Justice Thomas seems to think that SCOTUS has all but given up the game on the expected June ruling on same-sex marriage as a result of yesterday’s refusal by the high court to block marriage equality in Alabama.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday denied Alabama’s request to halt legal same-sex marriage in the state until the justices rule on the issue later this year, sparking a scathing dissent by two of the Court’s most conservative members.
The dissent by Thomas, joined by Justice Antonin Scalia, accused the other justices of failing to show “the people of Alabama the respect they deserve” by letting the lower court ruling stand while the case is pending before the Supreme Court. He argued that the order reveals the Court’s intention to rule for same-sex marriage.
“This acquiescence may well be seen as a signal of the Court’s intended resolution of that question,” Thomas wrote. “This is not the proper way to discharge our Article III responsibilities. And, it is indecorous for this Court to pretend that it is.”
“Today’s decision represents yet another example of this Court’s increasingly cavalier attitude toward the States,” he added.
The justices decided last month to take the case after the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld gay marriage bans in four states — Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. The circuit ruling broke with decisions by four other circuit courts to strike down same-sex marriage bans in the states they cover.
“What struck me about today’s dissent was Justice Thomas’s recognition that these stay orders signal what is likely coming on the merits: a constitutional right to same sex marriage,” Rick Hasen, a law professor at UC Irvine, wrote. “The tone was one of resignation of what is coming and a lament about the loss of the power of the states.”
Apparently, the dawning realization that this was going to happen all along makes Clarence a sad panda, because expanding civil rights of course requires lament and mourning.
Now, Thomas does have a point that since taking up the Sixth Circuit case in January that SCOTUS could have used the Alabama decision to signal a status quo freeze on the situation until the June ruling and saying that for now no additional states would be added on to the ones where same-sex marriage was allowed.
But the court didn’t do that, and that by itself seems to me to be a massive tell, that the court has found no good reason to stop people from getting married in all but the Sixth Circuit states.
We’ll see. Usual IANAL stuff, but I’m thinking it’s all over except for the joint Scalia/Thomas tears in June.
Baud
That’s dumb. It was Alabama’s burden to demonstrate that a stay was justified. Nothing improper with the court saying that it wasn’t.
WereBear
So now we have proof of who the dead-enders will be. At every move. One of my unholy reasons for wanting President Obama on the Supreme Court is imagining he and Thomas in the same room.
I would worry he would self-combust from shame, but by this time, wingnuts have no shame.
Baud
@WereBear:
No. I still think it will be 5-4. At best 6-3. I can’t see Alito signing on to marriage equality.
debbie
Can’t the same be said about Scalia’s speeches?
gvg
When it’s obviously dumb to hold a position that factually is untenable under the constitution and it’s already been argued in multiple cases…..why shouldn’t they be cavalier? It had gotten to the point where it was a surprise that one circuit didn’t just allow it and with a little luck it would have happened without the supreme court. Even if the supreme court did halt progress, I would have predicted it as just a delay. After all there have been supreme courts in the past that ruled in error and later courts had to correct things. This is getting to the supreme court a lot later in the process than I would have predicted
danielx
@WereBear:
This is true. The concept of putting Clarence Thomas and shame together in the same sentence, as in him feeling shame, is sort of like associating “rectitude” and “Goldman Sachs*” in the same sentence.
*Substitute JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, etc as desired.
debbie
@WereBear:
That would be rich! But I can’t even begin to imagine the confirmation hearing.
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie: I can’t imagine him wanting the the job. Also, there are a lot of judges, law professor, and the like out there who would be excellent Justices. There is no reason for Obama to limit his participation in world affairs by sitting on the Supreme Court bench.
Zandar
Also, fuck Thomas for thinking Alabama’s open bigotry requires “respect”.
Belafon
@Baud: Then why, do you think, didn’t he participate in the dissent?
