Supreme Court Same Sex Marriage Argumet

[TheRealJoeFish]

I will add, regarding the "marriage as a fundamental right" argument:

Only Petitioners are making that claim. Having just now reached the USA-as-Amicus's section, I think Attorney Verrilli makes a very good argument that this sounds in equal protection, not fundamental rights. Of course, the heart of Petitioner's argument was equal rights as well. I think if the court was to rule that a ban on gay marriage was an equal rights issue - which is far, far more likely than a ruling that it's a fundamental right - then there would be absolutely no problem at all regarding age.

I guess what I mean is, I never should have engaged in the argument about "would marriage-as-a-fundamental-right necessitate child marriage," because "marriage-as-a-fundamental-right" is an afterthought, and the real issue here is a particular restriction on marriage as violative of the Equal Protection clause

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Now the capacity to consent is subject of much debate. In law a child over the age of 5 can consent to conduct, but their consent is commonly held to be in accordance with a reasonable child standard rather than a reasonable man standard.  However, the law does hold that if a child consents to engage in inherently dangerous or serious conduct they elect to be held in accordance with the reasonable man standard rather than child standard.

Completely irrelevant.  That's the negligence standard.  A child cannot consent to sexual activity with an adult at age 5.  A child cannot enter into a contract at age 5.  A child own or purchase property at age 5.  Or age 10.  Or age 15. 

If a child "consents" to drive a car and hurts someone, we hold that child to an adult standard when it comes to paying for damage.  That's completely irrelevant to whether the law "allows" a child to "consent" to driving a car without a license, which it certainly does not.