Breaking news via the NYT:
Supreme Court to Decide Whether Gays Nationwide Can Marry
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to decide whether all 50 states must allow gay and lesbian couples to marry. The court’s announcement made it likely that it would resolve one of the great civil rights questions of the age before its current term ends in June.
Predictions? Thoughts?
D58826
With 5 conservative Catholics – 5-4 that the gay aren’t entitled to equal protection of the law. Besides they aren’t corporations
Belafon
It’s hard to tell these days. I would have predicted Kennedy would be the fifth yes-they-can-marry vote before it became obvious that he, like the other conservatives, have had their feelings hurt too many times by seeing a Democrat as president despite their best efforts.
Alex S.
Shocking. How will Scalia argue? Could the Supreme Court destroy both gay marriage and Obamacare? Unsettling thought.
Betty Cracker
My guess is it comes down to Kennedy, as per usual.
BGinCHI
Look on the bright side. We only need 5 tumbrels.
Iowa Old Lady
This scares the crap out of me. Obamacare too for that matter. Once the SC decided Hobby Lobby had religious beliefs, I realized anything could happen.
D58826
The issue isn’t really do gays have a ‘constitutional’ right to marry. I’m not sure straights have that ‘right’ either. There is nothing in the constitution about marriage. It is an equal protection question. If the law provides for straight Americans to marry then baring some compelling government interest gays have the same right
BGinCHI
@D58826: Look at you and your law logic. Cute.
Fat Tony don’t roll that way.
Belafon
@D58826: You mean like how the constitution protected blacks during most of the 20th century?
pluege
There are two and only two possible outcomes from the SCOTUS Cretin 5:
1) clear cut permission for states to ban gay marriage.
2) some muddled punt without clear direction that keeps the states fighting it out.
What is abundantly clear is that there will not be a clear cut decision banning discrimination.
Yatsuno
@D58826: It makes Fat Tony’s Jeebus cry. Plus Fat Tony has his little puppet Uncle Thomas to go right along with him. That’s all the compelling state interest they need. Alito is just an asshole and Roberts has cocktail weenies to consider. The only real wild card here is Kennedy. And he has been surprisingly good on issues regarding personal right up until now. Oddly enough I could see even Roberts flipping because legacy.
D58826
@BGinCHI: Oh I realize Scalia has a very flexible definition of original intent, i.e. it is what ever I say it is today and never mind what I said yesterday or may say tomorrow
Iowa Old Lady
At least four SC judges operate on the same principle as the Red Queen in ALICE IN WONDERLAND: Verdict first, trial (and evidence) afterwards.
Mudge
Only the 6th Circuit has ruled against gay marriage and the Supremes refused to overturn the agreeable verdicts from other Appeals courts. So they implicitly allowed gay marriage until the 6th Circuit fouled the works.
My guess is that they will allow gay marriage.
Loneoak
I’m less cynical about it that the commenters. I think Windsor makes it nigh on impossible to do anything but grant the right nationally. I don’t think they case would have been taken up unless Kennedy was on board.
TF Wright
Seems pretty obvious that they’ll rule in favor of marriage equality, with the same breakdown as Windsor. I mean, it’s pretty much the same argument, just at the state level.
Splitting Image
I’m going to go out on a limb and predict an easy win for marriage equality. Roberts and Kennedy vote with the majority and Roberts writes the decision so that it sets as narrow a precedent as possible insofar as other gay rights issues are concerned.
The bobbleheads will cheer the return of the Reasonable Republicans to the stewardship of their party, and call the decision proof that the U.S. is a centre-right nation and that liberals are the real racists/sexists/homophobes. They will then bury the decision gutting the ACA exchanges when it gets released two days later.
Elizabelle
I think the Supreme Court will allow nationwide gay marriage, or you are going to have a visual of people picketing the building right up until Election Day.
To remind voters how important the 2016 choice is. Gonna be a Supreme (or two or three) seat up.
