Blogs Mar 26, 2013 at 8:26 am

Comments

1
I'd be upset if I got a seat behind a column. On the bright side, it's like being a person who is blind, one's sense of hearing/listening is elevated. We could all use a little bit of that, no?
2
Just so that I'm reading and interpreting correctly, that's bad news right? (the 3:12 one that is.) Also, how/why would it display as posting at 3:12? GMT or something?
3
OK -- from the twitter account even more recently...

"Arguments done. #scotus wonโ€™t uphold or strike down #prop8 bc Kennedy thinks it is too soon to rule on #ssm. #prop8 will stay invalidated."

I'm still confused. If prop 8 is "invalidated" that would seem to be a ruling in our favor, yes? Gosh, I'm easily confused.
4
And again Kennedy proves true the widely held belief that he is the intellectual lightweight of the court.
5
Yeah, what the hell time zone are they in? Oh, wait, it's Dan that's in the other timezone -- somewhere in Yerrup.
6
Kennedy appears to be strongly attacking Prop 8. This is really good news. I expect to be listening to "America, Fuck Yeah!" in June.
7
Uhhh. Old people are old.
8
So whats happening here is SCOTUS is basically saying they are not willing to rule on it. They are not going to lend their power to the decision of the 9th Circuit. They are not going to say that same sex marriage should be the law of the land. They are just saying that they will not interfere with the 9th Cir. decision to invalidate California's Prop 8. So, all other state's with laws against same sex marriage can keep on discriminating. It's status quo. And thats a loss. Or, if you think there is some greater worth in having state's slowly come around, then maybe you think this is a win. People often cite Roe v. Wade's backlash for this argument. Other people, who argue that abortion and gay marriage are totally different things and a judicial headlock would not have the same backlash, will probably call this a lost opportunity. Whatever. Progress is still moving in one direction. One old white man isn't going to change that.
9
...Cue the closing theme to Merrie Melodies / Looney Toons.
10
Looks like Kennedy won't take the opportunity to go down as a hero in history.
11
My two cents: We're either going to get another intellectually incoherent Romer-esque decision (striking down Prop 8 but not making marriage equality the law of the land), or a much more sensible decision dismissing the appeal on standing grounds (which would functionally invalidate Prop 8 but, again, not making a national ruling on marriage equality).
12
@3 Prop 8 has already been invalidated by the 9th Circuit. This case in front of the Supremes is to overturn the 9th Circuit's ruling. The burden of the case is on the appellants. If the Court doesn't overrule, it stays invalidated. Basically, they can simply deny the appeal, without saying much else. That ends the stay of the 9th Circuit's decision and same sex marriage can resume in California.

On the other hand, if they were to actually write an opinion in support of the lower court and the 9th Circuit's reasoning, that could set national law.
13
They'll punt. They do not have the political courage for sweeping change, and have no will to upset the wingnut base.
14
Here's Tom Goldstein's (the founder of SCOTUSblog) wrap up of where things stand:

The Proposition 8 Oral Argument.
15
Here is an expanded opinion of the Scotusblog tweets:
http://www.scotusblog.com/2013/03/the-pr…

Basically he thinks that either SCOTUS will find they have no standing, which invalidates the 9th circuit decision, but lets the lower court's decision stand. Pretty wishy washy, but it would basically repeal Prop 8, unless somebody with standing chooses to appeal, and the Supreme Court agrees to hear it. OR... They could choose to stay divided, and not rule. This would leave the 9th circuit decision valid, which would be better, because that would end the appeal process for this case. Either way, SSM would become legal in California, but it would have little to no impact on any other state.

Baby step forward from our divided and cowardly SCOTUS.
16
Aha, thanks guys. Actually got it. Except for why the tweets are timestamped from the future. It's not even Dan retweeting from Europe, but rather those taken directly from SCOTUS blog. Though I suppose some things are destined to remain a mystery.
17
@16 GMT
18
So sad to see our Supreme Court kicking the can down the road.

On the bright side, with the huge shifts in support over the last 10 years, this was likely the last time the haters had any chance of winning this argument.

While it wasn't the best call, it wasn't the worst.
19
@8,

Marriage equality being the law in the land in the country's largest state is nothing to sneeze at.
20
@16, @17 -- the time displayed is the time of the person who took the screenshot, not the tweeter. When I look at the exact same tweets, I see PDT, not GMT.
21
No way to tell. Oral arguments and questions are poor indicators of how the justices will rule.

They usually spend months writing their opinion but decide quickly. Now is the time for anyone who is LGBT who knows someone who knows one of the justices (one degree of separation max) to personally tell them how important this is, especially for closeted relatives / people like cousins, nephews, nieces whom they know personally but don't normally talk about relationships too much.

You can bet your life the homophobic Catholic friends of Scalia and Thomas are giving them an earful. SCOTUS decisions are mostly about personal beliefs and biases. Lots of scholarly research shows that's true of most judges, while it's supposed to about law, that's not how the human mind works.
22
@16, 17 (inspired by Fnarf), if you hover your cursor over the date/time (which, WHO KNEW?, is a link), it tells you the time zone. I see GMT time myself, which is about 11am local time (Eastern Time zone).
23
I'm with 21. No one knows for sure based on the questions asked. We won't know until June, for both cases.

Please wait...

Comments are closed.

Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.


Add a comment
Preview

By posting this comment, you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.