After their stupidity in the court yesterday, the Supreme Court finally did something right: the Defense of Marriage Act has been found unconstitutional. Sorry, Republicans, you don’t get to discriminate against gay couples legally anymore.
Note who voted for gay hatred, though: Roberts, Scalia, Alito, Thomas. Those guys are really dragging down the court.
http://nycprowler.com/prowler/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/grumpy-cat-equality.jpg
(Hooray!)
Applause, with a raspberry to the three bigots on the court.
Stunning.
The ratio of bad news to good news has been horribly skewed ever since the Bush Catastrophe.
That sound you hear in the distance is fundie xian death cultists head’s exploding.
Watch out for skull shrapnel but don’t worry about chunks of brains. They aren’t known for having much upstairs.
Great, but pro-Bush v Gore, Citizens United, anti-Obamacare Kennedy is still a disgrace.
Nor would she have had to pay it if she were a man–which is, I think the stronger argument (it does away with the defence that gay people are free to marry someone of the opposite sex just like straight people, so they’re equal under the law). More clearly, it’s discrimination because she’s being penalised for being a woman rather than a man. But then, the USA hasn’t gotten around to passing an equal rights amendment so that line of argument may not fly?
The judgement is worth reading. The majority opinion is VERY punchy on the subject of how and why DOMA is wrong – a surprisingly broad judgement with lots of implications for the ongoing state arguments. Shame about the bigotry in the dissents, but you can see which way the momentum is going on this one.
The cheers and all that.
I’m really happy for my LGB friends, but coming on the heels of the evisceration of the Voting Rights Act and SCOTUS making it so much harder to sue for workplace discrimination, my jumping up and down is a little bit lower than usual.
I freaking hate the Roberts court.
It’s.about.damn.time.
Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Scalia.
RATS
42 intertoobs to ChasCPeterson: brilliant!
As much as I don’t like some of Obama’s actions, I shutter to think what the Court if McCain and the republicans were allowed to have picked the last two judges.
Ashley Miller tweeted:
Ashley F. Miller @ashleyfmiller 35m
This is huge — it’s unconstitutional because of equal protection, not because of states rights. #doma #scotus
–And standing on the Prop 8 appeal has been denied. Gay marriage is legal again in California!
Chas: nice. :)
I’m reading that the decision simply takes it out of federal hands and knocks back the specific law from California, but leaves it open for states to decide one way or the other. Is that correct?
Kagan and Sotomayor voted to strike it down. Both are Obama appointees. If McCain had won in ’08, DOMA might still be alive.
On the other hand, if the Court had recognized Gore’s victory in 2000, the Voting Rights Act might still be alive.
Keep that in mind the next time you’re trying to decide whether or not to vote for the lesser of two evils.
DOMA is dead for now.
Until the next round of “elections” brought in a tide of pale-skinned cave man and neanderthal president thanks to the Court decision yesterday.
Then get ready to say hello to DOMA 2: GAY HARDER.
Probably another sequel right after. DOMA 3: GAY LOCKER.
Maybe a finale to the tetralogy, DOMA 4: GAY DEADER.
Think it won’t happen?
http://projects.nytimes.com/live-dashboard/2013-06-25-supreme-court#sha=88a62b0c2
Texas is ready to immediately fuck the non-white minority over (a state that, in a few more years, would turn liberal thanks to demographic change).
Prop 8 went down moments ago.
Good news!
I’m so very happy for my LGBT friends!
California has been improving since they kicked the GOTP to the curb.
Now I hope to see a great economy build up from beautiful wedding by the ocean for the LGBT crowd, as well as the hetero crowd.
I love California, I love the coastline there, and I’m so happy for my favorite state!
I hope that with DOMA gone, we will soon see some federal benefits for gay spouses, both in the military and in civilian life.
I don’t think Roberts voted for hatred he concurred on part I of the dissent, that the court shouldn’t take the issue. He didn’t join part 2 (gays are bad)
What Sally said.
Scalia:
Haha, yep.
*Happy Dance*
From the ruling itself:
a tweet from Buzzfeed: “What happens when you google the word ‘gay’ right now”
image link
Lawrence v Texas was decided 10 years ago TODAY. The momentum is here and not going away.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v._Texas
Yay. However.
My enthusiasm is tempered by the fact that the court weaseled out of striking down the portions of DOMA that allow other states *not* to recognize gay marriages from others. This is not the victory to end them all.
Equal protection—it’s so haaaaaaaaaaaard to understand!
Tired of being a third-tier citizen.
@Josh
#26
… who are the second tier citizens?
@Josh #26 – Actually, the Court could not do so, as that was not the case before them: appeals rulings may ONLY rule on questions raised in the original trial, and may not address anything else. That is how our judicial system works.
The lawyers for Ms. Windsor argued that the levying of an estate tax was unconstitutional because of Section 3 of DOMA, which prohibited the federal government from recognizing her marriage. The matter of Section 2 was never brought up at the original trial, and so the Court could not weigh in on it.
