Posted on 06/26/2015 9:00:00 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
“Ask the nearest hippie”: The conservative SCOTUS justices’ opinions on marriage equality are hilariously bitter
Word that the Supreme Court extended same-sex couples the right to marry anywhere in the United States is likely to dominate the next few news cycles, but as always, the first people with a chance to respond are those who dissented, and here are some of the “highlights.”
In his dissent, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that by taking “the extraordinary step of ordering every State to license and recognize same-sex marriage,” the Court has “stolen this issue from the people” in a way that “will for many cast a cloud over same-sex marriage, making a dramatic social change that much more difficult to accept.”
The Court, he argued, “seizes for itself a question the Constitution leaves to the people, at a time when the people are engaged in a vibrant debate on that question. And it answers that question based not on neutral principles of constitutional law, but on its own ‘understanding of what freedom is and must become.’”
“The Court’s accumulation of power does not occur in a vacuum,” Roberts added. “It comes at the expense of the people. And they know it.”
He also positioned the decision atop an all-too-familiar slippery slope, claiming that “[i]t is striking how much of the majority’s reasoning would apply with equal force to the claim of a fundamental right to plural marriage.”
Roberts concluded with a back-handed high-five, writing that “[i]f you are among the many Americans — of whatever sexual orientation — who favor expanding same-sex marriage, by all means celebrate today’s decision. Celebrate the achievement of a desired goal. Celebrate the opportunity for a new expression of commitment to a partner. Celebrate the availability of new benefits. But do not celebrate the Constitution. It had nothing to do with it.”
Justice Antonin Scalia began his dissent by noting that “[t]he substance of today’s decree is not of immense personal importance to me.”
“It is of overwhelming importance, however, who it is that rules me,” Scalia continued. “Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court.”
“Buried beneath the mummeries and straining-to-be-memorable passages of the opinion is a candid and startling assertion: No matter what it was the People ratified, the Fourteenth Amendment protects those rights that the Judiciary, in its ‘reasoned judgment,’ thinks the Fourteenth Amendment ought to protect.”
The greatest threat to America and democracy, Scalia repeatedly noted, “is the nine of us.”
“The strikingly unrepresentative character of the body voting on today’s social upheaval would be irrelevant if they were functioning as judges, answering the legal question whether the American people had ever ratified a constitutional provision that was understood to proscribe the traditional definition of marriage.”
Given that, “what really astounds is the hubris reflected in today’s judicial Putsch,” although Scalia’s not any happier about “the opinion’s showy profundities [being] profoundly incoherent.”
“Huh?” he asked after quoting a passage of the majority’s opinion. “What say?” he said of another. “Ask the nearest hippie.”
In fact, throughout this section, Scalia engaged in a running parenthetical dialogue with the majority’s opinion before deciding “[i]t stands for nothing whatever, except those freedoms and entitlements this Court really likes.”
Scalia also wrote in a footnote that if he “ever joined an opinion for the Court that began” as this one did, “I would hide my head in a bag. The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie.”
Justice Clarence Thomas was more direct in his dissent, noting that “[t]he majority apparently disregards the political process as a protection for liberty,” and that their “decision threatens the religious liberty our Nation has long sought to protect.”
He later joined the Chief Justice atop that slippery slope, claiming that “it appears all but inevitable that the two will come into conflict, particularly as individuals and churches are confronted with demands to participate in and endorse civil marriages between same-sex couples.”
Justice Samuel Alito warned that the decision will have “other important consequences,” as “[i]t will be used to vilify Americans who are unwilling to assent to the new orthodoxy.”
“I assume that those who cling to old beliefs will be able to whisper their thoughts in the recesses of their homes,” he wrote, “but if they repeat those views in public, they will risk being labeled as bigots and treated as such by governments, employers, and schools.”
‘Bitter’, whether hilariously or not, will be a good way to describe Scott Eric Kaufman when it dawns on him that no political victory will ever give he and his kind the peace they believe they now have.
I wonder how many times Scott has had syphilis.
There is no “perfect mechanism” that is weirdness-proof.
As a case vaguely in point: When the choosing of Senators changed from state legislatures to popular voting, one set of ills disappeared and another appeared.
The Bork Amendment is another possibility that has been floated: both houses of Congress would be allowed, by supermajority agreement together, to override any Federal court judgment. That would probably prove too weak in the current situation, but a conservative pushback could give it strength.
It won’t. The itch is never assuaged.
I love the quotes from Thomas and Alito. Scalia is brilliantly hilarious.
All I can think is, “duck and cover.” Things are going to get MUCH worse.
That, and “hide your eyes.”
Judges for life is good and bad. Bad when we get the wrong justices, put their for the wrong reasons--Kagan and Sotomeyer, even others. We've had some really great justices in the past, representing all different perspectives. But today, we have only mediocre to bad and really bad.
