just currently

[sisyphusshrugged]

Currently, Bush v Gore is/is not precedential

The Supreme Court on Monday sidestepped a dispute over gay marriages, rejecting a challenge to the nation's only law sanctioning such unions.

Justices had been asked by conservative groups to overturn the year-old decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Court legalizing gay marriage. They declined, without comment.

In the past year, at least 3,000 gay Massachusetts couples have wed, although voters may have a chance next year to change the state constitution to permit civil union benefits to same-sex couples, but not the institution of marriage.

Critics of the November 2003 ruling by the highest court in Massachusetts argue that it violated the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of a republican form of government in each state. They lost at the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston.

Their attorney, Mathew Staver, said in a Supreme Court filing that the Constitution should ``protect the citizens of Massachusetts from their own state supreme court's usurpation of power.''

Federal courts, he said, should defend people's right ``to live in a republican form of government free from tyranny, whether that comes at the barrel of a gun or by the decree of a court.''

Merita Hopkins, a city attorney in Boston, had told justices in court papers that the people who filed the suit have not shown they suffered an injury and could not bring a challenge to the Supreme Court. ``Deeply felt interest in the outcome of a case does not constitute an actual injury,'' she said.

Since Justice Scalia has enough votes in hand to pick this up if he wanted to, and he has famously held in the past that allowing votes to be counted is an insuperable injury to a Republican candidate requiring Supreme Court intervention, I can only assume that he voted his bloc in favor of further political use of the gay marriage issue.

It's going to be a long four years, folks.

Comments

[snuh.livejournal.com]

Justice Scalia believes in states rights, which is going to come in handy when the adminstration tries to make abortion a state decided issue.

But this may gum-up the works - Showdown over medical marijuana.

If the Supreme Court rules that medical marijuana is illegal and overrules California law, it's going to make it harder for future decisions based on states rights and undermine any state-based approach for abortion.

[(Anonymous)]

Justice Scalia doesn't believe in states rights. He believes in using any excuse necessary to promote conservative results.