Yay!
Many Moments of Mormon Madness supporting Prop 8 were doused today.
Remember this?
http://www.newuniversity.org/2008/10/features/mormons_dig_deep_into167/
Mormons dug deep all right, and then they kept on digging, often under pressure from their bishops. Mormon Jesus took it on the chin today. Can’t wait to hear the LDS church spin this one.
schadenfreude — roll in it like a happy dog
There is still a lot of questions about what happens now with Prop 8:
http://www.scotusblog.com/?p=161966
But the more the bigots try to fight a rear guard action based on the limited reach of the disctrict court decision, the more they will fuel an initiative in 2014 to give full gay marriage.
*fireworks*
–
Well, I’m more of a cat person, but…
*rolling*
–
@Gregory
#28
Well said.
Hey, if the court could have struck down the entirety of DOMA. Imagine what they COULD have done yesterday on voting rights.
I know it’s petty of me, but I desperately want to rub this in the face of a bigoted relative. The same asshole who emailed me when Prop 8 was passed and said, “At least Californians know what’s moral.”
Such richness of irony.
silomowbray: He’ll just be griping about how the Supremes ran over the “will of the people” today.
Warm hugs proffered to any of the Horde who will benefit from this.
{thinks: mmmmh… Hey, that means EVERYONE! This will turn into one great hugfest.}
appeals rulings may ONLY rule on questions raised in the original trial, and may not address anything else. That is how our judicial system works.
Citizens United.
A 5:4 victory, huh ?
Wonder how fast is gonna all that be rolled back, once an ultraconservative justice will be voted in.
A lot of the reaction from the right wing seems to be formed around the idea that this is just one more example of the war on religion.
Meanwhile, a least one mormon politician is happy.
Other mormons, not so much. They are all sad, gray-faced, down-in-the-mouth, butt-hurt white, nominally not-gay guys:
Religious social conservatives, why do you hate reality?
@Chas
RATS. Oh, well done!
@Lynna, OM
In the words of Bender Bending Rodriguez, they can all bite my shiny metal ass.
Rey Fox @ 35
If I was a betting man, I WOULD NOT TAKE THAT BET. You’d likely be right and I’d lose.
@Randomfactor #37 – Citizens United v. FEC was originally argued that limits on corporate contributions to federal elections were unconstitutional on the grounds that previous Supreme Court rulings had found corporations to be legal persons with First Amendment rights. That was the question that the Supreme Court answered.
I hope it is.
Hey, Senator Hatch just abbreviated a swear word! He should really take himself out of this discussion, he’s getting all emotional. Heterosexual males always get emotional.
But not, IIRC, what the plaintiffs were requesting.
#10-
+1
“Ultimately, children will suffer and future generations will wonder how we got it so very wrong.”
Yes, this is true. But not how they think.
Future generations will wonder why we allowed discrimination for so long, why we allowed our country to be run by rethuglican haters, and why we let the climate change destroy so much.
except for gays, blacks, women, muslims, arabs, immigrants, the poor, the disabled etc.
Correction: The most egregious portion of DOMA is dead.
Another bright news, oddly, from Texas.
Remember that back-assward anti-abortion bill that Texas “representative” rammed through in a special session?
ONE (Wendy Davis) woman filibustered the bill for 13 fucking hours in the senate.
The bill died.
Huzzah!
Justice Antonin Scalia is hopping mad. He called the majority ruling that struck down the Defense of Marriage Act “legalistic argle-bargle.” (page 22 of his dissent.
Scalia went on to elucidate his degree of butt-hurtedness:
Well, I guess that Scalia is really upset because he is viewed as a bigot. All of his fulminating does not obscure the fact that he is a bigot. I will give him points for trying very hard to obscure his bigotry.
Scalia is the guy who gutted the Voting Rights Act, which was democratically adopted legislation, but in condemning the very next ruling he wrote (emphasis mine):
The Atlantic link.
Right.
We should have waited to free the slaves, legalize interracial marriage, and make the majority of the population (women and nonwhites) equal citizens until everyone wanted it.
Scalia is an enemy of the human race. Nothing new there, he always has been.
IIRC, he is very old and will die someday soon. And the world will be a better place.
Josh @26: The interesting question will be when a couple of men who are married to each other in New York move to, say, Ohio, which explicitly bans same-sex marriages in their Constitution…and then one of those men attempts to marry a woman.
Will Ohio recognize the man’s same-sex marriage in an attempt to stop polygamy? Suppose they recognize the man/woman marriage–what do the Feds do, then?
I confess, I am so looking forward to seeing such a scenario play out. Imagine the splodey heads!
Scalia is 77 years old.
I had to check Google.
Not exactly very old these days but it could be worse. He could have been even younger.
If I were. Were. Were.
Saving the subjunctive one snipe at a time.