Even if they abhor the practice, perhaps the the brighter of the archconservatives realize this is Loving vs. Virginia, dressed up for the 21st century.
D58826
@Yatsuno: I still find Justice Thomas a mystery. I understand, even if I don’t agree with, his judicial philosophy. But if the Warren court (not to mention a lot of Congressional/presidental actions) had decided Brown and a host of others in a way consistent with the Thomas philosophy, he would still be riding the back of the bus on his way to pick cotton
Linnaeus
On a somewhat related tip, this article in ThinkProgress about Rand Paul and conservative judicial activism is worth a read (h/t Lawyers, Guns, & Money).
Laertes
I predict they bring a pretty strong ruling in favor of marriage rights nationwide. Same sex marriage bans on the ballot are no longer helpful to the GOP. That issue now generally works for the benefit of Democrats, so for the good of the party they’ll take it off the table once and for all.
As a bonus, it’ll take some of the stink off it when they blow up Obamacare.
Lex
@D58826: It’s an equal-protection argument, but it’s also a First Amendment argument, in that the state is interfering with the rights of religions to marry gay couples if they choose. That was the argument that was used successfully here in N.C., and which the 4th Circuit declined to overturn.
That said, SCOTUS’s refusal to hear appeals from gay-marriage opponents up until now would SEEM to indicate that the court’s inclined to say it’s OK. Unfortunately, this court, including Kennedy, seems to have developed a predilection for punching down, so I’m not optimistic that the good guys (and girls) are gonna win, the merits of the argument notwithstanding.
TriassicSands
The only question that matters is what would the framers have thought in the late 1700s.
Elizabelle
I can’t stand the idea they would blow up Obamacare.
That would get me to riot.
ETA: And it might be a HUGE campaign issue for Democrats.
Linnaeus
@Splitting Image:
This is my sense of it as well. Smart conservatives are willing to move the ball forward on LGBT equality because they realize it doesn’t really cost them anything and doesn’t impede their neofeudalist vision.
philpm
I’m pretty hopeful, and see a 6-3 vote in favor of gay marriage rights. Scalia and Thomas will co-author a piece of bleating bullshit in their dissent, Alito will stay mum, Roberts and Kennedy vote with the majority and the Notorious RBG writes the majority opinion of the century.
SatanicPanic
@Splitting Image: yep. Roberts uses this as a way to burnish his legacy and draw attention from all the terrible decisions he’s made.
Citizen_X
“Uh oh.”
Mike J
They haven’t taken the previous cases because until now there wasn’t a conflict between the circuits. Not taking those cases says nothing about how they’ll decide this one.
burnspbesq
@Loneoak:
Well, of course it does. But Raich made it nigh on impossible to make a non-frivolous Commerce Clause argument against the Affordable Care Act. And there are no non-frivolous arguments in favor of plaintiffs’ position in King and Halbig. And gheysexytime makes old Catholic men squeamish.
Geeno
Didn’t Fat Tony already write the opinion for marriage rights in his dissent on DOMA when he pointed out that the majority’s logic in that decision made gay marriage inevitable?
It’s even been cited by a couple of the circuits that decided for marriage rights.
Scott Peterson
It’s always prudent to be as cynical as possible with this court. So anything could happen. But in this case, Big Money doesn’t care strongly—in fact, if anything, Big Money would probably prefer to simply stop talking about it, and the easiest way to do that is to rule in favor. Therefore, equality wins the day.
Mike J
@Linnaeus:
Once equality is no longer an issue, gay people can start voting for and donating money to Republicans.
shortstop
I understand that declining to hear cases is, in theory and perhaps in general practice, no indication of how the court will rule on similar cases they accept down the road. (And there hasn’t been a circuit split until now, although this and previous courts have shown they don’t require one to take a case!) However, the consensus among constitutional law scholars and competent courtwatchers seems to be that SCOTUS’s October decision not to hear any of multiple same-sex cases from various circuits was a tacit go-ahead to marriage equality in the many states affected by those cases.