A constitutional amendment might be a nice idea but I suspect it is DOA. Further, do we really want a revolving Supreme Court? That would make it even more responsive to whatever the latest issue of the day is and result in less long-term stability and respect for the Constitution.
We need more careful consideration of justices, less politics. Several members of the court will be gone in the coming years--some still there that everyone thought would be gone by now. It is a life appointment so we have to wait it out.
I wonder about impeachment of Supreme Court justices but suspect that is about as likely as we've seen impeaching Obama has turned out. Again, we have to wait until he's gone to clean up the mess he's created.
I like the idea of making the Supreme court subject to Obamacare. If it is so good, how about making it required for everyone--Supreme Court justices, elected officials, government workers, etc.? Now that would be nice to see and would quickly lead to repeal of Obamacare. Especially if they were not given special treatment as were members of Congress and their staff.
Scalia:
“.......Rights, we are told, can “rise . . . from a better informed understanding of how constitutional imperatives define a liberty that remains urgent in our own era.”
(Huh? How can a better informed understanding of how constitutional imperatives [whatever that means] define [whatever that means] an urgent liberty [never mind], give birth to a right?) And we are told that, “[i]n any particular case,” either the Equal Protection or Due Process Clause “may be thought to capture the essence of [a] right in a more accurate and comprehensive way,” than the other, “even as the two Clauses may converge in the identification and definition of the right.”
(What say? What possible “essence” does substantive due process “capture” in an “accurate and comprehensive way”? It stands for nothing whatever, except those freedoms and entitlements that this Court really likes. And the Equal Protection Clause, as employed today, identifies nothing except a difference in treatment that this Court —————— allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity,” I would hide my head in a bag. The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie. ......Hardly a distillation of essence. If the opinion is correct that the two clauses “converge in the identification and definition of [a] right,” that is only because the majority’s likes and dislikes are predictably compatible.)
I could go on. The world does not expect logic and precision in poetry or inspirational popphilosophy; it demands them in the law. The stuff contained in today’s opinion has to diminish this Court’s reputation for clear thinking and sober analysis......”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3304543/posts
Proving once again we have our Second Amendment Rights only as long as five of nine politically appointed lawyers agree we have them.
Such is this moron's “victory.”
Well most certainly DO pray.
Nothing has changed about what the Lord desires for humanity. It is the devil’s wish, not the Lord’s, that anybody be damned.
But sometimes some horribly painful lessons must be undergone before that point finally dawns on people so benumbed by sin. Ohhhh... so it isn’t such a good idea to ram my head into concrete walls after all....
I beg everyone to look at this from the perspective of heaven. Will humanity FINALLY accept an understanding that they have stepped into a state of folly?
On earth, the consequence is clear. Government “marriage” is now cheaper than a rotten wooden nickel. Not all the lawyers in the land could make it anything else while embracing the premises the majority of the Clown Court just did.
I think we need to calmly tell him and his friends “We told you so, now when you come back more hurting than thrilled with your little adventure in a few decades, we will have a God to tell you about who will help where nothing else will.”
And then, as much as possible, permit them to go their way.
God has made very clear what he thinks of this. He would need to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah if He did not punish us, too.
“”A Constitutional Amendment creating 18-year terms staggered every 2 years, so that each of the nine Justices would be replaced in order of seniority every other year. This would be a prospective proposal, and would be applied to future judges only. Doing this would move the court closer to the people by ensuring that every President would have the opportunity to replace two Justices per term, and that no court could stretch its ideology over multiple generations. Further, this reform would maintain judicial independence, but instill regularity to the nominations process, discourage Justices from choosing a retirement date based on politics, and will stop the ever-increasing tenure of Justices.” Rick Perry’s Good Idea”
Rick Perry didn’t think of that constitutional amendment (I read about it years ago and have been advocating it ever since), but I’m glad that he supports it and will speak out in favor of it.
People who say that usually forget the Abrahamic bargain.
***“Ask the nearest hippie”: ***
in 1965, the Hippies declared marriage DEAD! Old hat! Outdated! The license was ONLY a piece of paper! If you loved someone that was all that mattered!
Now marriage is the most important thing two people can engage in, but ONLY IF YOU ARE GAY!
Yes that’s a good point. But it only means he would not necessarily wipe us off the planet as a whole. It does not mean we won’t be punished. There are plenty of other examples of that.
The implication commonly used here (and it is not fair to God’s own arrangements) that if fire and brimstone were not suffered here equally to those sin cities, then God would somehow need to “apologize” to them.
And the Abrahamic bargain alone says that is unrealistic, not until we lose so many believers there are not even 10.
It is a truth that all sin brings some kind of suffering. Nobody here is disputing that.
True, a hippie is not the person you would expect to care about matrimony.
Yes you make a very good point. Thanks for that. I still say, “duck and cover.” There are many reasons to say that beyond this one issue.
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