Mass. Supreme Court To Hear Case Against Gay Marriage

[davidinalameda]

http://www.365gay.com/newscon05/04/042505massCourt.htm

The Supreme Judicial Court which paved the way for same-sex marriage in Massachusetts is preparing to hear a case to have its ruling set aside.

The court will hear oral arguments on May 2 on an appeal by the Catholic Action League. The group, in papers filed with the court, argues that same-sex marriage should be halted until residents vote on a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban gay nuptials.

A judge last May, days before the ruling allowing gay marriage was to go into effect, rejected a bid by the League and the Thomas More Center sought to have the SJC ruling delayed. (story)

[forgethell]

1. Damn, you can't

depend on anybody.

That's why it's important to win elections and go through the legislatures rather than the courts.

[Technowitch]

2. Those who hate us would just switch targets

If African Americans had depended on legislatures for redress of civil rights issues, we'd still have anti-misceagenation laws and open discrimination. Sometimes the courts are the only route left for a minority people -- and make no mistake, we are a minority.

Besides, that which is passed by one legislative session can easily be rescinded by another. When a court says, "This is unconstitutional" -- it has greater sticking power.

Just my $0.02.

[forgethell]

3. Only until the judges change.

It was probably a mistake to depend so much on the courts for abortion rights and gay-marriage. Prevented the formation of a consensus.

In the end, even the Constitution is subject to politics.

[Lexingtonian]

4. please get a serious clue

before spouting simpleminded defeatist and majoritarian dogma. It's not as easy as you imagine.

Have an intelligent look at the verdict in Goodridge v DPH. In essence the majority opinion by CJ Margaret Marshall is a "roadmap" opinion for gay marriage legalization plaintiffs, an outline for how to plead such a case so that the opposition argument becomes rationally untenable and embarrassing to plead.

To my reading the argument for legalization in the opinion is essentially irrefutable. But the SJC split about the Court's powers relative to the Legislature's and Marshall didn't find the definitive argument in time to also settle that problem as decisively in time. It's a defect that the the dissenters all cite.

The plaintiffs and state courts in Oregon, Washington, California, and New York have all followed the Goodridge roadmap to get to the brink of legalization. But the opponents have all jumped on the lack of clarity about court authority, and that has made these cases far more tentative than the question of the merits of legalization.

There isn't a chance that the SJC will overturn itself on legalization. What Doyle v SJC represents is a second bite a the apple for Margaret Marshall, a chance to correct the remaining defect to Goodridge and complete the "roadmap".

Why this...well, you have to see the big picture and know the standard tricks the conservatives on the US Supreme Court employ against 14th Amendment Equal Protection plea cases. Inevitably, gay marriage legalization will end up before the Supreme Court in the next few years, and the Rehnquist Five have a way of 'deferring' to ambiguous and injust state laws and state legislatures in absurd fashions (e.g. Bush v Gore). That's their "states' rights" doctrine. Marshall feels the obligation to not enable this trick for them.

There's also the other Massachusetts case, Cote-Whitacre v DPH, in the works and that's Marshall's shot at laying out the groundwork, the "roadmap" argument, to overturn DoMA.

What would you have told the couple in Loving v Virginia- wait 35 or 40 years, until resistance to interracial marriage drops under 50%? Or the plaintiffs in Brown v Board of Education- wait until you win elections, in 60 or 70 years or so?

There is always a tension between power and justice. Power must be deferred to to some extent in order for some amount of peaceable coexistence, but only so much injustice can be tolerated before humanity comes into question. Life is not worth living in barbarity, however cutely gussied up. Every generation of conservatives has to discover this, it's sad to behold.

[forgethell]

6. Perhaps you should

get a clue. The courts have been able to legislate for 40-50 years because the legislatures were too chicken-shit to do their jobs, and too chicken-shit to stop the courts. That has now changed. In the end, if the majority of people want something, and want it continually, the courts will move in the direction of the people.

The civil rights exercises of power stood because that was what the vast majority of the people considered the right thing. Civil rights for non-whites are no longer seriously opposed by anyone. Abortion is another matter. There is a substantial minority, maybe a majority, against it. That is why the continuing attacks on the courts, and at least part of the reason why the Republicans have been crushing us on election day lately. Gay marriage is not wanted by a very substantial majority, at least in my state and many others. To push this through the courts will result in the courts being severely restricted. Congress and the President have several constitutional options for doing so. Conservative, strict constructionist judges, defunding, and limiting their authority. Just because we think they are wrong doesn't mean they don't have the power, and the constitutional right to do it. And I am very much afraid that it will be done.

We have not convinced the voters of the correctness of our positions. We (not me, maybe not you, but many of us) prefer to sneer than persuade. We've paid the price at the polls, and the political branches do have the legal right and power to rule, and to shape the courts the way they want.

[TaleWgnDg]

5. This issue was DU discussed earlier when the SJC . . .

.
This issue was DU discussed earlier when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) agreed in February 2005 to hear the appeal filed by The Thomas More Law Center on behalf of C. Joseph Doyle, the executive director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=158&topic_id=3099

There are extensive hyperlinks to assist further understanding of this issue at that above DU thread.

And, thanks, dwickham, for posting, here, the date of the oral arguments in this matter b4 the SJC.

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Know who is working AGAINST same-sex marriage in the halls of our statehouse and elsewhere:
L to R,
(1) MA Representative Philip Travis (.pdf format, Adobe Reader necessary), Democrat, of Rehoboth, MA, who co-sponsored the 2004 anti-gay amendment;
(2) MA Representative Mark J. Carron, Democrat, of Southbridge, MA, who votes anti-gay (anything);
(3) Daniel Avila who is a paid lobbyist against gays for the Massachusetts Catholic Conference at the statehouse and elsewhere; and
(4) "Reverend" Ron Crews, Republican, of Ashland, MA, a fundamentalist preacher, a carpet-bagger from Georgia who is a paid lobbyist for the "Massachusetts Family Institute" (MFI) a hate-mongering and gay-bashing religion-into-law fundamentalist evangelical organization and as former president of "Massachusetts Family Institute" filed an amicus brief against same-sex marriage and against same-sex civil unions with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in the Goodridge case, who as a Georgia state representative pushed for Creationism being taught in Georgia public schools and redefinition of marriage as only for one man and one woman and public school abstinence-only sex education, and who recently ran (quite) unsuccessfully against incumbent U.S. Representative James McGovern, D, Worcester

See also: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/02/12/how_legislators_voted_on_travis_gay_marriage_amendment/
(BosGlobe, 3/29/04, How State Legislators Voted on Gay Marriage Amendment, Massachusetts Constitutional Convention 2004)
(as last visited, Monday, April 25, 2005)
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The Roman Catholic Church (in Massachusetts) is in our courts fighting against same-sex marriage, it's lobbying in the statehouse and elsewhere to prohibit same-sex marriage, and its newspaper, The Pilot, rants against same-sex marriage. And, the Roman Catholic Church is joining forces with other radical rightwing religion-into-law organizations including working elbow-to-elbow with the radical Ron Crews and other rightwingers who bash and hate gays. Remember this, please.

Know who is working AGAINST your civil rights, those of your neighbors, and of your relatives.


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