Is there discrimination against gays in singapore?

SC amicus brief argues the Constitution permits discrimination not just against gays, but also against women. Good law? What do you think?

• In a jaw-dropping amicus brief recently filed with the Supreme Court, the state’s attorney general argues for a truly originalist understanding of the 14th Amendment, insisting that the Constitution permits discrimination not just against gays, but also against women. This argument is as morally abhorrent as it is historically accurate. And South Carolina deserves some credit for having the chutzpah to raise it. Here’s the gist of South Carolina’s fascinatingly sexist argument. The state wants to prove that the 14th Amendment—which guarantees “equal protection of the laws” to every “person”—was not intended to displace state marriage laws. And what did those laws look like at the time? One major feature: In many states, married women were not permitted to own property or enter into contracts and had no legal existence apart from their husbands. According to South Carolina, the framers of the 14th Amendment explicitly preserved the rights of states to deprive married women of the ability to function independently from her husband. This right to deprive married women of basic liberties, South Carolina argues, is enshrined in the 10th Amendment and is not at all undercut by the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equality. Read more here: http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2015/04/09/south_carolina_we_can_discriminate_against_women_so_why_not_gays.html

• Answer:

  Well, not having read the actual brief, I cannot reply to the specific argument. However, there is precedent. Under the Constitution, a religious school is free to discriminate against people who are not of its faith in its hiring practices and even in who it admits to the school. (Indeed, the Obama Administration lost in the Supreme Court - in a 9 to 0 vote no less with even the liberal justices siding with the religious school - on this very point.) A religious bookstore is not required to hire an atheist as an employee. A private club is not required to admit women. The Boy Scouts - also in a 9 to 0 ruling - were free to exclude gay Scout leaders. On the matter of gay marriage, the equal protection clause does not necessarily apply - which is why we have a court case on the matter. The Court said marriage is a right, but like any right it can be regulated and historically has been regulated by the states. (Just as we regulate guns with guns licenses, and so on.) In the Loving case, the Court famously said that as marriage is a right, it cannot be prohibited in cases of bi-racial marriage. That is that the skin color of the man and woman is irrelevant to the nature of the institution. So the state had no pretext to regulate marriage on that basis. Note, however, two important points of the argument. First, it was not re-defining marriage, but rather accepted it as one unrelated man and one unrelated woman. That is that there is no blood relationship between the man and the woman closer than second cousins. (Interesting historical note: FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt were second cousins.) Second, the Court did not challenge the authority of the state to regulate marriage subject to its general application of the law. That is, the state retains the power to regulate marriage and to issue licenses pursuant to that end, so long as said license is issued in cognizance of marriage's societal function. (Primarily child rearing, but also some other incidental functions.) Thus, under the law as it stands. the state still has the authority to forbid a brother and a sister marrying. Thus, also, the definition of marriage remains one man and one woman. The Loving case altered neither of those premises. That being the case, the 14 Amendment equal protection does not necessarily apply. To make it apply you have to first re-define marriage and only then can you require the legal protection of the re-defined institution. There is no "equal protection" extended to an illegal or unauthorized act. "Equal protection" is granted only to the application of existing legitimate laws - assuming that the state has the authority to make and enforce that law to begin with. It remains to be seen where the Court will go. The general assumption seems to be that the Court will make gay marriage a universal constitutional right. However, I think that there are reasons to doubt that. For the Court to create a constitutional right to gay marriage, it will have to 1) re-define marriage. 2) Take the power to define marriage away from the states where it has historically resided. 3) Re-define marriage in such a way that the state will be required to allow two unrelated gay people to marry without so re-defining the right that it would allow two gay brothers to marry, or a gay father and son. (Note in this connection that, historically, the Mormons were forced to give up the practice of polygamy because the Court ruled that the state was under no obligation to re-define marriage other than congruent with practice in common law.) Add it all up, and it seems a bit of a stretch that the Court - especially this Court - will want to go that far. My hunch - and it is only that - is that they will fudge it. They will not strip away the power of states to define marriage - thus there will be no Federal Constitutional right to gay marriage - but under the "full faith and credit" clause, states that do not recognize gay marriage will still be obliged to recognize the gay marriage licenses of states that do recognize gay marriage. The bottom line, though, is that under our Constitution, discrimination is allowed in certain circumstances. Private clubs, churches, certain businesses under certain circumstances. In terms of public accommodation laws, the general principle is that "if you open to one, you open to all." However, private clubs - golf courses, churches, etc - that restrict their benefits to their members, even if they offer that membership to the public, are not entirely covered by public accommodations laws. Is it good law? Well, if you are comfortable with the state forcing a Jewish school to hire a Nazi, then no, it is probably not good law. However, law is not about absolutes, it is about weighing and balancing competing rights. As Edmund Burke said, "All government, indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act is founded on compromise and barter. We balance inconveniences; we give and take; we remit some rights, that we may enjoy others; and we choose rather to be happy citizens than subtle disputants. As we must give away some natural liberty, to enjoy civil advantages, so we must sacrifice some civil liberties, for the advantages to be derived from the communion and fellowship of a great empire."