The youngest person on the Supreme Court was born in 1960. The second youngest was born in 1955. Four of them were born in the 1930’s. Do you think they are going to be forward-looking on gay marriage?
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Maybe. At least if it was just based on age. But it’s not. You have the hard core of full right wing nutjobs on SCOTUS. To my black brothers and sisters I can only say that I’m so sorry that Clarence Thomas replaced Thurgood Marshall. I can only imagine how you feel at having Thomas as your visible rep. I can imagine it because of how I feel at having Scalia as my ethnic group’s rep.
my mother was an every Sunday going to church type woman. She died in 2008. By the time she died, she was of the ‘live and let live’ philosophy. She didn’t understand homosexuality, but felt that ‘ who you love is who you love’, and had no problem with gay marriage. I think sometimes you get older and are like, ‘ I’m too old to be caring about denying someone something’.
The liberals on the court are forward looking. Kennedy is as much libertarian as conservative. Roberts is a corporatist who isn’t going to want to waste the court’s credibility (those shards that remain post Bush v. Gore and Citizens United) on the agenda of those he considers ignorant. Scalia, Thomas, Alito — whatever.
My best guess is a narrow ruling, possibly one that throws out the case based on the plaintiff’s lack of standing. If they go further, it will nevertheless be limited to California. But I wouldn’t be totally shocked by a broader ruling if it was penned by Kennedy.
“My best guess is a narrow ruling, possibly one that throws out the case based on the plaintiff’s lack of standing.”
I hope everyone understands that if the plaintiffs lack standing, then Prop 8 springs back into existence. A ruling against standing means we lose, because the whole case is thrown out, and what’s on appeal here is a District Court ruling that says Prop 8 is unconstitutional.
The institutional interest here for the Court is to reach the merits. They know they have to decide this someday anyway, and Kennedy knows he won’t live forever, so if he wants to put his stamp on this area of the law, now is the time.
I think you’re asking the wrong question here. I don’t expect the ability of the court to be forward-looking on gay marriage will make one whit of difference in how this plays down. I expect the Roberts courts four conservatives to base all their opinions out of weighing the following issues.
And lastly, and just for Roberts himself.
4. What does this do for my legacy.
I fully expect that losing on gay marriage doesn’t hurt the Republican party. If anything it will just make their social voters even more die hard to vote because of “activist liberal judges, taking god out of the government”. And it might help them among upper income liberals if a “conservative court helps gay marriage”. I also think Roberts is smart enough to know that coming down on the wrong side of this will tarnish his legacy forever. I’m also sure that, just like up holding the healthcare act, they can do this in a way that puts attacks on the New Deal hidden in the ruling to fuck with liberals to stupid to realize they actually lost on this issue when gay marriage goes through.
And while I’m sure the court will be “split”, I think it will pass for the above reasons, with some principled objections. Because I’d rate all of those issues more important to the conservatives on this court than sticking it to Obama over this issue and risking rallying liberals to vote against “activist conservative judges”.
That’s a good list.
Liberals ignore the courts way way too often, or see them as some sort of impartial arbiter. It’s always a good bet conservatives will fight to rule the judiciary more. See the recent poll I read about it in TPM about how liberal republicans and conservatives see the SCOTUS, as usual in pure defiance of reality.
I also think Roberts is smart enough to know that coming down on the wrong side of this will tarnish his legacy forever.
Sure didn’t bother him with Citizens United, did it? Roberts does what ever the national Chamber of Commerce tells him to do.
I don’t view that as “damaging” to him in a real sense. It’s certainly not a civil rights issue, and certainly fits in the sort of “noble rich” sort of stance that cosmopolitan elites on both sides of the isle reach.
Put it this way, it certainly won’t get you into trouble with the cocktail circuit crowd, where landing on the wrong side of a social issue will.
I think we’ve been on a long arc of moving to the left on social issues and moving to the right on economic issues and oligarchical ones. And I think that won’t change.
Listening to the tapes there does seem to be an element of consternation that regrets allowing the case to be heard and wants to turn it around to the lower courts.
Today I was remembering Ted Olson’s wife, who died on 9/11, and how mean spirited she was everytime she came on CNN. Ted Olson’s passionate position in front of the court, with his strong Conservative creds, his age relevance to the Court and their familiarity with him, was enough to allow me to give her a pass and that’s saying alot because she and Ann Coulter shared much.
These particular old people are surrounded by and constantly influenced by a large number of very smart, hard-working younger people. Most old people aren’t.
Those who are intellectually engaged enough will be much less calcified on the issues than we might expect of most people their age.
Supreme Court predictions are hooey anyway. Nobody knows anything.
Well, that’s not true. There are people who know things. Those things just aren’t all that valuable for making predictions.
Ideologues have no vision of the future. I am interested in seeing the legal opinion that justifies government definition/legislation/regulation of civil law marriage. That opinion will be the basis of freedom as defined by the right.
No. I think they will issue a milquetoast ruling that will let the 9th Circuit opinion stand (thereby allowing gay marriage in CA), but nothing more sweeping than that. I might have once hoped for a stronger opinion from Kennedy but I lost all respect for him aftewr the ACA ruling.
I have no idea what they will do and I absolutely hate this feeling.
Rough sketch of countries shows LGBT rights in developed nations based on Judeo-Christian principles. In all Islam nations and (former) communist regimes homosexuality is illegal and will be prosecuted up to maximum sentence of the death penalty. See LGBT rights by country or territory with a world map.
Recent sparring about foster care between Turkey and The Netherlands and large protests in France against gay marriage!
for the conservatives on the court, i think their stance will have more to do with whether they have a gay friend or relative than their age. which is why this is good news.
rumor has it that chief justice rehnquist’s daughters’ experience in the workplace strongly influenced his decision in meritor v. vinson.
I was born in ’55 and I have always believed in equal rights for ALL sentinent beings. Unfortunately I have this demented aversion to all who don’t want that for others.
I’m actually right at this moment talking to a cousin of mine, who’s 25 and recently married. She is a good person, and I know how she was raised, but the problem with people like her is they just cling to the “biblical” definition of marriage and refuse to contemplate what rights they get just from being able to also define their marriage as a “legal” marriage, for example having your marriage recognized by EVERY state and being able to move to a place with better opportunities without having to consider that your marriage won’t be recognized in another state (particularly the South).
Based on everything I’ve read, it sounds like it’s going to be a narrow decision that probably legalizes it in California but has no other national implications.
If Roberts really wanted to shoot for the moon, legacy-wise, he’d push for a broad ruling nationally legalizing it. He’s got to realize that there’s a very good chance that he may have a liberal majority on the court soon (if Hillary runs, I would assume that we’re going to have a ripe opportunity to replace Kennedy and/or Scalia) – so if he can get it legalized on his court, it will give him a lot of cover on what are bound to be a lot of shitty 5-4 decisions coming down on the VRA, affirmative action, etc.