make, but it shouldn't be the consideration to make; the biggest consideration should be what sort of civil rights the Supreme Court, the main law of the land, can side with. Regardless of the outcome, the Supreme Court should now realize that this issue is not simply the questioning of the constitutionality of one state’s proposition, but is instead the most prominent civil right fight at the moment.

There is no easy way to get around this fact; a Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage is going to have national ramifications. The main support for this is history itself. All major civil rights cases have left the jurisdiction of states’ rights advocacy and been put under the protection of the 14^th amendment by the federal government.  Roe v. Wade, Brown v. Board, Lawrence v. Texas, even Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission all qualify as potential if not outright state-driven and Supreme Court ruled civil rights decisions which were then extended to all 50 states.

The Supreme Court today unfortunately has shown a lack of leadership in this matter when the ball is clearly in their court. The justices have a specific job to do; keep the rest of the government in legal check all the while evaluating questions of fairness and equality for Americans, not just Californians or Virginians or Ohioans. This is especially true for issues regarding civil rights, where a country, not provinces or states, are entrusted to take a stance in order to make sure that the starting point of equality is the same regardless of where one is born or where their life takes them.

It is troubling to hear justices consider the validity of the suit or even questioning their agreement to hear the case. It is absolutely their responsibility to decide this issue now, given that the states themselves simply have not coalesced around a true definition of marriage. That in itself should be signal enough to the Supreme Court that their intervention is needed. Not that there needs to be a firm definition of marriage for everyone to use from now on until the end of time, rather that there needs to be a final decision taken one way or the other.

This is because this issue is older than Prop. 8. Homosexuality did not spring out of nowhere in 2008, it has been an issue that’s been around for a while now, circa beginning of human time. It is also an issue that has already been indirectly covered by some already on this Supreme Court. Simply because this issue is riding on the back of a fight to relieve a state-voted proposition doesn't make it more dynamic or introduce special barriers. Those barriers only exist if the justices are too politically preoccupied with balancing state and federal powers rather than address a civil rights issue, or if the justices think that American society is simply not ready for a ruling on the issue. I hope for the sake of putting this conflict to bed that neither of those options are true.

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