Same-Sex Marriage Update

[MsTinkerbelly]

Originally Posted by MsTinkerbelly

The Texas Supreme Court just stepped in and put a stay on all further marriages in Travis county until all appeals have been heard.

The marriage performed earlier today is still valid, but the Attorney General says he is looking for a way to invalidate the marriage.

Asshat

The Attorney General argued before the court yesterday, giving his reason to void the license as due process had not been followed. Apparantly in Texas you must notify the Attorney General when something is declared unconstitutional, and 45 days are required before implementation.

More to come.....

[MsTinkerbelly]

There is a really well written article on LGBTQnation.com, regarding the Navajos and the Dine Marriage act of 2005.

Should marriage equality become the law of the land, it will still be banned on Navajo reservations (as well as Cheroke and some others), as they are sovergin nations and do not follow our Constitution.

Gay people are much more accepted in the Indian nations, but due to employment, mental health, poverty...even electricity, the focus is not put on marriage equality by most of the peope. Like i said before, it was a great article worth a read.

[MsTinkerbelly]

The ban on same-sx marriage was struck down in Nebraska today, but will not take effect for another week. Meanwhile, the asshat brigade will appeal the decision to the 8th District Court of Appeals.

Yay Nebraska!

Prop 8

The California Supreme Court upheld a lower courts ruling that the supporters of Prop h8 must reveal their identities.

This issue will probably be further appealed, as none of the haters wish to be known as haters.

[MsTinkerbelly]

Lawmakers in Slovania passed marriage equality and same-sex parent adoptions!

Whoop, whoop!

[MsTinkerbelly]

The SCOTUS announced the remainder of it's hearing dates today; marriage equality will have a 2-1/2 hour hearing on April the 28th.

The date will be here before we know it, and then finally we will have clarity on this issue.

[Tommi]

Originally Posted by MsTinkerbelly

Lawmakers in Slovania passed marriage equality and same-sex parent adoptions!

Whoop, whoop!

Thanks...that's big news MsTinkerbelly

Yeah for my friends and family.

Czech...

[MsTinkerbelly]

Originally Posted by MsTinkerbelly

The ban on same-sx marriage was struck down in Nebraska today, but will not take effect for another week. Meanwhile, the asshat brigade will appeal the decision to the 8th District Court of Appeals.

.

The 8th District Court of Appeals put a stay on the lower courts decision, and marriage in Nebraska will be on hold until the decision by SCOTUS.

[MsTinkerbelly]

Yesterday, Chile passed a Civil marriage bill giving the rights of married couples to same-sex and domestic partner unions.

The unions can begin in 6 months when the waiting period is over; Chile keeps civil marriages and weddings separate, as do many foreign countries.

Way to go Chile!

[MsTinkerbelly]

Just a reminder that the SCOTUS will hear the marriage equality cases on April 28th!

So exciting!

[Allison W]

Foolish question: do we have a breakdown of how the SCOTUS is likely to vote on marriage equality? I know four of the justices (Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and Roberts) are considered conservative, and I'm pretty damn sure that at the bare minimum Scalia and Thomas will be very against it; and that four of the justices (Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan) are considered liberal and that all four of them are likely to support marriage equality; and that Kennedy is generally regarded as the swing vote on issues frequently divided along conservative/liberal lines. Am I correct to assume that we presumably have five votes between the liberal wing and Kennedy?

[MsTinkerbelly]

Originally Posted by Allison W

Foolish question: do we have a breakdown of how the SCOTUS is likely to vote on marriage equality? I know four of the justices (Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and Roberts) are considered conservative, and I'm pretty damn sure that at the bare minimum Scalia and Thomas will be very against it; and that four of the justices (Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan) are considered liberal and that all four of them are likely to support marriage equality; and that Kennedy is generally regarded as the swing vote on issues frequently divided along conservative/liberal lines. Am I correct to assume that we presumably have five votes between the liberal wing and Kennedy?

My FEELING is that they will continue along the same lines with this decision, as with their other recent decisions allowing equality to move forward.

BUT...Despite all of the recent positive rulings from the SCOTUS, we have to remember that they will be deciding this question for the ENTIRE country, and they ruled against us not that many years ago.


Sorry, that and $1.50 will get you a cup of coffee, but not much else.

