> In a petition for writ of certiorari filed last month
A quick search says the court accepts approximately a percent of those.
And AIUI they usually prefer cases where the lower courts disagree with eachother, which I don't think this one is. And it sounds like every court she's been through on the way up has unanimously shot her down.
I rather suspect this should be taken about as seriously as your local sovereign citizen trying to have income taxes declared illegal.
The Roberts Court (especially since Gorsuch/Kavanaugh/ACB) looks out for circuit splits like any other, but it readily accepts (and sometimes telegraphs requests for) cases claiming that the last judicial regime's precedents were wrongly decided on non-originalism paradigms.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the 2022 case Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization: "In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court's substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell."
American Common Law is really puzzling to me, I do understand the history of the system, trade-offs, etc. but it seems to be quite bizarre that laws can be created or dismantled just through whatever is the interpretation of the court at that time. No democratic process whatsoever, pack the Court with a majority leaning into a political ideology and you laws can be changed by 5 people.
It won't ever square in my mind that a Supreme Court would be divided into political affiliations, even less when there's only 2 parties to represent the political views of 300+ million people.
There is a democratic process involved. Supreme Court members are nominated by an elected president and affirmed by an elected Senate. It's democracy at an arm's length, but it's not as if they inherited the positions or got in through force of arms.
But it introduces a fairly obvious winning tactic: devote 100% of your effort to dominating that specific branch, and then you control all future decisions by the others. If you keep an eye on the bottom line, you make just enough allies to control the Court membership. Do that long enough and then 49% of the population simply don't matter any more. Their votes might as well not exist.
That's why you get two parties: each is threatening to do that to the other. Anybody who isn't part of one or the other is already completely irrelevant. Somebody has a majority and they make the rules, forever. It's a 51% attack.
All I can say in its favor is that it seemed like a sufficiently good idea at the time. The failure modes were pretty obvious, but they counted on a majority of people not being willing to completely eliminate the power of the rest. Turns out that was wrong.
If your job is to issue marriage licenses and you don’t want to, at what point is that on YOU to make adjustments?
I do not see how her personal objection should have any impact to other people’s lives. She is issuing marriage licenses and FOR the state, not her personal endorsement.
I sure didn’t care about or even know who issued my marriage license and it sure wasn’t their job to pass judgment.
If allowed couldn’t just anyone take state jobs and claim “religious objection, I won’t do it, all you citizens can’t have whatever it is I do”?
The beauty about work is that you can always leave if you don’t like what you’re being asked to do. Being asked to lift heavy stuff and you don’t want to? Find a job where you don’t have to. Serving pork is against your religion? Work at a vegan restaurant. Don’t like dogs? Don’t work at an animal hospital. Feel squeamish about blood? Don’t work at a hospital.
This, and abortion, are also the only contexts in which this particular type of objection ever comes up. Nobody who has a religious objection to alcohol is demanding that alcohol be banned so that they don't have to deal with it in their restaurant job, say. It's a fairly transparent pretext and it's kind of absurd that the media gives any credence to her _stated_ motivations.
People who have "religious objections" to doing their society provided job need to go live on a farm and mind their own business, like the Amish do. The rest of us are trying to move forward, not backward at the whim of some random hate-fueled individuals and or groups.
What's worse - Kim Davis's personal life doesn't read like someone who "respects traditional marriage". From wikipedia:
> Davis has been married four times to three husbands. The first three marriages ended in divorce in 1994, 2006, and 2008. Davis has two daughters from her first marriage and twins, a son and another daughter, who were born five months after her divorce from her first husband. Her third husband is the biological father of the twins, the children being conceived while Davis was still married to her first husband.
This is a concerted effort to test what the new SCOTUS is going to grant the new "in group" in this country in terms of laws that bind the "out group" which in this case is the gay community.
Usually I would say this stuff doesn't matter either way, but when said person is making moral arguments, we can make them back.
