Posted on 03/26/2013 3:34:35 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Supreme Court justices signaled on Tuesday that they are reluctant to embrace a broad ruling finding a fundamental right to marriage for gays and lesbians across the United States.
As sign-waving demonstrators massed outside, the court completed more than an hour of oral argument on whether to let stand a California ban on same-sex marriage without indicating a clear path forward.
Swing vote Justice Anthony Kennedy raised concerns about the court entering "uncharted waters" on an issue that divides the states.
Kennedy even raised the prospect of the court dismissing the case, a relatively unusual move that would leave intact a federal Appeals Court ruling that struck down the law, known as Proposition 8.
In a similar vein, Justice Samuel Alito also urged caution, noting that gay marriage as a concept is "newer than cellphones and the Internet."
None of the justices indicated support for the Obama administration's favored solution, which would strike down Proposition 8 and require the other eight states that already recognize civil unions or domestic partnerships to allow gays and lesbians to marry.
Earlier in the argument, the justices probed lawyers on both sides on the technical issue of whether California opponents of gay marriage had a right to be heard in federal court.
Although there was no apparent consensus on that point, if the court were to find the proponents did not have standing it would not reach the merits and then the federal District Court ruling that struck down Proposition 8 would be left intact.
U.S. citizens in general do not have a right to sue to enforce laws they favor. Chief Justice John Roberts pressed lawyer Charles Cooper, who represents gay marriage opponents, on why his clients are any different as they seek to enforce Proposition 8.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
See also here:
Early Indications: SCOTUS to Punt on Gay Marriage?
EXCERPT:
First, a majority (the Chief Justice plus the liberal members of the Court) could decide that the petitioners lack standing. That would vacate the Ninth Circuit’s decision but leave in place the district court decision invalidating Proposition 8. Another case with different petitioners (perhaps a government official who did not want to administer a same-sex marriage) could come to the Supreme Court within two to three years, if the Justices were willing to hear it. Second, the Court may dismiss the case because of an inability to reach a majority. Justice Kennedy takes that view, and Justice Sotomayor indicated that she might join him. Others on the left may agree. That ruling would leave in place the Ninth Circuit’s decision. The upshot of either scenario is a modest step forward for gay rights advocates, but not a dramatic one.
In other words, the Court could find several avenues to avoid upholding California’s “Prop 8,” while also declining to explicitly strike it down. If the justices venture down either of these paths, then vote to strike down the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act — which many people now anticipate — the issue of gay marriage would fall to the states. Former federal judge Michael McConnell, an esteemed conservative, sketched out this very scenario in the Wall Street Journal last week:
Even though the stage seems set for a momentous ruling by the court, the litigation actually offers the justices a golden opportunity to resolve these cases without setting a precedent either way, and to reaffirm the ideal of democratic, decentralized decision-making...If the court dismisses the Proposition 8 case on standing grounds and strikes DOMA down on federalism grounds, the combined effect would be to reaffirm America’s democratic, decentralized decision-making process without imposing an answer—one way or the other—to the same-sex marriage question. By taking such a path, the court would be spared from imposing a single nationwide definition of marriage as a matter of constitutional law, and from having to rule, for all time, that there is or is not a constitutional right to same-sex marriage—a momentous step that some justices might be reluctant to take. It would leave the issue to the states, at least for the time being. This course might appeal to centrist justices like Anthony Kennedy, John Roberts and Stephen Breyer—and perhaps could even command a unanimous court, which would have a welcome calming influence on the nation’s culture wars. Considerations of these sorts have long been part of the virtue of judicial modesty, too often undervalued by partisans on both sides. In this instance, modesty requires no more than that the justices follow the technicalities of the law.
You realize that if that beauty were from Thailand, you can’t be sure that it’s a she or a he.... :)
It’s working for me! As they say, “Adam and Eve, NOT Adam and Steve”!
I find that interesting in that they had no such problem with Roe v Wade.
If this is what happens, we have to somehow make the state bans on this joke permanent.
I love their food, but I’ll take my women from European descent(sp?).
The faggotization of America is jaw dropping.
Am I geting this right:
If the voters of a state overwhelmingly pass a proposition, opponents of that proposition can oppose it and they have standing to go to a court where the judge has a conflict of interest but nonetheless overturns the vote of the people. Yet, if an elected official, say a state’s Attorney General, refuses to do his/her job to support the result of the people’s vote, then the people themselves have no standing? Is that about right?
I’ve decided it’s my mission to post hot chicks on every news story pertaining to faggots. I must or I’ll f***ing snap!
The ruling will be irrelevant as the voters of California would likely abolish Prop 8 in a future referendum.
hoosexuality is a mental illness pure and simple.
How a guy can not get turned on by wmen but instead gets turned on by a mans feces and ass is sick
How a woman can not get turned on by men but instead gets another woman who acts like a man and then put a plastic strap on dildon and then act like a guy in bed is pure sick
I’m a woman and I have no problem with it! Better than ugly lesbians!
I agree completely. It used to be considered a mental illness, now it’s hip on tv. I need to build a time machine. I can’t take it here anymore.
You got my support. I just don’t get it..... It doesn’t seem that long ago, that the slimes were freaks of nature, and now they are close to getting preferential treatment.
:) I’m trying to counteract all the recent gay news. I just want to remind my fellow FReepers about the “winning team”.
Isn't he married with kids?
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