# Predict how the Supreme Court will Decide the Same Sex Marriage Cases **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 25, 2013, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936 "2013-03-25T18:12:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/21 "2013-03-26T02:03:16Z")
There is much being made recently about a statement RBG made about _Roe_ being too soon and too fast. Is that just right-wing wishful thinking, or does anyone in the know think there is some signal there that she doesn’t want the court to repeat that for SSM? ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/22 "2013-03-26T02:16:13Z")
I’ll throw caution to the wind and make a few predictions, with no particular reason to think I have any insight into the heads of Supreme Court Justices. Easiest prediction is Scalia writes an angry, homophobic opinion staking out the most extreme anti-gay position. He’s probably joined by at least Alito. Another gimme is that the four liberals will strike down DOMA, and not fully uphold Prop 8. Bold prediction, Thomas concurs, at least in part, with the majority in overturning DOMA, filing a separate opinion reasoned on federalism grounds. I’ll say that Kennedy will be the deciding vote, striking DOMA, and overturning Prop 8, but not declaring a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. He’ll probably also decline to clarify how the courts ought to construe rational basis when applied to sexual orientation, keeping the waters muddy for the next case. Roberts goes with agreeing to the least change that he thinks puts him on the right side of history. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/23 "2013-03-26T02:22:30Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > There is much being made recently about a statement RBG made about _Roe_ being too soon and too fast. Is that just right-wing wishful thinking, or does anyone in the know think there is some signal there that she doesn’t want the court to repeat that for SSM? She’s been saying Roe v Wade was too broadly decided for years, so I don’t think it’s signaling in the sense that she’s bringing it up to suggest how she’ll find in the SSM cases. But IIRC, she thinks Roe v Wade should’ve just struck down the specific state law before it instead of forcing immediate changes in every state, and that generally courts should be very hesitant to make broad rulings against social legislation when they can get away with passing a slower series of narrower rulings. So even though its not a conscious attempt at signaling, the fact that she feels that way is a good reason to think the Courts decision won’t be something that will be applied outside of CA and the Federal gov’t. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/24 "2013-03-26T02:30:17Z")
Are they making the RULINGS this week or just hearing arguments? Everyone is talking like we’re going to hear decisions on these this week but they haven’t even had the hearings yet, right? It may actually be June before we get decisions? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/25 "2013-03-26T02:32:30Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > Are they making the RULINGS this week or just hearing arguments? Everyone is talking like we’re going to hear decisions on these this week but they haven’t even had the hearings yet, right? It may actually be June before we get decisions? Just arguments. Rulings come, IIRC, in the summer. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/26 "2013-03-26T02:35:02Z")
> [@waterj2](#): > > I’ll throw caution to the wind and make a few predictions, with no particular reason to think I have any insight into the heads of Supreme Court Justices. Easiest prediction is Scalia writes an angry, homophobic opinion staking out the most extreme anti-gay position. Why do people keep saying this? Can you quote some homophobic remarks that Scalia made in his dissent in _Lawrence_? Can we not disagree with people here without demonizing them? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/27 "2013-03-26T02:47:44Z")
Scalia recently some remarks compared being gay to being a murderer in an analogy that he found both immoral. He’s an angry, homophobic asshole of the highest order and as long as he is demonizing gays by comparing them to murderers, I think it is obligatory to demonize him as a bigoted asshole. That said, perhaps his written remarks will hide is hatred better. So, no. ---
**Author:** ![Billdo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/billdo/32/315_2.png) [@Billdo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Billdo)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/28 "2013-03-26T02:52:36Z")
Here’s some selections from [Scalia’s dissent in Lawrence](http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-102.ZD.html): > [@](#): > > Countless judicial decisions and legislative enactments have relied on the ancient proposition that a governing majority’s belief that certain sexual behavior is “immoral and unacceptable” constitutes a rational basis for regulation. [citations omitted]. We ourselves relied extensively on Bowers when we concluded, in Barnes v. Glen Theatre, Inc., 501 U.S. 560, 569 (1991), that Indiana’s public indecency statute furthered “a substantial government interest in protecting order and morality,” ibid., (plurality opinion); see also id., at 575 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment). State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers’ validation of laws based on moral choices. Every single one of these laws is called into question by today’s decision; the Court makes no effort to cabin the scope of its decision to exclude them from its holding. See ante, at 11 (noting “an emerging awareness that liberty gives substantial protection to adult persons in deciding how to conduct their private lives in matters pertaining to sex” (emphasis added)). The impossibility of distinguishing homosexuality from other traditional “morals” offenses is precisely why Bowers rejected the rational-basis challenge. “The law,” it said, “is constantly based on notions of morality, and if all laws representing essentially moral choices are to be invalidated under the Due Process Clause, the courts will be very busy indeed.” 