First, that doesn't answer the very specific question that I asked. Which was:
And again, please don't dodge the question by raising irrelevant points. Just answer it.
Everyone concedes that the proper role of the Court includes applying the Constitution to situations not expressly spelled out. They didn't have telephones in the 18th century, so bugging a telephone is not something that's going to be contained in the Constitution.
The relevant question is whether in determining how to apply it, we are bound by the understanding and interpretation of the right as it was understood at the time of ratification to the extent that can be determined. Or, should Justices feel free to interpret the words/rights to take into account an "ever evolving society", even if they know that interpretation would have been rejected by those who drafted/ratified the Constitution/Amendment?
Great, but that doesn't remotely addressed the question I asked. I asked about the understanding of the meaning of the Amendment at the time it was drafted/ratified. You are citing court interpretations from 2000 on, none of which even attempt to claim that the drafters/ratifiers of the 14th Amendment would have believed it applied to gay marriage, ducks the point.
None of the scenarios you presented shows a contradiction.
Judicial review was first utilized in 1794, to support a law as constitutional in 1803 they struck down a law as unconstitutional.
176 time the court has ruled against the constitutionality of a law.
The power of the court does not apply to the hypothetical nor should this discussion ..
so its not as if Judicial review just popped up today and the court is exercising some scary power never used before.
your example stated the women werent free to vote even though section 1 of the amendment would state otherwise.. this specific matter related to voting was addressed in section 2. there for it was a very applicable response and very relavent to the discussion because in neither the gay rights case nore the women vite was there anything ruled that was contradcitory to the consitnution
the government is based on checks and balances though.. if the court gets out of bounds and makes a ruling that the public r government disagree with they can pass an amendment and override that ruling just as with dread scott.
so my answer is the court has the right to perform judicial review on a case presented them and it is their job to interpret the case in context with the constitution.
let not forget in this case it was state supreme courts in over a dozen states ruled that the ban on marriage based on gender as unconstitutional.
Congress defined marriage federally with the defense of marriage act.
This was ruled unconstitional in 2013. its was a federal law.
Many State Supreme courts ruled statutes against same gender marriages as unconstitutional.
You act like the Supreme court came out of left field on this decision when it was congress who made it a federal matter and it was the states requesting this act be struck down.
and the states continued after that decision to rule their own state laws unconstitutional.
lets look at the actual case though for a moment. A Ohio couple goes to Maryland and gets married and the request was to have the deceased listed as married on the death certificate. One state not recognizing a legal marriage that occurred in another state.
The supreme court was ruling on due process in the recognition of other states of legal marriage. not only did they find that Ohio must recognize other states marriages but not recocgnizing the couples right to get married at all was also unconstitutional. The court had plenty of precedent at the state and federal levels to make this ruling on.
The state set this up by recognizing all other marriages except same gender ones.