The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

Which is why I think 2) is 9-0.

I think Scalia and Alito would like to put a states' rights thumb in the federal government's eye, and this is as good a place as any. As a dissent it's a freebie to fulminate against the federal expropriation of state courts' authoritargle bargle, and it will allow Antonin a platform for his usual snarky diatribes against the amorality of life since the abandonment of canon law. We might even get a box turtle allusion.

I assume Roberts will exercise chief justice privilege in order to write a narrow enough opinion that, although the homophobe bigots are dead, future bigots can still take solace. God has ruled marriage will never be between a man and a robot!!!

It's always a good day when one fewer group gets the shaft. It's a particularly good day when that group has been treated like garbage throughout much of our history. Legalized hate is bad karma. If there really is an Omnipotent Invisible Man, he's much more likely to kick our butt over enshrining hatred in our legal code than for putting our peepees where they don't belong.

 

[alfablue]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

But using the same arguments I hope 1) is a Yes as states have different marriage rules and the Union has not fallen apart.

How would allowing gay marriage be elminating the various state marriage rules?

Allowing cross-racial marriage in '67 kept the various rules. And as far as I can tell, the same arguments for striking down the racial rules are going to be used today for the same sex rules.

So I'm not sure how allowing gay marriage would eliminate the various state rules *other* than that.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

But using the same arguments I hope 1) is a Yes as states have different marriage rules and the Union has not fallen apart.

1) is the whole question of whether the state has the power to discriminate based on sexual preference. The point of all this is that the state has no rational basis for distinguishing. As alfa points out, it's exactly analogous to miscegenation. That fell everywhere, not selectively on the assumption that you could always get married somewhere else. The ban is by definition a denial of equal protection under the law.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

The revolution will not televised, but it will be liveblogged,

 

[Handyman]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

It would not be all that surprising if the SCOTUS punted on the first but not the 2nd. Nice baby step to the inevitable. In reality though there is no chance they rule on the side of the bigots.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

It would not be all that surprising if the SCOTUS punted on the first but not the 2nd. Nice baby step to the inevitable. In reality though there is no chance they rule on the side of the bigots.

At some point I'm sure they just want it to go away. These cases have filled the courts; everybody knows how this ends. Time to drain them out so that the courts can then be burdened with The Next Thing...

 

[St. Clown]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

At some point I'm sure they just want it to go away. These cases have filled the courts; everybody knows how this ends. Time to drain them out so that the courts can then be burdened with The Next Thing...

Yeah, but there's job security in knowing what The Current Thing is and knowing that it'll continue for a while. Let The Next Thing brew for a little while longer, so people have time to get good and ripe on that vine first.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

It would not be all that surprising if the SCOTUS punted on the first

The thing that gives me hope is if they wanted to do that they could have just continued refusing the hear cases and let nature take its course. Their election to pick this up seemed to me to signal they had decided to drive a stake through this once and for all.

Ginsburg refutation of the "millenia" comment was interesting. The argument is whether distinctions that have been maintained for millenia can all be invidious. Her answer was society and the Court have already transformed marriage from an institution of male domination to an equal union, and the extension to gay marriage is in keeping with that precedent and spirit. That was an invitation for Kennedy.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

Yeah, but there's job security in knowing what The Current Thing is and knowing that it'll continue for a while. Let The Next Thing brew for a little while longer, so people have time to get good and ripe on that vine first.

To me it's fascinating that The Next Thing isn't obvious. Religion, ethnicity, women and minorities were all really obvious. Gays were obvious during the latter stages of those other fights (once you have Three's Company, it's obvious). But here we are near or at the end of gay discrimination, and I at least don't even really know who the nominees are for The Next Thing. AI is a long way away. Animal rights seems to be its own separate track. So who do we still give the shaft, legally?

The gays are the last... wait for it... low-hanging fruit.

 

[St. Clown]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

To me it's fascinating that The Next Thing isn't obvious. Religion, ethnicity, women and minorities were all really obvious. Gays were obvious during the latter stages of those other fights (once you have Three's Company, it's obvious). But here we are near or at the end of gay discrimination, and I at least don't even really know who the nominees are for The Next Thing. AI is a long way away. Animal rights seems to be its own separate track. So who do we still give the shaft, legally?

