This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, April 16th, 2010.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The Right to Mary seems fundamental, but that particular government franchise is not extended to gays.

Bob Levy, Chairman of the Cato Institute, says let them get married.

The right of marriage he argues is one of free association, a right of a free person

to form a lasting relationship without government interference.

How do you evaluate the quality of the argument that attorneys Boyus and Olson are making in California.

They're making a federal equal protection argument.

I think it's a very powerful argument.

I think it's an uphill battle.

The courts may not agree.

The framework for legal protection cases

goes like this.

The 14th Amendment and the Fifth Amendment

cover equal protection. The Fifth Amendment

covers the federal government, the Fourteenth Amendment, the state governments.

And the amendments say that you may not discriminate. Everybody has the right to equal protection of the laws.

Now we know the government discriminates against its citizens all the time.

There are some classes of discrimination that the courts rigorously scrutinize whenever there are regulations, and those include race, for example, and to a lesser degree gender.

But sexual preference has not and to a lesser degree gender.

But sexual preference has not been a class that has triggered a heightened degree of scrutiny.

But marriage is a franchise that is extended by the state. Marriage is a franchise that is extended by the state.

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