NY Court reject same-sex wedding licenses

[Prudence]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

Well, then, my question becomes...does intent matter? If it discriminates, it disciminates, whether that was the intention or not, no? In the decission, the justices concede 316 benefits from marriage that are denied to a whole class of citizens, and their only defense of that is, "Well, the legislature didn't MEAN to deny them that 100 years ago."

Yeah, intent matters in some circumstances. Without going in depth, the short version is that if there's a rational intent (doesn't have to be a good one), and if the intent is something other than discrimination, and if any resulting discrimination doesn't affect a protected class, it's not unconstitutional. That's a simplistic breakdown; anyone who would like to give a more detailed dissertation is welcome to do so.

Consitutional analysis is frequently not what one might think of as "fair."

I need to stop replying in this thread. Moving along now...