More on Marriage

There's a lot of speculation and theorizing on what SCOTUS' grant of cert in the two marriage cases portends, which I may address later.

First, however, Joe Jervis has a post with reactions to the Court's decision, which he has been updating. The ones in the post are all from "our side."

He's also got the reaction from Protect Marriage, which is a hoot:

The day we've been waiting for is finally here. Today we scored a MAJOR victory for traditional marriage in the Supreme Court of the United States!! Just moments ago, the Supreme Court GRANTED our petition seeking the Court’s review of the Ninth Circuit’s erroneous decision striking down California's Proposition 8. Thankfully, now we finally have a fighting chance at a fair hearing to defend the votes of over 7 million Californians who approved Prop 8 to restore traditional marriage. This is a great relief, after a long and difficult journey through the lower courts where the deck was stacked against us from the start.

My first reaction to this one, aside from content, was "Look at the level this is written on." Random capitalized words, multiple exclamation points -- tell you anything about the intended audience?

And calling the Court's decision to grant cert a "major victory" -- oh, excuse me, that's "MAJOR victory" -- is more than a little premature. Most people wait to proclaim victory until they've won. This group is calling it a victory because there's going to be a hearing. Come to think of it, the whole thing -- being heard is a "victory" because in the lower courts, the "deck was stacked" against them: poor, beleaguered, persecuted Protect Marriage. Looks like the victim mindset has taken over.

NOM's reaction is just as far removed from reality. Here's the most objectionable part:

We believe it is a strong signal that the Court will reverse the lower courts and uphold Proposition 8. That is the right outcome based on the law and based on the principle that voters hold the ultimate power over basic policy judgments and their decisions are entitled to respect.

At the risk of duplicating the comment I left at the post, notice the weasel words: this is, in NOM's lexicon, a "basic policy judgment," not a civil rights issue. That's been their stance all along, which is a real denial of reality: there are fourteen Supreme Court precedents and a couple of Constitutional amendments that make this a civil rights case, pure and simple, but of course, if NOM allowed that, all those nice fat salaries would go away.

And Jervis came up with a priceless comment, titled "GOProud Reacts to SCOTUS Decisions."

For the legal geeks, there's an interesting discussion of the theory behind the grants and what it could mean for outcomes by Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog.