Lawrence V. Texas

Momentous Day As Supreme Court Chooses To Pass Judgment On Gay Marriage!

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Today has been a very momentous day, as the United States Supreme Court has chosen to accept two cases on gay marriage, one involving the constitutionality of the Defense Of Marriage Act of 1996, and the other the validity of the passage of Proposition 8 in California, banning gay marriage.

This could be the blockbuster case of the present term, when it is decided in late June of 2013, after oral arguments in March.

This matter brings to mind the Loving V Virginia case of 1967, when the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the right of interracial couples to be able to marry, a very controversial and divisive case in the age of the Civil Rights Movement.

It should be pointed out that many Southerners and Christian religious leaders opposed interracial marriage bitterly, but once it was settled by the Supreme Court, the issue was moot.

The same opposition, heavily Southern and religiously based, is now vehemently against gay marriage, but the tides of history are going against a continuation of discrimination.

If gay marriage is accepted by the Court, after already being legal in nine states, no religious group would be required to marry a gay couple, but they could be married civilly by a judge or county clerk, or hire someone who is legally qualified to marry couples.

The belief is strong that the Court will rule at least 5-4, if not 6-3, for gay marriage rights, with the four Democratic appointments to the Court—Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan—voting for the majority, along with Justice Anthony Kennedy, and possibly Chief Justice John Roberts.

Kennedy is the key vote, but since he supported the right of gays to privacy in the Lawrence V. Texas case in 2003, and was, indeed, the decisive fifth vote, it is believed he will take a step further in support of this major step forward.

Roberts is an unknown quantity, but after his surprising vote for ObamaCare in June, it is believed he might join the majority on this significant case.

So now, ten years later, it looks likely that the Court will have evolved further, and the right of anyone to marry who they love will be guaranteed as a basic civil right.

This is basic social justice, and a majority in public opinion polls, and particularly the younger generation, support gay marriage.

No one is saying that there cannot be people who oppose gay marriage, but society does not have the right to use their prejudices and religious views to deny basic human rights to others!

NAACP Endorsement Of Gay Rights And Gay Marriage As Another Civil Rights Struggle: Major Victory!

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The leading, and most reputable, Civil Rights organization in America, the National Association For The Advancement Of Colored People (NAACP), has just endorsed gay rights and gay marriage as equivalent of another civil right, as much as the African American struggle for equality in the 1950s and 1960s.

This is a major victory for gay rights and gay marriage, and will help bring over many African Americans, who because of religious beliefs, have opposed such developments in California, North Carolina, and elsewhere, helping to cause defeats of referendums on the issue of gay marriage.

There were already signs of a beginning of a new attitude among blacks on the topic, and this will only help the progression toward something that will become more and more the norm over time, and in 40 years, we will look back with amazement at the opposition, just as was so with interracial marriage in the 1960s.

The “equal protection” clause of the 14th Amendment was utilized by the NAACP to justify their stand for gay marriage as a civil right.

This is the way that could be utilized in the future by the Supreme Court, and if a case came up in the short term, such as the California case pursued by Ted Olson and David Boies, the Court COULD rule in favor by a vote of 5-4,. assuming that Justice Anthony Kennedy, who made the majority in 2003 for gay privacy rights in Lawrence V. Texas, were to vote the same way.

One could say that Anthony Kennedy’s vote in 2003 had a great effect in spurring the rapid development of the gay rights movement in the intervening nine years from then to now!

So a Supreme Court endorsement of gay marriage could be in the offing sooner, rather than later!

Is It The Kennedy Court, Rather Than The Roberts Court?

Ronald 1 Comment

The more one analyzes the US Supreme Court in recent years, it is more clear than ever that we should call it the Anthony Kennedy Court, rather than the John Roberts Court!

Kennedy, appointed to the Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan in 1988 as a compromise choice who could pass Senate muster, after the well publicized rejection of Robert Bork in 1987, has now been on the Court for 24 years, and is seen more than ever as the “swing vote” on the Court, first sharing that with former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, until her retirement in 2005, but now all by himself as the most significant vote on the Court.

Kennedy, basically a conservative but with an open mind, has leaned to the Right two thirds of the time, and to the Left one third of the time on the average.

