As someone who doesn’t think like you, why do you think Sotomayor is great? I get Kagan, with whom I usually disagree on constitutional issues, but who is a brilliant lawyer. Same with RBG. But I don’t see that in Sotomayor. So what is it that you love?
I very much doubt that SCOTUS would overturn gay marriage. Gay marriage seems to be pretty well settled. Unlike abortion which had been contentious since the start of it'd poorly reasoned opinion. Even RBG noted this.
Agreed. Alito's draft argues that overturning Roe doesn't have any "reliance" problems - that is, because in his mind removing abortion access isn't more important than states' potential interests in banning it, it doesn't matter that "millions of women rely on [abortion access]", as the activists love to put it.
But this means he's upholding the reliance principle. And Obergefell is a big hot steaming reliance problem, because there are now hundreds of thousands, if not millions of gay, married couples. If the Overturn Roe bloc tried to dissolve those overnight by mere spiteful fiat, the backlash would be plenty big enough to pack the Court with liberals and overturn their mistake.
They may not formally overturn Obergefell, but I would be willing to put up $50 on a conditional bet that if they get to 7-2, within five of their annual terms, they will decide a case that provides a right of conscience to public officials to not cooperate with gay people who want to get married -- i.e. they will make the conduct of Kim Davis, the County Clerk who didn't want to issue licenses, legal. So you may theoretically have a right to get married, but if you live in Alabama or something, good luck finding a clerk who'll issue the license.
I actually think there's a non-trivial chance, maybe 20%, that they are already on course to do that, with the current Court, probably with Roberts dissenting.
I only half-believe this, but I am skeptical that that would be the same disaster it would have been 70 years ago had Loving had a similar outcome. And I say that as someone in an interracial couple, so I want to talk very carefully here.
But there's a hysteresis effect at work here in the traditional absurd libertarian "the free market will protect us from discrimination!" argument. 70 years ago, if public officials had been given some "right of conscience" to refuse to process interracial marriages, it was within the Overton window for them to do that. A majority of the country would have even supported a federal law to protect that "right"!
Today, however, the majority supports gay marriage. Even if SCOTUS gave a right to conscience, there are enough bastions of gay marriage that people legitimately *would* "vote with their feet". Most people could find a sympathetic clerk within their own state, hell, EVEN in Alabama. All of the inhumanity would become a liberal-favoring wedge issue in the short term (ESPECIALLY among core Trump voters, who are squishier on gay marriage), and long-term it would fuel migration patterns that would ultimately depopulate and disempower shitty states, even if people suffered in the interim.
But like I said, I only half-believe this. It could just as easily be the slippery slope towards another era like Jim Crow. I try not to freak out like The Groups are always doing, but it's hard not to see some truth to their perspective when fundamental rights are being taken away. I generally trust that our polity is too far down the path of the REALLY important rights - like marriage - that we OUGHT to be OK. I *WANT* to be able to confidently say that *Dodd* is different, because pro-choicers have been kidding themselves about abortion actually being a fundamental right (at least in the minds of the mushy middle), but that Loving and other rights are on more solid ground. And I *THINK* this is the case. But as the saying goes, "Trust, but verify.".
I think you're under-estimating the degree to which Moral Majority evangelicals still dominate the ranks of politically-engaged people in red counties. The modal GOP rank-and-file voter may not care about this stuff, but a lot of the people who are actually running for local office as Republicans do.
One can hope that when the GOP over-reaches it will lead to Dems winning back more seats, but the GOP is also busily working on shoring up their geographic advantages with gerrymanders and various manipulations of the election process.
I'm a medical student not a medical professional, but Type 1 Diabetes definitely reduces life expectancy and although keeping blood sugar controlled can help a type 1 diabetic live longer they still have a reduced life expectancy compared to someone without it. 25% seems conservative, as a 2015 study (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2088852) showed that the average age of death for a woman with T1DM was 68, 12 years earlier than a woman without.
As someone who doesn’t think like you, why do you think Sotomayor is great? I get Kagan, with whom I usually disagree on constitutional issues, but who is a brilliant lawyer. Same with RBG. But I don’t see that in Sotomayor. So what is it that you love?
I very much doubt that SCOTUS would overturn gay marriage. Gay marriage seems to be pretty well settled. Unlike abortion which had been contentious since the start of it'd poorly reasoned opinion. Even RBG noted this.