Botsplainer
@Baud:
Opinion written by Roberts, narrowly tailored, not precedential, but somewhat pacifying to some conservative oriented glibertarian gay white males so as to take their money off the table for 2016.
They’ll allow it only in the states where it is allowed already, but require full faith and credit recognition of them in all states for the purpose of benefits and divorce.
This SCOTUS has made too many shitty calls to assume anything good.
dmsilev
I, for one, can’t wait to read Scalia’s dissent in the actual court ruling this spring or summer. If we’re really lucky, he’ll stroke out while writing it.
Botsplainer
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m still eagerly awaiting his stint as the Antichrist. I’ll be a minion early on…
Baud
@Belafon:
Waste of time to even consider whether to join a dissent. The issue will be decided in four months. Maybe he believes he can exercise some influence over Kennedy if he holds back.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Yeah, there could have been a host of reasons why Alito didn’t join the dissent, but I sincerely doubt that a plan to sign on to a decision in favor of gay rights – even to a limited extent – is one of them.
dedc79
This was over the moment Kennedy learned he had a gay friend and/or relative.
If every conservative had a black friend or family member and a Latino immigrant friend or family member our politics would probably be a bit more sane.
Because as things stand, conservatives think and legislate within a powerful bubble.
Baud
@Botsplainer:
I agree about not assuming anything. I don’t know about Roberts. I feel he wants to vote against equality, but he’s smart enough to realize the handwriting is on the wall. So the question for him is what impact does this have on his reputation. Who knows how he weighs that question?
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: I think he might like being on the Court. Need to get him nominated!
Davis X. Machina
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s a life appointment, too. In this case a lifetime of soi-disant progressives screaming ‘He’s worse than Bush. He sold us out.’
I’m sure 8 years of that was plenty.
Botsplainer
@Baud:
By now he’s noticed a great number of statements comparing him to Taney. It has to sting.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
It’s amazing the irony in Clarence’s body doesn’t give him an instant blood clot.
Betty Cracker
@Omnes Omnibus: Agreed. Obama will be a relatively young man when his term is up, and hopefully in excellent health. I see him charting his own path as former president in unexpected ways, something beyond a charitable foundation or individual good works. Maybe he’ll choose to focus on issues affecting black Americans. Lord knows some leadership on that is sorely needed.
Buddy H
Does anyone here have any links to share of Scalia’s comments on the pope? I’m just so curious to know what goes through his mind when the pope says sensible, tolerant things.
Buddy H
@Betty Cracker: He’s been very … diplomatic in his statements since 2008. Michelle as well. I can’t wait until they’re allowed to speak freely about every insult and absurdity they’ve had to endure.
gratuitous
I’m a bit unclear about another passage from Justice Slappy’s dissent: What “respect” does he think “the people of Alabama” “deserve”? The respect to continue their sorry-ass history of bigotry in the face of the law? The respect to deny one part of their citizenry basic human rights so another part of their citizenry won’t feel uncomfortable?
I seem to recall someone observed once upon a time that justice delayed is justice denied. Does Slappy’s unspecified “respect” for some of “the people of Alabama” (surely not each and every citizen in that state, just certain unspecified ones) trump the legal rights of other citizens? On what basis? Is Slappy trying to conjure up a heretofore undetected constitutional “right to respect” for bigots?
Iowa Old Lady
That lightning hasn’t struck Scalia and Thomas is a proof positive there is no god.
Mustang Bobby
To quote myself:
Matt
Clarence, if we did that you could see the smoke from DC as we burned the whole goddamn pile of rednecks to the ground.
Botsplainer
@gratuitous:
He and Ginny make the weirdest couple on this spinning rock. Sixty years ago, he’d have been an impoverished day laborer and she would have been on the sidewalk and screaming at black kids trying to enter a newly desegregated school.
GregB
But I thought conservatives were for freedom and liberty?