Well, here it is, the official response from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Mormon spin always has its own unique flavor:
Nice irony there with the “a man and a woman” definition being promoted by mormons who did the one-man-many-women thing from 1830 to 1904 officially, and well beyond 1904 unofficially.
In case you are doubting that LDS leaders can be this stupid, here’s another official LDS link: http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/church-responds-supreme-court-marriage-rulings
And here’s what the mormons are missing:
“the majority has no legitimate power to vote away or otherwise abridge the natural rights of political, ethnic, religious, or other minorities.”
http://billofrightsinstitute.org/resources/educator-resources/americapedia/americapedia-constitution/majority-rule-minority-rights/
In case you want to know who gave money to fund those misleading, funky, lying ads that were produced by mormons and used to prompt Californians to vote for Prop 8, go here:
http://www.eightmaps.com
Click on any of the balloons on the map to pop up the name and amount of the donation.
Excerpt from True Believing Mormon posting on Facebook:
Right. More “love” from mormons.
Let’s be clear here. Section 3 of DOMA is gone. And that’s good. But the decision, overall, is bad.
1) Striking down section 3 is, ironically, a states’ rights move. The states that pass marriage were not being allowed to define marriage as they see fit without the federal government intervening.
2) This approach allowed them to avoid setting the precedent that gay people have a constitutional right to equal protection of the law. It firmly established that our rights are what people vote for.
Additionally, it always was the case that there are religious organizations that have marriage equality have not had their marriages recognized by the government. Every time the government allows for their marriages to be trumped by voters they are establishing one version of religion over the other, not equally protected faith.
A whole lot of terrible legal principles go into the bans on marriage equality, and most of them remain in place.
to be a religious conservative means you are at odds with reality by definition that will remain true until there is a religion that embraces reality, which may be a functional impossibility.
another step forward today toward an egalitarian future but only another step by no means the end of the road. Raise your glasses high and salute the victory tomorrow will be more work and struggle on many fronts.
I would praise god but there ain’t none so I salute all those who were in the for front of this battle this time and say thanks for all your struggle for all of us.
uncle frogy
From Mike Huckabbee:
From Michele Bachmann:
Responses from Maggie Gallagher here: http://www.salon.com/2013/06/26/best_of_the_worst_right_wing_responses_to_the_court/
From the National Organization for Marriage (NOM):
“Stench” — always like it when religious folk use “stench” in their descriptions, it’s such a dog whistle for the smell of Satan, for the stench of hell and damnation.
In reference to comment #57, “SSA” means “same-sex attraction,” the preferred mormon term for homosexuality. “SSA” makes it sound more like a disease that might be cured. Idiots.
If we can elect Hillary or some one else for the next couple terms, we can rat out retrogrades like Scalia and Kennedy (most of the time) and then possibly same-sex marriage can be ruled unconstitutional for all states for all time no matter what they personally think. That should be motivation enough.
Scalia actually went so far as to refer to homosexual sodomy in his dissent. I’d call him a neanderthal – but that would be demeaning to neanderthals.
Correction – meant same sex marriage would be constitutional everywhere, sorry…
@Mikeyb
I don’t think I share your confidence in Hillary
Scalia, from his Dissent on the DOMA ruling,
Hear that, gay Americans? Scalia thinks you’ve been robbed of a chance to experience the peace of a fair defeat. What you have is not a victory, that was for those who enacted the legislation and it’s been robbed, ‘robbed,’ he says, from those winners.
I have the distinct sense that Scalia isn’t even trying to be subtle in his bigotry. There is no generous way in which to read the above and not understand that he verily believes that gays really ought to be, at best, second class citizens and that the majority, either as elected or in the population, should be free to selectively oppress gays.
Doesn’t the SCOTUS (don’t the Justices) review the opinions of each other prior to their issuance? I can honestly say that I could hardly expect that a court should ever let such a blatantly bigoted remark appear in any decision. Does he not at the least stand to be rebuked for statements like the above (hardly his worst) by his colleagues? If not, the SCOTUS is more of a disgraceful court than I previously imagined.
Lynna, it’s a ‘stench’ that has ‘stained’ and those words come from a guy named ‘Brown’. I believe he has the origin and end point of that ‘stench’ wrong.
(Yes, I’m engaging in scatalogical humour …bigots are not above the mark for much other humour.)
@barbyau #58 – As I wrote in #28, the process of jurisprudence in the US allows appeals judges to rule ONLY on matters of the original trial. Since the lawyers in Windsor raised constitutional questions about Section 3 of DOMA, the appeals trials — including the appeal to the US Supreme Court — did not have the ability to rule on Section 2 or anything else.
As for this being a state’s rights decision, Kennedy make it very clear in writing the majority opinion that this was decided based on the Due Process guarantees of the Fifth Amendment. That phrasing is what put Scalia in such an amusing lather in his dissent: having established that denying same-sex couples any rights because they are same-sex couples is unconstitutional opens the door quite widely to strike down everything.