478 U.S., at 196. > > . . . > > Today’s opinion is the product of a Court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct. I noted in an earlier opinion the fact that the American Association of Law Schools (to which any reputable law school must seek to belong) excludes from membership any school that refuses to ban from its job-interview facilities a law firm (no matter how small) that does not wish to hire as a prospective partner a person who openly engages in homosexual conduct. See Romer, supra, at 653. > > One of the most revealing statements in today’s opinion is the Court’s grim warning that the criminalization of homosexual conduct is “an invitation to subject homosexual persons to discrimination both in the public and in the private spheres.” Ante, at 14. It is clear from this that the Court has taken sides in the culture war, departing from its role of assuring, as neutral observer, that the democratic rules of engagement are observed. Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children’s schools, or as boarders in their home. They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive. The Court views it as “discrimination” which it is the function of our judgments to deter. So imbued is the Court with the law profession’s anti-anti-homosexual culture, that it is seemingly unaware that the attitudes of that culture are not obviously “mainstream”; that in most States what the Court calls “discrimination” against those who engage in homosexual acts is perfectly legal; that proposals to ban such “discrimination” under Title VII have repeatedly been rejected by Congress, see Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 1994, S. 2238, 103d Cong., 2d Sess. (1994); Civil Rights Amendments, H. R. 5452, 94th Cong., 1st Sess. (1975); that in some cases such “discrimination” is mandated by federal statute, see 10 U.S.C. § 654(b)(1) (mandating discharge from the armed forces of any service member who engages in or intends to engage in homosexual acts); and that in some cases such “discrimination” is a constitutional right, see Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, 530 U.S. 640 (2000). > > Let me be clear that I have nothing against homosexuals, or any other group, promoting their agenda through normal democratic means. Social perceptions of sexual and other morality change over time, and every group has the right to persuade its fellow citizens that its view of such matters is the best. That homosexuals have achieved some success in that enterprise is attested to by the fact that Texas is one of the few remaining States that criminalize private, consensual homosexual acts. But persuading one’s fellow citizens is one thing, and imposing one’s views in absence of democratic majority will is something else. I would no more require a State to criminalize homosexual acts–or, for that matter, display any moral disapprobation of them–than I would forbid it to do so. What Texas has chosen to do is well within the range of traditional democratic action, and its hand should not be stayed through the invention of a brand-new “constitutional right” by a Court that is impatient of democratic change. It is indeed true that “later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress,” ante, at 18; and when that happens, later generations can repeal those laws. But it is the premise of our system that those judgments are to be made by the people, and not imposed by a governing caste that knows best. > > One of the benefits of leaving regulation of this matter to the people rather than to the courts is that the people, unlike judges, need not carry things to their logical conclusion. The people may feel that their disapprobation of homosexual conduct is strong enough to disallow homosexual marriage, but not strong enough to criminalize private homosexual acts–and may legislate accordingly. The Court today pretends that it possesses a similar freedom of action, so that that we need not fear judicial imposition of homosexual marriage, as has recently occurred in Canada (in a decision that the Canadian Government has chosen not to appeal). See Halpern v. Toronto, 2003 WL 34950 (Ontario Ct. App.); Cohen, Dozens in Canada Follow Gay Couple’s Lead, Washington Post, June 12, 2003, p. A25. At the end of its opinion–after having laid waste the foundations of our rational-basis jurisprudence–the Court says that the present case “does not involve whether the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter.” Ante, at 17. Do not believe it. More illuminating than this bald, unreasoned disclaimer is the progression of thought displayed by an earlier passage in the Court’s opinion, which notes the constitutional protections afforded to “personal decisions relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, child rearing, and education,” and then declares that “[p]ersons in a homosexual relationship may seek autonomy for these purposes, just as heterosexual persons do.” Ante, at 13 (emphasis added). Today’s opinion dismantles the structure of constitutional law that has permitted a distinction to be made between heterosexual and homosexual unions, insofar as formal recognition in marriage is concerned. If moral disapprobation of homosexual conduct is “no legitimate state interest” for purposes of proscribing that conduct, ante, at 18; and if, as the Court coos (casting aside all pretense of neutrality), “[w]hen sexuality finds overt expression in intimate conduct with another person, the conduct can be but one element in a personal bond that is more enduring,” ante, at 6; what justification could there possibly be for denying the benefits of marriage to homosexual couples exercising “[t]he liberty protected by the Constitution,” ibid.? Surely not the encouragement of procreation, since the sterile and the elderly are allowed to marry. This case “does not involve” the issue of homosexual marriage only if one entertains the belief that principle and logic have nothing to do with the decisions of this Court. Many will hope that, as the Court comfortingly assures us, this is so. