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Marriage Equality Heads to SCOTUS - Obergefell v. Hodges |OT| The Last Days of Murica

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K

kingkitty

Member
A possible decision is allowing states to ban gay marriage, but force them to recognize gay marriages from other states. Fuck that compromise.

Hopefully Kennedy does the right thing.
 
I

ivysaur12

Banned
kingkitty said:
A possible decision is allowing states to ban gay marriage, but force them to recognize gay marriages from other states. Fuck that.

Hopefully Kennedy does the right thing.
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That's just SCOTUS Blog just sort of musing. I don't see that as an outcome, given what's happened, that's probably more telling than the oral arguments themselves.

On that:

Kennedy's relative silence in the second argument may be good evidence that he intends to rule in favor of the couples on the main question -- that is, it suggests he will vote to require states to allow same-sex marriages in their own states, which will effectively moot the question of whether they are required to recognize the same-sex marriages performed in other states.
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But could it also mean that Kennedy thinks that the second question is totally unnecessary because whatever the decision is on the first should carry over to the second? That is, as you reported him asking, "if we assume states have a sufficiently strong interest that they do not have to allow same-sex marriages in their own state, doesn't that necessarily mean the states have a strong enough interest to permit them to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages from other states?"
by Raga 10:02 AM
Comment (1)
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And reply:

Fair point. But I do think that it is unlikely that Justice Kennedy would rule against same-sex couples across-the-board without engaging more fully in the second question.
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P

Paskil

Member
Protester was sitting right in front of me. The weird thing is that the seat had a sheet of paper on it marking it as "Reserved." He was gross and kept clearing snot from his throat and had a really sleazy, greasy appearance. He jumped up right after the first portion before the Solicitor started speaking. The guy was sitting right in front of me and five people in the court immediately grabbed him and forcibly dragged him out. He was screaming the entire time. You could still hear him screaming minutes later.

Crazy.

I was almost knocked out of my chair in the process.
 
I

ivysaur12

Banned
Chris Geidner reports:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisgeidner/court-appears-poised-for-marriage-equality-ruling?utm_term=.uma3YGNxW#.dbda3Y66p

WASHINGTON — At Tuesday’s marriage arguments over same-sex couples’ marriage rights, the majority of the court appeared to be comfortable with Justice Anthony Kennedy’s understanding of human dignity as including gay people’s equal treatment under the law.

While Kennedy, who is considered the key swing vote in the case, did not make any unambiguous statement about the end result of the case, he harshly questioned the state of Michigan’s argument that it should be allowed to exclude same-sex couples from marriage.

At one point, Kennedy commented to Michigan’s lawyer that its law banning same-sex couples from marrying “assumes” that those couples can’t have the same “more noble purpose” as opposite sex couples have for entering marriage.

Joined often by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, the lawyer defending marriage bans, John Bursch, faced repeated questions about what other limits states could constitutionally place on marriages and whether the states’ claimed interest amounted to anything more than, as Sotomayor asked, a “ceiling…that doesn’t have logic.”

Although questions were asked, including by Kennedy, about the length of the understanding of marriage as only an institution between one man and one woman, Kennedy also noted that “about the same time” passed between the Supreme Court’s decision ending “separate-but-equal” with regards to racial discrimination and it’s landmark decision ending interracial marriage as has passed between the Supreme Court’s decision ending sodomy laws and today’s arguments.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer also appeared in questioning to be sympathetic same-sex couples’ marriage arguments.

Chief Justice John Roberts asked probing question of both sides, never betraying a strong affinity towards either sides’ arguments.

There were two questions before the court Tuesday — whether the 14th Amendment requires states to permit same-sex marriage and whether states that don’t allow same-sex marriage must recognize those marriages performed in other states.

Tuesday’s arguments followed a winding path for the cases, the first of which (an adoption case out of Michigan) was filed in 2012. The remaining cases were all filed in the aftermath of the June 2013 Supreme Court decision in United States v. Windsor striking down the Defense of Marriage Act.

The decision in the cases came over several months, and by the summer of 2014, the cases for marriage or marriage recognition had won in all four states of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals (Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee).

That August, the appellate court took up the four states’ appeals. When the 6th Circuit became the first appellate court to uphold marriage bans since Windsor, Supreme Court review looked almost certain, and the justices accepted the cases for review in January, setting up Tuesday’s arguments.