To now uphold state bans on equal marriage would mean voiding the marriages of thousands of citizens — marriages that were unquestionably legal at the time they took place. I have no problem recognizing that several justices are capable of this unprecedented step regardless of the optics. I do not think Kennedy is one of them.
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: I’m not sure they will. Unlike the mouth-breathers who make up the base and a portion of the House, it’s possible that conservatives who can count higher than 20 realize Obamacare is working and that dismantling it will yank the rug out from under 10 million people, re-expose millions to predatory insurance company provisions, throw millions of college students off their parents’ policies, etc., all to the detriment of the Republican Party. If the SCOTUS is a political entity (which is undeniable, IMO), maybe they’ll decide it’s better to punt on Obamacare.
debbie
@D58826:
Is there a way they can actually (and honestly) advocate that equal protection isn’t for everyone?
mawado
Dred Scott, but it’s been a very long week so take it with a grain of salt.
scav
They’ve earned their distrust and the instinctive “oh shit” by the sweat of their brows.
ETA more the sweat of their chinny chin chins for a few.
shortstop
@shortstop: And by the way, Scalia and Thomas were the only ones who wanted to hear those cases in October. Interesting.
Villago Delenda Est
If the equal protection clause means anything at all, this should be a 9-0 decision.
However, the fascist filth on the USSC cannot be trusted to interpret the Constitution when it’s pretty damn literal about things. I’m sure they’ll find some way (perhaps the “religious freedom” to be bigoted shitstains which is all the rage on the right nowadays) to stand athwart the freight train of history.
Let them do so, and be damned.
Roger Moore
@D58826:
Never underestimate the power of IGMFY. Your hypothetical world of Thomas riding the back of the bus to pick cotton isn’t the one he lives in, so it doesn’t matter. He’s on the Supreme Court, and that’s what matters to him.
Zandar
Best case scenario is a national victory for same-sex marriage, and then federal subsidies get trashed and Obamacare is destroyed.. The Supremes look fair and evenhanded, as you have “a win for liberals” and “a win for conservatives.”
Worst case scenario is Kennedy and the other four conservatives ignore their own precedents from just two years ago and punt back to the states, saying each state can decide who can marry, but that other states must recognize out of state marriages.
And then they trash Obamacare and destroy it.
jonas
@Mudge: I agree — 5-4 decision with Kennedy essentially reaffirming his decision in US vs. Windsor. If the federal gov’t can’t discriminate against s-s couples, why can individual states?
Pogonip
I think they should actually decide and not punt. It’s unfair to tell people they’re married in one state and then if they move a few hundred miles, suddenly they aren’t.
If they decide in favor of gay marriage, that may bring about the red/blue divorce, ironically. If they decide against it, then I guess we’re back to square one. Yippee!
Roger Moore
@Mike J:
I think this is wrong. If they had a strong ideological desire to overturn marriage equality, they would have taken up the previous challenges without needing conflicting rulings as justification. Letting those rulings stand has allowed thousands of couples to tie the knot, and overturning them would retroactively invalidate those marriages. That’s not something courts like to do. Waiting for an appeals court to rule against marriage equality before ruling on it is an indication- though not necessarily a perfect one- that they’re going to rule in favor of equality.
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: That is what I hope too (re punting on Obamacare).
My guess is that insurance company beancounters are even less popular than Obama or Democrats with kooties.
Iowa Old Lady
@Betty Cracker: I hope you’re right, but I worry that since they’re “just” deciding on whether the federal exchange can offer subsidies, they might say Congress can fix that and we’re not touching the rest of the law. Of course, the loss of the federal exchange subsidies would kill insurance availability.
Kylroy
@Betty Cracker: Dude, the court of 2000 was willing to blatantly stop recounts and pull a “not to be considered precedent” line of bullshit to appoint the candidate who got fewer votes *PRESIDENT*. I don’t think Scalia, Scalito, Scalia’s AA Handpuppet, Kennedy, and John Roberts will show more restraint than that crew.
