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Loading ...LGBT groups urge dropping federal gay marriage case
05.27.2009 2:16pm EDT
(San Francisco, California) A coalition of gay rights groups says a federal same-sex marriage lawsuit brought by two high-profile litigators is premature.
The American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and other national organizations issued a statement Wednesday saying they think the U.S. Supreme Court is not ready to issue a favorable ruling on the issue.The statement came the day after Theodore B. Olson and David Boies, who represented opposing sides in the 2000 Bush v. Gore challenge, announced they had filed a federal court challenge to California’s gay marriage ban.
Olson and Boies said the suit was filed on behalf of two gay men and two gay women.
Olson said that he hopes the case will wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The lawsuit seeks a preliminary injunction against California’s Proposition 8 until the case is resolved.
Gay rights activists in California want to win marriage back for same-sex couples by going back to voters.
The state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday to uphold the gay marriage ban.
Jay and Jeffrey, Justice Kennedy bent over backwards in Lawrence v. Texas NOT to make it a precedent for a same-sex marriage challenge. And nothing–NOTHING–in the opinions of Ginsburg, Breyer, Stevens, or Sotomayor suggests openness to a same-sex marriage challenge. If Brennan and Marshall were still on the court, I’d say we could maybe count on them. But Ginsburg and Breyer simply are not strong liberals, like Brennan and Marshall. Breyer, in particular, has increasingly become a swing vote. I’d love to say we have 4 or 5 votes, but I just don’t see it. We might ultimately win over at least some of the moderate liberals, but we’d have to get all of them plus Kennedy. I’d lay odds against our succeeding.
We need to take advantage of all the upheval while we still have it! We cannot afford to take a break, we must keep fighting until we get our equal rights! Prop 8 must be fought until it is beat! My brothers and sisters in California deserve their rights. It doesn’t matter how long or how many repeals it takes, we will destroy this thing! Let’s go back to voters, once every two yeras, until we win! We cannot accept our defeat, we will win our rights!
Let me add, I’m so convinced that a U.S. Supreme Court challenge is reckless that I have to wonder what is truly motivating Boies and Olsen and why they sprung this suit on the gay community with no notice. Why didn’t they offer to volunteer for Lambda or the ACLU in bringing a cooperative suit, as is the normal arrangement for attorneys?
Maybe Boies and Olsen are sincere. But they are experts on the U.S. Supreme Court. They can’t be naive enough to think they have much of a prayer of winning.
Are they trying to get publicity for the sake of their own practices? Does Olsen want to do something to make himself appear less conservative than his reputation because of his service in the Bush Administration? Do they think their respective parties would benefit politically if the Court ruled against same-sex marriage and thus took the issue off the political front burner?
The community shouldn’t be saps here. We should be asking tough questions about why these guys, who never before did anything for the community, have suddenly inserted themselves into this controversy. What are they getting out of this? Why do they think they have any prayer of winning at the U.S. Supreme Court? What’s there ulterior motive?
We have five votes, Justice Kennedy (the swing voter) cited the Fourteenth Amendment in the case of Lawrence v. Texas as protecting LGBT rights.
I think we have 5 votes on the US Supreme Court: Breyer, Stevens, Ginsburg, Sontamayor (assuming she is confirmed), and Kennedy. I say go ahead. As John said, it will take years to reach the Supreme Court. By then, there will be more states with domestic partnerships, civil unions, and marriage equality. The Court will have to address DOMA and the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution.
I’ve taught constitutional law for ten years, and in my opinion the ACLU and Lambda are right to be worried.
It takes 5 votes to prevail in the U.S. Supreme Court. It is absolutely certain that four justices–Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito–would vote against any gay marriage challenge. That leaves opponents just one vote short of winning.
On the other hand, I don’t think it is clear that ANY justice would vote for such a challenge today. We begin at 0 and have to win all five outstanding votes in order to prevail. In other words, if we lost just one of the outstanding votes, we’d lose.
