Seems like within the past few weeks, there have a been a number of court rulings to effectively legalize gay marriage in numerous states: Arkansas, Oregon, Utah, Pennsylvania. And it appears that Maine, Ohio, and Wisconsin are around the corner.
Is it coincidental that these cases are all coming on the heals of each other or was this a concerted planned effort by various judiciary?
Just curious.
Personally in favor of gay marriage, but believe that it should be a state by state issue.
And if this is better suited in another forum, please move.
I’d guess it was a concerted planned effort by varios folks who wanted to get married, but couldn’t. The judiciary pretty much has to wait until the cases come to them.
Think about it. You’ve considered filing a case, but never did because you thought there was no way for it to succeed. Then a similar case is successful. What happens next?
If it is as you describe, considering courts across the country run at various paces, the fact that these rulings all occurred within a few weeks of each other is more coincidence than anything else.
Several Judges (if not all of them) striking down these bans have cited his dissent for the very reason of striking down said bans.
Hows THAT for some schadenfreude?
The Judiciary has nothing to do with the timing except that they are ruling on these cases as they reach that point in the judicial process in each state. Since they were often filed about the same time, they tend to reach a judges’ decision about the same time. And, of course, the judges do look at what other judges have said in similar cases. (Only they call it precedent rather than plagiarism when judges do it…)
Not sure why it would be schadenfreude when someone predicts something and then that something actually happens. To me, it looks more like “I told you so”.
I think the idea is that Scalia’s prediction was itself used as an argument for SSM. Presumably that wasn’t his intent. Not sure if there’s a fancy German word for that.
That’s not quite correct. Freedom to Marry is a community organizing group that has sought to partner with lawyers who, in many cases, had already recruited clients and brought suits challenging these laws. They offer communications and organizing assistance, but have not really orchestrated a national campaign as such, at least not any more so than any of the other groups working on this issue. These suits are the work of many different groups and individuals, most of whom are only collaborating in a very loose sense of the term.
The timing is the result of many suits having been filed in the immediate wake of Windsor.
What bothers me at a fundamental level is the Supreme Court. Go back 40+ years and a couple in Minnesota sued for marriage between two men using a lot of the exact same arguments used to overturn the gay marriage bans currently. In Baker v Nelson, SCOTUS dismissed the appeal"for want of a substantial federal question."
To me, this is disappointing that we have judges who are more echo chambers once the times have changed versus having done the correct thing by adhering to the constitutional standards that they are now applying.
This should have happened 42 years ago. The Constitution hasn’t changed since then. It’s only the popularity of the decision.
No, North Dakota is the last state to file a case, making it the least fabulous state. South Dakota can rest easy, knowing it’s only the 49th least fabulous.
