Supreme Court will Hear Gay Marriage Case

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[Dyslexicea]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/08/us/justices-consider-same-sex-marriage-cases-for-docket.html

I'm not at all confident we'll win in the supreme court. To many ways for the court to give a ruling amounting to no ruling at all. Hopeful yes, confident no. As a married lesbian I am so sick of the federal government denying us our rights.

Maybe we won't win our rights this time but we will win, people's attitudes are changing.

By the way if you want to know who two of our biggest enemies are it's the Catholic and Mormon Churches, they are the major source of funding in the drive to ban gay marriage and adoption.

 

[njlauren]

I suspect the court will throw out prop 8 in california but will limit its impact to california only, and will also throw out the parts of DOMA that ban federal recognition of same sex marriages on the grounds that the feds don't have that right, but may keep the wording that states won't have to recognize the marriages of other states that allow same sex marriage. The full faith and credit clause says that states should recognize the laws of other states, but gave congress the right to regulate that .

If it happens, it will be a 5-4, Kennedy is most definitely the swing vote, and I suspect he will vote to throw out the DOMA federal ban and being from california, will throw out prop 8 as well. It isn't hard to know how Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts will vote, all of them quite frankly signed on to the idea that whatever the Pope and Church told them was true would be law, being good little Catholics they can't go against the church. After Scalia's dissent in the Lawrence decision I don't know how the hell he remained on the court, it was basically a paen to the idea that religious law should be civil law.

 

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[njlauren]

Oh, scalia is a gem, you might as well have Tony Soprano on the Supreme Court. He has said openly that society made homosexuality illegal for centuries and the constitution has no say in it, and in the Lawrence decision he said there was the right for the government to regulate private moral behavior. Scalia is a complete hypocrite, because he claims to be a strict constructionalist, yet DOMA is a total violation of the constitution, since the federal government cannot marry people or decide a valid marriage, that is enumerated to the states, yet he will claim that the federal government has such a right, since they grant the benefits; likewise, the 14th amendment guarantees equal protection under the law, you can't grant rights to some and not others, but Scalia recently has started claiming the 14th amendment only concerned black rights after the civil war (funny, congress never said "blacks have equal rights' when they wrote the amendment, they said no on shall be denied rights). The irony is that Scalia was once considered a first rate legal mind, a brilliant one, but he has made himself into a joke that only Fox News can respect.

The one concern I have is if they rule on Prop 8 that those appealing the lower court decision striking it down had no standing, rather then ruling on whether prop 8 itself is unconstitutional. If they deny the appeal, saying those appealing the ruling had no standing, it will get rid of prop 8, but won't be binding as a judgement on same sex marriage bans across the board. With Doma, I think they will gut the ban on federal benefits, but will allow states to not recognize the marriages of other states (I have an easy answer on that one; in the states that recognize same sex marriage, refuse to recognize marriages of states that don't recognize theirs, and tell, for example, a father trying to get out of paying child support and such, to move to their state and they will make sure he can argue he isn't married, and thus they cannot enforce the judgement.....I know it sounds wacked, but guess what, this is exactly what married gay couples face, in a split, a spouse can use non recognition to walk away, or worse, strip parental rights from their ex spouse.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Scalia promises no bias

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blo...lifelong-fear-of-gays.html?mbid=nl_Weekly (46)

Says "there were no gays here when the constitution was written, they came in the 1960s."

yeah, no bias. . .

That column is satire, FWIW. But these days it's sometimes hard to tell.

 

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[Adre]

A political solution favoring marriage equality is on its way, so I'd like to see the SC punt this one.

 

[lilbit_kittykat011]

Same Sex Marriage

I think it should be legalized and I think they are going to say yes because some of the states already have same sex marriage legalized.
If you look at today's world most people are coming out more and more.
I came out 3 years ago and I know it was hard but I think we need to be heard and stand up. Love is Love and you can't change who you love.
Marriage should be you love who you marry don't matter the race,gender or sexual orientation.

I SUPPORT SAME SEX MARRIAGE!!!! <3

 

[njlauren]

I get the digital New Yorker and it was the funniest bit of the magazine because it basically captures Scalia.

The Washington Post commented on several of the briefs including one by anti-gay marriage supporters who claim that it is unnecessary for the court to rule on this because the trend across America is toward more support for gay marriage. The court has no need to speed things up is their argument. Let us keep our state pure for a little longer. . . we'll change when we're standing alone against the tide.