Which, by the way, is one reason why moral arguments are stupid and we should stop making them. If you're making moral arguments on a particular subject it's trivial to destroy your argument but just questioning your own personal morality.
The First Amendment challenge is a sideshow; this case will be all about teeing up Obergefell for the conservative bloc's pot shots, if not complete overturning. The larger cultural theme, though, is to underscore who's in charge by flaunting the "in" group's imperviousness to normal legal rules: like Trump, the January 6 offenders, Justices Thomas and Alito themselves, et al., Kim Davis will be shown to be above the law.
I think the most interesting part about this is that this is first "out group" that theyre taking aim at that truly has money, power and extremely organized cultural weaponry.
It seems they think coming after this group with impunity like they have the poor and some other specific minorities is going to work out with little consequence or true backlash. Id bet this group serves more third rail than they are anticpating.
> "If there ever was a case of exceptional importance," Staver wrote, "the first individual in the Republic's history who was jailed for following her religious convictions regarding the historic definition of marriage, this should be it."
Kim Davis has been married four times to three men [1][2].
She had twins in 1994, five months after divorcing her first husband, with the biological father being the man who later became her third husband, which seems to point to an affair during the marriage [1][3][2].
If this is about upholding Christian convictions, her own history doesn’t exactly model them.
Wilhoit's Law: Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
I do wonder what these people's thought process is, to want to make gay marriage illegal. I grew up in a Christian household, and definitely used to be homophobic, as a sort of default. But once I was old enough to think for myself (I think around ~14 or so), I considered the issue and realised I was being stupid. My reasoning was, if people of the same gender want to be together, it doesn't affect me and is none of my business. I went from a vague, abstract dissaproval/discomfort to not caring, or a vague 'good for you' sentiment.
The entire thing has had me wondering ever since, when people who should be capable of learning better (i.e, not surrounded solely by bigots that prevent them re-considering/speaking up) are homophic, transphobic, racist, etc, what is going on inside their head? Have they just never given it thought? Like, what does a rational argument against homosexuality look like? I have always been forced to conclude that bigotry is irrational on the level of full-on delusion.
It could also be indicative of the issues bigots have with their own sexuality. A good example of this, was a Hungarian MEP who as a married man and an author of ultra-conservative Hungarian constitution defining marriage as being between man and woman only was caught fleeing a gay sex-party in the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
Some people think state-recognized marriage is a special privileged legal status for the purpose of having and raising kids. Ie, that the focus actually isn't on the adults who are the ones to get married. In which case, couples who know they can't possibly have kids are trying to con the state out of the benefits without accepting the associated responsibility. I don't know what faction of people with this view take is to it's logical conclusion regarding for example infertility, but I'd be very surprised if there weren't at least a few and not completely shocked if it was a majority.
What's going on inside their head is disgust. They have been told that some people are dirty, and the revulsion comes from a place deeper than rational thought. Once you believe that, you'll believe anything about your opponents: that they want to kill you, that they want to molest children, that they hate decency and want to destroy your country.
Steven Pinker does a good demonstration: he takes a brand new comb out of a package and stirs a glass of water with it, then offers it to you to drink. You know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is nothing wrong with the water. And yet a fair number of people won't do it, and those who do will still feel just a little weird about it.
That's extremely low stakes. The higher the stakes, the harder it will be to overcome it.
Clearly, you did, and others have as well. But for many others, the constant reinforcement of their prejudices means that they simply won't reconsider their premises. As far as they're concerned, these are basic facts that are confirmed for them every day. The only people who tell you otherwise are disgusting and dirty.
I went through exactly the same steps as you, and I think where people get hung up/disagree with you is on the "it doesn't affect me" step, and of course there's a small minority that's just assholes.
For some people, it is literally a fear that they ways in which they are specially privileged is being attacked. This was particularly obvious in the debates about equal marriage in the noughties and tens; people claiming that same-sex marriage would 'devalue' their own marriage. Which, in their eyes I suppose it might, because it would diminish how special they were.
