No, I haven't been posting breathlessly on the latest developments in the Supreme Court marriage cases. Everyone else has, so I haven't needed to. Besides, I'm caught in a vast sea of inertia right now -- cabin fever, mostly. At any rate, my guesses on outcomes:
Prop 8: The Court will punt on standing. If the Proponents have no Article III standing, and that seems to be the direction the Court is headed, the district court decision stands. Marriages begin in California in June. Limited, but Judge Walker's opinion, if not precedential, is still good support for future cases. It's also broader than the 9th Circuit's opinion, which is better.
DOMA: DOMA is dead. It looks as though there are at least five votes against it right now, and I wouldn't be surprised for at least one more to appear. DOMA is vulnerable both on Equal Protection grounds (the four liberal justices seem to be coming down on this one) and states' rights (which seems to be Kennedy's obsession). I was sort of surprised at the emphasis the justices placed on the administration's failure to defend it in court while still enforcing it. That's just weird: as I've always understood it, the executive is required to enforce the law. That's what it does. It is not, however, required to defend a law it believes is unconstitutional, and doing so does not mark a departure from practice for the Obama administration. Presidents have been declining to defend laws since Reagan, at least, and it's never caused a ripple. (Update: Here's a short post from the Volokh Conspiracy with some history on that. It goes back much farther than I thought.)
One interesting thing: the reactions from the right have been, as you might expect, full of doom and gloom, up to and including the end of civilization as we know it. (Seriously -- that one's from Tony Perkins, as quoted at Joe.My.God.) And we've got "social engineering," courtesy of Mat Staver, also via JMG. (As though every major civil rights decision did not involve "social engineering" -- no to mention integration of the armed forces.) Polygamy and incest, from none other than Bill Donohue of the seemingly one-man Catholic League. Interestingly enough, they're all preaching to the choir -- all those quotes are from publications directed to the "faithful." I've not seen anything from these people in the major news outlets, which leads me to believe that no one's asking them for an opinion. That in itself is interesting.
Another facet of this: have you noticed the spate of politicians coming out in favor of same-sex marriage over the past week or so? Starting with Rob Portman, which is significant enough (conservative Republican from Ohio), but a whole new group of Democratic senators are now on board, and a few others as well. (Delicious: NY State Sen. "Reverend" Ruben Diaz' son has issued a public statement supporting SSM. He's the borough president of the Bronx.)
Lots of coverage and good analysis at SCOTUSblog, including transcripts and audio of the arguments. And Ari Ezra Waldman has done his usual clear, concise analysis at Towleroad, both on Prop 8 (here and here) and on DOMA (here and here).
And that's all I'm going to say about it for now.
There's apparently no "Marriage Watch" video from AFER this week, but there's lots of commentary on the Prop 8 case at their YouTube channel.
Prop 8: The Court will punt on standing. If the Proponents have no Article III standing, and that seems to be the direction the Court is headed, the district court decision stands. Marriages begin in California in June. Limited, but Judge Walker's opinion, if not precedential, is still good support for future cases. It's also broader than the 9th Circuit's opinion, which is better.
DOMA: DOMA is dead. It looks as though there are at least five votes against it right now, and I wouldn't be surprised for at least one more to appear. DOMA is vulnerable both on Equal Protection grounds (the four liberal justices seem to be coming down on this one) and states' rights (which seems to be Kennedy's obsession). I was sort of surprised at the emphasis the justices placed on the administration's failure to defend it in court while still enforcing it. That's just weird: as I've always understood it, the executive is required to enforce the law. That's what it does. It is not, however, required to defend a law it believes is unconstitutional, and doing so does not mark a departure from practice for the Obama administration. Presidents have been declining to defend laws since Reagan, at least, and it's never caused a ripple. (Update: Here's a short post from the Volokh Conspiracy with some history on that. It goes back much farther than I thought.)
One interesting thing: the reactions from the right have been, as you might expect, full of doom and gloom, up to and including the end of civilization as we know it. (Seriously -- that one's from Tony Perkins, as quoted at Joe.My.God.) And we've got "social engineering," courtesy of Mat Staver, also via JMG. (As though every major civil rights decision did not involve "social engineering" -- no to mention integration of the armed forces.) Polygamy and incest, from none other than Bill Donohue of the seemingly one-man Catholic League. Interestingly enough, they're all preaching to the choir -- all those quotes are from publications directed to the "faithful." I've not seen anything from these people in the major news outlets, which leads me to believe that no one's asking them for an opinion. That in itself is interesting.
Another facet of this: have you noticed the spate of politicians coming out in favor of same-sex marriage over the past week or so? Starting with Rob Portman, which is significant enough (conservative Republican from Ohio), but a whole new group of Democratic senators are now on board, and a few others as well. (Delicious: NY State Sen. "Reverend" Ruben Diaz' son has issued a public statement supporting SSM. He's the borough president of the Bronx.)
Lots of coverage and good analysis at SCOTUSblog, including transcripts and audio of the arguments. And Ari Ezra Waldman has done his usual clear, concise analysis at Towleroad, both on Prop 8 (here and here) and on DOMA (here and here).
And that's all I'm going to say about it for now.
There's apparently no "Marriage Watch" video from AFER this week, but there's lots of commentary on the Prop 8 case at their YouTube channel.
No comments:
Post a Comment