Posted on 02/09/2015 5:32:33 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
If there was any doubt left, Justice Clarence Thomas ended it on Monday morning.
The United States Supreme Court will end discrimination against same-sex couples this June — and even justices who oppose the coming decision appear to know it’s going to happen.
On Monday morning, Justice Clarence Thomas made explicit what had been growing apparent to observers for months: The court — at least a majority of the justices — has made up its mind on the issue of whether the U.S. Constitution bars states from treating same-sex couples differently than opposite-sex couples in marriage laws.
In denying the Alabama attorney general’s request to keep a U.S. district court order that strikes down Alabama’s ban on same-sex couples’ marriages on hold while the state appeals, the Supreme Court — even as it considers marriage cases out of four other states — made it clear that the justices will not stop same-sex couples from marrying in the meantime when a judge strikes down a ban.
The cases the Supreme Court has agreed to hear — Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee — come out of the one federal appeals court that said bans on marriages for same-sex couples are constitutional.
Since October 2014, when the justices decided not to hear cases from five states where the appeals courts had struck down the bans as unconstitutional, the justices have denied requests to keep marriage rulings on hold during appeals.
Court observers, including BuzzFeed News, see these decisions as a signal of the court’s direction. But the court had given no reason for denying the stay requests — leaving people guessing.
Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange’s request, however, was the first stay application to reach the justices since they had agreed to hear the cases out of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. Some — including Strange and Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley — had hoped the court would treat stay requests differently now that it had taken up the issue.
On Monday morning, though, the court denied the request. Just by itself, the move would have been the strongest statement yet about where the court is headed on the ultimate question.
But Thomas brought the issue out into the open. He issued a statement, in which he was joined by Justice Antonin Scalia, explaining why they would have granted a stay to Alabama — the first word from a justice suggesting the expected end result in the matter.
In the short, three-page statement, Thomas criticized the court for “look[ing] the other way as yet another Federal District Judge casts aside state laws without making any effort to preserve the status quo pending the Court’s resolution of a constitutional question it left open in United States v. Windsor,” the 2013 decision striking down the Defense of Marriage Act’s ban on federal recognition of same-sex couples’ marriages.
“This acquiescence may well be seen as a signal of the Court’s intended resolution of that question,” he wrote, referring to the question of whether bans on marriage for same-sex couples are constitutional. “This is not the proper way to discharge our Article III responsibilities. And, it is indecorous for this Court to pretend that it is.”
The Supreme Court is expected to hear oral arguments in the Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee cases in late April, with a decision expected by late June.
Given Thomas’ dissent today, the only real question left outstanding is where Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito will end up on the ultimate question. Although both dissented in the Windsor DOMA decision, neither has joined Thomas and Scalia in saying publicly that they would have granted any of the recent stay requests.
It looks like June will be designated as homosexual “marriage” month.
Fabulous . . .
People who don’t support are already being targeted with job loss and marginalization.
That’s pathetic.
Acceptance should be a 360 degree proposition but to the activists who want gay marriage, it is not.....
That sound you hear is divorce lawyers popping the corks on champagne bottles.
Gay marriage is not the right thing to do. The Supreme Court has NO authority over the age-old institution of marriage.
Women that have penis envy and vice versa...yeah they’re normal folks alright
If this does not cause the American people to stand up and tell the court to go to hell, the republic is finished.
A lawyer has the right of refusal of clients/cases but a photographer can be forced to attend a same sex wedding ceremony to document it for the couple.
The law is a ass.
It's Pervert Unions.
I'll bet that changes now.
It’s nothing less than the abolition of marriage.
Totalitarians want the State to be the only organization, the only institution.
When the USSC does this, it will be just another battle won, by the totalitarian U.S. Government, against the American people, American society, and civilization.
The U.S. Government is no less totalitarian than the governments of Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, and the Kims. The only difference is that it’s still “nicer” in a superficial way. But the death toll is 58 million and climbing.
One male sticking his penis into another male’s anal canal is the height of intellectual achievement.
All states have to do is completely disregard ANY federal rulings (and that includes SCOTUS) striking down constitutional amendments - constitutional amendments overwhelmingly voted in favor of by the majority of the people - defining marriage in their respective state.
The line in the sand has to be drawn. If homosexual marriage is implemented by fiat by federal judges who are more influenced by popular culture and the media than they are about upholding the Constitution, who have no jurisdiction over state matters per the 10th Amendment, then Marxist tyranny has begun and we officially are no longer a representative Republic.
There simply is no such thing as homosexual marriage, it was never about equality or love, stop calling it same-sex or even gay marriage FReepers, stop accepting the leftist premise. It is all about the destruction of traditional marriage, values, families, and religious institutions.
Its not real marriage, never will be. After an initial rush, few of the 2% that you barely see outside of major cities will do it.
Romans 1:25+
“and because of this, God gave them over”
Because of what?
Gave them over to what?
Never had anyone explain satisfactorily the “gay” part of anal sodomy!
This country is moving into the “Dark Ages”
I’m glad God’s opinion is always going to be the one that matters. They’ll never be married, regardless of what piece of paper they get from a power or principality.
God is a majority of one.
The divorce lawyers are salivating.
The average homo liaison lasts about 2 days.
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14a493_2c83.pdf
With all due respect to Justices Thomas and Scalia, why did they not mention the following in their statement? Since the states have never amended the Constitution to expressly protect gay marriage, the states are free to make 10th Amendment-laws to prohibit constitutionally unprotected gay marriage imo, as long as such laws don’t also unreasonably abridge constitutionally enumerated protections.
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