The power of the supreme court to interpret laws allows them to change, appear and be dismissed as time goes on.
While Trump does not directly attack gay marriage, if he nominates judges who are against the women's right to choose, I am concerned they will also be against things like gay marriage, my argument is most people against that right are very religious and thus also against marriage being equal.
Roe v. Wade was decided by a conservative Supreme Court with three Nixon appointees (two of which voted for it). The right was reaffirmed during another conservative Supreme Court in Casey.
I don't think the votes are there to overturn Roe. Even if Trump manages to nominate Justices to replace both Scalia and RBG, I don't see Roberts voting to overturn it. He said during his confirmation hearing it's settled precedent. Alito kinda reluctantly said the same thing: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11....
I most oppose the right to privacy created by the court. I am not against a right to privacy, if someone wants to put one in there. But to find a right to privacy in the Constitution through the "penumbras and emanations" is really just making it up whole cloth, which I oppose.
As for gay marriage, again, it should be up to the states. There is no Constitutional right for gays to marry. First, because marriage is not a right (although procreation is). Second, for the purpose of marriage, gays are not equal: it is impossible for them to procreate, which is the purpose (but not a requirement) of marriage.
My purpose is not to re-litigate these issues, but to say that many feel these cases were badly decided so they should be overturned, not just because we oppose those issues on a religious basis.
There is no Constitutional right for anyone to marry. Full stop.
There is a Constitutional right for equal protection under the law.
Procreation is a red herring. If the government wanted to encourage procreation, it would tie the benefits of marriage to actually raising (which both gay and straight couples can do). The fact that marriage isn't tied to child raising suggests any putative arguments based on that are pretextual.
The state does limit marriage, in part for procreation. For instance, the limits on the degree of consanguinity are to prevent birth defects. There are also age restrictions, which relate to the ability to give birth. So, in a sense, it is tied to procreation.
In contrast, child-rearing works more or less the same whether or not the couple is married. The rights and obligations attendant to children arise out of the parental relationship, not the marriage. About the only practical parental right tied to marriage that I can think of is the legal presumption in most states that a woman's husband is the father of any child she has during marriage.
If you were casting about for further evidence for your argument that marriage is more about the sanctity of procreation rather than about property rights, I think you've hit on something here that harms that argument.
Some religious groups might hold that claim, but in this country we do not recognize one religious group over another; i.e. one group's claims about the purpose of marriage have no weight over anyone else's.
As long as we are re-defining marriage, I have always thought the idea of marriage for life was old-fashioned. I think a marriage contract should last 20 years, or until the youngest child reaches 18, renewable, of course.
This an extremely biased statement. Just because a person is gay doesn't mean that they have different biology than a person who is not.