This ruling was the best we could hope for, given the case. It puts the camel’s nose solidly under the tent, and it is only a matter of time before the whole structure comes tumbling down.
I’d just like to dedicate this Lily Allen’s “F_ck You”nice little tune to all the people upset about the fall of (part of) DOMA and the punting of Prop H8.
@Tomathy #66
Since large portions of his argument (well, the third part where he talks about the “right to homosexual sodomy”) are based on his previous dissent from the Lawrence decision, I think it’s more than obvious that that is exactly what he’s saying.
It’s better called irrealis than subjunctive in English.
And it’s dead, Jim.
DOMA is finito Mr. Alito
DOMA is finito Mr. Alito
DOMA
DOMA
I think the DOMA decision si the best that could have been expected. The case didn’t give them a good basis to strike down all laws against SSM, but the reasoning they used would lead to that conclusion should such a case come before them in the future.
Ibis3 said, “Nor would she have had to pay it if she were a man…” Or her spouse was a man. But, if she were a gay man, I believe he would have to pay Federal estate tax on the death of his male spouse under DOMA.
Alas, they had plenty of help: President Clinton who signed it into law, most Democrats in the House (118 of them), and these Senators (also a majority of Democrats at the time) who voted for it: Baucus (D-MT), Biden (D-DE), Bingaman (D-NM), Bradley (D-NJ), Breaux (D-LA), Bryan (D-NV), Bumpers (D-AR), Byrd (D-WV), Conrad (D-ND), Daschle (D-SD), Dodd (D-CT), Dorgan (D-ND), Exon (D-NE), Ford (D-KY), Glenn (D-OH), Graham (D-FL), Harkin (D-IA), Heflin (D-AL), Hollings (D-SC), Johnston (D-LA), Kohl (D-WI), Lautenberg (D-NJ), Leahy (D-VT), Levin (D-MI), Lieberman (D-CT), Mikulski (D-MD), Murray (D-WA), Nunn (D-GA), Reid (D-NV), Rockefeller (D-WV), Sarbanes (D-MD), and Wellstone (D-MN).
Good for those few who voted nay.
Not that they didn’t try just about everything, including probably secretly praying that everyone’s clocks would change, so that their “adjustment” to the voting data’s time stamp (showing that, “No, no, it really was before midnight, honest!”, wouldn’t get spotted, somehow. Damn camera! How dare someone actually film them voting illegally? Its almost like their god wanted to let them lose. And, all he had to do is strike the camera transmitter with lightning, or something, to stop it!
Josh @ 54
I stagger backwards, hand wrapped around the sniping grammar barb you buried in my chest.
(Thank you for the correction! I do know better!)
From Scalia’s dissent:
” A reminder that disagreement over something so fundamental as marriage can still be politically legitimate would have been a fit task for what in earlier times was called the judicial temperament. We might have covered ourselves with honor today, by promising all sides of this debate that it was theirs to settle and that we would respect their resolution. We might have let the People decide.”
The people also decided that they wanted the Voting Rights Act, restrictions on corporate campaign spending, and that Gore won instead of Bush. Where was your “respect” for the people then, fat bastard?
Sotomayor dissented in the decision on Prop 8.
Anyone know WTF THAT’S all about?
@Jafafa
Quick glimpse says the scuttlebutt is that she disagreed and thought there was standing
@Jafafa Hots #79
Honestly both the majority decision and the dissent were essentially procedural rulings that had nothing to do with the content of the case, so I’m guessing that on purely procedural grounds she thought that the plaintiffs had standing. And if you read the dissent they actually make a pretty good argument. I kind of hate the ballot proposition system in CA (speaking as a former resident) but given that you have invested the public with the ability to pass laws, it seems like they logically should have the standing to appeal the overturning of those laws. The majority disagreed.
Wikipedia suggests that irrealis is a class of moods, including subjunctive. However, the “If I were…I would…” construct seems to fit the conditional mood better. But I’m not a grammarian, so I could very well be wrong.
From Rand Paul (commenting about the SCOTUS decision regarding DOMA, during an interview on the Glenn Beck show):
What (not whom) does Rand Paul secretly want to marry?
I always remember it, because of Tevya:
His copy of Atlas Shrugged.
mythbri @85: Sounds like excellent sketch material for Saturday Night Live.
Following up on WharGarbl @49, and Kagehi @76. Here’s more on Wendy Davis and how the SCOTUS ruling on the Voting Rights Act could cost her her seat in the Texas Senate. Salon link.
An extended discussion of Wendy Davis and her fight against anti-abortion laws, begins here in the [Lounge] thread. See comments #43, 44, 81, 83, etc.
Good news. good riddance to bad rubbish. The struggle continues.
there has been a large number of very important supreme court decisions reached in the last 2 weeks or so. I’m working on an overview-blogpost of them, but ATM it looks like most of them are bad and the rest is only partially good. Only one turned out all-good, and it’s not the DOMA decision (for explanation, see #58).
no. dude has a long list of flaws you can complain about; his weight ain’t one of them. knock it off.
