‘Puter and Czar at “Newlywed Gay Couples Drink Free Night” at the Leaping Peacock. We’re not actually gay, but there’s nothing we won’t do for free booze.

There’s been no end of uninformed opining on the Left’s newly-discovered Constitutional right to gay marriage and the pending cases argued this week before the Supreme Court. As you’d imagine, liberals and conservatives take distinctly different views on gay marriage.

Most gay marriage commentary emanating from the torrid penumbras of the Left is some variant of the following:

Of course there’s an absolute right of people to do whatever the Hell they want to do, no matter the consequences, no matter whether or not anyone ever did it before and no matter that even we enlightened minds of the Left didn’t even think such a right ten years ago!  And if you disagree, you’re a bigoted NeaderCon whose mother should’ve aborted you (which is also a Constitutional right, dammit!).

The dignified commentary coming from the Right’s reading of the Constitution’s plain language is generally some variant of this:

There’s nothing that mentions gay marriage in the Constitution and the LibTards want to use big government to cram down their secular humanism on ‘Murrica when all correctly functioning human beings know that the federal government can only be used to enforce our favored social policies on an unwilling nation, not their hippie crap!!1!!

And so the Supreme Court is once again left to split the metaphorical baby. Since none of the other Gormogons is an attorney (though all of the other Gormogons are smarter than ‘Puter), ‘Puter figured he’d rush in where angels fear to tread. Here’s the skeletal outline of the decision ‘Puter would render in both pending matters.*

In Hollingsworth v. Perry, Docket No. 12-144, the Court must decide whether the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection clause prevents a state from defining marriage as the “union of a man and a woman.” This is the so-called Proposition 8 case, whereby California’s voters amended the state’s constitution via referendum to define marriage as heterosexual marriage only.  The lower courts held that homosexual couples have an undeniable right to marry, derived from the Equal Protection clause, but narrowed the ruling to only cover California.

In United States v. Windsor, Docket No. 12-307, the Court must decide whether the Fifth Amendment’s Equal Protection clause prevents the federal government from defining marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife” preventing homosexual couples legally married under a state’s laws from federal benefits afforded heterosexual couples also legally married under such state’s laws. This is the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”) case.  The lower courts in this matter held that DOMA violated the Fifth Amendment’s Equal Protection clause, using intermediate scrutiny as the standard of review.

‘Puter would reverse the lower courts’ decisions in the Hollingsworth matter, but affirm on different grounds the lower courts in Windsor.

Hollingsworth is wrongly decided because, simply put (and as Chief Justice Roberts noted in the Court’s ObamaCare decision), voters are entitled to be dumbasses. In more legally appropriate terms, there is nowhere to be found a federal Constitutional right for homosexuals to marry. There is no language referring to such a right, either directly or obliquely.  There is no historical analog for gay marriage. Until about 10 years ago, the nation’s consensus was that you’re crazy to think such a right exists. Since there’s no existing right to gay marriage in the Constitution, and further because the Constitution does not grant Congress power to legislate on the matter (Article I, Section 8), the states are the proper place for resolution of such issue pursuant to the Tenth Amendment.

California’s voters in a free and fair election chose to define marriage so as to exclude homosexuals. It may not be nice. It may not be fair.  But it’s Constitutional. Believe it or not, there’s no Constitutional right not to have one’s feelings hurt.

The Windsor lower courts got to the correct answer, but for the wrong reasons. Mirroring his Hollingsworth analysis, ‘Puter would hold that Congress was without power to enact DOMA as legislating on matters of sexual preference is not among the legislature’ Article I, Section 8 enumerated powers.  As such, under the Tenth Amendment, states are free to legislate definitions of marriage. ‘Puter would stop writing the main decision at this point. ‘Puter would also file a concurring opinion stating that while Equal Protection may not have applied in this case, as Congress was without power to enact DOMA in the first instance, a Fifth Amendment Equal Protection analysis would almost certainly apply to challenges to federal laws denying homosexual couples legally married under state law benefits and protections afforded to heterosexual couples legally married under state law.

And there you have it.  Something for everyone to hate.  Liberals will hate that gay marriage will remain illegal and unconstitutional in the allegedly enlightened liberal paradise of California. Conservatives will hate that the federal government will be forced to provide legally married homosexual couples federal tax, social security and inheritance benefits.

‘Puter’s decision is, however, the correct conservative decision.

• It sharply limits Congress’ power to act outside its enumerated powers, which will be a useful precedent going forward. 
• It affirms that the Tenth Amendment isn’t just in the Constitution for shits and giggles. 
• It shifts thorny social questions out of the jurisdiction of unelected and largely unaccountable federal Solons back to elected state legislatures where they belong. 
• It affirms individual rights and the rule of law by strongly suggesting gays will be treated the same as straights once they convince state legislatures to enact gay marriage laws.

Now if only ‘Puter could pull some strings and get one of those cushy lifetime appointments to the federal bench, he’d have this country whipped into shape in no time.

*N.B. This is how ‘Puter would rule on the merits in these two cases, based on law and precedent.  This may or may not reflect ‘Puter’s personal policy preference, which should have no place in judicial determinations.

'Puter

Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.

’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.

The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.

His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.

He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.

Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.

‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.