I’m going to go ahead and say that if the court gets to 7-2, you should not feel confident at all that Obergefell remains settled law
Agreed. Alito's draft argues that overturning Roe doesn't have any "reliance" problems - that is, because in his mind removing abortion access isn't more important than states' potential interests in banning it, it doesn't matter that "millions of women rely on [abortion access]", as the activists love to put it.
But this means he's upholding the reliance principle. And Obergefell is a big hot steaming reliance problem, because there are now hundreds of thousands, if not millions of gay, married couples. If the Overturn Roe bloc tried to dissolve those overnight by mere spiteful fiat, the backlash would be plenty big enough to pack the Court with liberals and overturn their mistake.
Yes reliance of Roe would be maybe 6 months at most
They may not formally overturn Obergefell, but I would be willing to put up $50 on a conditional bet that if they get to 7-2, within five of their annual terms, they will decide a case that provides a right of conscience to public officials to not cooperate with gay people who want to get married -- i.e. they will make the conduct of Kim Davis, the County Clerk who didn't want to issue licenses, legal. So you may theoretically have a right to get married, but if you live in Alabama or something, good luck finding a clerk who'll issue the license.
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/judge-rules-kentucky-clerk-denied-sex-marriage-licenses-rcna20858
I actually think there's a non-trivial chance, maybe 20%, that they are already on course to do that, with the current Court, probably with Roberts dissenting.
I only half-believe this, but I am skeptical that that would be the same disaster it would have been 70 years ago had Loving had a similar outcome. And I say that as someone in an interracial couple, so I want to talk very carefully here.
But there's a hysteresis effect at work here in the traditional absurd libertarian "the free market will protect us from discrimination!" argument. 70 years ago, if public officials had been given some "right of conscience" to refuse to process interracial marriages, it was within the Overton window for them to do that. A majority of the country would have even supported a federal law to protect that "right"!
Today, however, the majority supports gay marriage. Even if SCOTUS gave a right to conscience, there are enough bastions of gay marriage that people legitimately *would* "vote with their feet". Most people could find a sympathetic clerk within their own state, hell, EVEN in Alabama. All of the inhumanity would become a liberal-favoring wedge issue in the short term (ESPECIALLY among core Trump voters, who are squishier on gay marriage), and long-term it would fuel migration patterns that would ultimately depopulate and disempower shitty states, even if people suffered in the interim.
But like I said, I only half-believe this. It could just as easily be the slippery slope towards another era like Jim Crow. I try not to freak out like The Groups are always doing, but it's hard not to see some truth to their perspective when fundamental rights are being taken away. I generally trust that our polity is too far down the path of the REALLY important rights - like marriage - that we OUGHT to be OK. I *WANT* to be able to confidently say that *Dodd* is different, because pro-choicers have been kidding themselves about abortion actually being a fundamental right (at least in the minds of the mushy middle), but that Loving and other rights are on more solid ground. And I *THINK* this is the case. But as the saying goes, "Trust, but verify.".
I think you're under-estimating the degree to which Moral Majority evangelicals still dominate the ranks of politically-engaged people in red counties. The modal GOP rank-and-file voter may not care about this stuff, but a lot of the people who are actually running for local office as Republicans do.
One can hope that when the GOP over-reaches it will lead to Dems winning back more seats, but the GOP is also busily working on shoring up their geographic advantages with gerrymanders and various manipulations of the election process.
I'm a medical student not a medical professional, but Type 1 Diabetes definitely reduces life expectancy and although keeping blood sugar controlled can help a type 1 diabetic live longer they still have a reduced life expectancy compared to someone without it. 25% seems conservative, as a 2015 study (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2088852) showed that the average age of death for a woman with T1DM was 68, 12 years earlier than a woman without.
Why are dem nominees so old? R’s always make sure to put young and dumb judges in for lasting power.
Treating people as instrumentalities who should make life decisions to achieve your goals is the opposite of progressivism.
Didn't we just see the consequences of this sort of thinking with RBG. At this level of power, ones life decisions are too enormously consequential.
As I understand it age at death is not correlated with parents age at death.
Individual health issues are paramount, but this indicates there is a correlation: https://www.cnn.com/2016/08/15/health/parents-life-expectancy-heart-health/index.html#:~:text=It%20turned%20out%20that%20there,the%20longer%20the%20parents%20lived.