To have standing requires that the law in question affects the people petitioning the court. In this case, the only effect on heteros is to potentially hurt their widdle feefees. So, no, ordinary Californians do not have standing in this case.
alkaloid:
Leave me out of this.
I see you as more like Scott Evil, attaching friggin’ “lasers” to sharks’ heads.
Roberts and Alito? Just old-fashioned. corrupt servants and friends of the self-defined “privileged interests.” They’re what big-money is always able to buy in a democracy.
Scalia and Thomas, though, are likely the worst, emotionally, intellectually, and ethically, justices ever. Scalia’s death is one I will observe with something similar to Elvis Costello’s feeling about his Maggie, while Thomas has become everything and more his confirmation hearings promised: the most utterly failed human being ever to attain the office and the icon of the utterly unprincipled, self-hating, to the point of insanity, neo-Tom.
Would one “conservative” on the court please die now? For the good of the nation and humanity?
By refusing the hear the appeal on Prop 8, the Supreme Court validated the lower court’s ruling that Prop 8 was unconstitutional. But that only applies to Prop 8 and California. It doesn’t say anything one way or another, about any of the other bans on same sex marriage on the books in any number of other states.
If the Supreme Court had not decided that the plaintiffs had no standing in this case, they would have to hear the whole case, and that could potentially have led to the overturning of all the same sex marriage bans in all the states, making same sex marriage the de facto law of the land for the whole country.
It is possible that this is why Sotomayor dissented on this specific ruling – she may have wanted the court to hear the whole case.
How did my brain know to apply the proper voice and music without even a thought?
Not enough Styx references on the interwebs. Thank you.
moarscienceplz @91
True, but it seems to me that under that argument, the State doesn’t have standing to appeal either, which is clearly not the case. Basically it undermines the entire ballot proposition system, which was designed to some extent to override the elected government by saying that the very body that the system is designed to thwart is the only body with standing to appeal the overturn of a ballot proposition. It seems illogical, and I haven’t decided in my own head whether that’s a feature or a bug, since the whole ballot initiative system seems designed to cater to crackpots and bankrupt the state.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m happy about the outcome as far as this case, I just think it has wider implications than Prop 8.
@imthegenieicandoanything
I don’t think calling Clarence Thomas a “Tom” is a good idea. First, it’s a nasty and racist term, so that alone is reason enough to avoid it. Second, it’s not apt. I’m pretty sure Thomas doesn’t see himself as trying to ingratiate himself to whites. I think he sees himself as superior to almost everybody.
I was shocked by one of Alito’s remarks: “The long term consequences of [the acceptance of same sex marriage] are not now known and are unlikely to be ascertainable for some time to come. There are those who think that allowing same sex marriage will seriously undermine the institution of marriage.”
What a dim witted dbag. Paying lip service to one of the stupidest arguments made by homophobes.
1) as if marriage as viewed by the state is ANYTHING other than a legal contract.
2) anytime i hear an anti-gay marriage argument i substitute “gay marriage” with “interracial marriage”. Its real easy to spot the blatant bigotry then. E.G., “The long term consequences of [the acceptance of interracial marriage] are not now known and are unlikely to be ascertainable for some time to come. There are those who think that allowing [interracial] marriage will seriously undermine the institution of marriage.”
3) i somehow doubt Alito applies such hyper-skepticism in regards to other questions.
@L E #97
The State has the responsibility to enforce it, so that means they have an interest in making sure the law is valid. But the big picture takeaway is that it’s stupid to put civil right issues to a popular vote. Either you and I have a particular right, or we don’t, and our fellow citizens really should have no say in the matter. Sure, leaving the decision to nine old folks in robes isn’t ideal either, but at least they have training in acting impartially and dispassionately.
I don’t want to wish anyone dead, but should Scalia or Thomas be hit by an asteroid, Mark Twain has provided a quote:
“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”
The initiative process allows citizens to pass laws. It is a two edged sword but that is the way it is. You outlaw gay marriage and legalize marijuana.
What they can’t do is overrule the state constitution. Or the federal one. The laws passed by the citizens are subject to the same oversight as the ones passed by their legislatures.
PS The lack of standing of bigots in California is defensible. Gay marriages neither picks their pockets nor breaks their legs. All it does it give them a hate target and hurt their delicate feelings. So what? The fact that these death cultist bigots even exist is offensive to a lot of people.
moarscienceplz @100
I stand corrected. It still seems illogical that when a procedure was designed to override the elected government, only the elected government has standing to defend the laws that result form it. I realize that illogical and legal are in no way the same thing. And as I said before, I’m not sure that it’s a bad thing that it undermines the ballot proposition system – just that it does and that seems to be the basis of the SCOTUS dissent, not anything about the content of Prop8. And that leads to weird things like Justice Sotomayor agreeing with the dissent when most people’s reading of her politics would dictate otherwise.
correction to #103 – *logical and legal
moarscience @98: Strong disagreement here. Though I despise Justice Thomas, I would never call him a “n-word” — that attacks him based upon his skin colour, something he was born with and has no control over and as such is racist; but I will call him an “Uncle Tom” — because that is an attack on his actions (and, yes, I know how deeply insulting it is). And he has control over his actions.