[Allison W]

Was the composition of the court different when they ruled against us? Because I know Sotomayor and Kagan were added only within the past few years.

I suppose what's really important is how Kennedy swings on gay rights issues, because that swing vote plus the liberal bloc would get the majority.

...Yep, after poking around on Google, looks like Kennedy will give us the 5-4 majority. Apparently his mentor was gay and he's actually taken it upon himself to write majority opinions supporting pro-gay rulings.

So barring some completely unforeseen upset like a member of the liberal bloc being secretly replaced with a goateed evil twin, marriage equality should be the law of the land once the Supreme Court hears the case.

[MsTinkerbelly]

Originally Posted by Allison W

Was the composition of the court different when they ruled against us? Because I know Sotomayor and Kagan were added only within the past few years.

I suppose what's really important is how Kennedy swings on gay rights issues, because that swing vote plus the liberal bloc would get the majority.

...Yep, after poking around on Google, looks like Kennedy will give us the 5-4 majority. Apparently his mentor was gay and he's actually taken it upon himself to write majority opinions supporting pro-gay rulings.

So barring some completely unforeseen upset like a member of the liberal bloc being secretly

replaced with a goateed evil twin, marriage equality should be
the law of the land once the Supreme Court hears the case.

Excellent point!

The make-up of the SCOTUS was different, and it was a different time when that decision was made.

Unfortunately, the Religious right will step up their efforts to derail equality (as currently seen in Indiana and etc...) and i fear the SCOTUS willl have to once again step in to guarantee our civil rights. Of course, we see what good that has done POC in this country. If they want to discriminate, they will find a way!

[MsTinkerbelly]

The Attorney General of Guam, ordered same-sex marriages available immediately, making it the first US territory to do so.

WTG Guam!

[MsTinkerbelly]

Today it was reported by Hillary Clinton's camp, that she is in favor of nationwide same-sex marriage.

You can read the article on LGBTQnation.com

[MsTinkerbelly]

A Circut Court Judge in Kentucky once again struck down their same-sex marriage ban, but put the decision on hold until the SCOTUS sends down a ruling on the cases (Kentucky is already one of the four states they will hear on April 28th), in order to keep the confusion of one district having the right to marry, while the entire rest of the state would still be banned.

[MsTinkerbelly]

The bad news:

El Salvador moved closer to banning same-sex marriage and adoptions today.

The Good news:

Mexico's Supreme court has ruled that the county's same-sex marriage Ban is unconstitutional in the Sinaloa state. Wtg Mexico!

Edited to add: Mexico has interesting requirements for marriage equality to become the law of the land...there must be 5 cases filed and won in each of the states. A total of 140 rulings in favor of marriage equlity will be needed from the Supreme Court! There are several states that currently allow same-sex marriage, including Mexico City.

[MsTinkerbelly]

Tomorrow is the BIG day!

I am mega excited, and i wish i could be there!

[MsTinkerbelly]

It wasn't good news today folks, Justice Kennedy seemed to be siding with his more conservative Justices when he stated that "marriage between one man and one woman has been going on a millenia", and said that maybe the 10 years we have been fighting for marriage equality isn't long enough to decide if it will harm marriage.

The response by lawyers for our side, said "wait and see" has never been a way to end discrimination.

You can read the full story i am quoting at LBGTQnation.com

Smh...

[Allison W]

OK, time for some better news.

The matter of the Supreme Court's hearings on same-sex marriage happened to come up on the news this morning. Justice Kennedy was now approaching this from the liberal side again--he mentioned, on the subject of whether same-sex parents are bad for children, that we have quite a bit of data on same-sex parents raising children, and that the evidence is that they are not harmful to children.

Oddly, even conservative Chief Justice John Roberts was asking some interesting questions--to paraphrase, if a woman loves a man and he loves her, she can marry him; if a man loves a man and he loves him, he can't marry him. How is this not a straightforward case of sex discrimination? (Yes, this was conservative justice John Roberts.)

I think at least some of this (both Kennedy's probing the issue from both conservative and liberal standpoints and John Roberts' asking questions about whether this falls under sex discrimination) is the justices doing their job and trying to practice at least some semblance of impartiality, and ask any questions with answers that might matter in making a ruling or writing a majority or minority opinion.