The gays are the last... wait for it... low-hanging fruit.

I'm expecting it to be something in the realm of property rights, physical, intellectual, etc.. Tech has advanced so much, especially in computers and the coding that's being placed into everything, that we're going to see a series of these nuanced cases come before the courts starting in about five years. They're concepts that get debated today, in smaller circles mostly, but they'll start to expand more and more to the larger public circles. While it's not a sexy subject, it's a necessary one.

 

[unofan]

Sounds like the ruling is going to be:

1) No (6-3)
2) No (7-2)

Assuming Roberts wants to be the GLORYBOY. Otherwise, 5-4 / 6-3 with AK getting his place in history.

Who do you see flipping between questions one and two?

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

The gays are the last... wait for it... low-hanging fruit.

Until the liberals come up with another part of society to socially engineer. I'm sure it won't take long to begin, or it may be percolating somewhere already. But, it'll have to have some political payoff for the libs to jump on, as it took gay marriage a long time to offer such payoff.

 

[unofan]

The thing that gives me hope is if they wanted to do that they could have just continued refusing the hear cases and let nature take its course. Their election to pick this up seemed to me to signal they had decided to drive a stake through this once and for all.

They picked it up because the sixth circuit forced them to. Otherwise we'd have a cluster**** when four states can maintain their bans due to a federal appeals court ruling, but 20 some could not because of other federal circuit court rulings. How do you think that would play on tv?

Kennedy is clearly personally pro gay marriage. The question is whether it's to much, too soon for him. I'm gonna guess at the end of the day, he'll expand marriage. But I'm not sure he wanted to do so this quickly.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

Six minutes. Not bad.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

I'm expecting it to be something in the realm of property rights, physical, intellectual, etc.. Tech has advanced so much, especially in computers and the coding that's being placed into everything, that we're going to see a series of these nuanced cases come before the courts starting in about five years. They're concepts that get debated today, in smaller circles mostly, but they'll start to expand more and more to the larger public circles. While it's not a sexy subject, it's a necessary one.

Oh , I'm sure that will be huge. UAVs and drone are going to be huge, too. And privacy -- of data, property, everything.

But I was thinking specifically civil rights. Who is it still legal for the state to bully?

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

Who do you see flipping between questions one and two?

Thomas could flip. My (extremely superficial) understanding of his opinions is that "state's rights" does not conjure good associations for the man. I think he may fall in with the phobes on the pure question of whether to be nice to gays or not, but then flip on the procedural question of whether a right recognized in one state means Arkansas has to put down the fire hoses and whips.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

Until the liberals come up with another part of society to socially engineer. I'm sure it won't take long to begin, or it may be percolating somewhere already. But, it'll have to have some political payoff for the libs to jump on, as it took gay marriage a long time to offer such payoff.

So, the 1860s Republicans were abolitionists for the cynical payoff, eh? That would explain their one and only positive act in history.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

Thomas could flip. My (extremely superficial) understanding of his opinions is that "state's rights" does not conjure good associations for the man. I think he may fall in with the phobes on the pure question of whether to be nice to gays or not, but then flip on the procedural question of whether a right recognized in one state means Arkansas has to put down the fire hoses and whips.

I knew I could count on your for a good bit of exaggeration and hyperbole today and you're delivering.

 

[St. Clown]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

Six minutes. Not bad.

He's having a conversation with Kepler. Seriously, you should just take him off ignore if you're going to obsess over when he's posting in the same thread as you. Most of his posts are in conversation with someone else that you really just look foolish.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

They picked it up because the sixth circuit forced them to. Otherwise we'd have a cluster**** when four states can maintain their bans due to a federal appeals court ruling, but 20 some could not because of other federal circuit court rulings. How do you think that would play on tv?

Kennedy is clearly personally pro gay marriage. The question is whether it's to much, too soon for him. I'm gonna guess at the end of the day, he'll expand marriage. But I'm not sure he wanted to do so this quickly.

I absolutely defer to your judgment on this. I suspect our relative knowledge on con law is around a 1:20 ratio.