1. The Court may announce on Monday that there are additional cases that it has decided to review. There are a number of reasons that the Court may not have felt ready to announce what it is doing today. It could be that the justices needed additional time to craft the language of the order or orders in one or more cases they have decided to hear. (For example, the Court can rewrite the questions they want the parties to address in the case or cases in which they have granted review from the way the parties phrased them in their petitions seeking review.)posted by ericb at 2:20 PM on November 30, 2012 [1 favorite]
2. The Court may announce on Monday some cases it has decided not to review. That might include one or more of the DOMA cases, Perry, or Diaz. Alternatively, the Court could wait to announce anything about any of these cases until the justices are ready to announce what action they have decided to take regarding all of them.
3. The Court may have decided that it needed to discuss the cases further before they can reach their decisions about which cases to hear. The Court's next scheduled conference is next Friday, December 7th. So, it may be that we will all be repeatedly hitting refresh again then (and keeping the dog waiting to be walked) to see if there are orders issued regarding these cases that day.*
"In a ruling in Sevcik v. Sandoval made public late yesterday, Judge Robert C. Jones, a George W. Bush appointee, found Nevada's laws limiting marriage to two people of the opposite sex are Constitutional. Among Jones's reasons for the ruling are that gay people are not able to procreate, they are not a politically powerless class, and that gay people having the freedom to marry would actually scare straight couples from entering the institution."posted by ericb at 2:23 PM on November 30, 2012
Today’s opinion dismantles the structure of constitutional law that has permitted a distinction to be made between heterosexual and homosexual unions, insofar as formal recognition in marriage is concerned. If moral disapprobation of homosexual conduct is “no legitimate state interest” for purposes of proscribing that conduct, ante, at 18; and if, as the Court coos (casting aside all pretense of neutrality), “[w]hen sexuality finds overt expression in intimate conduct with another person, the conduct can be but one element in a personal bond that is more enduring,” ante, at 6; what justification could there possibly be for denying the benefits of marriage to homosexual couples exercising “[t]he liberty protected by the Constitution,” ibid.? Surely not the encouragement of procreation, since the sterile and the elderly are allowed to marry.posted by kirkaracha at 7:30 PM on November 30, 2012 [3 favorites]
I don't think the case has yet been made that federal non-recognition of gay marriage rights has a ($$) materially discriminatory aspect to it, in terms of quality-of-survivor's life.Are you joking?
"Filing joint income tax returns with the IRS and state taxing authorities.posted by ericb at 10:25 AM on December 1, 2012 [6 favorites]
Creating a 'family partnership' under federal tax laws, which allows you to divide business income among family members.
Inheriting a share of your spouse's estate.
Receiving an exemption from both estate taxes and gift taxes for all property you give or leave to your spouse.
Creating life estate trusts that are restricted to married couples, including QTIP trusts, QDOT trusts, and marital deduction trusts.
Obtaining priority if a conservator needs to be appointed for your spouse -- that is, someone to make financial and/or medical decisions on your spouse’s behalf.
Receiving Social Security, Medicare, and disability benefits for spouses.
Receiving veterans' and military benefits for spouses, such as those for education, medical care, or special loans.
Receiving public assistance benefits.
Obtaining insurance benefits through a spouse's employer.
Taking family leave to care for your spouse during an illness.
Receiving wages, workers' compensation, and retirement plan benefits for a deceased spouse.
Taking bereavement leave if your spouse or one of your spouse’s close relatives dies.
Visiting your spouse in a hospital intensive care unit or during restricted visiting hours in other parts of a medical facility.
Making medical decisions for your spouse if he or she becomes incapacitated and unable to express wishes for treatment.
Consenting to after-death examinations and procedures.
Making burial or other final arrangements.
Filing for stepparent or joint adoption.
Applying for joint foster care rights.
Receiving equitable division of property if you divorce.
Receiving spousal or child support, child custody, and visitation if you divorce.
Living in neighborhoods zoned for 'families only.'
Automatically renewing leases signed by your spouse.
Receiving family rates for health, homeowners', auto, and other types of insurance.
Receiving tuition discounts and permission to use school facilities.
Other consumer discounts and incentives offered only to married couples or families.