A decision in the cases will likely be released at the end of the court’s term in June.
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Important to note (going through the oral arguments now), that Kennedy, on his own, twice brought up the time between Brown and Loving and Lawrence and Obergefell.
 
A

Alex_Mexico

Member
This will eventually turn into a race NOT to be the last state that legalized same sex marriage. Start betting which state will be last.

John Oliver and myself coincide: it'll probably be Mississippi.
 
N

NYCmetsfan

Banned
CDrLNvkW8AAoyYl.jpg:large


That guy on the right. Lol
 
H

HylianTom

Banned
Paskil said:
Protester was sitting right in front of me. The weird thing is that the seat had a sheet of paler in it marking it as "Reserved." He was gross and kept clearing snot from his throat and had a really sleazy, greasy appearance. He jumped up right after the first portion before the Solicitor started speaking. The guy was sitting right in front of me and five people in the court immediately grabbed him and forcibly dragged him out. He was screaming the entire time. You could still hear him screaming minutes later.

Crazy.

I was almost knocked out of my chair in the process.
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It was really entertaining. If they do delete his presence from later versions of the audio, we'll still have the initial file. I actually liked Scalia's comment afterwards.

c36d7075-f351-4f23-bcaa-6ef2831d2493_500.png


I wonder if the protestor will be elevated to conservative celebrity status, a la the pizza folks? :p
 
P

Paskil

Member
HylianTom said:
It was really entertaining. If they do delete his presence from later versions of the audio, we'll still have the initial file. I actually liked Scalia's comment afterwards.

c36d7075-f351-4f23-bcaa-6ef2831d2493_500.png


I wonder if the protestor will be elevated to conservative celebrity status, a la the pizza folks? :p
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It definitely didn't do the "no animus" argument any favors.
 
Metaphoreus

Metaphoreus

This is semantics, and nothing more
Some interesting thoughts on Alito's Platonic allusion:

Timothy Sandefur said:
Justice Alito alluded to the Greeks in order to buttress his suggestion that confining marriage to opposite-sex couples was not meant to demean same-sex couples. But the practices of the Greeks actually points up the opposite conclusion. The reason why Plato and other Greek philosophers wrote approvingly of same-sex relations was because they treated women as such a degraded class that they thought companionship and partnership were possible only between men. A “Platonic friend” is necessarily a man’s other male friends, because one can only share thoughts and opinions with another man—not with a woman. Same-sex relations were for the Athenians a way of having both sex and partnership, which they considered impossible between opposite-sex couples in just the way today’s conservatives think it impossible between same-sex couples. One can easily imagine a judge at the Areopagus sneering at the idea of companionate, opposite-sex marriage by pointing out that the definition of marriage must necessarily exclude the sharing of ideas, passions, beliefs, experiences, and so forth. Marriage as a “commitment” at all would have been regarded as a freakish innovation. When Alito says that the Greeks' limiting of marriage to opposite-sex couples was "not based on prejudice against gay people," he omits the fact that the Athenian practice of same-sex relations was based on prejudice against opposite-sex couples!
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I

ivysaur12

Banned
Metaphoreus said:
Some interesting thoughts on Alito's Platonic allusion:
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I wouldn't expect Bonuato to be intricately familiar with the type of history, but it's such a weird detail to bring into a court room. It's impossible to compare the societal systems of Greece and the United States. Why would you want to? And the fact that there have been no legal gay marriages throughout millennia is even more of an example of the thousand years of prejudice and hate towards gay people that we've only begun to peel away in the past 100 or so years
 
D

Deleted member 1159

Unconfirmed Member
My question is this: how can the SCOTUS put the genie back in the bottle when states are already marrying same sex couples? Are you going to allow states to retroactively nullify those marriages and fuck up thousands of families?

It seems impossible to overturn all the lower courts (except one) at this point. It would be incredibly stupid to try.
 
M

mclem

Member
Paskil said:
Protester was sitting right in front of me. The weird thing is that the seat had a sheet of paper on it marking it as "Reserved." He was gross and kept clearing snot from his throat and had a really sleazy, greasy appearance. He jumped up right after the first portion before the Solicitor started speaking. The guy was sitting right in front of me and five people in the court immediately grabbed him and forcibly dragged him out. He was screaming the entire time. You could still hear him screaming minutes later.

Crazy.

I was almost knocked out of my chair in the process.
Click to expand...

