SCOTUS/Prop 8 predictions?

SCOTUS will be hearing both DOMA and Prop 8 cases in the next few days?

I predict that since both are blatantly unconstitutional and have no reason to exist other than to segregate and deny equal rights, they'll both be struck down either 5-4 or 6-3.

I also predict multiple hissy fits here when that happens.

Hard to say on Prop 8.

The court has several options in front of it. They could strike it down, yes, but have it apply only to California...for now. That would just open up litigation in almost every other state though and the issue would be in front of the S. Ct. once again in 5 years. It really depends on how broadly Kennedy wants to go. He's written the two biggest pro-gay rights cases Romer and Lawrence and the 9th Circuit used Kennedy's language centrally in their opinion to uphold the District Court's ruling overturning Prop 8. He'd by a hypocrit to vote to uphold Prop 8. Keep in mind that, in Romer, the voters passed a Constitutional Amendment to prohibit antidiscrimination laws, etc., from applying to homosexuals in CO. So the argument that the popular vote should be decisive in establishing the rights of homosexuals shouldn't float, if he's consistent.

DOMA. It's about time it found its way in front of the US S. Ct. IIRC, something like 10 circuit court decisions have ruled against parts of it as violating the Constitution. It would be mind blowing to see the US S. Ct. overturn all those lower courts at once.

You'll likely get hissyfits from the usual suspects like TLS and Ron Paul, but I'm pretty sure most of Wordforge is in favor of same sex marriage rights.

I predict this will become the Brown vs Board of Education for gays and Republicans will be left declaring yet another SC justice to be a traitor for actually enforcing the constitution. We shall see though.

BTW, damn you, sir, your thread beat mine by 30 minutes.

It's a bit early to discuss this. They may not have a ruling for three months.

I can probably predict 4 for it and 3 against and 2 unknown, but that may be hopeful and I honestly don't know enough about how the justices will decide to interpret the case to predict what the other 2 votes will be. At worst, they'll probably leave it up to states, at best, they'll rule "WTF is this bullshit, of course gay people can get married just like straight people, you're all on crack."

I'm really rooting for them to legalize gay marriage.

For Apostle's sake.

It would really be great if the marriage of Apostle and his "wife" would finally be recognized. I would be so happy.

Either 5:4 in a "fuck it, gay marriages for all" ruling or 7:2 in an ruling that sees prop 8 overturned but doesn't go beyond that.

Of course the other big possibility is that the SC punts and tries to avoid the topic by simply making a procedural call saying that the people defending prop 8 don't have standing (as the state stopped defending it years ago) and instead it is a motley collection of right wing hate groups pushing the anti-equal rights for gays case now. If they avoid ruling on the substance and instead just make a procedural call (which would be the exact opposite of what the court did in citizens united where they had a case with a tangential issue and used it to ram through giant changes) then gay marriage would once again become legal in California but the ruling wouldn't effect any other state.

Agreed. The lefties and Kennedy will go pro-equality on both, and Roberts may well join both or either majority

And with any luck AFA will spontaneously combust and take all it's puppets with it.

it would be an epic world if courts actually ruled in just such a fashion.

On the cases of gay marriage. They'll probably overlap. This is what I see happening.

For:
Roberts
Kennedy
Sotomayor
Ginsberg
Kagan
Breyer

Against:
Scalia
Thomas
Alito


-----------------------
Unlikely, but possible suicides:
Rush Limbaugh
Ann Coulter

I say unlikely, because they "enjoy" being miserable and squawking about it for money and attention too much to kill themselves.

No. The arguments are mostly for show. Most lawyers know that the justices have made up their minds on the Constitutionality of cases before they even put the robes on, enter, sit down and ask questions while Kagan watches muted gay porn on her smart phone off and on, and Clarence Thomas goes to sleep. It isn't talked about much to keep up appearances, but it's true.

:libertystatue:

Why does the state get to decide who can marry in the first place?

like so many other things, particularly taxation and education, it's a tool for social engineering.

I predict apostle will be eating a lot of Chick Fil A to console himself. Then diabetes, followed by a heart attack.

That sounds like a separate lawsuit.

Like Michele Obama lecturing me on eating my vegetables.

I normally wouldn't mind, but they squirm so much in their wheel chairs.

Because marriage is a contract between marriage partners and the state. That's what all the direct state benefits and benefits the state requires private actors to provide are all about. In any event, the state gets to decide which contracts are enforced by the state even if the state isn't a party to the contract, because it's the state doing the enforcing. It's utterly routine for the state to decide which contracts it enforces and which it doesn't, and I'm sure you could describes scores of contracts off the top of your head that the state uncontroversially will refuse to enforce.

It would be absurd for the state not to decide who can marry given that the state is both the enforcer of the marriage contract and effectively a party to it. The state just needs some legitimate policy basis for making that determination, and if the state allowed for example parents to contract for their minor children to be married against their will--as the state allows parents to contract for all kinds of things on behalf of their children against their will--or allowed sham marriages entered into with the sole purpose of securing immigration status, that would be a travesty.

The point is that whatever legitimate policy reasons there are for the state allowing and enforcing marriage contracts in the first place simply aren't furthered by discriminating against same sex couples in marriage.

The state has no business awarding or punishing citizens based upon marital status.

The state mandated criteria for being married is secondary.

And it would take a magic wand to get the state out of it, so raising this point is crying for its own sake.

The state has no business awarding or punishing citizens based upon marital status.

See: most Clyde posts.

Look out D, you've got a rep cheerleader!

Start a petition then. In the mean time, I'd settle for a bit of equal protection from the state regarding who has access to that contract. Congratulations, btw, for not mentioning donkeys and elephants in this thread.

Rumors flying that SCOTUS might decline to hear the case, so it would go back to the 9th Circuit, which struck it down.

Okay then, since you're all here, bring it!

No, it's a delay tactic for those opposed to gay marriage but without the balls to just come out and say it.

State recognition of marriage isn't going to go away in the next couple of decades (at the extreme earliest) so arguing that it needs to be repealed instead of just enforcing the current marriage laws equally as concerns sexual preference is nothing but chaff thrown up to try and slow the progress of marriage equality.

See this is "half the time" part I was talking about.