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/29 "2013-03-26T02:53:26Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Scalia recently some remarks compared being gay to being a murderer in an analogy that he found both immoral. He’s an angry, homophobic asshole of the highest order and as long as he is demonizing gays by comparing them to murderers, I think it is obligatory to demonize him as a bigoted asshole. That said, perhaps his written remarks will hide is hatred better. > > So, no. No, he didn’t. But if you can cite any homophobic remarks he has made in past SCOTUS dissents. then bring it. Otherwise, it does not add to reasoned debate to make claims otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![LawMonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/30 "2013-03-26T02:55:15Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Why do people keep saying this? Can you quote some homophobic remarks that Scalia made in his dissent in _Lawrence_? > > Can we not disagree with people here without demonizing them? From his dissent in Lawrence: “State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality and obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers’ validation of laws based on moral choices. Every single one of those laws is called into question by today’s decision…” ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/31 "2013-03-26T02:57:10Z")
> [@LawMonkey](#): > > From his dissent in Lawrence: “State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality and obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers’ validation of laws based on moral choices. Every single one of those laws is called into question by today’s decision…” So? He’s right. ---
**Author:** ![Billdo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/billdo/32/315_2.png) [@Billdo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Billdo)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/32 "2013-03-26T03:08:12Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > 6-3, SSM becomes legal in all 50 states. Roberts is well aware that this is one of the defining civil rights questions in American history, and he’d prefer to be remembered by future generations as an Earl Warren rather than as a Roger Taney. I agree that Chief Justice Roberts (and to a lesser extent, Justice Kennedy) are aware that this is a defining civil rights question, andy want very much to avoid making one of the Supreme Court’s historically embarrassing decisions (like Taney’s Dred Scott). However, I think they will choose to so by a decision that, on some procedural basis, lets SSM stand in California but does not result in its being judicially imposed in all states at this time. I expect that they will find that Romer does not permit the ballot initiative to remove the already-granted right to SSM (and thus deciding that once SSM is permitted in a state, it can’t be banned thereafter), but avoid reaching the bigger question of whether a ban on SSM is unconstitutional for another case a few years down the road. Similarly, I think that they will adopt a states-rights view of Section 3 of DOMA, saying that each state’s decision on whether to recognize SSM should be binding on that state’s citizens for both state and federal purposes, but not otherwise broadly strike down DOMA. I think that is the kind of incrementalism that would appeal to them as institutionally safe. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/33 "2013-03-26T03:14:35Z")
> [@Scalia](#): > > “State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality and obscenity \* are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers’ validation of laws based on moral choices. Every single one of those laws is called into question by today’s decision…” - “and Methodists” - **Hedley Lamarr** from Blazing Saddles. 🙂 BTW, accusing others of just following an “homosexual agenda” and “joining the culture war” demonstrates where Scalia is coming from. ---
**Author:** ![Billdo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/billdo/32/315_2.png) [@Billdo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Billdo)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/34 "2013-03-26T03:17:19Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > She’s been saying Roe v Wade was too broadly decided for years, so I don’t think it’s signaling in the sense that she’s bringing it up to suggest how she’ll find in the SSM cases. > > But IIRC, she thinks Roe v Wade should’ve just struck down the specific state law before it instead of forcing immediate changes in every state, and that generally courts should be very hesitant to make broad rulings against social legislation when they can get away with passing a slower series of narrower rulings. So even though its not a conscious attempt at signaling, the fact that she feels that way is a good reason to think the Courts decision won’t be something that will be applied outside of CA and the Federal gov’t. That’s why I put Ginsberg into the faction that would find SSM legal in California but on a procedural ground that doesn’t apply to all 50 states. I think that if there were four other votes to find a ban on SSM to be unconstitutional, she would join in as the fifth vote. However, if Roberts and Kennedy (or either of them) are willing to keep it legal in California on a ground that does not apply nationwide (and Scalia, Thomas and Alito say no to everything), she will join in with the incrementalist opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Billdo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/billdo/32/315_2.png) [@Billdo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Billdo)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/35 "2013-03-26T03:32:34Z")
Actually, thinking about it, and perhaps putting it more simply, nobody (except perhaps the most extreme partisans on either side) will be wailing and gnashing their teeth if the Supreme Court decides that those crazy Californians can get gay married or if they decide that a lesbian widow can get a tax deduction, so that is the middle course that Roberts and Kennedy will probably steer. ---
