Tag Archives: SCOTUS

On Friday ten GOP members of the U.S. Senate filed a Supreme Court brief against the overturn of DOMA.  Among the many citations included are two from the landmark case Lawrence Vs Texas, which struck down sodomy laws nationwide in 2003. An excerpt: Notwithstanding the Attorney General’s belated discovery of DOMA’s allegedly unconstitutional motivation, this argument is flawed because legislative …

Clip recap: “All eyes are on President Obama this week, as we wait to see if he’ll mention marriage equality in his State of the Union. Marriage bills win overwhelming approval in England and France, polling looks strong in Pennsylvania, and Indiana pushes a vote on an anti-gay amendment back to 2014.”

From JMG reader Sean Chapin, here’s a new promotional video for the Supreme Court rallies planned around the nation next month. Go to Light The Way To Justice for more information.

Openly gay freshman House Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) today announced his co-sponsorship of a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, the landmark 2010 Supreme Court ruling that permits unlimited political spending by corporations. The lead sponsor of the amendment is Rep. Rick Nolan (D-MN). Via press release: In making the announcement, lead sponsor Rep. Rick Nolan (DFL-Minnesota), said: “It’s time …

Jeremy Hooper writes at Good As You: “It’s really kind of funny that they are showing the logos from five groups that all have direct ties to NOM (Ruth Institute is a NOM offshoot; ActRight is Brian Brown’s side project; APP is NOM co-founder Robby George’s org, where Maggie Gallagher now works; NOM Comm. Director Thomas Peters works at CatholicVote.”  …

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The Chaplain Alliance For Religious Liberty, which claims to represent over 2500 current and former military clergy members, has filed a Supreme Court brief against the overturn of DOMA.  The brief largely treads the ridiculous claim that anti-gay chaplains will be denied promotions or disciplined for refusing to conduct same-sex marriage ceremonies.  The brief also cites several bits of the …

The Mormon Church, the Southern Baptists Convention, the National Association of Evangelicals, the Orthodox Jewish Union, and a sect of the Lutheran Church have filed a joint Supreme Court brief against the overturn of Proposition 8.  Chris Johnson reports at Washington Blade: The brief offers three major reasons for why the Supreme Court should uphold Prop 8, which the court …

Jeremy Hooper writes: “Important reminder: March 26 is not only the first day of SCOTUS hearings and the day that NOM plans to march against us—it’s also the one year anniversary of us all learning their stated intent to ‘drive a wedge between gays and blacks’ in order to ‘provoke the gay base.’ The coincidence sure makes those March on …

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The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops today filed Supreme Court briefs against the overturn of DOMA and Proposition 8. From their DOMA brief: The USCCB brief in United States v. Windsor says that “there is no fundamental right to marry a person of the same sex.” The brief also states that “as defined by courts ‘sexual orientation’ is not …

Westboro Baptist Church has filed a Supreme Court amicus brief against the repeal of Proposition 8. Note that their brief supports “neither party” in the case.   For your amusement, check out Westboro’s legal citations to support their case. This can only help us. (Via Good As You)

Protect Marriage, the primary backers of Proposition 8, is reportedly so in debt to their lawyers that it may affect their ability to defend their Supreme Court case. ProtectMarriage.com, the advocacy group defending a California gay marriage ban now under review by the high court, showed a $2 million deficit in its legal fund at the end of 2011 – …

From the New York Times: Now that Mr. Obama has declared that he believes denying gay people the right to wed is not only unfair and morally wrong but also legally unsupportable, the urgent question is how he will translate his words into action. To start, he should have his solicitor general file a brief in the Proposition 8 case …

SCOTUSblog reports on the latest DOMA wrinkle: The Supreme Court does not have the power to rule on the case the Justices have agreed to review on the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act of 1996, a Harvard law professor argued in a brief filed Thursday evening. The professor, Vicki C. Jackson, also argued against letting the Republican …

Yesterday lawyers for the House GOP filed a brief in support of their defense of DOMA. An excerpt via Buzzfeed reporter Chris Geidner: There is a unique relationship between marriage and procreation that stems from marriage’s origins as a means to address the tendency of opposite-sex relationships to produce unintended and unplanned offspring. There is nothing irrational about declining to …

Today the legal team representing Protect Marriage, the backers of Proposition 8, filed their first brief at the Supreme Court. Chris Geidner has the story at Buzzfeed: Arguing that the case brought by same-sex couples seeking to marry was unlike past gay rights cases where the court struck down anti-gay restrictions and also unlike Loving v. Virginia, in which the …

The anti-gay Faith & Freedom Institute has issued a press release asking Christian Tenthers to support their petition to block all federal courts, including SCOTUS, from making any rulings on same-sex marriage. The petition reads: We petition the Obama Administration to ask Congress to deny the US Supreme Court and all federal courts jurisdiction concerning same-sex marriage.  The President should …

“I was glad that he made clear what’s been obvious, that he’s just a flat out bigot. I’d previously said he was a homophobe. And Fox and the rightwing said, ‘Oh just because he’s not for same-sex marriage? And I said, ‘No, let me be very clear. That’s not it. This is a man who has said you should go …