So confused.
jibeaux
One man’s ‘increasingly cavalier attitude towards the States” is another man’s civil rights and pursuit of happiness, so tomato tomahto.
Marc
I can’t wait to read Ginsburg’s concurring opinion, extensively quoting Scalia’s dissenting opinion on Windsor as the precedent for legalizing same-sex marriage.
Botsplainer
@GregB:
The freedom and Liberty to order society and make you live the way they want you to. Also, the freedom and liberty to make you praise them.
Betty Cracker
@Buddy H: I’d love to see a tell-all book that rips into the assholes, but honestly, I don’t think they’ll choose to go that route. The Obamas are all about looking forward — to a fault sometimes, IMO.
Paul in KY
@Botsplainer: True dat.
Sondra
@debbie:
Wow…what a concept. I have been wondering what President Obama will do when he becomes an ordinary citizen again and this seems like a good job for life: for a relatively young man,
Bill Clinton sort of has the big bucks tied up in his philanthropic efforts.
Jimmy Carter has the lock on humanitarian efforts.
So what’s a former President to do? Maybe he’ll just sit around until a big pot of money drops into his lap, but I sort of doubt it. He has to do something big I think,
JPL
@Botsplainer: Ginny’s phone calls to Anita Hill were spooky. After all these years, I’m not sure what she wanted to accomplish.
ruemara
Did that horrible sack of living excrement actually speak up about something? And it’s to justify denying people their rights because we should respect to bigotry of the majority? He wouldn’t have been a day labourer, he probably would have been a victim of the forebears of the same bigots he thinks we should “respect”.
debbie
@Mustang Bobby:
What kind of self-loathing must be swirling around in his mind?
debbie
@Sondra:
Open community organization centers in every city and town in every red state?
SRW1
@Belafon:
Possibly because they think that Thomas and Scalia need to give it up on the question of gay marriage since Kennedy is a goner on the issue and the fight therefore is over.
Botsplainer
@JPL:
Drunk. Bitter about there being a disruption to what I believe may have been a very cynical manipulation using Clarence from the very beginning.
Wasn’t that when Brock was first used?
My Truth Hurts
They’re concerned with decorum and how it looks but no concern for the obvious corporate giveaway with Citizens United. What a joke these people are.
peach flavored shampoo
Can I assume that Thomas would have been fine with marriage taxes, literacy tests, and land ownership requirements for gay couples marrying in Alabama?
NotMax
Granted that it’s a narrow point of contention, but there is some exception to be taken to that phrasing. Affirming civil rights would be more to the point.
bg
Thomas says it’s improepr for the court to “signal” how it’s likely to rule. But “likelihood of success on the merits” is traditionally one of the most important things a court considers when deciding whether to issue a stay
patrick II
@Baud:
Is “indecorous” a new legal principal that trumps civil rights?
Belafon
@peach flavored shampoo: As I saw on an editorial about Alabama: The state didn’t vote until 2000 to remove the amendment in it’s constitution that prohibited interracial marriages, and even then 40% of the voters voted against repeal. I’m sure Thomas’s answer to that is don’t move to Alabama.
Botsplainer
Intriguing. Ginny went from cult membership while a congressional staffer (originally part of Dick Armey’s Dick Army) to marrying Thomas when she was 30.
That is a prime childbearing age, yet she’s never had one with Clarence, and every organization she’s ever been affiliated with tends to harbor and provide ideological justification for those white folks who are interested in suppressing minority rights, the membership rosters full of people who still have qualms about the Loving case.
And no children together.
Is Clarence the Johnny Iselin to Raymond Shaw’s mother?
JPL
@Botsplainer: Brock was used but admitted it and switched sides. He couldn’t stand himself. Ginny has to be amoral or jealous to continue to be on the attack.