I’ll just add that if the Horde decides that “Uncle Tom” is to become one of the banned expressions, I’ll abide by it, and replace it with things like, “self-loathing race-traitor” or some such.
@Lynna
#87
True, sad but true.
Then again… not going to FUCKING MATTER IF WE CAN ELECT HER TO BE GOVERNOR!
…
Actually, strike that. We should stick her as the Lieutenant Governor
Strange quirk in Texas. Lieutenant Governor actually have more power than the Governor. Governor of Texas can veto bills and command state militia. Lieutenant Governor of Texas controls just about everything about the senate (establish ALL committees, appoint ALL chairperson and members, assign ALL legislation to the committees, and have the power to decide almost ALL the senate rules).
Ken White at Popehat.com has an awesome comparison of Scalia’s dissents on Lawrence and DOMA. Summarized they are:
Lawrence: Gay sex is icky, and who knows where it will lead?
DOMA: The Congress didn’t vote for DOMA because gay sex is icky, but it is and who knows where it will lead?
Unfortunately I can’t link because I’ve somehow been banned at Popehat! Need to send Ken another e-mail.
Between this and Wendy Davis I actually have a ray of hope today. That takes a lot given the fact that I live in Missouruh, aka The Garden of Eden according to the Latter-Day Saints.
The video enclosed in the link below made me smile. The first minute and a half is pleasantly bland political oatmeal from Nancy Pelosi; you won’t miss anything substantive if you skip it. But check out Congressman Mark Takano’s words at 1:30.
Then keep watching: at 2:00, a reporter mentions Michelle Bachmann’s response to the SCOTUS ruling (“In a statement, Bachmann had insisted that marriage was “created by the hand of God” and “not even a Supreme Court, can undo what a holy God has instituted.”) Pelosi’s response is golden. :)
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/06/26/pelosi-responds-to-bachmanns-doma-comments-who-cares/
yet another thing to hate the Schlaflys for.
It was Phyllis herself that was a driving force against state ratification.
Clear case of Dunning Kruger.
but in the end, it doesn’t matter how he sees himself, as he was never anything more than a puppet to begin with.
never has been, never will be.
if you knew the history of how the proposition system has been abused in CA, you’d be concluding that something that undermines the power of that process is a good thing.
I think in Paul’s case it extends to inanimate objects…
namely, money.
@LE
…and i see scrolling up you do in fact know CA history regarding the abuse of the ballot initiative.
it really should be entirely scrapped.
@Lynna, OM:
The Onion already beat Rand Paul to that argument: Pamphlet Shows North’s Strong Anti-Gay Marriage Position and Anti-gay Congressman Caught in Affair with Horse
This may be the nastiest thing said about Clarence Thomas, courtesy of Charles Pierce:
“The United States Supreme Court Tuesday overturned a critical portion of the landmark Voting Rights Act by a vote of four-and-three-fifths to four.”
Word is that it’s a happy time tonight in the Castro and with Pride weekend upon…lord knows what’ll happen.
I don’t think so. Sotomayor didn’t write her own dissent, but joined in Kennedy’s. Kennedy’s dissent didn’t mention the merits of the case at all.
Kennedy’s main concern was that the majority ruling (that private citizens have no standing to defend a state law in Federal court when the state chooses not to, even if the state’s laws allow them to defend that same law in state court) undermines the citizen initiative process in all 26 states which have ballot initiatives. He would have granted standing, and spent 14 pages explaining why and why the majorities arguments were wrong. Not once did he say anything about the merits of Prop8.
It’s possible that Sotomayor wanted to rule on the merits and expand gay marriage, but that’s not what the dissent she joined said.
Considering that Kennedy seemed the one who most wanted to DIG after oral, it’s somewhat surprising he wrote such a strong dissent against dismissing on standing.
Now that all of those good, straight Christian marriages are annulled and all of the bibles have been burned, we can start converting all the churches into ACLU drug dens.
*looks around, puts brain back into cranium*
I need to stop reading WND comment threads…
@Ichthyic
#112
Thomas was never anything but a Rehnquist stooge. Who’s been writing his opinions since Rehnquist died?
YAY!
*victory dance*
*Thumbs nose at the bigots*
*toddles off to get drunk*
If someone who understands US laws could comment on frog’s #52, that would be great. I’m very curious.
@123:
What’s there to comment on? It’s an interesting question precisely because there isn’t a clear answer as to what the State and Feds would do.