What I truly expect is a narrow ruling upholding Prop 8 because it is not the duty of the court to tell voters how they must vote. A second ballot in California held today would return the opposite result so we don't particularly need the court to do it for us.

As far as DOMA, I think the court will rule that the Federal Government cannot extend benefits to one married couple without extending them to all married couples. The interpretation being used is plainly outside of the intent of the constitution's 'equal protection' and outside of the 'privileges and immunity' clauses.

Prop 8 is dead, and it is going to happen because the justices will rule that those appealing the lower court ruling have no standing to bring it. In doing so, the lower courts ruling will hold (that prop 8 violates the equal protection clause, thus invalidating it), but that means that the decision only will apply to California and prop 8, not to other states. In terms of DOMA, it will be rejected in large part because congress has no authority to decide what a valid marriage is, that is up to the states, not them, and yes, equal protection.

 

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[njlauren]

From the testimony, it appears that the justices may well take a pass on Prop 8 and allow it to stand. California already allows Homosexual adoption, homosexual unions with legal standing and homosexual rights are not hindered in any way except in that they may not call their unions a marriage. They indicated that California has amended its constitution about 500 times already and can do so one more time to reverse this silly amendment.

The justices (including Scalia) tore up the 'merits' of the case portion for the plaintiffs, basically shredding each of Mr. Cooper's arguments about why Gay marriage is bad or dangerous and therefore they should rule for him.

The case will hinge on the jurisdictional matter.

The only way the Supreme Court could uphold Prop 8 would be to accept the arguments of those who appealed it to the Supreme Court, and rule that Prop 8 was legal, which they are not likely to do, among other things, it would make them look like a bunch of horses asses, plus I don't think they have outside Scalia, Alito, Roberts and Thomas (the uber Catholic Block), the votes to do that, no way. The reason is that Prop 8 was struck down by the lower appellate court as being unconstitutional, so unless SCOTUS says prop 8 is constitutional, it defaults to being struck down. From the questioning, it is apparent 5 (and maybe 6) judges will say that the right wing groups that appealed the decision (since the California government did not appeal it) have no standing, which will leave the lower court decision in place.

As far as being easy to overturn Prop 8 by a vote, don't be so sure, forget what the polls say. First of all, it means waiting until the next election to try and overturn it, but more importantly, it also leaves out that on a non presidential election, you will have all the knuckledraggers and idiots voting, the old people, the blacks hypocritical enough to vote against same sex marriage (while they themselves have a community have absolutely destroyed it), you will see the Mormons and the Catholic church spend 10's of millions to support prop 8 staying in power, not a good scene. Not to mention that it is absolutely idiotic to put rights up for a vote, because guess what? They can overturn prop 8, then the next election, some idiot like the jackwad that runs Chick Fil A spends oodles of cash to get it put in place again..with a federal court ruling, the issue is pretty much dead, because it can't get back on the ballot again all that easily.

As far as there being no harm, you make the mistake a lot do, that somehow the term marriage doesn't mean anything. Domestic partnerships and civic unions don't even work as designed in the states, for example, people with DP's and Civic unions often have to fight with hospitals over medical decisions, the spouses of people with DP'/CU's don't enjoy automatic adoption rights or custody the way a married spouse would...but the worse part is DP's and CU's have zero meaning federally, with or without DOMA. Guess what, a gay person can name their DP/CU spouse as a beneficiary on a 401k, and if the dead person's family challenges it, they can lose, because 401K's are erisa (federal). You have a DP/CU, health insurance through a company is a taxable benefit for the partner; you can't collect on your partner's SS if they die, you can't file jointly as married, and there are a ton of other things 'marriage gives you'. Also, with a DP or CV, it has no meaning outside your home state. At the very least, being married would give you the chance to challenge in another state, if a spouse uses the differences in law to try and screw you....

What the religious right fears, and cooper (lead attorney for the appellant) had said so, is if the court rules, however it does, that it is going to spur further changes, much as loving did in terms of interracial marriage. When prop 8 falls, and people see that the world didn't end, that aliens didn't abduct children and so forth, other than the hookworm belt, I think same sex marriage is going to end up getting legalized in a lot of states, and the Red states will eventually be forced to, otherwise face sanctions from other states and prob a court decision. If enough states recognize same sex marriage, the others will have to.