But you see similar themes in most anti-equality movements, just generally a bit more veiled (I was kind of astonished how _blatant_ the opponents of equal marriage were about basically admitting "we object to this because it is an attack on how society considers us to be better than you").
There's people who are prone to react to new ideas with curiosity and people who are prone to react to new ideas with suspicion, fear, intolerance. It's that simple. You're right, it's not rational. Identity by gender/sexuality/race/etc. is so fundamental, so the latter group reacts most strongly and negatively to new ideas about identity. Religion fans the flames. Most don't take back control from their religious upbrining the way you did.
This sounds like homophobic baiting but I'll bite.
Perhaps they want protection for being forced to testify against their spouse? Perhaps they want the benefits of being able to share bank account? Maybe marriage provides access to better and necessary health insurance. Theres also inheritance, SS benefits, etc. Perhaps they are christians and want to get married as a religious thing. Perhaps they just love each other and want to be together forever legally in the eyes of the law. Or maybe, like me, they want to be gay married purely because they think it would make you uncomfortable.
I would say that this is going to go nowhere, but after the Supreme Court's absolutely disastrous reversal on Roe v. Wade it would not surprise me if they finally take it up here and say they're going to kick it back down to the states. It'll be an absolute shitshow as all the states that had bans and other restrictions kick in.
Good luck to all the tech companies that have offices in red states if it comes to pass.
disastrous how? To me it seems like the states are starting the 20-30 year process of legislating it themselves that should have happened and been mostly done by now but was instead stopped in its tracks and allowed to fester, strengthening the religious right (which is a very bad thing). The first 15 years will suck as some states try unconstitutional things and get smacked down but you guys will get to a spot where you have slightly different laws by state that most people can agree on and the issue will mostly die down by the end rather than fester and get larger and larger support against it like it has to this point. You can generally tell when the supreme court gets it wrong by whether the issue slides into the background as obviously correct to most people after a generation or two or if the issue gets bigger and bigger and this issue got bigger and bigger. abortion falls into the latter category. (And I love abortion. It's killed so many future criminals you see it in the crime stats. I'm not a crazed religious person, I'm an atheist, so you can't write the above opinion off as that).
The thing is 'doing unconstitutional things and getting smacked down' is no longer a certainty. This Supreme Court has shown itself to wipe their ass with the Constitution, or any law, if it helps either the conservative agenda or Trump.
Yah, you're looking at it on too short a time frame. If enough people are butt hurt about something over a long enough time period, it will get reversed (as you just saw from this very issue that started the discussion). Also, unconstitutional does not mean something you don't like, it means something explicitly outlawed in the constitution. Things like stopping pregnant women from exercising their right to travel, not setting restrictions on abortion to a level higher than I personally would like.
There were constitutional arguments for abortion in Roe. And, coincidently, those constitutional arguments are extremely similar to the ones used in Obergefel.
Meaning, if this court was willing to overturn Roe on those grounds, they could easily overtune Obergefel.
Its a matter of if they have the political will. Which, the answer should theoretically be yes - the supreme Court doesn't care about politics. But this court isn't like other courts, so it might be no. Overturning Obergefel would be very politically unpopular for virtually no gain, even for the Republicans. So, personally, I doubt it's going to happen.
Then maybe that should go back to the states to decide as well. I personally feel their smartest move would be to rule that having government involved in marriage at all is too excessive a limitation on freedom of association and therefore government is out of the business entirely
The problem is a lot of states are stupid and self-destructive. A lot of them are essentially on the welfare of the federal government because they're so economically inept and seem addicted to passing policy that makes their state even less desirable.
If we just let them do whatever, WE pay. I pay. That's not free. They're not sovereign states, they're still part of the union. And that means my hard earned money has to go to making sure fucked up states don't completely shit the bed. Ultimately some place like Louisiana shouldn't even exist. But it does, because we fund their existence through welfare.
I don't want to make millions of Americans lives more shit for some ideological cause that I don't even know makes sense.
