Fund Your Utopia Without Me.™

27 March 2013

Politico Asks: "Can Gay Marriage Survive A SCOTUS Loss?"


M2RB:  Billy Idol





There is nothin' fair in this world
There is nothin' safe in this world
And there's nothin' sure in this world
And there's nothin' pure in this world
Look for something left in this world
Start again

Come on
It's a nice day for a white wedding
It's a nice day to start again.





"Can gay marriage survive a SCOTUS loss?"

Politico, 26 March 2013



Yes. When the Supreme Court denied cert in Baker v Nelson – the first SSM case – in 1971 relative to the refusal of Minnesota to issue a marriage licence to two men and said that marriage is a state issue, that act didn’t kill the movements to end sodomy laws and legitimise same-sex marriage (SSM). A refusal by the Court to recognise that SSM is a fundamental right will likewise not kill the SSM movement, which has been making great strides at the state level in the last 2 years. Prop 8 would be defeated today at the ballot box.

In 1883, the Supreme Court affirmed that Alabama’s anti-miscegenation statute was constitutional and interracial marriage was strictly prohibited. Eighty-four years later, Mildred Loving, a black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, got married in Washington, DC, and moved to Virginia where they were promptly arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced to a year in jail. Their case Loving v Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), not only blew the disgusting piece of shyt, Pace v Alabama, 106 U.S. 583 (1883), to KKK Hell, it also established that marriage was a fundamental right.

In 1986, the Supreme Court in Bowers v Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186, upheld criminal sodomy laws. Seventeen years later, in Lawrence v Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), it struck ALL sodomy laws between consenting adults down…and Scalia wrote in his dissent that the case made SSM “inevitable.”

As I said earlier, the Court denied cert – basically, talk to the hand and don’t let the door hit you on the way out – in 1971 on an issue involving SSM. Yesterday, it listened to oral arguments in Hollingsworth v Perry. Today, it listened to oral arguments in United States v Windsor.

In listening to the arguments yesterday, I heard a lot of Ginsburgism in the questions, i.e., it is better to leave questions of great import that will drastically transform society to the people and the states rather than have a Court impose its view on over 310 million people. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has said that she believes Roe v Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), was an unforced error made by her predecessors on the Court, who “mistimed the milestone 1973 case that legalised abortion nationwide.” Abortion laws were becoming more lax across the country – Ronald Reagan had legalised abortion in California in 1967. At the time of Roe, abortion was legal on request in four states, allowed under limited circumstances in about 16 others, and outlawed under nearly all circumstances in the other states, including Texas – where the Roe case originated. Justice Ginsburg has stated, alluding to the four decades of bitter acrimony that has persisted in the wake of the Roe decision, that it might have been the wiser course of action and more prudent for the sake of popular comity “if the justices of that era had delayed hearing any abortion case while the state-by-state process evolved. Alternatively, they could have struck down just the Texas law, which allowed abortions only to save a mother’s life, without declaring a right to privacy that legalized the procedure nationwide.”



It’s not that the judgment was wrong, but it moved too far too fast. The court made a decision that made every abortion law in the country invalid, even the most liberal. We’ll never know whether I’m right or wrong … things might have turned out differently if the court had been more restrained. The right to abortion might have been more secure had it been grounded in the concept of women’s right to equality rather than in the right to privacy. The Roe decision might have been less of a storm center had it homed in more precisely on the women’s-equality dimension of the issue.”

- Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Columbia Law School, 10 February 2012



Instead of letting the people come to some accommodation and decision on their own, 9 unelected, unaccountable men with lifetime positions issued a one-size-fits-all edict and split the country in half to this day. I think that many on the Court are leery about repeating this, especially on an issue as emotionally charged as SSM and in the wake of the Obamacare decision.

As an aside, at the time that Roe was handed down, Justice Ginsburg believed that the case and the issue of abortion were about population control, not “choice”…not “privacy.” She has admitted this.

For years, I have predicted that Prop 8 and the DOMA case would be the vehicles that the Court would use to overturn all SSM bans with Justice Kennedy writing for the 5/4 (maybe 6/3) majority on the basis on his strong libertarian-bent and his two majority opinions in Romer v Evans, 517 U.S. 620 (1996), and Lawrence v Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), but then, a few weeks ago, I seemed to notice a tell. He was out in California making a speech when he said something that was not noticed by many, but was very profound considering what was on the docket:



A democracy should not be dependent for its major decisions on what nine unelected people from a narrow legal background have to say. And I think it’s of tremendous importance for our political system to show the rest of the world – and we have to show ourselves first – that democracy works because we can reach agreement on a principle basis.”

- Justice Anthony Kennedy, 7 March 2013



In other words, he was echoing the concerns that Justice Ginsburg has expressed in the past.

I can see him possibly being the 5th vote to strike down DOMA because marriage is a state issue, but I don’t think he is going to be the 5th vote to strike down all SSM bans and I also see him going as narrowly as possible.

I thought that Roberts might be a 5th, but I doubt it now. He said yesterday:
 
 
 
“If you tell a child that somebody has to be their friend, I suppose you can force the child to say ‘this is my friend,’ but it changes the definition of what it means to be a friend. And that’s, it seems to me, what opponents of Proposition 8 are saying here. All you’re interested in is the label, and you insist on changing the definition of the label.” 
 
