Originally posted by TKainZero
Thrughout the history of Human, a period spaning untold thousands of years, Marriage was between a man and a woman.
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This 'idea' of marriage between man and woman has been known to be an unchalenged truth throughout the years, that is until the Year 2000 in California.

Civil unions between male couples existed around 600 years ago in medieval Europe, a historian now says.
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For example, he found legal contracts from late medieval France that referred to the term "affrèrement," roughly translated as brotherment. Similar contracts existed elsewhere in Mediterranean Europe, Tulchin said.

In the contract, the "brothers" pledged to live together sharing "un pain, un vin, et une bourse," (that's French for one bread, one wine and one purse). The "one purse" referred to the idea that all of the couple's goods became joint property. Like marriage contracts, the "brotherments" had to be sworn before a notary and witnesses, Tulchin explained.

"equal respect and dignity" of marriage is a "basic civil right" that cannot be withheld from same-sex couples, that sexual orientation is a protected class like race and gender, and that any classification or discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is subject to strict scrutiny..."

Prior to 1977, California Civil Code section 4100 (predecessor to what is now codified at California Family Code section 300) defined marriage as: "a personal relation arising out of a civil context, to which consent of the parties making that contract is necessary."[3]

While related sections made references to gender, a state assembly committee that was debating adding gender-specific terms to this section in 1977 noted: "Under existing law it is not clear whether partners of the same sex can get married."[4] That year, the legislature amended the definition of marriage to remove any ambiguity.

When Prop 22 came before voters, section 300 defined marriage as:

a personal relation arising out of a civil contract between a man and a woman, to which the consent of the parties capable of making that contract is necessary. [5]

Even though the definition governing who may marry explicitly precluded contracting a same-sex marriage in California, a separate provision, section 308, governed recognition of marriages contracted elsewhere:

A marriage contracted outside this state that would be valid by the laws of the jurisdiction in which the marriage was contracted is valid in this state. [6]

Advocates of Prop 22 described section 308 as a "loophole," apparently forcing California to recognize a same-sex marriage validly contracted in some other state.[7] After passage, Prop 22 added a new section, codified at section 308.5, that reads:

Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California. [8]

Also there is a reason why the U.S. Supreme court has never heard a case involving same sex marriage. Because it is a state issue not a federal government issue. Also because being homosexual and marriages are not protected classes under the 14th amendment and the equal protection clause.

On May 18, 1970, two University of Minnesota gay student activists, Richard John Baker and James Michael McConnell, applied to Gerald R. Nelson, the clerk of Minnesota's Hennepin County District Court in Minneapolis, for a marriage license. Nelson denied the request on the sole ground that the two were of the same sex. Baker and McConnell then sued Nelson, contending that Minnesota law permitted same-sex marriages, and arguing against Nelson's interpretation that it did not violate their rights under the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The trial court ruled Nelson was not required to issue Baker and McConnell a marriage license, and specifically directed that they not be issued a license. On appeal, the Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's ruling, and specifically ruled that Minnesota's limiting of marriage to opposite-sex unions "does not offend the First, Eighth, Ninth, or Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution".

Later that year, the couple applied for and were awarded a marriage license by the Blue Earth County Commissioner in Mankato, Minnesota. Because of the Minnesota Supreme Court decision, the license was deemed invalid. The couple still claims it is valid to this day, and attempted to file a joint tax return in 2004. After the IRS rejected the joint return, McConnell filed an action in Federal District Court, seeking a federal income tax refund in the amount of $793.28 and a declaration that he is "a full citizen who is lawfully married and, by that fact, entitled to be treated the same as every other married Minnesotan, similarly situated". McConnell's action was rejected by the Court.

The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967)—in which the Court ruled that a statute prohibiting interracial marriages was unconstitutional—was not applicable to the Baker case. The Minnesota Supreme Court acknowledged the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits some state restrictions upon the right to marry, but that "in commonsense and in a constitutional sense, there is a clear distinction between a marital restriction based merely upon race and one based upon the fundamental difference in sex".

Upon losing their case before the Minnesota Supreme Court, Baker and McConnell appealed to the United States Supreme Court. The United States Supreme Court dismissed the case "for want of a substantial federal question."

Unlike a denial of certiorari, a dismissal for want of a substantial federal question constitutes a decision on the merits of the case, and as such, is binding precedent on all lower Federal Courts.

"[U]ntil the Supreme Court should instruct otherwise, inferior federal courts had best adhere to the view that the Court has branded a question as unsubstantial". Hicks v. Miranda, 422 U.S. 332, 344 (1975) "[D]ismissals for want of a substantial federal question without doubt reject the specific challenges presented in the statement of jurisdiction". Mandel v. Bradley, 432 U.S. 173, 176 (1977). Lower Federal Courts are expressly prohibited from ruling in a way inconsistent with binding precedent. "[Summary decisions] prevent lower courts from coming to opposite conclusions on the precise issues presented and necessarily decided by those actions." Mandel v. Bradley, 432 U.S. 173, 176 (1977)

This is explicit not only in the holdings of the United States Supreme Court, but also the holdings of other Circuit Courts. "[L]ower courts are bound by summary decision by this Court until such time as the Court informs [them] that [they] are not". Doe v. Hodgson, 478 F.2d 537, 539 (2nd Cir. 1973)

Baker is binding precedent and unless overruled by the United States Supreme Court, it remains that way. As such Baker establishes that a State's decision to prohibit same-sex marriage does not offend the United States Constitution.