Tenar Darell
@WereBear: Oh that’s such a lovely unicorn to wish for. It would also solve the problem of not having anyone with any political experience on the court too. /evil grin
cmorenc
@Baud:
My more cynical concern is that both Alito and Roberts use their graceful concession on the marriage equality constitutional issue as a gambit to provide some cover for their upcoming votes to kneecap the federal exchanges in the Affordable Care Act, against accusations that the five-member conservative block has become nakedly partisan in service to the goals of the Republican party. Scalia and Thomas are so totally shameless and intellectually corrupt that they simply don’t give a shit – they are are partisan warriors only thinly disguised by lifetime grifts of judicial robes. But while Roberts and Alito also see their mission on the court being the fundamental remaking of American constitutional law along conservative lines friendly to the GOP’s goals, they do care quite a bit about attempting to preserve the appearance of their and the Court’s reputation and role as nonpartisan arbiters. And so, an occasional symbolic sacrifice that merely ratifies where a strong majority of the population has already gone anyway and publicly outrages many of their own partisan bedfellows, may be seen as a worthy one to strengthen their position to move lots of other, ultimately more important things in the desired direction. Cynically, voting to recognize a right to marriage equality will have vanishing little practical effect on big business interests, and will help remove a social issue that is long-term adverse to GOP electoral interests from the table.
patrick II
@Omnes Omnibus:
If there is one thing I would like in the next Supreme Court nomination, it would be someone outside of the usual judge or legal professor/scholar nominee. I would like someone with experience with the real world application of law. Without knowing enough about him, but in a broad brush sort of way, I would nominate Deval Patrick, a former civil rights lawyer and governor, with governor being an important experience. I would like someone who had to deal with everyday practicality and the affect upon people’s lives of dry legal terms on paper.
Mike E
@Botsplainer: I, for one, will welcome our Apocalyptic Overlord!
Botsplainer
@peach flavored shampoo:
Yes, he would. As a true token, he is utterly loyal to those who have used him over the course of a lifetime.
Ginny is the Red Queen in this scenario.
NotMax
@Buddy H
This interview from 2013 may offer a bit of what you are seeking.
Paul in KY
@ruemara: he sorta reminds me of the Uncle Ruckus character in Boondocks. Not so much a loud mouth like that character, but self-hating.
Wilson Heath
Gotta love when a black man married to a white woman waxes nostalgic for the days when state-level bigots controlled marriage rights.
Betty Cracker
@patrick II: If you’re looking for real world experience in the application of the law, a lower court judge who rose through the ranks of a state’s legal apparatus might be a better bet than a governor.
PurpleGirl
@Buddy H: I don’t have links to share but I sincerely doubt that Scalia likes Pope Francis and any of what he says. Pope Francis may not be a true radical but in his own way he is leading in a radical-ish manner. No way Scalia likes it.
Mike in dc
6 to 3, with Alito, Thomas and Scalia dissenting. Roberts will not be the author of the opinion, and it will not be a narrow ruling, precisely because they don’t want the issue to keep coming back to them.
Botsplainer
@cmorenc:
This. A thousand times this.
White male privilege is ever thus.
If the beneficiary of that privilege happens to be a gay white man who is the senior senator from South Carolina, or the senior senator from Kentucky, or countless Christian conservative congressional staffers, or conservative think tank lobbyists, or meritorious inheritors, or millionaire hedge fund operators, or even your favorite interior decorator, what’s not to like?
The right people, by comparison, are getting the break and it will take some opposition to the party off the table.
PurpleGirl
@Mustang Bobby: Good post and comment.
patrick II
@Betty Cracker:
Yes, the real world experience of someone who has seen the affects of law up close on everyday people sounds good. But can the lower legal prestige of a lower court judge make it through the politics of a supreme court nomination?
grandpa john
@Sondra: how about becoming an artist
Botsplainer
@patrick II:
They’d never get through.
