Justice Kennedy blocks gay marriage ruling in Idaho, Nevada

Fox News ^ | 10/8/2014

[HOYA97]

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has temporarily blocked an appeals court ruling that declared gay marriage legal in Idaho and Nevada. The order came minutes after Idaho on Wednesday filed an emergency request for an immediate stay. The state's request said that without a stay, state and county officials would have been required to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples at 10 a.m. EDT. Kennedy's order requested a response from the plaintiffs involved in Idaho's gay marriage lawsuit by the end of day Thursday. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declared gay marriage legal in Idaho and Nevada on Tuesday, a day after the U.S. Supreme Court effectively legalized same-sex marriage in 30 other states.

[EDINVA]

It’s the technicalities that SCOTUS always deals with. Very fine points of law.

What I don’t “get” as a layman is: in the Roberts Obamacare decision he set out that it’s not the job of SCOTUS to counter elections. In other words, we voted for Obama, we voted (collectively) for a Dem House and Senate. So it’s not the Court’s/Courts’/SCOTUS’s job to overturn what the elected officials made law.

BUT in state after state, the one-man/one-woman referenda passed fairly overwhelmingly. When challenged in the court, however, the votes of the peoples of the several states were overturned by one judge, then three judges, perhaps an en banc court, and seemingly on Monday, the SCOTUS. How does that compute?

[Genoa]

Roberts is daft. No one was asking him to counter an election, but to overturn an unconstitutional law. The federal courts find the constitution convenient only when it helps them engineer policy to fit their social views. They’re worthless.

[xzins]

Not in a different article I read. It sounds like Kennedy stayed this only for procedural/implemation reasons. The states were saying they had to start doing this today or tomorrow. Kennedy gives them time. It sounds like an implementation period and not a philosophical or legal issue.

[devolve]

.

- SCOTUS is deliberately and illegally legislating from the bench -

- It is time to start impeaching US Supreme Court Justices - especially Justice Ruth Ginsberg who has publicly declare she does not believe the United States Constitution should be a model for other nations . . .

- She should go and so should any member of the US Congress that would approve of any future justice that B Hussein Ebola Junior intends to out on the US Supreme Court

.

[wagglebee]

Not in a different article I read. It sounds like Kennedy stayed this only for procedural/implementation reasons.

That is unfortunate; however, I have a feeling it would have just gone like the others anyway.

IIRC, Utah was forced to have a constitutional ban on polygamy in order to gain statehood. I wonder if there is any legal basis in this that Utah could use to fight same-sex marriage.

[xzins]

IIRC, the court ruled in Utah a month ago that polygamy is now legal....using the gay precedents.

see: http://www.charismanews.com/us/45199-polygamy-law-unconstitutional-federal-judge-rules

[trisham]

"An ordinance was added which required the consent of the United States, as well as the state, to revoke or alter parts of the constitution. In part: Besides the normal (And previously stated) freedom of religion, polygamy and "plural marriages" are "forever prohibited".

Source: Wikipedia

I guess that it depends on the full wording in the ordinance, but I'm not an attorney, and I don't trust this court.

[ConorMacNessa]

Their responsibility for granting stays is divided by circuits.

[cva66snipe]

How about the fact that gay marriage is not a Federal issue. It’s not in the Constitution and there is no Federal law or regulation saying same sex persons may marry.

Exactly and that should be the USSC ruling. The Constitution defines what is the domain of the federal government and sets it's limits. All the rest of the domain not specified in the Constitution is delegated to the states as it should be. If courts would uphold this it would straighten government out considerably and stop it's overreach and intrusions.

[trisham]

Sorry, xzins. I neglected to ping you:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3212727/posts?page=67#67

[xzins]

see #67

Removing the protection of marriage from women is the most glaring ‘war on women’ in the west that has happened since the fall of the Roman Empire.

Picture this scene which is the expectation of all and the picture of tranquility: “Mother, Father, their children, their home, rearing a family”

In droves, our people, including our women, are deceived into thinking they want to do away with that scene because “people should be allowed to marry the one they love.”

The price tag will be their culture. It will be gone.

[manc]

maybe they are waking up and seeing how homosexuals are taking the first amendment and tenth amendment away.