I don’t know about Ohio, but other States with similar gay marriage ban have already had cases where they have denied the ability for a couple to divorce because the State cannot rend asunder what the State does not recognize. This wasn’t a problem at the Federal level until yesterday (well, next month, since the SCOTUS waits 25 days before issuing a mandate in its decisions to allow the sides to ask for reconsideration). The Feds didn’t recognize the marriage in the first place.
(New York, by the way, judicially recognized gay marriages performed elsewhere pretty much as soon as the first cases hit the courts, long before one could get married in NY).
Logically, if Steve and Bob were legally wed in NY before moving to Ohio, Ohio would not recognize their marriage and will not grant a divorce. Bob would be free to marry Linda in Ohio, according to Ohio law. I don’t know if there is currently a Federal law prohibiting bigamy, but assuming there isn’t any, it would be OK under Federal law as well. As long as Bob remains in Ohio, there should be no problem.
If Bob should then move to a state which recognizes legally celebrated same-sex marriages, then he could be charged with bigamy.
DOMA was a clear violation of the 9th, 10th, and 14th Amendments to the Constitution. Maybe others as well. In the linked article “As the American people are given time to experience the actual consequences of redefining marriage,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, “the public debate and opposition to the redefinition of natural marriage will undoubtedly intensify.”
There is not a “redefining marriage” as it has not been defined in the first place, certainly not in the Constitution. “natural marriage”? That’s the first time I have seen a Faith-Head talk about the natural. Marriage is not “natural”, it is a societal defined custom. Adam and Eve were not married.
What are the rules for interstate recognition of other types of marriages? Age & familial requirements vary by state too. Will 15 year olds get their marriage recognized in states that require them to be older? Do first-cousin marriages dissolve upon crossing state lines? It seems like in all these cases, and gay marriage, the fairest thing is for every states to recognize what each other states have done–even if they would not allow it themselves.
126: Once could write a whole paper on the subject… and I just read one.
The basic rule of thumb is that States will recognize marriages validly celebrated in other States, with a few exceptions. One major exception is that States will typically not recognize marriages which are contrary to general universal laws of marriage (like incest, polygamy, etc), and another is if the marriage was done in a way to evade State law (like if one is barred from remarriage because of divorce for adultery, and travels on vacation to a state which doesn’t have that bar to marry his mistress). But things which are merely formal requirements for marriage don’t normally impede recognition.
So a 15-year-old couple legally married in state A moving to state B which has an 18-year-old minimum marriage age probably won’t have too big a problem with marriage recognition. A brother-sister marriage probably would, as might a first-cousin marriage.
There is a lot of case law on this, and things can get complicated. The closest counterpart I can think of to the current situation is probably the pre-Loving-v-Virginia antimiscegenation laws. Moving into a state which prohibited interracial marriage with one’s spouse-of-a-different-race was a bad idea, and in some cases could land you in jail. That didn’t end until the SCOTUS decreed antimiscegenation laws unconstitutional. Neither Winsor or Perry is the gay-rights Loving-v-Virginia.
@ #127
Indeed, and today the Court signalled that they’re not ready to make a Loving type decision, by refusing to hear two cases, one from Arizona, one from Nevada, which could have provided the basis for just such a decision. The Nevada case, in particular, is a direct test of the constitutionality of a state constitutional provision that allows only marriages between a man and a woman. Eventually the Court will have to decide the basic question for the entire country, but they don’t seem ready to yet. As Scalia point out in his dissent, however, the Kennedy opinion lays the groundwork for just such a decision.
Bad Jim, #117:
Oh, boom! That’s harsh…
Yes, that’s what I’ve been reading in the NY Times. She wanted the court to decide on the constitutionality of it. Doesn’t say how she would have voted if they had, but in her case I think I can guess.
More news related to the mentions of Wendy Davis up-thread:
That’s Governor Rick Perry speaking in a condescending and inappropriate manner about Wendy Davis. He focused on her having been a teenage mother, and he didn’t use her name.
Will 15 year olds get their marriage recognized in states that require them to be older? Do first-cousin marriages dissolve upon crossing state lines?
The Full-Faith clause pretty clearly indicates that these marriages must be recognized both by the federal government and by the states if they were legal in the state in which they were performed. DOMA’s 2nd section (not up for debate during the recent case, which decided only on the 3rd section), carves out same sex marriages as an exception to the full faith clause. So a cousins couple that moved from Arkansas to California would have to be recognized in California, but a gay couple that did the opposite move would not.
Having such a huge hole in full faith brings up so many problems, it’s going to be very interesting to see which lawsuits will be able to bring down DOMA in its entirety. I’m thinking a gay married couple gets divorced, one partner moves to a state where their marriage would not have been recognized in order to get out of paying alimony. An employer who doesn’t want LGBT people working for him because he’s an asshole transfers his gay employees to an office in a state where the employee’s marriage is not recognized. The bigamy example cited above — is the new marriage valid, and if so, is the other partner now de facto divorced? (Bigamy is, by the way, definitely federally illegal — that happened as a condition of Utah becoming a state, if I remember correctly).