What sort of people had 'reserved' seats? I assume you didn't, with your entry ticket from queueing?
 
P

Paskil

Member
mclem said:
What sort of people had 'reserved' seats? I assume you didn't, with your entry ticket from queueing?
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I was near the back and it was one of the aisle chairs next to the benches. It was weird because he came in after the arguments started. It was the only chair marked as reserved that I saw. It was almost like he was placed there on purpose.

The guy was fucking nutso. He jumped up and moved towards the center of the bench that his chair was touching. It took a bit of a struggle for them to extricate him.

Im glad he did it though, because his personal habits were gross and distracting and his hair was standing up in the back, blocking my view of Kennedy, Alito, and Ginsburg.

Ginsburg was also really difficult to understand. I think I just wasn't near enough to any speakers.
 
I

ivysaur12

Banned
I don't really understand where Scalia's argument is regarding clergy to perform gay marriages. Religion is a suspect class, but a Catholic priest can still refuse to marry a Protestant couple.
 
Metaphoreus

Metaphoreus

This is semantics, and nothing more
ivysaur12 said:
I wouldn't expect Bonuato to be intricately familiar with the type of history, but it's such a weird detail to bring into a court room. It's impossible to compare the societal systems of Greece and the United States. Why would you want to? And the fact that there have been no legal gay marriages throughout millennia is even more of an example of the thousand years of prejudice and hate towards gay people that we've only begun to peel away in the past 100 or so years
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Alito's argument seemed to be that opposition to same-sex marriage isn't necessarily a function of anti-gay animus. For instance, the Greeks were open to homosexuality, but didn't permit gay marriages. But even setting aside Sandefur's historical rebuttal, I'm not sure what was the point of Alito's argument. The question would not be, "Is it possible to oppose same-sex marriage without being anti-gay?" but "Is a given state's opposition to same-sex marriage in fact motivated by anti-gay animus?"

Oh, and same-sex marriage bans are definitely sex discrimination.
 
I

ivysaur12

Banned
Metaphoreus said:
Alito's argument seemed to be that opposition to same-sex marriage isn't necessarily a function of anti-gay animus. For instance, the Greeks were open to homosexuality, but didn't permit gay marriages. But even setting aside Sandefur's historical rebuttal, I'm not sure what was the point of Alito's argument. The question would not be, "Is it possible to oppose same-sex marriage without being anti-gay?" but "Is a given state's opposition to same-sex marriage in fact motivated by anti-gay animus?"

Oh, and same-sex marriage bans are definitely sex discrimination.
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Right, but that's such a surface level reading of homosexuality in Greece. I was pretty taken aback by it. In 500 BC, they didn't kill the gays, but didn't let them marry doesn't necessarily translate to the point that Alito was trying to make. And regardless (I meant this more earlier), you can't really compare the institution of marriage in Ancient Greece with that of today because they served fundamentally different purposes in society (which speaks to this whole thing anyway).

I don't think they're talking about animus for a reason, i.e. Kennedy.

I think it's an equal protection issue or a due process issue before marriage equality is a sex discrimination issue, honestly.
 
T

The Llama

Member
So, 5-4 with Kennedy or 6-3 with Kennedy and Roberts?

I'm still going with the 5-4.

Also, I don't normally listen to the audio recordings, but Scalia has an oddly soothing voice. I dislike pretty much everything he says, but he says it in a very soothing way. Its weird.
 
I

ivysaur12

Banned
The Llama said:
So, 5-4 with Kennedy or 6-3 with Kennedy and Roberts?

I'm still going with the 5-4.

Also, I don't normally listen to the audio recordings, but Scalia has an oddly soothing voice. I dislike pretty much everything he says, but he says it in a very soothing way. Its weird.
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Seems more like 5-4. If it is 6-3, it's probably a concurrence on sex discrimination from Roberts.
 
P

Paskil

Member
Thomas had an amazing performance, as usual. One thing that caught me off guard was how relaxed the justices were. Some of the poses they struck or the things they did were hilarious. Thomas spent a bit leaning way back and staring at the ceiling.

There was also a portion where he was whispering to Breyer for a bit and then they had a back and forth exchange. Nothing really strange, just went on for like a full minute. I would have liked to have been a fly on their shoulder at that moment.
 
I

ivysaur12

Banned
I know it's been said before, but Verrilli has really improved as a speaker (granted, this is an easier argument than NIFIB).
 