It is seen by just about all Court watchers that Kennedy’s vote on the Obama Health Care legislation is crucial, as to whether it survives or goes down.

Kennedy disappointed many on the left in being in the majority on the Bush V. Gore case of 2000, the Citizens United case of 2010, and the Strip Search case of this past Monday. But at the same time, he upheld the rights of gays to privacy in the Lawrence V. Texas case of 2003, enraging fellow Justice Antonin Scalia.

His questioning about the Obama Health Care law last week showed the quandary he is in, and he is getting pressure from many sources to uphold the law, but the belief is that he will not give in to pressure, and might even be tempted to go with the other conservative Justices in overturning the law.

The theory is that IF Kennedy goes with upholding the law, that Chief Justice John Roberts will join him, making it a 6-3 vote, but that if he decides to negate the law, then the vote will be a partisan 5-4 vote against the legislation.

So to call the present Court the Kennedy Court seems very appropriate!

The Republican Attack On The Constitution: A Threat To American Democracy!

Ronald 5 Comments

The Republican Party loves to assert that the Democrats, and progressives in particular, are attacking the Constitution, and that they are the experts on the Constitution.

So therefore, in this Presidential primary season, and in the party membership in Congress, there are statements constantly attacking the court system, anytime that a federal judge or court issues a decision against the conservative view of the Constitution. There are condemnations and calls to change the court system on a regular basis.

One would think that the Democrats and their progressive friends have dominated the courts in recent decades, which, of course, is the exact opposite of the truth!

One forgets that from 1969-2011, there have been only 15 years of Democratic control of the Presidency, as compared to 28 years of Republican control.

The vast majority of federal judges have been Republican appointments, as a result, and Republican Presidents have made a total of 13 Supreme Court appointments over those years, and Democrats have made only 4, two by Bill Clinton and two by Barack Obama!

But now,. Newt Gingrich calls for judges to be required to testify before partisan Congressional committees, a violation of the separation of powers, and a danger to an independent judiciary!

What it comes down to is that Newt Gingrich and all of the Republican opponents, with maybe the exception of Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman, wish to create a court system that would move away from the path breaking changes that the Supreme Court brought about during the years of the Warren Court, Burger Court, and Rehnquist Court including:

Brown V. Board Of Education
Miranda V Arizona
Roe V Wade
University Of California V. Bakke
Lawrence V Texas

As it is, there are threats presented by the Republican growth of dominance on the federal courts to all of these issues–racial integration, rights of criminal suspects, abortion rights, affirmative action, and gay rights.

The Republicans will not be contented until there are reversals on all of these issues, and a return to the “good old days”, when minorities “knew their place”; police had unlimited rights over those they questioned or arrested; women had no control over their reproductive rights; minorities and women had disadvantages, as compared to white males, on educational and job opportunities; and gays were forced to remain “in the closet” and face open discrimination and hate without recourse!

So when the Republicans claim to understand what the Founding Fathers meant at the Constitutional Convention, they are forgetting that those esteemed leaders put into the Constitution the “Elastic Clause” to allow for expansion of the Constitution beyond the original document, in order to make the Constitution a “living document” adaptable to changing times.

The real threat is not what the federal courts have done in the past sixty years! It is the attempt of conservatives and the Republican Party to negate the great progress brought about the Supreme Court and lower courts in the past sixty years, and revert back to the years after World War II, when all of these great changes started slowly to evolve through courageous judges and Supreme Court Justices, including Earl Warren, William Brennan, Hugo Black, William O. Douglas, Thurgood Marshall, Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O’Connor, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

Gay Marriage And The Supreme Court: Anthony Kennedy The Crucial Vote!

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In 1967, the US Supreme Court issued a decision in Loving V. Virginia, declaring interracial marriage constitutional. At the time, there was still widespread feeling among the American people, particularly whites, that interracial marriage should not be allowed, with three out of four in a 1968 poll so declaring. And nearly the same percentage, 73 percent, of all races felt the same way in 1968.

It is clear, also, that a majority of people, particularly whites, were not supportive of the Supreme Court decision in 1954, Brown V. Board of Education, which mandated the end of segregation of the races in public education.

Often, the Supreme Court is ahead of the country in formulating change, and of course, conservatives resent that. But without the Court intervening, progress would be slower or completely halted.

