DOMA violates state rights today that it didnt when it was signed. Times change and the law does too, it needs to go and probably will.

NOMs own John Eastman’s insane and cruel attack on Justice Robert’s kids may very well have sealed the fate of NOMs agenda.

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For instance, NOM, in the wake of more favorable elections, used to tout the idea that SCOTUS reads polls and watches election returns. This certainly has some degree of truth, as the justices are human beings and (hopefully) informed citizens. But it’s not something that I, if running an organization so focused on legal matters, would exalt as some great thing. I would hope that most of us would seek a court that bases its decisions on proper application of law and not the latest popularity contest (particularly on a minority rights matter).

And now we have Maggie suggesting that Kennedy is going to go against fairness largely because he doesn’t want to prove Scalia right? That’s just a silly thing to say. I would hope that any of the nine members of the court have a higher standard than that.

“The Court today pretends that it possesses a similar freedom of action, so that that we need not fear judicial imposition of homosexual marriage, as has recently occurred in Canada (in a decision that the Canadian Government has chosen not to appeal). See Halpern v. Toronto, 2003 WL 34950 (Ontario Ct. App.); Cohen, Dozens in Canada Follow Gay Couple’s Lead, Washington Post, June 12, 2003, p. A25. At the end of its opinion–after having laid waste the foundations of our rational-basis jurisprudence–the Court says that the present case “does not involve whether the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter.” Ante, at 17. Do not believe it.”

This is Scalia’s dissent in 2003.

Kennedy is known to dislike Scalia’s rhetorical style. I am saying he will be reluctant to want to prove that Scalia was right about Lawrence. This is not an argument from legal principle, but on judicial temperament.

I don’t see anything intellectually dishonest about sustaining the Ninth CCA on Prop 8. BTW, Evan Wolfson penned an interesting OpEd in the NY Times at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/11/opinion/for-marriage-equality-the-works-not-just-in-court.html

My guess is yes and that it won’t last long before it gets slapped down.

I think the SCOTUS will be more receptive to marriage equality than many people think. Scalia is already on record as saying it isn’t possible to discriminate against same-sex couples if the state acknowledges the validity of their sexual relations, which it has. Roberts doesn’t want to be the Chief Justice on whose watch another disastrous discriminatory Supreme Court decision is fashioned. Kennedy has already demonstrated an understanding that gays are people, too. If you don’t de-humanize gay and lesbian people, it’s hard to support discrimination against them. There is ample opportunity for a 5-4 decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationally.

The Supreme Court has a pretty dim view of limitations on marriage. Once you’ve ruled that even convicted murderers on death row, and with no chance of even conjugal visits (so much for the procreation argument), can’t be prevented from marrying, you look pretty foolish saying law-abiding gay and lesbian couples, raising children, can be.