Davis X. Machina
@jonas: Equal dignitude of the states. Sebelius.
The lack of state-level uniformity is a plus, not a minus. And federal imposition of uniformity is a no-no.
Elizabelle
@Zandar: Do you really think they’ll trash Obamacare?
Are you from Kentucky? Even while they’re calling it Kynect, don’t you have a lot of people who will be significantly worse off without health insurance? And may not want to go without?
shortstop
@Zandar: But Kennedy’s opinion in Windsor specifically noted that “state laws defining and regulating marriage, of course, must respect the constitutional rights of persons.”
Bobby Thomson
@D58826: the right to marry is a fundamental right protected by the 14th amendment, at least for straights.
randy khan
The tea leaves tend to support the theory that the Court will overturn the decision being reviewed. There’s a general principle that the Court grants cert to reverse (not always true by a long shot, but still the most common outcome) and here the court specifically refused to grant cert on cases that supported marriage equality.
And, of course, there’s Windsor and Kennedy’s desire to make sure his legacy remains intact.
Kylroy
@Elizabelle: I’m pretty sure Kentucky is a state-run exchange (which is what you get with a Democratic governor). If so, Kynect and Kentucky will be fine. But every state with a
SociopathRepublican governor will be boned.Laertes
@Elizabelle:
Of course they’ll really trash Obamacare. Sure, tons of people will get hurt, but the blame for that will land mostly on Obama. The law isn’t as popular as one would hope, and in Republican circles it’s believed to be even less popular than it actually is. They’ll certainly believe that tearing it down will be to their political advantage, and I’m not 100% certain that they’re wrong about that.
Linnaeus
@Mike J:
Right. And if you’re a serf, TPTB don’t care if you’re straight, gay or bisexual.
Elizabelle
@Laertes: The “law” isn’t popular, but the provisions are. What’s more, it’s more economically responsible.
And that’s a failure of messaging pro-Obamacare, and a success of scaremongering and lying by the deadenders.
D58826
@Roger Moore: My point was if his philosophy had been in effect in 1954 he would never have made it to the Supreme Court. He may never have made it past high school. in the segregated south. The fact that he can ignore all of the just shows that the Red Queen is correct in believing 6 impossible things before breakfast
SiubhanDuinne
I am guessing — predicting — that they will allow same-sex marriage nationwide.
Gut feeling. IANAL.
AkaDad
If they rule in favor of gay marriage, what’s next, sex with ducks?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXPcBI4CJc8
Turgidson
@Splitting Image:
This is more or less how I think it’ll go too. Including the subsequent Obamacare-gutting abomination. I can even see them announcing the gay marriage decision on Thursday and Friday news-dumping the Obamacare decision the very next day, while people are still abuzz about the former.
I can’t stand Roberts’ judicial philosophy, but I do respect his intellect and political instincts. I think he’ll game this out in a way that highlights the court’s historical affirmation of civil rights and, oh, coincidentally, keeps the spotlight off the blatant results-oriented, precedent-ignoring bullshit they’ll have to partake in to gut the Obamacare federal subsidies.
We shall see.
RaflW
Thoughts?
Ho-leee-shit. I would hope that the preponderance of decisions in favor of the freedom to marry will carry the day. But there is that risk of one too many assclowns on the court.
Eeeep. But very hopeful.
cmorenc
@D58826:
IF the court respects its 1967 Loving v Virginia precedent, in which marriage was regarded as a “fundamental civil right” – then the question currently at hand is whether this applies only to the traditional category of heterosexual marriage, or whether Equal Protection requires that it be recognized for homosexual marriage as well. However, the Loving opinion was written for a (then-unanimous) court by then-Chief Justice Earl Warren, and the Roberts Court (and Rehnquist Court before that) were notorious for their use of creative sophistry to distinguish and whittle Warren (and even Burger) Court precedents into shrunken residual nubs.