**Author:** ![Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kolak_of_twilo/32/73_2.png) [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/36 "2013-03-26T04:37:17Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > DOMA will be overturned, but they will not rule broadly on SSM being constitutionally required by all 50 states. > > I don’t know what the numbers will be, but I’ll guess 5-4 or 6-3 against DOMA and the same for the ruling against SSM. They may rule that there is no standing in the CA instance, and thus prop 8 remains overturned, but that will be CA only. I’m inclined to agree with what **John** is saying here. _Maybe_ they extend the right to marry to all the states in the 9th Circuit, maybe not but I doubt we will see them impose it on all 50 states. At this time, at least. The only way I can imagine it going nationwide at this moment is if a majority of Justices realize there will eventually be a point in the not so distant future where a gay couple who are residents in a state where they are allowed to get married moves to a state where their union isn’t recognized. If a majority recognize this is likely to come up in the next few years they may decide to just dispense with the issue now. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/37 "2013-03-26T05:11:44Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > No, he didn’t. But if you can cite any homophobic remarks he has made in past SCOTUS dissents. then bring it. Otherwise, it does not add to reasoned debate to make claims otherwise. Yes, he did recently make such remarks. [Antonin Scalia-Gay Rights: Supreme Court justice defends equating sodomy with murder as effective reasoning.](http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2012/12/11/antonin_scalia_gay_rights_supreme_court_justice_defends_equating_sodomy.html) You are entitled to your opinion, and you are entitled to change how much proof you require to convince you of something, but you are not entitled to your own facts. And we are entitled to consider you as not open to changing your mind in the face of facts different than you originally assert them to be. Which I do. > **[Justice Scalia Defends Comparing Sodomy to Murder](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2012/12/antonin-scalia-gay-rights-supreme-court-justice-defends-equating-sodomy-with-murder-as-effective-reasoning.html)** > > Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia traveled to Princeton yesterday as part of his ongoing book tour. While there he took some heat from a student... > **[Justice Scalia Compares Sodomy to Murder](https://slate.com/human-interest/2012/12/scalia-compares-sodomy-to-murder-why-because-he-says-so.html)** > > Justice Antonin Scalia, always eager to prove himself in the ongoing competition known as America's Top Relic, whipped out another doozy on Monday... Scalia compared being gay to committing murder. Fact. Fact is that Scalia also said, within the same breath, that he was not drawing a parallel, but it is pretty clear that he has the same sort of etch-a-sketch version of his own history that Mitt Romney did, but much faster: that is, within the same breath. But there it is in black and white. Scalia is a f’in homophobic bigot. His opinions in the past are replete with offensive comparisons of homosexuality to murder, cruelty to animals, drug addicts, prostitution, incest, adultery, obscenity, child pornography, bestiality, etc. Romer, Governor of Colorado, et al. v. Evans et al. (94-1039), 517 U.S. 620 (1996). District of Columbia v. Heller, 128 S. Ct. 2783 - Supreme Court 2008. LAWRENCE V. TEXAS (02-102) 539 U.S. 558 (2003) 41 S. W. 3d 349, reversed and remanded. Scalia constantly compares gays to criminal and immoral activity. And then he asserts that he has nothing against gays. That doesn’t make it so. Scalia is a homophobe. There is no moral difference between the civil rights movement for black people and gay people. Scalia and his fellow travelers will be deplored by history, and we won’t have to wait long to see it. Someday Scalia will be regarded as the worst Justice in US history, surpassing the universally reviled bigot Justice McReynolds for being just as bigoted in a less bigoted time and for his utter lack of ethics in refusing to recuse himself from cases where his friends are litigants to improperly mouthing off in public at just about every opportunity as a practice, and not a momentary or drunken lapse. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/38 "2013-03-26T05:16:25Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > So? He’s right. No, he’s not right, he’s trolling. Cases are narrowly decided on a case by case basis. Comparing the laws of murder to the laws of marriage is no more legally useful that trying to compare them to negotiable instruments. The right to marry is a fundamental right, even convicted felons in prison have that right. Nobody has the right to murder someone else. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/39 "2013-03-26T05:25:03Z")
> [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](#): > > The only way I can imagine it going nationwide at this moment is if a majority of Justices realize there will eventually be a point in the not so distant future where a gay couple who are residents in a state where they are allowed to get married moves to a state where their union isn’t recognized. If a majority recognize this is likely to come up in the next few years they may decide to just dispense with the issue now. Hasn’t that been coming up since 2004? ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936/40 "2013-03-26T05:29:59Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > - “and Methodists” - **Hedley Lamarr** from Blazing Saddles. 🙂 > > BTW, accusing others of just following an “homosexual agenda” and “joining the culture war” demonstrates where Scalia is coming from. Oh please, next you’re going to claim Holocaust Deniers and people who believe in The Protocols of Zion aren’t anti-Semites. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predict-how-the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-same-sex-marriage-cases/653936.md?page=3)