LGBTQ Activists Are Quietly Preparing For A Nightmare: The Supreme Court Undoing Marriage Equality

[Nevilledog]

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David Mack
@davidmackau
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New from me... I spoke with 10 prominent LGBTQ activists and lawyers across the country, who are making very quiet plans to prepare for a nightmare: the Supreme Court overturning marriage equality

“The threat is real.”

buzzfeednews.com
LGBTQ Activists Are Quietly Preparing For A Nightmare: The Supreme Court Undoing Marriage Equality
“It's exhausting to even think about trying to do this again in the environment that we're in now,” one LGBTQ campaigner said.
3:47 PM · Jul 13, 2022

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/davidmack/supreme-court-might-overturn-marriage-equality-fears

Here’s how the nightmare plays out.

A county clerk refuses to issue a marriage license to two women, citing an old amendment to a state constitution against doing so. Or maybe it’s a far-right state legislator who passes a bill that categorizes marriages between same-sex couples differently from opposite-sex ones. It could even be an order from a state executive allowing anyone in government with a religious objection the right to refuse to work on a same-sex marriage.

Let’s say we’re in Texas, for no other reason than the governor there has already been targeting the LGBTQ communuity and the state attorney general has expressed an interest in defending a law against sodomy — not to mention the state Republican Party, whose members control every level of government, officially adopting a platform last month that calls homosexuality an "abnormal lifestyle choice.”

The plaintiffs from the LGBTQ community will win the first federal case — that part is assured. But there will be appeals, and Texas sits in the 5th Circuit, the most conservative appellate court in the country, which only shifted further right thanks to the six lifetime appointments made by Donald Trump. One of those men — they’re all men — has spent much of his career working against LGBTQ rights and has called Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision legalizing marriage for same-sex couples, an “abject failure” that “imperils civic peace.” It’s possible he could sit on that court for the next 40 years.

All it takes is one novel case — the right case with the right questions — to intrigue enough justices in the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority with an appetite to overturn their institution's own precedent.

Then, as supporters of abortion rights will tell you, all bets are off.

*snip*

Anyone who doesn't see this happening is delusional.

[Groundhawg]

1. I don't believe that will happen.

[elias7]

3. You're being facetious, of course.

[TheRealNorth]

5. You mean just like Roe vs. Wade will never be undone?

[PortTack]

9. I hope you are right. Unfortunately, the token black guy on the court has already said he wants

This Ruling overturned ASAP. Roberts has lost control and thomas is running the court

[IngridsLittleAngel]

14. The ECOTUS already set fire to Roe...

Why would they stop there, especially when Coke Can Clarence is rubbing his pube-covered hands with glee, dreaming of what else he can overturn?

It'll happen unless the makeup of the court changes and fast. Then the only question will be how much harm comes from their extremist hatred?

[jimfields33]

2. I haven't heard of any lawsuit being filed.

The Supreme Court cannot just change anything they want. A lawsuit must be filed and go thought the entire court system.

[dsc]

4. It will only take one

it could be a clerk who doesn't want to issue the license, a prosecutor who wants to break spousal privilege, Tennessee nearly created a new form of marriage (the sticking point wound up being that the new form of marriage wouldn't have had age limits). Given Thomas' concurrence it is certain we will see a case.

[TheRealNorth]

6. Probably waiting until after the November elections.

[walkingman]

7. They wouldn't dare....would they??

[Nevilledog]

8. I'd bet money on it*

*If the court make-up stays the same.

[Duncan Grant]

11. The draft is already written -- it's too early to leak it. (nt)

[IngridsLittleAngel]

15. I'm guessing it was written around the time they got Phoney Braindead on the ECOTUS

The only question is when they get the "privilege" of making it reality.

[Marthe48]

10. I know several couples who will be harmed by those unelected s.c. despots

The s.c. is out of control. churches are out of control. and rwnj are out of control.

[hunter]

12. My first serious girlfriend married the woman of her dreams back in the dark ages...

... after we'd broken up.

It wasn't a marriage recognized by the state but she had plenty of money and lawyers she'd inherited from her dad to make it similar in every practical sense they could think of. (They had religion too, one we'd all playfully invented...)

But legally those were not good times for LGBTQ couples.

Going back is not an option.

We all must fight to keep this hard won ground and move forward.

[IngridsLittleAngel]

13. Between the red state lunatics and the ECOTUS, I fear they'll undo it all

I fear we are rapidly approaching a situation where life is going to be very unpleasant for women, people of color and LGBTQ's in red states. We've seen the nonstop assault by red state governors and legislatures in 2022. We've watched the ECOTUS gut Roe, with Coke Can Clarence chomping at the bit to further erode rights and protections. All brought to us by the same Nazis and same party that gleefully said "We cannot legislate morality" when it came to protecting rights many years ago. Oh, sure... You can't legislate "morality" when it comes to protecting human rights, but you sure can legislate hate and bigotry, while calling it "morality."

We could be entering very dark times... Which I guess kind of fits, considering one "party" in this country wants to "take our country back." "Back" of course means to the Dark Ages. Where we rip up the Constitution and replace it with the OLD Testament. Where just like Hitler and Putin, the State decides who is and isn't a human being.

Fortunately, we have states like California and New York and others doing what they can at the state level to push back on this, and to protect its citizens. But we are watching in real time as all too rapidly, a large chunk of this country is becoming an unlivable hellhole for anyone but the sacred white cishet male.

I see it happening. I imagine a lot of us do. I think they're just itching for some sort of case involving a same-sex couple or a trans person to hit the courts so they can push it to the ECOTUS, then watch with glee as innocent people get Dred Scotted by a 5-4 vote.

I know many people wish that the targeted groups would stay in the red states and fight, and try to turn the states from red to purple or blue... That'd be ideal. I also don't know if that's realistic anymore. I have a very deep fear of what could happen to LGBTQ's in a place like Texas or Florida or Ohio if the ECOTUS starts stripping rights and protections.

"It's like we're in Hell or something!"
"No, it's A-MAGA-ca, although I can't imagine Hell being much worse."

[JI7]

16. I feel so much hatred for people that dismiss the importance of the Supreme Court

especially since these assholes claim to be "activists" . But I think a lot of "activists" are just career types whose purpose is to just be an "activist" in itself and that's excluding the ones that are clearly trolls like Jill Stein and other Green Party types whose entire purpose is to help Republicans win.