@ #131
That’s not the way it works, though. There is a long-standing doctrine that states need not recognize marriages that violate a strong public policy of the state. States have refused to recognize marriages from other states for reasons such as too recently divorced, or more commonly, too closely related, among many others. A number of states refuse to recognize first cousin marriages today, even if legally performed in other states, and Kentucky goes so far as to criminalize it (incest). That’s why the only way for the Court to force all states to recognize all marriages, is for them to declare all laws against SSM unconstitutional. This will happen eventually, but they don’t seem ready to do this yet.
Wow, that’s shooting themselves in the foot.
Who wrote his opinions for the 19 months he was on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals?
By reducing Thomas to a puppet of Rehnquist (or Scalia, or…) you are simultaneously insulting his intelligence and taking away his ownership of his beliefs/judicial philosophy. Why should we believe he isn’t an intelligent man with odious judicial beliefs of his own?
Gee, and his independent opinions are shown where? Mostly he agreed with Scalia, or even worse legal unthinking.
And Buddhabuck, in all his years on SCOTUS he has not impressed me as a lawyer who should be there. He isn’t qualified for the job, and never was.
@Lynna (#50).
Really enjoyed your comment (as I always do). Shocking how hypocritical Scalia is, isn’t it?
Very glad for my LGBT fellow citizens and their supporters. Great victory and good step forward in the continuing struggle for equality. But very disheartened for minority voters who are being hurt right now by the gutting of the VRA. Just saw on Rachel Maddow’s show that at least 5 states are already passing voter restriction laws. Sigh.
Great news! (Raised beer salute.)
The momentum is now clearly there for equal marraige in the Western world and hopefully soon beyond it and I think its just a matter of time* now before equal marriage is legalised here in Oz as well as throughout the rest of the anglosphere and Europe.
Hey, bigots welcome to the 21st century and the future, please leave your homophobic baggage and prejudices in the garbage can at the doorway!
* Time which, of course, has been too long overdue already. Another more sombre drink to those for whom this comes too late and in remembrance of all the sufferings and harms already wrecked.
@65. Ing:Intellectual Terrorist “Starting Tonight, People will Whine” :
Why do you say that please? What do you think is wrong with Hillary Clinton on this issue?
@138. I think its just a matter of time* now before equal marriage is legalised here in Oz as well as throughout the rest of the anglosphere and Europe.
.. plus the rest of the world as well, naturally. Although sadly I think the more Catholic and Islamic nations are going to take a while longer. (Russia too – Putin’s policies here are horrendously brutal and downright evil & the Russian orthodox Church has much to answer for on this score too.)
It’s clear his judicial philosophy is deeply conservative. So is Scalia’s and was Rehnquist’s, so it’s not surprising that Scalia, Rehnquist, and Thomas agree very often. But the three aren’t identical, and the differences do come out. The challenge here is to identify those differences, based on what evidence is available.
Yesterday Justice Roberts said that one reason for the heated questioning during oral arguments is because the Justices don’t discuss the merits of cases before the oral arguments, so it is the first opportunity for the Justices to communicate their feelings about the cases with each other. From a court watcher’s point of view, it is also one of the major times where we can get a feel for the Justices. Thomas is unique in that he feels that the oral arguments are useless, and doesn’t ask questions or otherwise speak. So while oral argument is a way to see the differences between Breyer and Ginsburg, or Sotomayor and Kagan, or Roberts and Alito, or even Scalia and Rehnquist, no evidence is provided to distinguish Thomas from Scalia — or, for that matter, Thomas from John Paul Stevens. His written opinions are all there is to go on, and there are plenty.
In his time on the SCOTUS, Thomas has written hundreds of concurrences and dissents (I tried to count, and gave up after 100 concurrences). With these, he explains his own reasons why he agrees or disagrees with the rest of the court, and doesn’t have to express an opinion that is acceptable to any of the rest of the Justices. Here’s where his independent opinions will shine out — especially on concurrences or dissents which aren’t joined by Scalia or Rehnquist.
Scallia = Hypocrite. Why? You may very well ask…Well you see my beautiful little grey matter miners, the answer is right in his dissension to DOMA. His quote of “Legalistic Argle-Bargle” might make you think Justice Scallia has lost his mind…and perhaps he has. He continues…”That is jaw dropping. It is assertion of Judicial supremacy over the people’s Representatives in Congress and the Executive.” referring to the bi-partisan acceptance of DOMA in 1996…yet only a day prior to this scathing dissent Mr. Toad signed on to gut the Voting Rights Act which was passed with bi-partisan support in the bygone days of 2012. There Roberts who wrote the majority opinion said…”Our country has changed…” thus Scallia recognizes that the country’s opinions of African Americans can change however he does not believe that it can change on Homosexuals. This toad’s mouth spawns nothing but lies and hypocrisies and this writer can’t wait to see him croak.