Francis A. Avila Jr.: Substantial reason to rule against same-sex marriage

Re “Supreme Court to hear arguments for gay marriage” (Page B5, April 25): Out of two hours of oral argument, The Bee found the one musing from Justice Anthony Kennedy that suggested same-sex marriage is an inevitability. The Bee omitted his other statements in which he asserted marriage, as a union of a man and a woman, “has been with us for a millennia,” and that it is very difficult for the Court to say “oh well, we know better.”

The question is whether the Constitution requires states to adopt a definition of marriage that renders it genderless. There is nothing in the text, logic and historical understanding of the Constitution that embraces such a concept. In the absence of such a ground, state laws defining marriage as a conjugal union of man and wife do not violate the equal-protection guarantee. Justice Kennedy may have to argue the “right” to same-sex marriage is somehow “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,” which will be interesting since the “right” arrived here, as the Bee admits, just yesterday.

Justice Kennedy realizes he cannot dismiss a millennia’s worth of social practice as one giant spasm of bigotry. To prove the Court “knows better,” he should have something more than poll-driven jurisprudence or sophomoric Bee editorials.

This story was originally published May 20, 2015 at 12:58 PM with the headline "Francis A. Avila Jr.: Substantial reason to rule against same-sex marriage."