I blame the law schools for making the point that theorists and wannabe philosophers who write for the law review are special snowflakes for the last several decades. Even the most psychotically conservative gasbag local judges make empathetic decisions more often than you think. It is impossible not to.
gene108
Thomas is a punk at best. He’s benefited from over 50 years of Civil Rights laws and court decisions, especially Loving v. Virginia that allows him to be married to a white woman, but he works to undercut those same benefits for others.
I just cannot understand a mindset that is so determined to not just pull the ladder up behind himself, when he’s reached the top, but actively trying to make the hole people have to climb out of deeper.
Paul in KY
@Mike in dc: If Roberts is in the majority, he gets to assign the author of the opinion. I think he would author it, just to weasel it up some. He would not assign it to Justices Ginsburg or Sotomayor (IMO).
NotMax
Occurs to me that Thomas avidly rejected according respect to the voters of Florida in 2000.
Mustang Bobby
@PurpleGirl: Thanks.
Patricia Kayden
Justice Thomas is such a douche. I cannot imagine how a Black man, having grown up in the segregated South, could be so hateful against minorities including his own.
Alex S.
Eh, Thomas should resign in protest!
Luckily, Kennedy is a social liberal. Sadly, he’s also an economic conservative.
delk
My husband and I are expecting our tax refund this week. Last year we broke even, this year we are getting money (woo-hoo!)
If SCOTUS rules against marriage equality, what is going to happen to all the tax issues?
Who is going to clean up that mess?
celticdragonchick
Screaming harridan (and very concerned moral scold) Rod Dreher is upset and he wants us to know it by God that the SCOTUS isn’t paying attention to him pimping out his dead sister in his book and blathering about Dante…
Natch, he is also trying to sniff the panties of transgendered women again…
Christ on a crutch, the man is mentally ill.
shelley
I’ve always wondered why it takes so long for SCOTUS to rule on these things? I mean, what else do they have to do all day? They convene in October, but it’s months before any decisions on these major issues. Unless there’s myriads of minor cases being settled every day that we don’t hear about.
celticdragonchick
@shelley: The SCOTUS caseload has been declining steadily for the last 30 years.
boatboy_srq
@NotMax: To Conservatists, voters only deserve respect when they vote for principles/candidates the conservatists want. Otherwise, they’re the great unwashed masses and deserve all the “leadership” they can get.
Botsplainer
@Patricia Kayden:
$$$
D58826
Ah another true ‘Merkin Constitutional conservative’ from Alabama:
D58826
@shelley: I think it’s the ‘perils of Pauline’ approach. Leave them hanging till the last minute then will get a weeks worth of press coverage when the big cases are announced in june.
celticdragonchick
@D58826:
So Judge Roy Moore is a rank ,nit infested and cum soaked merkin? Hey, works for me…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkin
Patricia Kayden
@debbie: By the time that happens, hopefully Democrats are fully in charge of the Senate. It could happen.
Belafon
@shelley: The one good reason is that their job is as much political as it is judicial, and because of that, they should take care in their decisions. The way a decision is written can have major impacts down the road.
Not that I’m saying that most of the people on this court care about that, but that’s the stated reason.
Villago Delenda Est
Keep standing on those train tracks, Scalia and Thomas. I just know you can stop the train by sheer force of reactionary will.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@shelley:
As I understand it, the way the SC decides cases isn’t by doing a trial like in other venues. There are oral arguments where they hear and can question both sides, but most of the work is reading briefs from all sides and discussing the case among themselves. Because of that, it’s easier for them to release decisions in a few batches rather than one-by-one.
Villago Delenda Est
@celticdragonchick: Those words…”religious liberty”…they do not mean what you think they mean, Rod Dreher…
mattH
This stinks of concern trolling/working the refs. If it’s really as inevitable as it seems, the only reason for Thomas and Scalia to be so vocal about this is that they can “encourage” their fellow conservatives to rule on other cases in ways more to their liking.
Roger Moore
@Belafon:
I think they care deeply about the political impacts of their decisions; it’s just that the politics of the current Court are pretty awful.
celticdragonchick
@Villago Delenda Est:
That has been pointed out to him ad nauseum over the years.
