I don't want our issues in front of the SCOTUS...

[cecilfirefox]

To be quite frank it makes me nervous. I know its well intentioned, but right now I don't think we got the votes. I don't want our issues in front of the SCOTUS until we've replaced at least one conservative justice. It just makes me so nervous.

[EFerrari]

1. Do we know it's well intentioned? Olsen is a ight wing fixer. n/t

oops

[Eric J in MN]

2. I don't think that a federal lawsuit at this time would succeed in making gay marriage-recognition

...required by all states.

But I also don't think a Supreme Court ruling on the subject would diminish gay rights.

A Supreme Court ruling in the near future would probably just keep the status quo of letting the states decide.

[Ms. Toad]

9. It would let the states continue to decide,

BUT it means that even when there is no longer strong public policy against same gender marriage - which is rapidly becoming the case (and is the only legally valid basis for refusing to recognize marriages from another state), we will have to reverse an existing Supreme Court decision to gain federal and 50-state wide recognition of marriages.

Do you have any idea how difficult that is? Roe v. Wade has been nibbled away at - but despite the fact that if it were decided today it would likely have been decided very differently today (and might not exist). The power of stare decesis is so strong that the justices have not overturned it. We do not want a decision like declaring that it is constitutional to permit states to deny recognition of marriages from other states, or to permit the federal government to deny recognition of state marriages. Having no decision is far better than having a negative one from the Supreme Court.

[Ozymanithrax]

3. Brown Vs. the Board of Education was the last of many attempts

to change the law of separate but equal. Gaining the recognition that Gays have the right to equal protection under the law may take decades. I said elsewhere that civil rights should not be a tennis ball. There is already a move to change the constitution once again in 2010 to allow gay marriage. If successful, the other side will fight for a change in 2012.

The law must be the law in all states. As long as the government determines who can get married, then it should apply equally to all citizens capable of entering into a binding contract.

[pup_ajax]

4. I want our issues upfront EVERYWHERE

Yes, let's hide in the corner and hope those nasty right-wingers will go away so one day -- many years from now -- maybe we can then actually stand up for our rights. Bah! Let them try ... maybe it will work. Maybe it won't. Are we really such cowards?

[Ms. Toad]

10. Nothing to do with cowardice

It has to do with being intelligent enough not to make bad law that is virtually impossible to reverse (does Roe v. Wade which the conservatives have been trying to reverse since the 70s ring a bell?) without a constitutional amendment (still waiting for the ratification of the ERA...didn't that also start sometime in the 70s?)

Very soon (less than 10 years is my prediction) it will be time. 10% of the states already permit marriage. Soon the argument that it is against the strongly held public policy to prohibit same gender marriage will be ridiculous - at that point, the Supreme Court will have to rule in favor of recognition of marriage across state borders, and then it will be over just as it was in Loving v. Virginia.

The monkey wrench would be an affirmative decision by the Supreme Court declaring that there is strongly held public policy that would permit states to refuse to recognize other states' marriages that we would need to reverse. That would put equality much farther off. As noted above - constitutional amendments are hard to come by, as are reversals of existing Supreme Court decisions.

[mitchtv]

13. upfront and annoyingly constant`

the time is NOW

[imdjh]

5. We have a helluva lot more to work with than we did ten years ago, and the future won't make a diff

We have a lot more to work with than Loving did, IMO.

We have 36,000 people who are legally married in California who have standing because their marriages are not recognized by other states and the federal government (aka the IRS and SSA). Their marriages are legally rock solid, having survived legal challenge at the state supreme court level.

We have friendly nations whose nationals are legally married, and whose marriages are presumably not recognized by the federal government or the various states even though the heterosexual marriages of those countries are. This despite the fact that the US government recognizes plural marriages from other countries.

It would be very cool if the countries which have gay marriage would deliberately send gay Ambassadors and/or Consulates to the US to force the federal government to not only recognize those marriages, but also to have to come up with a protocol for addressing the invitations.

And we have Scalia on record saying that Lawrence paves the way for gay marriage.

What more could we want?

[Q3JR4]

6. I want our issues front and center.

I'd like the publicity. Whatever the court does, our issues would be front and center. To me that would be a win.

In any case that goes before the court the "liberals" on the court could side with us, or not. The "conservatives" on the court could side against us, or not (Anthony Kennedy voted with the majority in Lawrence V. Texas, the case that overturned sodomy laws, so who knows where he'll stand). In the worse case the court sidesteps the marriage issue ruling on the constitutionality of DOMA or some other legal technicality, and nothing changes. In the best case they rule in our favor, or they overturn prop. 8.

If you don't take a chance, nothing will change. Period.

Q3JR4.
Push as far as you can and hope nothing breaks. If it does, pick up the pieces but as soon as possible start pushing again.

[t0dd]

7. Yeah, I completely agree

Just imagine a supreme court ruling saying same-sex marriage must be legal in all 50 states. That would basically be the nail in the coffin. No more DOMA. No more fighting for our rights state by state. An affirmation that our federal Constitution requires us to have equal guarantees under the law. It would be a beautiful thing.

Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion for Lawrence v. Texas. In addition, he also wrote the majority for Romer v. Evans. I can't see him going against a same-sex marriage case after articulating the principles he did in those opinions.

[sui generis]

8. doesn't matter

we'll still be living together same as we ever have. Even if if passes there will still be challenges, same as there ever has.

There will never be a good time to do it or a better or worse time to do it that there won't be an even more better or worse time to do it.

[tekisui]

11. Kennedy voted with the majority in Romer v. Evans.

I think we have the votes.

[Tektonik]

12. Do we even know if we have Sotomayor's vote?

[Ioo]

14. I agree. Because while the argument is the way prop 8 passes, it will be about gay marriage

:(

Maybe we have time on our side, and this has to work its way to the SC. that could take years.