| On the Gay marriage ruling on June 26th, 2015, the Supreme Court did not find the state laws on marriage unconstitutional and strike them down; they changed the law. I do not know why experts are not referencing this; however, if they believe the laws are unconstitutional, the Supreme Court should have struck down the marriage laws (meaning the laws are null and void). |  |
 | They should clearly state the reasons why the laws are unconstitutional and allow the state legislatures to pass new laws. If the law is unconstitutional, the Supreme Court’s only remedy is to strike the law so that there is no marriage law and no one can legally get married. The state of Virginia NEVER passed a law authorizing same-sex marriage licenses to be issued. The Supreme Court is not authorized by the US Constitution to force that change by writing the law. They can only strike the law and declare if states pass a marriage law they cannot discern by gender; then the state legislature decides how to create or not create marriage laws within those new guidelines. A grandfather clause would be a very big issue; I will not address that at this time. |
| As a general rule and within reason, the court could strike down a portion of a law instead of the entire law. Normally good legislation is written with these clauses in them called non-severability clauses. A legislator has to determine if he wants to pass a law and has to look at it in its entirety. If a part of a law is missing, it could change whether or not it was supported. Legislators will often want the entire law voided if any piece is missing because in their view it was vital. In this marriage law, it is overwhelmingly clear that when the law was passed, marriage was between one man and one woman. It is almost certain that those legislators would not have passed the legislation if marriage was redefined to include gay unions. |  |
