"If it passes, gays and lesbians in Tennessee will continue to have the exact same marriage right that all adult Tennesseans' already have: the right to marry one person of the opposite gender."

By that line of reasoning, anti-miscegenation laws weren't discriminatory because people could still marry someone of the same race. No good Activist Judges.

Sean, you and I are on the same page on this one. Bill and I diverge. The masses, subject to whim, bias, and ignorance as they are, should not be deciding who will have "equal" rights and who will not.

If it passes, gays and lesbians in Tennessee will continue to have the exact same marriage right that all adult Tennesseans' already have: the right to marry one person of the opposite gender.

The "right to marry one person of the opposite gender" sets a different and unequal right for men and women. The government cannot discriminate against women by refusing them the same right to marry a woman that a man has, nor can they discriminate against men by refusing them the same right to marry a man that a woman has.

And in a democracy, it is the people, not judges, who are the boss.

If we are to operate on the basis of pure democracy (mob rule), then the Constitution is both unnecessary and invalid. Law professor Lawrence Solumn writes an interesting piece on what he calls The Counter-Majoritarian Difficulty, which is essentially the legal justifications for why judicial review is both important and necessary to our country specifically and free soceities in general.