Tweet
While a number of institutional LGBT rights organizations (that have made significant progress at the state level) today cautioned against federal action, John Dean, appearing on Wednesday’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann, makes the case that regardless of state decisions and citizens’ votes, marriage equality has become a national, federal civil rights issue, just as was Loving v. Virginia in 1967, in which the US Supreme Court ruled against interracial marriage bans.
Here’s the ACLU:
In response to the California Supreme Court decision allowing Prop 8 to stand, four LGBT legal organizations and five other leading national LGBT groups are reminding the LGBT community that ill-timed lawsuits could set the fight for marriage back.
Federal cases have been discouraged for some time, since the Supreme Court’s conservative tilt terrifies LGBT organizations — could a ruling against our rights or marriages set the movement back a generation? John Dean, conversely, believes the Ninth Circuit provides a friendly venue for such a case, sure to be framed around equal protection. But he recognizes that an eventual path to the US Supreme Court poses a risk for everyone affected.
(Interesting that these two attorneys squared off in 2000 in one of the US Supreme Court’s most famous non-precedental equal protection cases ever decided.)
The national organizations encouraging action at the ballot box and discouraging lawsuits are the ACLU, GLAD, Lambda Legal, NCLR, Equality Federation, Freedom to Marry, glaad, HRC, and the NGLTF.
21 Comments
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About FDL Action
I’m glad Dean jumped right out on this. The inherent dangers of a conservative SCOTUS aside, the more of this lurch towards civil rights protections we see, the less likely the Supremes are to buck them.
I hope I don’t eat those words.
Full faith and credit/Equal protection, baby.
It’s gonna take a while for this to reach SCOTUS, anyway, and a rightwinger might retire.
Or mistakenly dip a spoon into Justice Stevens’ creme brulee.
Mister Teddy – would like to hear your take, impression on Olson’s motivatons
Sad to think that equal protection is something that is still subject to political considerations after all these years. When I make this argument to anti-gay rights/conservatives, my main thrust is equal protection; you cannot discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. Discrimination is just that.
Until this last election, I always advised anybody who cared to keep it out of federal court.Because if it does get to the Supremes, they’ll decide in favor of Gay marriage. Conservative or not, they are strict constructionists and the 1st amendment makes it clear that if a church wants to marry a couple, the government can’t stop them. Equal protection says I can’t ban gay marriage without a compelling government interest.
However, once the supremes rule, the wingnuts will demand a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. If that were to get out of congress, it would easily pass the states. And then we’re screwed for decades.
I don’t think the current congress would pass such an amendment. And demographics are most certainly on our side, as the people against this are disproportionatly older and as time goes by there are less of those and more of us. Now is the time to file federal.
Boxturtle (Fire in the hole!)
I think some tectonic plates are shifting. I e-mailed my state rep this morning inviting her to church on sunday where we will be doing a service on Marriage Equality. Got an e-mail back from her CoS with regrets BUT attached an article in the PPG about a state sen. who is proposing a bill to legalize same sex marriage. In PA! Not that it has much of a chance, but it opens up the conversation at a whole new level. And, of course, there is another turkey who is proposing a bill to do the opposite—something that has come up before and so far been tabled.
link to story
Tectonic plates are shifting.
The plates are shifting, but I still don’t like the odds of winning anywhere at the ballot box. Credit where credit is due, the Religious Right is the best when it comes to getting it’s sheeple to show up and vote the way they want them to vote.
Boxturtle (Baaaaaaa!)
It almost feels like this is a set up to get this to the Supreme Court before Obama has a chance to remake it. I’m not a real conspiracy theorist, but I also don’t trust the fact that Ken Starr, 6 judges who are republican and now Ted is coming in to the “rescue.”
Oh, and there’s a poll in the link above.
You know what to do.
Dean – “two intellectually honest men…”
ummm – ok.
Hey John – lemme tell you a story from the year 2000….
what makes you think O is really going to have the chance to re-make it? Unless one of the right wingers has something very odd happen to them, the best O will do is replace liberals with moderates. He can’t help himself.
I would have agreed with you before Iowa happened. I’m still doing double takes about that. I’m just shaking my head about it all and continuing to fight the good fight.
I understand the fears of a conservative court, but I don’t quite get the argument. You can’t really “court shop” the Supreme Court. The constitutional questions either have merit or they don’t, that’s why you argue your case. Yes, it’s a risk. But that’s how the system works. The stronger legal argument should win out. Should, but since the Supreme Court is packed with Roman Catholics the country could be screwed for a generation anyway.
One has to wonder how many of the soon to be six Catholics are or will be excommunicated during their tenure. The sooner the Pope and Catholic Hierarchy butt out of US politics, the better. There ought to be a law! Oh, yeah, there is a whole Constitution that purports to give all individuals religious freedom in this country. I wonder what it is that the “Christians” don’t understand about that? Btw, this is from a fallen away Catholic who attended Catholic grade school and Catholic High School, just in case anyone is wondering where I get off criticizing.
It’s all a gamble, but I think Olsen and Boise would have a good chance.
with one more to come.
Because he’s the president and he gets to choose who the replacements would be in the event something happens. The longer he serves, the more chances will arise for replacements and his choices have a better shot at preserving rights or correcting injustices.
Iowa shocked me, but in a good way. I think the Iowans “Mind your Own Business” attitude came out. But don’t expect that in Ohio. Or Penn.
Money talks. Watch how much marriage/honeymoon business the states that allow it get. Things will change.
Boxturtle (If I owned a honeymoon site in a free state, I’d advertise the heck out of it)
Remember those 18K gay and lesbian marriages already solemnized and then approved by a unanimous California Supreme Court?
The Roberts-Alito-Scalia-Thomas Axis of Homophobia is just waiting to reverse that part of the decision.
Not happy with half a loaf? Howzabout NO loaf?
Running to federal court in this instance is a BAD idea.
Wait a minute!
Remember, the U.S. SupCt doesn’t have to hear any case it doesn’t want to (with a couple teeny exceptions). Its guiding principle for accepting cases is conflict among results in the appellate circuits. If Boies et al., get a win out of the Ninth Circuit, it’ll still be a while before anybody gets a conflicting opinion in another circuit. Even then, what other cases might the Court be considering for a given term several, or ten, years from now?
I’m not so sure the Federal route is so toxic…
The Supremes don’t HAVE to wait for a “conflict” among circuit courts. They could simply take up a Ninth Circuit decision favorable to gay marriage, and reverse it.
I still say the federal route (for NOW) is, indeed, toxic.