Judge Gives Finger To Scalia, & Mocks the betoqued-for-pomp-circuses Cassandra of the SCOTUS

[kpete]

..........the ruling read very much like a basic civics lesson about the way that the Constitution’s protection of individual rights may sometimes override traditional moral and political preferences, and even trump the expressed wishes of a political majority.
http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/02/kentucky-ruling-on-same-sex-marriages/

In Kentucky on February 12, Judge John G. Heyburn of the US District Court Western District of Kentucky (appointed by Dubya Daddy Bush, for those who are keeping score) found (pdf) that the provisions of the Kentucky constitution and statute which which provided that the state could not, and need not, recognise same sex marriages solemnised outside Kentucky violated the Fourteenth Amendment, and were therefore invalid.

............Heyburn’s decision is similar in many ways to Shelby’s, not least because Heyburn gets a good’un or two in on Tony Scalia, the betoqued-for-pomp-and-circuses Cassandra of the Supreme Court.

...........................................

On the next page, Heyburn cites Scalia’s comment in Lawrence that:

“‘preserving the traditional institution of marriage’ is just a kinder way of describing the State’s moral disapproval of same-sex couples.”

Stern says that, aside from giving Tony the finger, Heyburn’s decision is “fairly predictable” and “follows the emerging pattern of these kinds of rulings: He wavers on the scrutiny question, finds that the law was driven by anti-gay animus, and strikes it on Equal Protection grounds.”

In essence he says that the same sex marriage bans in the probably fail heightened scrutiny, and might perhaps be driven by animus against gay and lesbian people, but neither of those things actually matter. They don’t matter because the laws also fail the much less onerous test of rational scrutiny – that is, that they must be rationally related to a legitimate government purpose – by reason of, and here’s the tricky bit, not actually being rational or in any way related to a legitimate government purpose.

http://sblog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Kentucky-marriage-recognitioin-ruling-2-12-141.pdf
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2014/02/14/another-one-bites-the-dust-and-another-one-down/

[elleng]

1. Excellent!

'not actually being rational or in any way related to a legitimate government purpose.'

[monmouth3]

2. " Tony Scalia, the betoqued-for-pomp-and-circuses Cassandra of the Supreme Court." Best line I've

read in ages..Bwahahahha...

[idendoit]

3. Which makes his arguement in the union fare share case so weird.

http://articles.latimes.com/2014/jan/21/business/la-fi-scotus-union-20140122 I always knew Tony was a thug, I just didn't figure him for a union thug.