Okay, we should leave it to the states. Why? Why should we do that? Because someone 200 years ago said so in the federalist papers? Is that good enough to make life shit for millions of people with absolutely no economic gain?
Also, elephant in the room: this court is not made up of textualists. That's just what they tell you so that what they do sounds justified.
segregation was disallowed under the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment, which is much sounder law (and much more likely to be respected by an originalist since it's pretty obvious what they meant and once you make a black person a person under the law (which is also done by the 14th amendment) it's pretty clear you can't treat them differently than anyone else). Conversely, Roe V Wade relies on some pretty tortured reinterpretation of the right to privacy, which in itself is only kind of guaranteed by a less tortured interpretation of other parts of the constitution.
It's also pretty important to point out here that things are only for the states to decide in so far as you guys haven't made an amendment to make that right part of the constitution. The whole point of this is you can't make up rights that aren't there as the supreme court, you aren't the legislative body. If you want more/different rights there is an amending process to change the constitution and then the supreme court will be bound to uphold your changes as well.
Also, why do I know more about your constitution and governing structure than you appear to? I'm not American, I just appreciate how straightforwardly you guys recognize government will always screw you over and needs to be agressively restrained. I just wish you had realized it was all large organizations and more effectively applied your restrictions to corporations as well.
> Also, why do I know more about your constitution and governing structure than you appear to?
Do you? All you have said here is that you think that the equal protection clause forbidding segregation is more sound than the substantive due process clause forbidding criminalization of abortion. That's not a statement about governing structure. That's a statement about your interpretation of the text. I (and many others) don't think that finding a right to abortion in the text is so difficult.
It is ludicrous to point at an originalist interpretation to justify Brown. It is plainly obvious that the authors of the 14th did not intend it to forbid segregation nor would the public have interpreted it to do so at the time. Yes, there is a cottage industry of law professors seeking to square this circle but it is a ridiculous project. If you insist on originalism being the sole interpretive model of the constitution (which I disagree with) then you don't get to so easily say "well obviously Brown was correct."
I mean, this isn't how it works in reality at all. Texas has been trying to impose its will on other states as well and the very clear goal is to make a lot of these things federally illegal so blue states don't even get a choice. 'Constitutionality' doesn't matter when you have a court that doesn't give a shit about it or precedent.
If the other half of your argument is 'people will eventually get angry enough to demand change' then you're essentially arguing for another civil war to break out to resolve these issues and I don't think you'd like how that outcome ends.
As gently as possible, you've utterly misunderstood reality. The whole system is designed around all levels of government trying to impose their own version of stupid on all the others and providing effective PFO levers that work at varying timescales. You just witnessed a longer term PFO lever being pulled on to overturn an abortion ruling that best case had very weak constitutional grounds to stand on for its existence. There was not anywhere near civil war level violence here. What happened was the court ruling was obviously unjust to enough people that, over time it grew a stronger and stronger movement that influenced judicial appointments over decades via the ballot box.
You've also misunderstood this supreme court. It has swung towards giving a great deal of care about originalism with the argument they should not be making law, the legislators should change the constitution via the legislative pathway if they want change and it is the job of the supreme court to uphold the constitution as written/intended. That context makes it even more likely they were going to overturn abortion because in an originalist context the support for what was done in Roe V Wade is zero. The current judges will die and be replaced and if you want them replaced with people who care less about originalism then you need to adjust your political platform to ensure you can be in power often enough to swing some of those seats. In this regard the system is working perfectly.
No, I understand the Supreme Court perfectly. Their 'Originalism' stance is bullshit because in one breath they claim Roe v. Wade is unconstitutional while in another allowing the blatant violation of individuals constitutional rights.
A quick search says the court accepts approximately a percent of those.
And AIUI they usually prefer cases where the lower courts disagree with eachother, which I don't think this one is. And it sounds like every court she's been through on the way up has unanimously shot her down.
I rather suspect this should be taken about as seriously as your local sovereign citizen trying to have income taxes declared illegal.