Love Nina, and that was a nice summary. Thanks for the link!
This article on Slate gives those of us on the equality side good reason to feel hopeful. While the lead law talking person on the pro-gay marriage side did not put together an argument that ties the whole thing together, Don Verrilli, the solicitor general, was able to craft an argument that was tailor-made to persuade the assuming swing vote, Justice Kennedy. Its a good read
Thanks - glad to see that.
Chemerinsky’s take is here. He is predicting that Roberts and Kennedy join the liberals (Roberts possibly so he can craft a narrow version of the decision) and strike down the SSM bans. Of course, that is very much in line with the author’s own views so take it with a grain of salt.
I think lots of folks will be glaad to see it.
HA! 
The transcripts of the hearings were interesting but I really can’t help be annoyed at Kennedy for apparently having cold feet on interfering with state definitions of marriage now. If that’s what the Court is going to do, they should have overruled the holding of the other Circuit Courts instead of refusing certiorari - that would have been disappointing for gay rights supporters, but not nearly as terrible as throwing thousands or tens of thousands of marriages into legal confusion. Does anyone even know how many people would be potentially affected? There’s no question that some of the states (e.g. Oklahoma and South Carolina) will immediately attempt to void all same-sex marriages and affiliated legal matters, such as adoptions, tax returns, and the like. I thought that this could have been discussed a bit in the hearing on Question 2 where they were dancing around potential different standards between the right to get married and the right to stay married, but no doubt there would be plenty of litigation going forward by people who had legal marriages and do not want them dissolved, or who will be told that they are now legal strangers to their adopted children. I basically can’t imagine that Justice Kennedy will actually do that at the end of the day, but what a clusterfuck if so.
I am not sure that would be the case regardless of the ruling on question 2. Rather, I would think the ruling would apply prospectively, since it would be weird and impracticable for states to stop recognizing marriages they previously recognized (no matter that it was because a court told them to.)
You think *that *would stop some of them?
Yeah, RNATB…you’re acting like there aren’t some states that would run to welcome a renewal of the ability to deny the humanity of LGBT with open arms.
I am aware of that. I am sure SCOTUS is also aware of it, though, and will likely insert some sort of dicta into its holding covering the issue (assuming it upholds the bans.)
Filed federal taxes as single. Re-filed 3 back years as married, plus current 2 as married. I’d be surprised if anyone could get away with making everyone in my boat re-re-file.
Maybe? But if the holding is that the states have a rational basis to ban same-sex marriage, wouldn’t requiring them to recognize one class of same-sex marriages in the same decision sort of defeat the point?
I would think that states which wanted to continue banning same-sex marriages would really need to attempt to void the ones they issued, or at least make some sort of protest about it. If they simply agree to continue recognizing the licenses, they leave themselves open to equal protection claims from future same-sex couples who want licenses in the future.
Even contemplating how messy this would all be leads me to think that Kennedy will bite the bullet and rule in favor of SSM, but seeing his comments at argument made me less confident of that than I was before the hearing.
Aware of it? Sure. They are not stupid people.
Care about it? That is a different question.
Repeatedly this court has ignored the obvious. They invalidated parts of the Voting Rights Act because it was deemed an anachronism. I am not sure a whole day passed before some states started dropping rules that had the effect of disenfranchising minority voters.
Citizen’s United was apparently a-ok because money won’t corrupt the process. It is free speech and that’s a good thing right?
And so it goes…
Well, not really. I mean, if they were worried about the effect on existing marriages they would have stayed the lower court rulings, such as the one in Alabama.
I don’t think he has cold feet so much as he’s wanting to show (1) he understand the other concerns and (2) is giving the other side the best chance they can have of changing his mind.
Can you point to the part of the constitution that says it’s OK to limit speech if some people think it will “corrupt the process”?
Little known fact.
If you look at the original draft of the Constitution at the end of the first amendment there is a footnote. However they ran out of room on that page so if you flip the document over it has the footnote which reads:
*Just joking. Jefferson insisted we add this just to piss off John Adams. Boy, was he mad. Really, ban any speech you don’t like.
Regrettably, the first printer missed the footnote and by the time anyone noticed it was too late. So a couple hundred years of U.S. law is based on a printing mistake.
Slee
No constitutional right is without limitations.
ALL of our rights are circumscribed. When the state can show a legitimate concern the courts let the state limit our freedoms.
We are well used to it. The right to bear arms does not mean you can own a nuke. The right to free speech does not mean you can slander/libel or yell “fire” in a crowded theater when there is no fire.
Limits on campaign finance can easily fall into this category. The downside of unlimited money in campaigns is self evident. It destroys the very premise of a democracy. One person, one vote becomes one person with the most money and the rest can go pound sand. We can see it happening now and it is no surprise to anyone including the justices who allowed it.
Only if you can show, for a certainty, that spending more money past a certain (significant, to be sure) amount gives you a big advantage. There us a saturation point after which more money provides very much diminishing returns. If that is so, then no, unlimited money in campaigns does not destroy any premises of a democracy.
From Levitt’s study: “When a candidate doubled their spending, holding everything else constant, they only got an extra 1 percent of the popular vote. It’s the same if you cut your spending in half, you only lose 1 percent of the popular vote. So we’re talking about really, really large swings in campaign spending with almost trivial changes in the vote.”