U.S. Supreme Court declines to take gay marriages cases

Breaking:

http://online.wSportsJournalists.com/articles/supreme-court-declines-to-rule-on-same-sex-marriage-1412603670?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories

As is their custom, they give no explanation of why. The upshoot is that all of the Court of Appeals decisions remain intact, so gay marriage is now legal in Indiana, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Oklahoma unless the Court in the future decides to revisit this and determines otherwise.

 

http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/10/many-more-same-sex-marriages-soon-but-where/#more-218576

Has a point by point takedown of why this doesn't make sense.

Interesting stuff.

 

To do otherwise would have been activist.

And we do not like activist judges.

 

Here's why the court didn't review: because the conservative side realized it couldn't strike down bans on the merits, and Roberts didn't want to be known as the Chief Justice who approved gay marriage. So it'll have to happen on the own time and dime of anyone from a state without a Circuit Court ruling for marriage equality.

Also, maybe the conservative side is hoping a Circuit Court will still give it an opening to strike down marriage equality. But as that writeup said, that could be legal chaos. Though this court seems to have no issue with introducing that.

 

I work with the two plaintiffs in the Oklahoma case. So glad to see this for them. I know they're happy to finally be able to get married, but I'm disappointed the Court didn't take one of these cases and issue a stronger ruling. No way these laws end up staying on the books in the other states.

 

I have a friend who is clerking for one of the conservative justices this term. I had been worried for him that he was going to be forever linked to a notorious dissent.

 

My wild guess that one of the four usual dissenters told Kennedy and maybe Roberts "just do it this way. Five years from now, nobody in the affected states will give a damn about gay marriage and total legalization will be no big thing for us to do." It's based on how gay marriage went from big deal to just part of the woodwork here in Massachusetts pretty quickly.

 

Volokh Conspiracy contributor suggests the Supremes' refusal to grant cert. not all that surprising:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/10/06/breaking-scotus-denies-same-sex-marriage-appeals/

 

Maybe he influenced the decision.

If you clerk for a Supreme Court justice, I'm guessing his only worries will be which giant law firm to join.

 

I think he gets a $250K bonus.

 

He's an insanely smart guy. Huge baseball fan, too. I can win a baseball debate with him, or at least hold my own, although he's sharp. But when I had classes with him, he could have practically taught the class. Guy had it down absolutely cold, and loved every second of learning this stuff, even the dryest material you can think of. Sincerely loved it.

I remember at the bar exam, we were hanging out between sessions, and he starts talking to me about the Sox-Twins game the night before. I was like, "Dude, I was cramming for this!"

 

College was like that for me. I don't think I could have gotten away with that in law school, and definitely not at the one you went to.