Even if the Court decides that states are not internally compelled to recognize gay marriages performed within their borders, that still leaves the second key question whether those states are nevertheless compelled to recognize gay marriages performed in states which do permit such. Unfortunately, in Justice Kennedy’s opinion in the Windsor Case (which overturned DOMA’s provision against federal recognition of gay marriages performed in states where such was legal, for purposes of whether spouses were entitled to federal benefits), he also included dicta indicating he might be more favorable to letting states decide this on a state-by-state basis.
Laertes
@Elizabelle:
Very true, unfortunately. That scaremongering and lying was evil, but it worked, and that regrettable success is now a fact on the ground.
I can picture all too clearly how the politics will go after the USSC blows the ACA up:
The blame mostly lands on Obama. (No, that’s not fair. They’re changing long-standing rules of statutory construction to bring about this result, but that will never penetrate the public mind. “Drafting error” and “the law means what it says” is an easy case to make, and they’ll make it.”
The ACA will continue to limp along, wounded, but now it’s obviously unfair to red states, which makes it impossible to just “move on” and accept it–it’ll remain an ongoing problem with only three possible solutions: Outright surrender by every last red state, a vote from congress to throw away the victory that the USSC handed them, or some future president agreeing to the repeal of the ACA. Of these, only the third is at all likely. Given enough time, it’s nearly certain.
The story will not be “Republicans are screwing everyone.” The story will be “Obamacare is broken beyond fixing.” The blame will not stick to the GOP. It never does. Obama’s replacement will either be largely indifferent to the ACA (some Democrat other than Obama) or outright hostile to it (some Republican.)
CONGRATULATIONS!
Gay marriage upheld and the GOP will quietly take all the credit. Social conservatives, having no place else to go, will continue to vote for the Republicans because black people exist and people they don’t approve of won’t stop fucking and enjoying it.
I’m serious.
@Mike J: I know quite a few – all men – who are just waiting for an excuse. I expect most of them have been voting GOP on the sly for quite some time.
p.a.
@Betty Cracker: I wonder. This can turn into a lose-lose for RWNJ’s. Overturning Ocare and marriage equality soothes the pig people (h/t driftglass) while stoking lib-er-progressives for 2016. Cue the “5 old cranks” meme. Leave them in place and the pressure will be on Orange Julius and Yertle to attempt some legislative solutions. If they drag their feet or half-ass it in presidential primary season when the loons are in full tilt ‘we want our country back’ mode, I can see some very ugly times for Repubs. from their own. Tee Hee.
aimai
@Elizabelle: I think Scalia is going to dissent (or affirm) with a total “Fuck you people, you are getting what you deserve” write up. He must be in such a rage from all the lower level courts “agreeing” with him he must be spending all his time thinking up bitchy things to say.
srv
@Laertes: Alas, all this will fall to Hillary to fix.
rikyrah
5-4 with Kennedy as vote #5.
Gays will be able to marry in all 50 states by July 1, 2015.
Keith G
This Court scares me because the Conservatives for the most part aren’t truly conservative, they’re ideologues.
Beyond question, the conservative thing to do would be to formulate judgements that allow both gay marriage and Obama care to stand because these issues are essentially settled matters. An ideologue would reach a different conclusion.
However, at the end of the day, I feel that there will be at least one member of the court’s right flank who will understand the great damage done if these two issues are killed. I think the Court will allow gay marriage to continue and will keep Obama care in place essentially as is either through affirmative opinions or other actions.
Citizen Alan
@D58826:
I really do think that Clarence Thomas’s judicial philosophy is driven by self-loathing. He knows perfectly well that he is the most prominent beneficiary of “racial set-asides” in American history. He knows that Bush I was under enormous pressure to replace Thurgood Marshall with an African-American. He knows that there were scores of jurists more qualified than he to be appointed to SCOTUS. Hell, he probably knows that even in 1991, there were dozens of African-American jurists more qualified for SCOTUS than him. But he was easily the most qualified African-American jurist who believed in the Reagan-Bush view of race relations, i.e. that blacks were inferior to whites and should be kept down at all costs. I think Clarence Thomas hates himself for being black. And I think he also knows that’s the only reason he got his current job.