D

Deleted member 1159

Unconfirmed Member
Jesus Christ when they guy started yelling it scared the shit out of me. My dog came trotting in ready to throw down on someone.
 
P

Patryn

Member
Was pointed to this particular section of the proceedings and had to laugh (from the HuffPo):

John Bursch, the special assistant attorney general of Michigan, argued in favor of states restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples. At the crux of his argument was child-rearing, and why it is in a state's interest to "inextricably bind kids to their biological moms and dads."

Changing the meaning of marriage, he argued, has long-term consequences.

"The out-of-wedlock birthrate in this country has gone from 10 percent to 70 percent, from 1970 to today," said Bursch. "I think everybody would agree that that's not a good result for children."

"But that wasn't changed because of the recent gay marriages," responded Justice Sonia Sotomayor. "In Massachusetts, we've got data that rates remained constant since they changed their laws."

When Bursch said it's been too short of a time frame to see the effects of Massachusetts' law on birthrates, Kennedy jumped in.

"You're the one that brought the statistic up," he said. "Under your view, it would be very difficult for same-sex couples to adopt some of these children. I think the argument cuts quite against you."
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I can't believe he tried that.

Michigan: "Here's a random statistic that doesn't have anything to do with same-sex marriage that proves it's bad!"

Sotomayor: "Well, here's an actual relevant statistic that proves you're full of shit."

Michigan: "Uh.. your statistic doesn't count! Not enough time has passed!"

Kennedy: "Fucking really?"
 
Metaphoreus

Metaphoreus

This is semantics, and nothing more
ivysaur12 said:
I think it's an equal protection issue or a due process issue before marriage equality is a sex discrimination issue, honestly.
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Sex discrimination plays into the equal protection issue. If same-sex marriage bans discriminate based on sex (and they clearly do), then they violate the EPC unless that discrimination can be sufficiently justified by the government.

(Some judges have concluded that SSM bans don't discriminate based on sex, since they prohibit members of each sex from marrying other members of that sex--i.e., men can't marry men and women can't marry women. But that line of reasoning suggests that an antimiscegenation law would be perfectly valid under the EPC, so long as it prohibited the members of each race from marrying a member of another race, and that can't be right.)
 
I

ivysaur12

Banned
Metaphoreus said:
Sex discrimination plays into the equal protection issue. If same-sex marriage bans discriminate based on sex (and they clearly do), then they violate the EPC unless that discrimination can be sufficiently justified by the government.

(Some judges have concluded that SSM bans don't discriminate based on sex, since they prohibit members of each sex from marrying other members of that sex--i.e., men can't marry men and women can't marry women. But that line of reasoning suggests that an antimiscegenation law would be perfectly valid under the EPC, so long as it prohibited the members of each race from marrying a member of another race, and that can't be right.)
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I guess when I think "sex discrimination", my mind goes to discrimination against women (or men) on the basis of their sex.

I know that's not how the court's have necessarily interpreted it, but I also find a much stronger argument for equal protection or due process, I suppose.
 
S

Simply Sarah

Member
Paskil said:
Thomas had an amazing performance, as usual. One thing that caught me off guard was how relaxed the justices were. Some of the poses they struck or the things they did were hilarious. Thomas spent a bit leaning way back and staring at the ceiling.

There was also a portion where he was whispering to Breyer for a bit and then they had a back and forth exchange. Nothing really strange, just went on for like a full minute. I would have liked to have been a fly on their shoulder at that moment.
Click to expand...

This is common as they're pretty friendly. Justice Thomas has even admitted that some of the questions Justice Breyer asks are taken from remarks/questions Justice Thomas makes to him.
 
A

Arkeband

Banned
I just started listening to the first question, and they're really making the person arguing for SSM sweat.

Or maybe it's just Scalia. They got into a weird tangent about ancient civilizations not allowing SSM where no one really knew what they were talking about.

edit: I just hit the guy yelling at 27 minutes... LOL.
 
D

Deleted member 1159

Unconfirmed Member
Arkeband said:
I just started listening to the first question, and they're really making the person arguing for SSM sweat.

Or maybe it's just Scalia. They got into a weird tangent about ancient civilizations not allowing SSM where no one really knew what they were talking about.

edit: I just hit the guy yelling at 27 minutes... LOL.
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It's basically their job to call bullshit on whoever is doing the brief. Just wait until the opponents come in.
 
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