Discussion for article #226738
Maybe we should refer to the rulings allowing same sex marriage as Scalia rulings.
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It would be nice to know if Scalia is seething over these.
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Scalia will get his chance again and this time Roberts will try to dragoon the court to find that Same sex marriages are illegal. 5-4. The order on the 4th circuit stay telegraphs his stance.
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It’s a nice idea, but I wouldn’t want to give his reputation an unearned boost.
Let history remember him for the far-right bigot he is.
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The only way this would piss him off more is if they misspelled his name to ‘Justice Scaly,’
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A Chief Justice of SCOTUS supposedly weighs each word carefully for posterity. However, I’m waiting for the “Just kidding, it was a joke” walk-back the TeaHadists frequently do when called out. At any rate, Scalia’s popping off comes back to roost.
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Not really.
He referred the request for a stay to the full court, which granted it.
That is no predictor of his stance—it’s just about the stay.
Roberts is very concerned with his image and his legacy.
Ruling against all the circuit and district courts who have struck down all these bans on marriage equality would damage both of those aspects of Roberts tenure.
He’s conservative to be sure—but he’s not stupid, and he’s not doctrinaire about his conservatism.
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I have trust in Justice Kennedy. In all previous gay rights decision he has been on the progressive (or libertarian) side of the argument, and he has authored most of the important decisions, including Lawrence v. Texas. I don’t think that he will reverse himself and his almost 30 years of an impeccable record on gay rights.
And that means that the Four Horsemen are one short of a majority. Here comes another prediction: when it is clear that there is a 5:4 majority for SSM, Chief Justice Roberts will side with the progressive (no matter what his real feelings are) and even exercize his prerogative of assigning the opinion to himself, in order to score one with history; similar to Obamacare.
We shall see.
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Scalia and his approval of sodomy are two things that don’t belong in the same sentence. And that is because of Scalia.
What is the consensus, did he do this on purpose but in veiled Scalia style or did he f-up and this is just karma biting his right-wing ass?
I personally think Scalia’s dissent in Windsor is more prescient when he essentially gives marriage equality proponents the blueprint to strike down these state bans. All the backers have done is substitute “DOMA” for “this state’s law” et voila!
What was it Nancy Pelosi said?
Oh yeah, “Embrace the suck!”
Ha-ha-ha!
Scalia, Hinkle and the rest of the know-nothing bigots can embrace the suck because this country is not going back on LGBT equal rights!
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Scalia can’t be cited as an authority for gay marriage. He castigated the legal logic of the majority in Windsor. What he did was predict that the majority will make the same legal mistakes when a state gay marriage ban reaches the high court. That’s doesn’t make him a supporting authority. Thus all the ellipses in the lower court opinions that quote his dissent.
If the Virginia ruling gets to SCOTUS, I’m pretty sure we’ll find out. 
I live in Florida and am DELIGHTED that this ruling came down today. I am one of the very people that this lawsuit would benefit. I and my husband were married in NY on the very first day that same sex marriage became legal in NY, July 24, 2011 (though we just celebrated our 32nd anniversary in July)… But I am a retired (former NYC public school teacher in the South Bronx) now living in Florida for several years. Here our marriage is not recognized by the state of Florida, and we are obviously concerned to see that change. Thanks to Judge Hinkle, our situation is one step closer to seeing that resolution.
Since moving here, our nearest neighbors, born-again, strict, fundamentalist Christians, have made the slow journey from concern for their children to acceptance, even inviting us now to birthday parties, graduations, and just evenings over to chat for a while. If they can learn that we are not the devil incarnate, so can the rest of RW America.
Our time has come. I look forward to the 2015 SCOTUS ruling that finally settles this civil rights issue once and for all for all gay couples who wish to marry and be treated no differently than anyone else, wherever they live in this great nation.
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Good on the two of you! I wish you luck, love, and many more years together.
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Thanks you, sincerely! But we have had many happy years together, and our wish is for the young men and women coming behind us to be able to share their lives together the way we have – only legally married and recognized as such no matter where in the country they wish to reside.
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He doesn’t actually castigate the majority’s logic; he just dislikes the place that logic leads. It’s as if you disagreed with math on the grounds that following it leads to the conclusion that your checking account is empty. However disagreeable you may find it that you are broke, you don’t get to invent a new math in order to give yourself money.
Scalia is an authority in favor of SSM because he (correctly) pointed out that Windsor would lead inevitably to (gasp!) constitutionally protected SSM. But whereas Scalia found this horrifying, the Circuit judges are finding it merely compelling. Thus Scalia involuntarily becomes one of the fathers of SSM. Hope he’s proud.
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From page 14 of Scalia’s dissent in Windsor:
For the reasons above, I think that this Court has, and the Court of Appeals had, no power to decide this suit. We should vacate the decision below and remand to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, with instructions to dismiss the appeal.
Page 15:
There are many remarkable things about the majority’s merits holding. The first is how rootless and shifting its justifications are.
Page 16:
Equally perplexing are the opinion’s references to “the Constitution’s guarantee of equality.”
Page 22:
As I have said, the real rationale of today’s opinion, whatever disappearing trail of its legalistic argle-bargle one chooses to follow, …
Oh, he definitely castigates the majority’s logic, but only because he doesn’t like where it leads. He pointed out that following that logic will lead to the conclusion that same-sex marriage is constitutionally protected by the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. Federal judges across the country have just been pointing out that Scalia was absolutely correct in this. Once same-sex marriage is seen as an issue of equal protection rather than one of moral outrage, bans against it must be considered unconstitutional.
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