And for the record, part of me is troubled for being a white liberal who presumes to psychoanalyze a black Supreme Court justice. And then I remember that every singe white Republican in the country has spent seven years psychoanalyzing Obama in order to “prove” that he hates America, so … fuck it.
Laertes
@p.a.:
That’s not a lose-lose. Holding the White House is a means to an end, not an end in itself. The real prize is getting your policy preferences written into law. If the Republicans can get rid of the ACA and make het supremacy the law of the land without holding the White House, what the hell good is the presidency anyway? If you offered me a package deal of a secure ACA, equal rights for all Americans regardless of gender orientation/presentation, and a Republican president, I’d take that deal in a second.
Betty Cracker
@Laertes:
Maybe I’m being a Pollyanna, but I just don’t see how it plays out that way. The GOP worked very hard to brand themselves as the anti-Obamacare party, and if the law goes down, it’s on them. “Drafting error” and the finer points of the law might be an easy case to make for people who see beyond bumper sticker slogans, but that’s not who we’re talking about here.
SatanicPanic
@Laertes:
nearly is doing a lot of work there.
shortstop
@cmorenc:
Not just in Loving, but in 13 other cases as well.
Cervantes
@D58826:
From my point of view, that’s still what he’s doing.
Laertes
@SatanicPanic:
I guess? I’m just arguing that, sooner or later, there’s gonna be a President who’s either outright hostile to the ACA or willing to bargain it away. Maybe the next President is a Republican. Or maybe it’s a Democrat who has an agenda other than defending the achievements of her predecessor and is willing to cut a deal. Or maybe the President after that?
The day might come when opposition to the ACA is as toxic as opposition to Medicare, but it’s still a long way off.
SatanicPanic
@Laertes: It would also require a congress that’s hostile AND possessing of a supermajority. I suppose that could happen, but it’s pretty unlikely. More likely they’ll either drop it or the SCOTUS will destroy it. SCOTUS is the only way they can get what they want since Republicans have so little popular support for most things they want to do.
Laertes
@SatanicPanic:
It really wouldn’t. Given a President that’s either hostile to or willing to bargain away the ACA, a simple majority in both houses, such as they have right now, would be sufficient. It’s not at all clear that the Senate Democrats would filibuster to protect the ACA, and it’s even less clear that the Republicans would permit it.
Liberty60
@Linnaeus:
Yes, I think the money side of the GOP is smart enough to realize they have already lost on same sex marriage and the culture war in general, and don’t really care about it anyway. They need a new culture war like they need a new Romney “47%” tape.
But if they could gut Obamacare…That’s what they really fap to at nights.
And yes, Rand Paul’s call for activist judges fits in perfectly with the Confederate definition of the GOP- they see any and all political arrangements as means to the end which is neo-feudalism.
D58826
@Citizen Alan: Thomas does seem to fit the ‘angry black man’ stereotype much more than Obama does
Villago Delenda Est
@Keith G:
Every last fucking self-described “conservative” in this country is actually a neo-feudalist ideologue.
Every fucking one of them.
SatanicPanic
@Laertes: Republicans have basically no chance of winning the WH anytime in the near future, and what Democrat would be willing to bargain it away? The only analogy I can think of is Clinton with welfare reform, but times have changed. Old white people won’t have that kind of power to set the agenda again in our lifetime. The conservative era is over.
ETA- Senate’s already met for 2015 so I don’t think they can get rid of the filibuster, even if they intended to. They may lose the Senate in 2016, if not, maybe they’ll ditch it in 2017. Every year that goes by the ACA gets stronger.
