MOI UNIVERSITY

RESEARCH METHODS AND COMMUNICATION

SKILLS

FOR LAWYERS

CAT

COURSE CODE: FLB 313

NAME: KIRIGHA M. ROBERT

ADM.NO.: LLB/4139/21
Question: read the case of OBERGFALL v HODGES (2015) and determine whether the decision
is defensible.

INTRODUCTION

The case was heard on April 28, 2015. On June 26, 2015, the United States Supreme Court ruled
in a landmark decision that the 14th Amendment requires all states to license marriages between
same-sex couples and to recognize all marriages that were lawfully performed out of state.

IS THE DECISION IN OBERGFALL V HODGES DEFENSIBLE?

As important as democracy is, people’s rights should not be put up to a vote. Rights are inherent
and protected and the majority cannot vote to take them away. Bans on same sex marriage
should be subject to heightened scrutiny because sexual orientation is a classification like gender
or race.

Sexual orientation is a characteristic which does not affect an individual’s ability to contribute to
society. Love is a human right and is for everyone. As long as you are happy it doesn’t matter
who you fall in love with. We are all Human beings and as long as we live, each one of us
deserves to be treated with respect and dignity. Same sex marriage can provide those in
committed same sex relationships with relevant government services and make financial
demands on them comparable to that required of those in opposite-sex marriages, and also gives
them legal protections such as inheritance and hospital visitation rights. Exclusion of same-sex
couples from marriage stigmatizes and invites public discrimination against gay and lesbian
people. Denying equal rights to another group of human beings based on cultural and religious
beliefs is not right and is called bigotry. People may object to same sex marriage despite their
decent and honorable religious or philosophical beliefs and a state may not enact that personal
opposition into law and thereby demean those who wish to marry. There is a need to recognize
the inherent universal human dignity for every human being around the globe and the legal
requirement to have this dignity safeguarded and respected.

The society should be careful and thoughtful enough to look beyond the religious, cultural,
societal, political and economic inclinations that have undermined the ultimate goal of
humankind to archive equity, equality and ultimate happiness for all.
Question two; read the case LOVING v VIRGINIA look at the arguments and point out any
fallacy and suggest what the lawyers should have argued in consonance with critical thinking.

INTRODUCTION

A unanimous Court struck down state laws banning marriage between individuals of different
races, holding that these anti-miscegenation statutes violated both the Due Process and the Equal
Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.

FALLACIES

In this case the argument by the court concerning God and the separation of races , is a fallacy.
“Almighty God created the races white, black, Yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on
Separate continents. And but for the interference

With his arrangement there would be no cause for Such marriages. The fact that he separated the
Races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.” There is no scientific evidence to prove
that by the separation of races they were not intended to mix in any way. The mere fact of
different regions or continents having people of distinct races is making people believe that by
virtue of this distinctness it’s wrong for this races to mix.

Proving that it’s God and not anything else that created these races and placed them in different
continents is also very difficult. This is just a belief which is spiritually aligned, the court does
not provide any scientific evidence to prove it.

This is slippery slope fallacy, the court is simply making an assumed relationship between races
and the separation of continents .

The argument that, if the Equal Protection Clause does not outlaw miscegenation statutes
because of their reliance on racial classifications, the question of constitutionality would thus
become whether there was any rational basis for a State to treat interracial marriages differently
from other marriages, is a fallacy.

This is a mere assumption that failure to outlaw miscegenation statutes the question of
constitutionality would be whether there was any rational basis for different treatment of
interracial marriages, the first scenario is assumed to be the cause of the second scenario. This is
a post hoc, ego propter hoc fallacy.

The words in the case, Naim v Naim as cited in the present case are a fallacy. In Naim, the state
court Concluded that the State’s legitimate purposes were “to Preserve the racial integrity of its
citizens,” and to prevent “the corruption of blood,” “a mongrel breed of citizens, and “the
obliteration of racial pride,” obviously an endorsement of the doctrine of White Supremacy.

Does anything like corruption of blood exist? This is just a belief which has developed among
people that by allowing interracial marriages their will be corruption of blood.

These arguments should have been in consonance with critical thinking, to archive this their
must be an intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying,
analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating information gathered from or generated by observation,
experience, reflection, reasoning or communication, as a guide to belief and action. The parties
were required to have open minds but not fixing everything to a single conclusion without
proper scrutiny.