It’s not about what is fair or just. It is about what the members of the current court think is fair and just. It’s also about how much political room the court would have to maneuver. We would be effectively asking them to force same-sex marriage on every state in the union–85 percent of which have affirmatively banned same-sex marriage. The court will almost certainly not be willing to stick its neck out so far enough to overturn the laws in nearly every state.
A U.S. Supreme Court loss, which would be likely until the court changes significantly, would be a disaster for the movement.
We are right to be engaged and even outraged at Prop. 8. But we don’t win by going off half-cocked and doing something stupid. We have to be shrew about our next steps.
Just because we want it really, really, really bad doesn’t change the makeup of the court.
Too soon for this. Let’s be pragmatic.
Man oh man Mr. Calvin are you really THAT naive or just simply uninformed???
This is not what we need. A federal case will be another Roe v. Wade. Look at the state of abortion; it is still being hotly contested because of a controversial Supreme Court decision. It is a no win situation. A unfavorable SC decision will set us back in state cases and a favorable one will only add hundreds of thousands of supporters for the far right.
I hate to tell you this but Obama will ignore everyone at the demonstration and the excuse will be that he was isolated from it by the secret service. So you see, a “realistic” excuse for everything. And nothing new!
Hi there!
I know this is immediately after the Day of Decision, but how often do we get to lift our voices to President Obama in person. So if you have the time & opportunity:
Rally for LGBT Equality with President Obama
Day after the Day of Decision
BEVERLY HILLS HILTON
9876 WILSHIRE BLVD (CORNER OF SANTA MONICA BLVD)
WED MAY 27TH
6PM – Meet to rally
7PM – Program begins
President Barack Obama, the most LGBT-friendly president in history, will be at the Beverly Hilton the evening of Wednesday, May 27th, for a DNC fundraiser. Let’s take this opportunity, just one day after the CA Supreme Court makes its decision on Proposition 8, to show our President our support for his daring promise to our community and to highlight the growing movement towards FULL FEDERAL EQUALITY.
Join us at a rally at 6PM in front of the Beverly Hilton on Wednesday, May 27th.
At 7PM we will be joined by Lt. Dan Choi and other LGBT servicemen & women in opposition to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. They will ask for response from President Obama to the letter signed by 136,000 people asking the president not to fire Lt. Choi by ending DADT.
Regardless of what decision comes down regarding Prop 8 it is time for us all to demand equality on all fronts for all people!
For love and equality!
Why do we continue to act as if these right wing conservative people will not come at us again with the same claims! People we tried being nice and look what it got us!!!!! WE SHOULD BE GOING TO THE US SUPREME COURT! WE SHOULD BE HAVING NATIONAL TELEVISED LIVE DEBATES…THIS NEEDS TO BE FRONT AND CENTER AND WE NEED TO ATTACK THEIR BIGOTRY AND ANSWER EVERY LIE AND CARD THEY HAVE PULLED>>> PLEASE LETS NOT BE NIEVE ABOUT THIS>>THIS TIME AROUND!
Nothing personal to anyone but am I the only one wondering what these “gay rights activists” are smoking? It says they are “wanting to win marriage back for same-sex couples by going back to voters.” though they lose everytime they go to the voters, only the state level and the district courts will take their position right now…the ACLU, Lamda and the others are looking rationally at the situation that this is not a battle that ya’ll can win yet.
I disagree. Until we have 5 votes on the court, we loose this battle for at least 20 years. They need more prior favorable state rulings. Stare decisis is extremely important in America. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stare_decisis
Like hell a federal suit is premature! In the first place, it will be years before it reaches the Supreme Court. In the second, the CA opinion is just crazy. As Tim Rutten wrote in today’s L.A. Times, if, as the court ruled, the voters may carve out a limited exception to the Constitution for GLBT people, can’t they also carve out one for Jews?
Besides, if anyone can persuade the U. S. Supreme Court to side with us, Ted Olson can. He’s a conservative.