Patrick
@Elizabelle:
Not sure how that would work in reality either. Just about any law that congress passes has some kind of inconsistent language in it. If the USSC overturns the ACA, then won’t any legislation passed by Congress now be subject to the same scrutiny in terms of inconsistent language? IOW – everything will have to be overturned by the USSC. Unless of course they pull the same BS as they did with Bush v Gore, ie their rulling magically only applies to the ACA.
Furthermore, if they overturn the ACA, their will be chaos with all those people now without health insurance as everybody’s rates will drastically go up.
Laertes
@SatanicPanic:
Right? That’s what I thought too when it passed. But here we are, five years later, and the thing is still polling kind of shitty and Republicans just won a big election on promises to take it out behind the shed and shoot it.
They’re still throwing their silly goddamn tantrum five years on, and as blue as their stupid little faces turn, there seems to be no end to their poutrage. I like our chances in ’16 better than I like theirs, but you’ve still got to figure there’s at least one chance in four that they win the WH, in which case I’d expect the ACA to be repealed by close of business on Inauguration day.
If the USSC takes a big bite out of the ACA this year, it makes the eventual repeal far more likely–it’ll make the law less effective and less popular, and it’ll embolden the GOP. Nobody quits when they smell blood.
Johannes
With this Court? Who knows–as burnsie pointed out above, Raich and Sebelius are inconsistent, and I’d add that Shelby County effectively erased the 15th Amendment.
I used to write quite a lot about constitutional law when that was a thing. What we have now is rule by judicial whim.
p.a.
@Laertes: my thinking on the first scenario is 2016 results in a D President and Senate. I admit the House is problematic because of gerrymandering. Under the second, pissed off bigots lose enthusiasm and lessen support for the R’s (sitting out the election) or really start moving towards a 3rd party. I don’t think they are willing to be the junior members to the money wing any more; ‘shut up and vote like we say’ is a non-starter.
Laertes
@p.a.:
Chances are reasonably good that you’re right and I’m wrong. I sure as hell hope so.
SatanicPanic
@Laertes: We barely started signing people up a year ago though, so five years doesn’t really capture the impact of the law. The GOP is all talk. They know they can’t get Obama to agree to sign anything, and they know they won’t have any more luck with Hillary.
I doubt their odds are even close to that good.
Roger Moore
@Patrick:
So they pretend it isn’t a matter of clarifying inconsistent language but of seeing the clear and obvious meaning that was there all along. It’s the Obama administration that’s twisting the plain reading of the statute to meet its political objectives, not the Supreme Court. See how easy that is?
Elizabelle
Some of you guys are depressing me about Obamacare and the Supreme Court.
Don’t dare be glad it’s likely that gay marriage will be the law of the land.
They’re coming for your Obamacare. Be afraid!
Signing off.
SatanicPanic
@p.a.: I think they’ll stick around and annoy people for a lot longer than any of us would like to imagine. I don’t think they’ll manage to accomplish much of anything though.
p.a.
@Laertes: I’m usually the glass-half-empty guy.
Cervantes
@Keith G:
But if Conservatism is an ideology, and an ideologue is one who upholds an ideology, then … ?
delk
I’ll give them my wedding ring when they pry it from my cold, dead hand.
Keith G
@Cervantes: I know some very profoundly conservative folks who hate what is being argued about interference in private decisions about family, or the attacks on basic science education, or attempts blindly roll back all manner of safety regulations (as some examples).
Are you implying that my best word choice might have been extremist? If so, be frank. It saves time.
@Villago Delenda Est: No.
Ruckus
@Villago Delenda Est:
Always have been.
Villago Delenda Est
@Keith G: Those “profoundly conservative people” are, as far as the “conservative movement” is concerned, RINOs and race traitors.
In the contemporary American political context, “conservative” has nothing at all to do with being conservative. These are people, mind you, who “roll coal” simply to piss others off…deliberately NOT conserving fuel to do so.
JDreyer
@Iowa Old Lady:
Where I got on the train.