Therefore, with the decision of New York State to allow gay marriage, it is time for gay rights advocates to bring a case to the higher court!

But, of course, there is fear that the conservative Court would rule against it, but that is seen as highly unlikely.

No one can be sure how Justices would vote, but even if one considers that Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Chief Justice John Roberts might vote against, the odds are that Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Stephen Breyer, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg would vote in favor.

That leaves Justice Anthony Kennedy, the true centrist on the Court, who more often votes with the conservatives, but often sides with the liberals. And when one considers that Kennedy was the decisive vote in Lawrence V. Texas in 2003, granting privacy rights to gay couples, one has hope that he would continue to support gay rights, including marriage.

Kennedy also supported the rights of gays to stop being treated as a group deserving discrimination in the Colorado Constitution in Romer V. Evans in 1996, and also in a Circuit Court case in 1980, he showed concern about mistreatment of gays.

The timing is crucial, as Ruth Bader Ginsberg may leave the Court soon, and in the next term in office, if a Republican won the White House, both Ginsberg and Kennedy might be replaced, based on their ages, and the opportunity for a Supreme Court decision in favor of gay marriage might have passed!

And remember, unlike interracial marriage, a majority of Americans in a recent poll support the concept of gay marriage, a massive switch from just a few years ago!

So bring on a Supreme Court case and soon!

Rick Santorum: An Embarrassment And A Fool Of A Candidate For President!

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The Republican Party has a group of Presidential or probable Presidential candidates who are embarrassments and fools at the same time, and anyone who is rational, knows who they are: Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum!

All have made unbelievable statements based on nothing but ignorance and propaganda, and all are expecting the nation to consider them seriously for President, with any of the four being a total disaster were they to seize control of the party apparatus for the 2012 election!

The latest blunder is that of Santorum, who already has a horrible reputation as a “holier than thou” social conservative, who is seen as the biggest of all enemies of the gay community since the Lawrence V. Texas Supreme Court decision, and has had the misfortune of a gay activist, Dan Savage, spreading a new meaning of his last name, referring to anal sex.

As a family values candidate, however, Santorum has the responsibility to be accurate in his statements, and he is, instead, reckless in his assertions.

His newest error of many is his assertion that June 6, 1944, the day of the D Day invasion at Normandy, France, which led to the end of World War II in Europe within a year, was based on fighting for freedom, which includes the defeat of “ObamaCare”!

What an outrage, and a sign of yet ANOTHER GOP candidate for President who is ignorant or reckless with American history, joining Palin, Bachmann, and Gingrich!

It is sad that every time Santorum opens his mouth, stupidity and ignorance show through, and he has no shame in any of the rhetoric he utters!

The battle for the Republican Presidential nomination is going to be a long, difficult road with many outrages ahead until maybe sanity rules by early to mid 2012, instead of the four fools mentioned above!

The Obama Health Care Legislation Under Attack! It Could Stand Or Fall On Justice Anthony Kennedy’s Decision! :(

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The Obama Health Care legislation has come under severe attack from federal district court judges in Virginia and now Florida, with the Florida judge declaring the entire act unconstitutional! 🙁

26 states have petitioned the courts to undermine the legislation, and the purpose seems to be to destroy the entire law, even the parts that any sane person would support, such as keeping children on to age 26, ending a lifetime ban on coverage over a set amount, allowing a company to drop coverage once someone becomes sick, and preventing coverage for the millions of people with pre-existing conditions!

To think that a piece of legislation could be negated by a body of unelected, unaccountable judges, instead of an elected body of legislators is, to say the least, very disconcerting! 🙁

It is now obvious that the legislation will come up for review by the Supreme Court during the election campaign of 2012. And it is assumed that Justices Scalia, Alito, Thomas and Chief Justice Roberts will vote against it, and that Justices Ginsberg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan will support it, leaving Justice Kennedy with the swing vote, as is often the case.

Years ago, conservatives complained that the Supreme Court is really the Kennedy Court, as his vote decided most cases by a 5-4 vote, and there was anger when Kennedy went with the liberals on the court on several cases, including Lawrence V. Texas, the gay rights case in 2003.

However, in recent years, Kennedy has more often joined the conservative side than the liberal side, so indeed the future of the health care law may hang on what he, a singular human being, determines is constitutional! 🙁