Civil & Human Rights

The nation’s longest-running federal court challenge to a state ban on same-sex marriage — now in its tenth year — reached the Supreme Court on Wednesday.  Lyle Denniston reports at SCOTUSblog.com, Oklahoma clerk appeals on same-sex marriage:

A county clerk in Oklahoma filed a petition seeking to defend that state’s ban, one day after a similar appeal was filed by Utah officials.  The Oklahoma case (Smith v. Bishop) has been docketed as 14-136. Other cases are due at the Court soon.

And in Same-sex marriage issue reaches the Court early:

Virginia officials will be submitting their own petition to the Supreme Court on Friday, Attorney General Mark R. Herring said in a filing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

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The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals this afternoon heard six same-sex marriage appeals from four states:

DeBoer, et al v. Snyder, et al, Case No. 14-1341 (E.D. Michigan)

Obergefell, et al v. Himes, et al., Case No. 14-3057 (S.D. Ohio) consolidated with Henry, et al. v. Himes, Case No. 14-3464 (S.D. Ohio)

Bourke, et al v. Beshear, et al, Case No. 14-5291 (W.D. Kentucky). consolidated with Love, et al. v. Beshear , Case. No. 14-5818 (W.D. Kentucky)

Tanco, et al. v. Haslam, Case No. 14-5297 (M.D. Tennessee)

The Cincinnati Enquirer reports, Gay marriage hearing ends: How will court rule?:

Two Republican-appointed judges weighing the fate of gay marriage in four states, including Ohio and Kentucky, didn’t give much away as they peppered lawyers on both sides Wednesday with hard-hitting questions.

Especially difficult to read was Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton, whose queries fell on both sides of the issue. At one point, he declared that modern-day marriage is about “love, affection and commitment” rather than procreation – poking a hole in one argument against legalizing same-sex marriage.

Then, at another, he criticized gay rights advocates for trying to bypass voters. “Changing hearts and minds happens much more effectively through the Democratic process than through the courts,” Sutton said.

[Well Judge, fundamental civil rights are not subject to a plebiscite vote. That’s what makes them fundamental rights.]

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One of the three cases filed by Arizona Tea-Publicans against the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (AIRC), Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (Docket No. 13-1314) has been distributed for the conference of U.S. Supreme Court Justices on September 29.

The Court can and should deny the petition for review by the Arizona State Legislature, upholding the District Court for Arizona opinion which was correctly decided under binding court precedents.

The Court could also relist the petition for review at a later date, something which occurs with regularity.

Howard Fischer today in Arizona redistricting fight goes to Supreme Court, suggests the Court could “summarily overturn” the District Court with an order after its conference. Not likely. This typically would involve an order of remand with instructions from the Court to the District Court for further proceedings. There is not going to be a simple order ruling in favor of the Arizona Legislature.

The Court could grant hearing the petition for review, which I would consider a red flag that the conservative activist justices are once again planning to reverse the Court’s long-standing precedents in their continuing assault upon voting rights.

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Forty-nine years ago today, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), taking an enormous step toward protecting the right to vote for all Americans. But last year, the “Felonious Five” conservative activist justices of the U.S. Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder cut out the heart of the VRA, Section 5, on the specious grounds that discrimination against voters by states no longer occurs in a post-racial America. One has to wonder what freakin’ planet these elitists live on.

If you want to see the VRA restored and Shelby County overturned, you are going to have to elect a Democratic House and Senate to do it. Your father’s Republican Party which helped to pass the VRA and always supported its re-authorization in years past, has been replaced by a radicalized extremist GOP.

Tea-Publicans have taken the opinion of the “Felonious Five” in Shelby County v. holder as a license to discriminate against “those people,” i.e., voters who tend to vote for Democrats. In fact, the very same day that Shelby County was announced, several former states of the Confederacy covered by Section 5 of the VRA immediately sought to infringe the rights of their citizens to vote.

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