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If it is regulated, and can be altered at any time by government, then it is not a right, no matter if that is what you wish to label it. Privileges can be given, altered and taken away. Rights cannot.
If it was a right, we would not be here debating this.
This right/privilege distinction is relevant to a 14th Amendment Due Process analysis, but it's beside the point and completely irrelevant in a 14th Amendment Equal Protection analysis. (And just because something is a Fundamental Right for Substantive Due Process purposes doesn't mean there can't be any regulation of it - it's just that any regulation of the Fundamental Right will be analyzed under the strict scrutiny standard.)
As to Due Process, the Supreme Court has repeatedly said that marriage is a "fundamental right." My thought is that this declaration of marriage being a fundamental right applies to private marriage associations, not civil marriages. Civil marriage is a law - it gives certain legal (not Fundamental) rights (privileges, protections, benefits, and responsibilities) to couples who want them. I don't see any reason why a state has to offer these legal rights of marriage - if Colorado wanted to abolish its marriage law regime tomorrow, I don't see why they couldn't. On the other hand, who I want to associate with and deem my spouse outside of any legal marriage framework is a fundamental right, and I think the government has no business whatsoever regulating that association.
Certainly the gay marriage proponents are making a Due Process argument - but that's not "what is (being) argued" as you claim. It's the backup argument to the main Equal Protection argument. And the 6th Circuit addressed it. For purposes of the argument, the 6th Circuit assumed civil marriage is a fundamental right, but then concluded that when the Supreme Court calls marriage a fundamental right it was implicitly saying man/woman marriage - that there is a fundamental right to a man/woman civil marriage, not a broader fundamental right to marriage. In any event, I would think that if the Supreme Court does consider civil marriage a fundamental right, then it only helps the pro gay marriage side.
But again, that's the backup argument. The main argument is an Equal Protection argument. The Equal Protection Clause applies to any and all State laws - regardless of whether the law concerns or regulates a privilege or a right. The Equal Protection clause is there to prevent different groups of people being treated differently under the law, and there is a body of law to determine when laws are allowed to treat different groups differently and when they can't (it identifies suspect classes and then has a 3 tiered analysis - ration basis, intermediate scrutiny, and strict scrutiny).
As such, the Equal Protection clause applies to a state marriage law that excludes gay people from the privileges of marriage, or a state driving law that bans gay people (or Christian people, or women) from the privileges of driving, or a zoning law that bans mentally ill people from building a group home in a certain neighborhood, or a drinking law that sets a different age for men and women from enjoying the privileges of drinking alcohol, or an ordinance that regulates what types of businesses can advertise on the sides of cars, etc.
So again, the main issue in this case are 1) do these states have a rational reason for banning gays from marriage law or alternatively 2) should gays be considered a suspect or quasi-suspect class and afforded strict or intermediate scrutiny under a 14th Amendment Equal Protection analysis.
Since the founding of this nation....
When you get married, do your get you marriage license at the federal courthouse, the county courthouse, or the city municipal building, or were you just shacked up.
If it is regulated, and can be altered at any time by government, then it is not a right, no matter if that is what you wish to label it. Privileges can be given, altered and taken away. Rights cannot.
If it was a right, we would not be here debating this.
That's a bogus argument. Rights can be regulated, because my rights aren't subordinate to yours. Your rights must be balanced against mine. The act of balancing rights involves regulation. That's how a society works. You live in a society. Deal with it.
Since the founding of this nation....
When you get married, do your get you marriage license at the federal courthouse, the county courthouse, or the city municipal building, or were you just shacked up.
Who cares?
The lawsuit is about a specific Tennessee law (or inset another state whose marriage law bans access by gay couples) as it reads and is implemented in 2014 and whether that state law - as implemented in 2014 - violates the Equal Protection Clause (or alternatively the Due Process Clause) of the Constitution.
You regulate my rights and there is going to be a bloody revolution....
Wait a minute, didn't the progressives wanting to regulate rights, just get their asses kicked?
No wonder Ron, Rand & Ted are so popular these days
Your rights are already regulated my friend , better get cracking on that tea party now . There are popular in their own states. I suspect that isn't going to translate very far out of them though.
As you and I both know, in the Governments eyes both federal and state. Marriage is a privilege. If it were not a privilege, you would not need to go to the courthouse and file papers to the master to get married, in your church.
There is nothing expressing your "right" to marry, in the Bill of Rights.
If you want to say government is suppose to treat us all equally. That is not what the Constitution says, or the progressive tax system would be unconstitutional.
Actually no.
States can not circumvent federal law. Federal law treats everyone, equally. As the Supreme court says that you can not define, federally by the constitution, marriage as being only between one man and one woman, passing state laws to go around that is unconstitutional. The supreme court will have to decide.
The lawsuit is about a specific Tennessee law (or inset another state whose marriage law bans access by gay couples) as it reads and is implemented in 2014 and whether that state law - as implemented in 2014 - violates the Equal Protection Clause (or alternatively the Due Process Clause) of the Constitution.
If it did, why the need for the 15th and 19th Amendment?
Obviously it didn't equally protect everyone.
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. There are popular in their own states. I suspect that isn't going to translate very far out of them though.