aliali

I guess we are talking about different things when we talk about rights. I think of rights as those guaranteed by the consitution or given by legislation or made law by ballot initiative. If something isn't in the constititution and is defeated at the ballot box, you haven't lost a right just because the proper order of this government decides not to confer it upon you.

The right to marry who you want isn't in the constitution and, if defeated through an appropriate election, isn't your right. You are correct that this argument was often made to allow a state to ban interracial couples from marrying. Here's the thing. The argument was correct, the state policy was wrong. The court was wrong to change the state law. The state should have done it.

States and congress make dumb laws all the time. That doesn't change what the constitution does and doesn't say.

I don't assume that anyone here is an anti-gun nut. My experience is that most people who have broad views of the right to marry, have sex, use contraception, and other privacy issues take a very expansive view of the appropriate constuction of the constitution on those issues, but often take a very restrictive view of the right to bear arms.

I still don't know where the right to gay marriage is found in the constitution.

If it is a right and the constitution says so, what is the argument for why polygamy and marriage between cousins is not a right?