He has his own definition {My religion gets preference over the rest of you because reasons(!) and natural law sez so!} and he will not back off of it no matter how often he gets debunked.
Now, he has his pseudo-clever Law of Merited Impossibility where Troo Beleevers like him get to bask in the martydom of experiencing all the bad things that they did to teh ghez and teh trannies.
He has become so invested in this particular wingnut obsession that outside information cannot get through (as Aimai and others have found out, you tend to get banned if you make too much sense).
Botsplainer
@Villago Delenda Est:
Is it just me, or is that whole “turtleneck with swoopie styled hair” thing Dreher has going a little telling?
ETA – Its been a while since I last saw a pic. Time has not been kind to the man.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@celticdragonchick:
I know the closet cases usually get the most attention as being anti-gay/anti-trans, but Dreher falls into what I think is the more numerous group: Christians who love to condemn sins they have no interest in committing, because it makes it easy for them to feel instantly virtuous. Sure, they may, lie, cheat, and steal, but at least they’re not GAY, which is so much morally worse than any of their own sins. It’s their Get Out Of Hell Free card.
Botsplainer
To understand Roy Moore and the Constimatooshinal Conservative view on governance, all one has to do is read this somment that I gleaned off of Frei Republik:
Hee Haw wasn’t nearly as funny as these fools.
celticdragonchick
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini):
Probably true in hs case (and very accurate for a lot of people in the conservative Christian community).
However, his recent obsession with trans women has entered borderline stalker territory (just google “Rod dreher transgender)
His schtick on gay marriage has been a defining feature for the man, but this newest iteration of anti GLBT animus has become genuinely creepy. Speaking a real, honest to whatever living, breathing trans woman…I don’t read or think about trans issues even remotely as much as he appears to do. I have not seen any other conservative writer (outside the Peter LeBarbera crowd) devote this much time and energy to hating us.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
cheers to Senator Patrick Leahy for standing up to Boehner’s cheap stunt. Cheap and tawdry, great word.
pluege
scalia and thomas are the perfect embodiment of indecency…they’re completely clueless on the disrespect of denying equality to American citizens that blocking the Federal judge’s ruling would have represented.
allowing scalia and thomas (and alito for the matter) to be on the SCOTUS is literally a crime against humanity.
Another Holocene Human
Clarence Thomas is a sad panda. He came to UF Levin School of Law in front of a moderated crowd to whine about how mean everyone is to him. And that he doesn’t get the respect he deserves.
He’s getting exactly the respect he deserves.
Another Holocene Human
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): I think that’s true to an extent but the whole thing has gotten so marginalized now.
Also, it’s amazing how persistent the homophobe-closet case thing is.
I used to think Fred Phelps was an example of somebody who hated on gays just to hate. But then we found out more about his background and it seems like there’s a lot of circumstantial evidence that he was sexually assaulted during a brief stint in the military. It explains his overwhelming hatred and contempt for the armed forces which frankly outdid his hatred of gays and the way he was constantly linking the military and decriminalization of homosexual behavior.
So in Phelps case there was something driving the obsession, not the typical suppressed desires but fear, rage, shame, and so on. (Maggie from NOM was driven by rage, guilt, humiliation of having a baby with a man in college who abandoned her.)*
That said, he was a violent, exploitative, vile human being who probably abused the people closest to him more than anyone else.
*wingnuts wouldn’t be wingnuts if they didn’t totally displace their fear and anger onto the wrong targets
TriassicSands
Tears? I don’t think Scalia will let the destruction of civilization go with just a few tears. It will be yet another occasion for him to insult everyone who disagrees with hiim. I can’t believe RBG likes that POS. I guess when you’re sufficiently privileged you don’t have to take the barbarity of someone like Scalia seriously, because you know it will never affect you.