[ForYourChildren]

“How about the fact that gay marriage is not a Federal issue. It’s not in the Constitution and there is no Federal law or regulation saying .....”

I agree, but that hasn’t stopped FedZilla, President, Congress, Supreme Court, from making it up.. Obamacare is recent case in point.

[ForYourChildren]

Homosexuality is a judgment on America.

This needs to be pointed out consistently - homosexuality will not just bring judgment upon our country; homosexuality IS the judgment. Romans 1:26 starts with “For this reason” and continues “God gave them up to vile passions.” “..men with men committing what is shameful”; so this is a judgment upon our society.

It also continues and says that they give approval to others for more and more evil acts. We see this today with our legislatures accepting homosexual marriages and the teaching of it as acceptable in the schools.

Note also that Romans 1:32 points out that those who approve of such conduct are just as guilty as those who engage in it.

---

Here is what is happening:.....

Hosea 4:6King James Version (KJV)

6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.

---

And therefore....,

Romans 1:21...

21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.

24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: 25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: 27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; 29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, 30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: 32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

---

But, if .....

2 Chronicles 7:14
If my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

---

And this is where we are today.

This country was founded on Christianity. And since we have left that, God is judging us, with all the stuff you see today, this is His judgment.

But He will heal our land and return us, if we are willing to turn back to Him. Until then, anything goes...

[Lurking Libertarian]

I had assumed that Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito were willing to hear the cases and Kennedy blocked them. It now looks like it was Roberts blocking them and not Kennedy.

It takes only four votes, not five, to hear a case (but it takes five votes to win a case). Most court-watchers felt that Scalia, Thomas, Alito (and possibly Roberts) voted not to hear the cases because they feared that, if the Court heard the cases, Kennedy would vote with the four liberals to create a right to gay marriage. The conservatives would rather have gay marriage go into effect in 30 states, without a definitive SCOTUS ruling on the issue, than have a definitive ruling imposing gay marriage in all 50 states.

The four liberals could have voted to hear the case, but they perhaps weren't sure that they would get Kennedy's vote (or Roberts'), and preferred to keep the status quo in effect for a while (because public support for gay marriage seems to be growing).

I wouldn't read too much into Kennedy's grant of a stay here; he granted only a one-day stay until he hears from the other side. When he hears from the other side, he will probably refer the stay motion to the full Court. What the Court does then will tell us much more.

[Morpheus2009]

So filing as married actually costs more, who would have thought! But then the issue of no-fault divorce is pretty deterrent to getting married.

[wagglebee]

You bring up some interesting points.

[OneWingedShark]

I hate to sound like a surrender monkey, but pray for what? For God's blessing on a profligate nation? He would be violating his Character by doing so.
What we are experiencing now IS His judgment. And it will get worse, I believe, before He puts an end to Evil's advance when He comes to rule for a thousand years.

(Jonah 3:10-4:2)
When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.

But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.

(2 Chronicles 7:14)
If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

I don't think it has to get worse, by the first passage we see that it is God's character to be ready to relent from punishing, and from the second we see God promise those called by his name that should they themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways then he will both forgive their sin and heal their land.

I am reminded of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, and how God said for the sake of even ten righteous he would not destroy.

[OneWingedShark]

What I don’t “get” as a layman is: in the Roberts Obamacare decision he set out that it’s not the job of SCOTUS to counter elections. In other words, we voted for Obama, we voted (collectively) for a Dem House and Senate. So it’s not the Court’s/Courts’/SCOTUS’s job to overturn what the elected officials made law BUT in state after state, the one-man/one-woman referenda passed fairly overwhelmingly. When challenged in the court, however, the votes of the peoples of the several states were overturned by one judge, then three judges, perhaps an en banc court, and seemingly on Monday, the SCOTUS. How does that compute?

It's simple — if it pursues their [statist] goals it's settled law, if it hinders it then it needs to be carefully examined.

[Lurking Libertarian]

Update: Justice Kennedy has lifted his stay as to Nevada, but left it in place as to Idaho.

Again, I wouldn't read too much into this: apparently, the Idaho AG was the only one to ask for a stay; Kennedy initially stayed the Ninth Circuit's entire order, bu then realized that Nevada hadn't asked him for a stay.