LGBT News U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments on marriage equality

They ought to watch all of the coverage of the same sex marriage debates from the UK parliament. It might save a lot of time and effort. They seem to be recycling points already made elsewhere in the world.

 

I love Winston Churchill's quote as it applies to this:

And yes, they could definitely learn from the other countries, including my own, on how innocuous, how completely neutral and inconsequential same-sex marriage has been to the societies that have legalized it. But that would be "un-American", it would not be in line with America's deeply felt exceptionalism.

 

Yeah, there really are no new arguments. This debate has been going on so long that its the same old arguments being recycled over and over.

That's why there really is no excuse for her weak performance. Every question was a predictable question. Had she been properly prepared for this case, she should have been able to refute all of those points. Easily. It should have been like muscle memory--it should have just been automatic. She should have practiced so much that it should have been boring.

I think a huge part of it was just that she experienced anxiety. She was definitely nervous. Arguing a case before the SCOTUS is a big fucking deal, especially when its a major case with a lot riding on it like this, which makes her anxiety understandable. However, that was also predictable, and why she should have practiced even harder.

Thankfully, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli did a better job. He was obviously nervous as well, but he was able to go back and hit on a few major points that she just left hanging out there. Like why waiting causes harm to gay couples and families. Unfortunately, he didn't have enough time to try and fix everything.

But seriously, every time a Justice opened their mouth in opposition, it should just have been POW! Argument Shot Down. It should have been boring and reflexive.

The good news is that they usually say that you don't win cases before the Supreme Court during Oral Arguments -- you only lose them. Pretty much every Justice has already made up their mind on this issue, obviously. The Oral Arguments were important, at least in my mind, in determining how favorable the ruling will be to us.

Unfortunately, I think we are going to win, but we are going to end up with another one of Kennedy's wishy-washy rulings. Instead of something firm and decisive, we are going to have to keep going back to the SCOTUS for every little thing. The SCOTUS really did not want to touch this, which is why they ruled the way they did in Windsor, and that meant they really needed to pin the Justices to the wall during oral arguments--giving them no room except to go big. They failed to do that.

So, I have little doubt that we will have gay marriage nationwide, but I don't think we're going to get as strong of a ruling as we could have with a more aggressive and assertive argument.

 

^I tend to agree with you Aldrick, they are going to weasel out of something strong and decisive, I also think they they will decide favourably, but this will not settle all the other issues that will be left dangling.

I think that part of their reluctance is also a possible resentment that this could not be solved at the political level. It appears that Washington gridlock almost obliges important questions like these to be settled with court rulings based on the constitution rather than through the usual political sausage-making.

But the courts must do what they do, and several important social advances were made by them in the past, such as desegregation. I can see how this gives politicians cover...it just seems to me, an outsider, that it's all patchwork and duct-tape, and the courts often get it wrong, such as their decisions on Citizen's United or reversing the civil rights laws.

 

Given our history in past decisions how could it be elsewise. The Supreme Court is suppose to judge law not, create it. This is why we're still debating so many issues that should have been resolved long ago. :bang: