Sometimes your principles (even bullshit ones) cost you something. That's kind of what makes them principles to begin with.

I don't know Dan. Not allowing student groups to be bigots with funds from an organization which bans discrimination seems pretty straight-forward. The fact the court was so split over it means that (a) I don't know enough about the particulars of the case or (b) there's not as much hope in this Court as this ruling might suggest. Probably both.

They are free to practice their religion. That does not mean everybody else must support their beliefs and finance them. This is a good example of religionists thinking that everybody else must believe the same way they do. And it goes a long way protecting those of us who find their beliefs repugnant.

Dan,
Do you really want a break from the internet? You've done 5 posts today 3 in the past half hour.

Reread the dissent, and then hope that the next Justice goes with the majority.

Alito and pals basically said that they didn't think that excluding gay people simply for being gay was discrimination, since the CLS had a policy statement that members had to agree that marriage was between a man and a woman and homosexuality was wrong.

So it's not discrimination if we have a policy stating we don't like you. And you're discriminating against us if you call us on it.

Let's hope they don't end up in the majority.

It's just depressing how the SC splits along liberal/conservative lines so consistently. Aren't there other factors at work in their deliberations? Like, oh, I don't know, reason? Logic? Legal precedent? Compassion? When a judge makes decisions along partisan lines so often, it really makes a mockery of the idea of "impartial" justice. It's just a lot of fancy language dressing up prejudice.

Justice Kennedy has been pretty strong on gay rights -- he wrote the majority opinions striking down Colorado's draconian anti-gay initiative (Romer v. Evans) as well as state sodomy laws (Lawrence v. Texas). In both cases, the decisions carefully avoided trying to decide if sexual orientation is a suspect class worthy of the highest levels of scrutiny and judicial protections. That doesn't really mean anything alarming: courts are usually cautious about deciding things on a stricter standard when a lesser is available. In the case on the Colorado initiative, they ruled that it was enacted solely out of prejudice, which doesn't meet even the loosest standards (rational basis). And the sodomy laws violated privacy and equal protection.

But when it comes to marriage equality, they may have to decide whether LGBTs are a suspect or quasi-suspect class requiring higher degrees of scrutiny and protection. If they do, we probably win. If they do not, the defendants only have to show that there is a rational basis for the law, something other than just prejudice. Plaintiffs are trying to show that it was solely prejudice, nothing else. But in other jurisdictions, courts have found a a rational basis for some flimsy reasons. In New York, for example, the courts ruled that because straight couples can accidentally have children but same-sex couples have to plan for them (not necessarily true), same-sex couples seeking children are already more stable than opposite-sex couples who might accidentally get pregnant. Pretty flimsy, but the bar for "rational basis" is pretty low.

Kennedy is still currently the swing vote. I'm still praying for an unexpected retirement from Roberts, Thomas, Scalia, and/or Alito (in that order).

I always thought it belonged in the courts because you do not put someone's civil rights and privileges up for a popular vote! It is not something any other citizen should be able to grant or prohibit.

If we granted civil rights by referendum, African-Americans (I'm pretty sure about this) would still have to ride in the back of the bus in some places.

The public is very, very slow to change. It takes decades. Marriage equality belongs in the courts, period.

Check out footnote 3 from Stevens' concurrence. He will be sorely missed.

"3 In a case about an antidiscrimination policy that, even if ill-advised, is explicitly directed at preventing religious discrimination, it is rather hard to swallow the dissent’s ominous closing remarks. See post, at 37 (suggesting that today’s decision “point[s] a judicial dagger at the heartof” religious groups in the United States (internal quotation marksomitted)). Although the dissent is willing to see pernicious antireligious motives and implications where there are none, it does not seem troubled by the fact that religious sects, unfortunately, are not the only social groups who have been persecuted throughout history simply for being who they are."

I know it sucks to have to wait for marriage equity, but I don't think the courts are the right place for this.

Roe v. Wade has been helping the GOP for 30 years. A supreme court ruling for same-sex marriage would be a boon to Republican candidates in most of the country.