TriassicSands
@SatanicPanic:
Aah, but the Modern Republican Party’s statistical wizards know that the truth is their chances of winning the White House are 1 in 2 — either they will or they won’t. I once knew someone who used that same reasoning to determine that you had a 50-50 chance of dying every time you went in the hospital — after all, either you will die or you won’t. Fifty-fifty. In this mathematical system, learning probability is pretty easy — either something will happen or it won’t.
The Modern Republicans have a fifty-fifty chance of overturning the PPACA.With those odds, who can blame them for continuing to try to kill Obamacare?
Donalbain
Scalia’s dissent will be a thing of beauty!
mellowjohn
@debbie:
WTF does honesty have to do with it?
Hunter
On the SSM cases, I’d guess that June will see same-sex marriage as the law of the land. The 6th Circuit majority opinion did not address the issues the Court has said it wants addressed — in fact, it avoided addressing any 14th Amendment issues at all — and the Supreme Court’s own precedents make a finding for marriage equality the most logical outcome. (Given that logic and this Court have a somewhat adversarial relationship.) Not only Windsor, but Lawrence v. Texas, Romer v. Evans, Loving (and a couple of similar cases that all point to the Court’s reluctance to set definitions on who can be married — the court did not find, for example, that there is a “right to interracial marriage”), and Griswold are all stacked up in favor of marriage equality, under the heading “The government cannot interfere in intimate relationships between consenting adults without a compelling reason.” Since these cases involve a fundamental right, the Court will be able to examine them under heightened or strict scrutiny without identifying a new suspect class, which will make most of the justices more comfortable — they really hate finding new suspect classes.
Nor is it, in spite of Scalia’s protestations, a matter of discovering a new “right to same-sex marriage.” It’s a matter of the states lacking any rational reason for excluding same-sex couples from a right readily available to similarly situated opposite-sex couples.
Quite aside from the practical problems inherent in finding for the states — all those marriages are now invalid? And what about the states that have adopted SSM through legislative means, by referendum, or by the decisions of state courts? SSM would still be legal there — there is solid constitutional basis for a favorable decision.
The states’ right argument is dead in the water, even given Windsor. The part that opponents of SSM don’t like to mention when referring to Kennedy’s states’ rights language is the stipulation, which was quite plain, the state laws must conform to Constitutional requirements. He was also quite eloquent about the harm done by the bans to the children of same-sex couples.
I would guess, all else being equal and given Kennedy’s record on gay rights, that the decision will go toward striking down same-sex marriage bans. It’s even possible, since corporations tend to favor equal rights for LGBTs (it’s good for business), that the vote will be 6-3, with Roberts siding with the majority. Scalia will write a scathing dissent, with which Thomas will concur. Alito is a cipher to me — he may decide to stick with the corporate wing or go with the social conservative wing.
I make no guesses on the ACA, but note that the insurance companies love it and stand to lose millions of paying customers if the subsidies are struck down.
Hunter
@Hunter: Also, David Boies seems to agree with me. And of course, has a couple of other insights.
The Very Revered Crimson Fire of Compassion
@Mike J: Yes, it certainly worked that way for African-Americans after the Loving decision, didn’t it? Fuck you. I am so goddamned sick of you and some of the other heterosexist bigots on this blog with your “We all know how those untrustworthy faggots will vote, now don’t we?” bullshit. Try replacing your anecdotal bullshit about how that gay person you know is just secretly itching to vote Republican after their “one” issue is taken care of (and the fact that you think the experience of being gay in this Christian fascist nation of ours can be wiped away by a favorable SC decision on marriage demonstrates exactly how fucking shallow your grasp of the stakes on gay rights is) with the name of any other minority in this nation, and see what that does for your self-assigned cred as a “liberal”.
I was approached during the last campaign by a black woman passing out literature in support of Romney. If I extrapolated something from that about how the African-American community felt about Obama, I would be indulging in some deeply racist anecdata bullshit. Yet you assholes think nothing of indulging in the same kind of generalizing douchebaggery about gay men. So fuck you, bigot.