That's not necessarily true - if your sniper rifle is legal in a state, but not California then you just have to keep it in the states where it is legal and keep it out of California.

If a state recognizes straight marriages performed from other states, though, then don't they have an obligation to recognize gay marriages as well?

Marriage is a unique institution in that the sacrament of marriage is given by the church but the legal rights and entitlements are given by the state. This makes it so the decision has to be made on the local level; counties give marriage liscences.

That's what I could never get, Cat - conservatives always castigate the Warren Court for beign "activist", but I've never seen one decision issued by any so-called "activist" court that didn't base it's reasoning on the wording of the US Constitution.

I've always figured the labels have been backwards - to me, the "strict constructionists" are the ones who take the Constitution in it's totality and try to find a balance between all of it's provisions. The "activists" are the ones who seem to pick and choose the provisions that suit their arguments and conveniently disregard the rest.

Yeah, I don't get it. The new Roberts Court has made several of the most 'activist' decisions (anti-free market) ever known to the 200+ years of the SC.

It is a BS label people like to use who do not understand the legal concepts of a SC and why it exists. We might as well be in Nazi Germany if we did not have the SC. After Marbury vs. Madison the idea of judicial review was firmly established in both theory and practice, this has never changed.

But aren't local officials bound by State law?

What about a Church that supports gay marriage (like the United Church), though? If the State doesn't extend legal protection to that marriage, then aren't they infringing on that couple's freedom to practice their religion?

But doesn't that beg the question of how "free market" the US Constitution really is?

The Unitarian Church is what you are talking about. No, I know an instance of what we are talking about. One of my former graduate students got 'married' to her partner in the Unitarian Church here in TN but it is not recognized by this state. We have a state law that was passed (I did not vote for) that bans same sex marriage.

Good question. I am of the opinion the system is set up by the state itself...the state prints the currency, what else is there to say.

That's what I don't get... if she married a man and went through the same ceremony, the State would have recognized the marriage as a matter of course. How is that equal protection under the law? Is it not an infringment of her freedom of religion? Moreover, what business is it of the State whom she marries? Doesn't she have a right to privacy in this matter?

*L* Exactly....