1414 replies to this topic

[LFC]

Traveler, on 22 August 2014 - 09:45 AM, said:

Why bother reading an article when folks here can distill it better? The way it was written, my head started to hurt.

"Some people have a way with words, and other people...oh, uh, not have way." --Steve Martin

[LFC]

Scalia opinon gets cited again as a justification for striking down gay marriage bans. I bet he regrets spouting off his big mouth now. (Who am I kidding. Of course he doesn't.)

http://talkingpoints...marriage-ruling

From the Florida judge's decision:

Quote

The difficulty for the defendants is that the Supreme Court has made clear that moral disapproval, standing alone, cannot sustain a provision of this kind. Windsor so indicates. Further, in Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986), the Court upheld a state law prohibiting sodomy, basing the decision on the state’s prerogative to make moral choices of this kind. But later, in Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), the Court revisited the issue, struck down a statute prohibiting gay sex, and expressly overruled Bowers. In his Lawrence dissent, Justice Scalia made precisely the point set out above—that a ban on same-sex marriage must stand or fall on the proposition that the state can enforce moral disapproval of the practice without violating the Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Scalia put it this way: “State laws against . . . same-sex marriage . . . are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers’ validation of laws based on moral choices.”
Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 590 (Scalia, J., dissenting).

[D. C. Sessions]

Scalia is perhaps the most completely unabashed practitioner of the "results are all that matters" school of jurisprudence we've had on the Court in generations.

He doesn't even mumble when he completely reverses a principle that he held to be fundamental in a ruling the previous year.

[LFC]

D. C. Sessions, on 22 August 2014 - 10:56 AM, said:

Scalia is perhaps the most completely unabashed practitioner of the "results are all that matters" school of jurisprudence we've had on the Court in generations.

Also know as "originalism"?

[Ari]

Pretty safe to assume two more are on their way:

http://www.slate.com...y_marriage.html

http://www.buzzfeed....pellate#20hg94x

[Practical Girl]

Wow. I've had my issues with Posner, but he fairly shredded every single "argument" that the States were (lamely) trying to make. "Awesome" is a term that's been abused, but reading just this one Slate snippet of the arguments is truly that. A thinking mind isn't something we should ever waste.

[Ari]

It was bound to happen, but here is the first court (a federal district court in Louisiana) to uphold a gay marriage ban post-Windsor. http://www.nationall...=20140804124145 He finds a legitimate state interest in allowing "the democratic process" to control the pace of social change... which I think would render the Equal Protection rational basis analysis completely meaningless in a large swath of cases. This was the same argument that Judge Posner ripped apart and left for dead in the prior cases I linked to.

The article doesn't mention it, but several years ago this same judge was invested in a bunch of oil drilling companies and sold them the same day that he issued a decision overturning the Gulf of Mexico oil drilling moratorium. Just saying...

[Probabilistic]

I thought moral disapproval, even if provably generated through a democratic process, isn't sufficient grounds for the state to deny rights to citizens. Actual harm has to be shown by the state. Just don't see the logic in the slippery slope argument employed by the judge.

[Rabiner's Sister]

Ari, on 04 September 2014 - 11:58 AM, said:

He finds a legitimate state interest in allowing "the democratic process" to control the pace of social change

Too tired, didn't read it, but this is insane. I wonder if he missed the part where the legitimate state interest had to be rationally related to the government action. You know, an actual nexus between action and interest. An interest underpinning the action (the ban). An interest leading to the action. It's about why it was done, not how it was done. No one is going deny that the state has an interest in the democratic process of anything. The court is supposed to address whether the state has a legitimate interest in a specific outcome of that democratic process.

Ugh.

[Ari]

Ari, on 27 August 2014 - 03:31 PM, said:

Pretty safe to assume two more are on their way:

http://www.slate.com...y_marriage.html

http://www.buzzfeed....pellate#20hg94x

As expected, Wisconsin and Indiana bans were just struck down by the seventh circuit. The surprise? It only took nine days for the opinion to be released. Something tells me that Posner had put pen to paper on those things a long time ago.

http://www.buzzfeed....tutiona#20hg94x

[Rabiner's Sister]

well, oral arguments are a mere formality in many cases.

[LFC]

The first federal judge to uphold a same sex marriage ban just did so for Louisiana.

http://dish.andrewsu...lity-update-28/

Quote

Throughout his thirty-two-page opinion, the judge noted the near unanimity that has prevailed in other courts on the same-sex marriage issue, and he did not criticize other courts for having done so. He said those rulings amounted to “a pageant of empathy” for same-sex couples.

[LFC]

The Supremes may be looking over this issue in a few weeks.

http://www.scotusblo...for-early-look/

[LFC]

Looks like a Louisiana state judge just ruled against the state's same sex marriage ban. I've lost track, but at this point there are over two dozen rulings striking down same sex marriage bans and just one upholding it.

http://talkingpoints...nconstitutional

[indy]

SCOTUS denied review of the seven cases currently being appealed which I believe means that SSM is available immediately in Oklahoma, Virginia, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Utah.

http://www.scotusblo...etitins-denied/

[D. C. Sessions]

indy, on 06 October 2014 - 09:39 AM, said:

SCOTUS denied review of the seven cases currently being appealed which I believe means that SSM is available immediately in Oklahoma, Virginia, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Utah.

More than that. Those appellate decisions are binding in their Circuits unless overturned -- which ain't happening.

This is huge.

[Traveler]

Are they going to take on any of the appeals?

[Rich T Bikkies]

This is off-thread, but it's on the Guardian website today and should be required reading for any Christian who is against gay marriage on supposed Biblical grounds. It says everything I want to say, but am not articulate enough to say, as a former evangelical who still loves and respects the Bible.

Quote

Any ‘biblical’ objection to gay marriage is nonsense. The C of E must admit this. Pretending that the church’s present stance is biblical is not going to fool anyone who doesn’t want to be fooled, and fewer and fewer people do.

Alan Wilson, Bishop of Buckingham, Church of England

http://www.theguardi...urch-of-england

[LFC]

indy, on 06 October 2014 - 09:39 AM, said:

SCOTUS denied review of the seven cases currently being appealed which I believe means that SSM is available immediately in Oklahoma, Virginia, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Utah.

Woo-HOO! The Fifth Circuit Court is hearing an appeal over striking down Texas's ban and will likely be hearing an appeal over the decision that upheld Louisiana's ban. If the anti-SSM crowd loses there, it seems pretty much like game over without SCOTUS ever having to rule.

[LFC]

Sullivan, as expected, has coverage on this as well. He cited this Buzzfeed article that tells us that nearly half the states now have legal SSM marriage (including all those Indy cited above) and the count may quickly rise to as many as 30.

Quote

The decision not to take on the appeal in any of the pending certiorari petitions brings marriage equality to Indiana, Oklahoma, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Utah — meaning 24 states in the country have legal marriage equality.

It also makes the appeals court decisions striking down the marriage bans in those states the law of the land in the 4th Circuit, 7th Circuit, and 10th Circuit courts of appeals — a result that makes marriage equality likely to come in short order in all states within those circuits. This is so because the controlling precedent in those circuits now is that bans on same-sex couples’ marriages are unconstitutional.

Among the other states in the 4th Circuit without marriage equality currently that would be impacted are North Carolina, South Carolina, and West Virginia. Among the other states in the 10th Circuit without marriage equality currently that would be impacted are Colorado, Kansas, and Wyoming. That, once resolved, would bring the total number of states with marriage equality to 30.

And here's the state of the states now.