— Chief Justice John Roberts, 26 March 2013
 


Of course, there is ONE VERY BIG CAVEAT with CJ Roberts: He DOES have a habit of changing definition at the last minute. A “penalty” became a “tax.” So, a “friend” could become a “spouse.” In the end, who knows?

Another interesting person yesterday was Sotomayor. Many keep saying “people should be able to marry whomever they love.” She didn’t seem persuaded by that argument, not because she doesn’t “believe in love,” but sees the argument as a slippery slope. If a man and an underage boy, who is really mature even though he is unable to purchase a car because he is as yet the age of majority to enter a contract, are really, really, really in love, should they be allowed to marry? If a happily married, heterosexual couple fall in love with a man, should they be able to marry him? Can a devout Muslim marry 3 wives, if they all really, really, really love one another? If members of some breakaway Mormon sect all really, really, really love each other, should they all be permitted to marry each other? If a woman and her 57 cats all really, really, really love each other, should they be permitted to marry? Do we really want Beyoncé’s “If you like it, you should be able to put a ring on it” to become the law of the land? Some people really, really, really like their AR-15s, should they put a ring on them?

Don’t get me wrong about Sotomayor: Given the chance, she will vote to overturn all SSM bans, but I think she is giving you some advice. Be careful with the “No matter who you love” stuff. Obama uses that line a lot. I realise that most are referring to SSM, but an acquaintance of mine, who is a nationally-recognised constitutional law expert and professor is watching these cases closely because he represents the sister wives people out in Utah or Nevada or wherever the weirdos are located. He’s going in for polygamy as soon as SSM is held legal.

In any event, I doubt that either SSM case will be the “BIG” case this term. They more than likely will overturn DOMA, which I believe is unconstitutional and isn’t really important anyway since, as the Court has acknowledged, marriage is a state issue, cf Baker v Nelson. While it is true that Article IV of the COTUS does require “Full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state” … THERE IS A PUBLIC POLICY EXCEPTION. See Wisconsin v Pelican Insurance Co., 127 U.S. 265 (1888); Huntington v Attrill, 146 U.S. 657 (1892); Finney v Guy, 189 U.S. 335 (1903); Clarke v Clarke, 178 U.S. 186 (1900); Olmsted v Olmsted, 216 U.S. 386 (1910); Hood v McGehee, 237 U.S. 611 (1915); Gasquet v Fenner, 247 U.S. 16 (1918); and Pacific Employers Insurance v Industrial Accident, 306 U.S. 493 (1939), for a few examples.

In Pacific Employers in 1939, the Court said:



“There are some limitations upon the extent to which a state may required by the full faith and credit clause to enforce even the judgment of another state in contravention of its own statutes or policy…And in the case of statutes…the full faith and credit clause does not require one state to substitute for its own statute, applicable to persons and events within it, the conflicting statute of another state, even though that statute is of controlling force in the courts of the state of its enactment with respect to the same persons and events.”



On Proposition 8, I would expect a very narrow ruling that will likely effect California alone, as it was fairly apparent from the questions and tenor of the arguments that the justices were really more concerned with procedural issues and why they should even rule than whether there is a fundamental, Federal, Constitutional issue involved.

For the “BIG” case of this term, look for either affirmative action case (Texas or Michigan) or, very likely, the end of the Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Justice O’Connor wrote a few years ago that it was, for all intents and purposes, on life support. It is fairly archaic. Either apply Section 5 to ALL 50 states or get rid of it altogether. I would bet that the Court will probably pull the plug. The Left will go absolutely, positively batshit crazy (think Citizens United times 1000) even though it will have no impact in reality.



*****************************



"The ones wanting to deny gay individuals the right to marry, are the same ones that would be denying blacks and whites to marry if we were back in the 50's."
 
jay_pussy, 26 March 2013



Yet, you would deny me my Second Amendment right to own an AR-15 because, as you would say, "I'm not denying you a right to own a gun. I'm just restricting the kinds of guns you can own."


You: 


"You haven't lost your 2nd amendment right. You can still own another type of gun."



Me:


"You haven't lost your right to marry. You can marry any woman you want." 



FTR: I am pro-SSM, but love to point out your hypocrisy. 



Don't cry.  Big kiss.











White Wedding - Billy Idol

Hey little sister what have you done?
Hey little sister who's the only one?
Hey little sister who's your superman?
Hey little sister who's the one you want?
Hey little sister shot gun!

It's a nice day to start again.
It's a nice day for a white wedding.
It's a nice day to start again.

Hey little sister who is it you're with?
Hey little sister what's your vice and wish?
Hey little sister shot gun (oh yeah)
Hey little sister who's your superman?
Hey little sister shot gun!

It's a nice day to start again (come on)
It's a nice day for a white wedding
It's a nice day to start again.

(Pick it up)

Take me back home

Hey little sister what have you done?
Hey little sister who's the only one?
I've been away for so long (so long)
I've been away for so long (so long)
I let you go for so long

It's a nice day to start again (come on)
It's a nice day for a white wedding
It's a nice day to start again.

There is nothin' fair in this world
There is nothin' safe in this world
And there's nothin' sure in this world
And there's nothin' pure in this world
Look for something left in this world
Start again

Come on
It's a nice day for a white wedding
It's a nice day to start again.
It's a nice day to start again. 
It's a nice day to start again



http://tinyurl.com/cyz8kws


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