Suing a third person for wrongful death of your spouse and loss of consortium (loss of intimacy).
Suing a third person for offenses that interfere with the success of your marriage, such as alienation of affection and criminal conversation (these laws are available in only a few states).
Claiming the marital communications privilege, which means a court can’t force you to disclose the contents of confidential communications between you and your spouse during your marriage.
Receiving crime victims' recovery benefits if your spouse is the victim of a crime.
Obtaining immigration and residency benefits for noncitizen spouse.
I very strongly believe it is none of the government's business.The Supreme Court's response is going to be "your belief is not reasonable in light of the previous 200 years of case law that has developed the implied right to privacy and the grounding in English common law before that."
With respect, this is not my position.Bluh?
which, as I stated, statistically aligns most of the time with that person's sexThat's all it takes. The rest of your stuff is just irrelevant to real-world law. It's like your hair color: the government doesn't need a practical reason to "officially document every citizen's" hair color. Nor does it need one for sex. Nor does it do either of those things! But if you can just look at a person and say "his hair is brown," then your plan to get a law struck down by saying "my hair color is PRIVATE" is not going to fly because it is not, in any sort of practical sense of the word, actually private. Even if some people dye their hair, or people with auburn hair get unfairly lumped in with brown, or whatever.
In general, one cannot have a reasonable expectation of privacy in things held out to the public. A well-known example is that there are no privacy rights in garbage left for collection in a public place.[2] Other examples include:[dubious – discuss] account records held by the bank, a person's physical characteristics (including blood, hair, fingerprints, fingernails and the sound of your voice)Physical sex is absolutely something "held out to the public," and your objection that "sometimes people are wrong about it" does not change that fact. You can not just walk into the SCOTUS - or any court - and say "change this! Because I think it should be different!" It just don't work.
The DOMA case asks the justices to strike down the federal law that dictates which marriages are valid. Even better for supporters of same-sex marriage: Of the several DOMA cases the court could have taken, it decided on Windsor v. United States, in which plaintiff Edith Windsor was unable to claim an estate-tax deduction after her female partner died. Between striking down part of a heavy-handed federal statute and helping someone get a tax cut, it's the kind of same-sex marriage case even a conservative justice could love. Most importantly, from the point of view of getting the requisite five votes, striking down DOMA would not prevent states from banning same-sex marriage.posted by zombieflanders at 2:47 PM on December 7, 2012
The Prop. 8 case argues something much broader, however: It claims there is a fundamental right to same-sex marriage in the Constitution, and that any attempt to ban same-sex marriage violates the 14th Amendment. The Ninth Circuit's ruling was written so narrowly that if the Supreme Court had decided not to take the case, then the Ninth Circuit's decision would have affirmed the rights of same-sex couples in California alone. But if SCOTUS were to affirm the constitutionality of California's ban on same-sex marriage, the ruling could well apply to any such law nationwide.
[...]
Still, [Kennedy and Roberts] are conservative by nature, and up until November no state had recognized same-sex marriage rights by popular vote. Roberts and Kennedy could well prove sympathetic to conservative arguments that finding a right of same-sex couples to be free of discrimination amounts to "forcing" same-sex marriage on everyone else. It seems entirely possible that the court could side with marriage equality in the DOMA case while rejecting the argument that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry the person they love.
On the other hand, both justices have to know that the country is starting to lean towards marriage equality, so they may be disinclined to issue a broad ruling in either direction. (According to SCOTUSBlog's Lyle Denniston, the court has potential exit strategies in both cases—it could avoid any major decisions by ruling on legal technicalities.) Even in the worst-case scenario, public opinion is trending quickly enough that any setback, no matter how painful, would probably be temporary.
"If he rules against gay rights now, how is Roberts going to feel about the overturning of this precedent later—or having it overturned while he is still on the Court as Chief? That’s not to say public opinion is the only factor here. But the Supreme Court has previously held that marriage is a fundamental right, and sexual orientation, especially when viewed from today’s perspective, meets all the requirements for heightened constitutional scrutiny."posted by ericb at 2:22 PM on December 11, 2012
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posted by elizardbits at 1:20 PM on November 30, 2012 [19 favorites]