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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
- “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.
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.
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.
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.
Yes, he did recently make such remarks. Antonin Scalia-Gay Rights: Supreme Court justice defends equating sodomy with murder as effective reasoning.
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.
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.
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.
Hasn’t that been coming up since 2004?
Oh please, next you’re going to claim Holocaust Deniers and people who believe in The Protocols of Zion aren’t anti-Semites.