12-21-2013, 12:57 PM
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#79
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Person who doesn't update the user title
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Bottom lands of the Missoula floods
Posts: 6,402
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How's this for 'in your face' jurisprudence...
Business Insider
Brett LoGiurato
Dec. 20, 2013
Judge Completely Trolls Justice Scalia In Striking Down Utah's Gay Marriage Ban
Quote:
When U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia handed down a scathing dissent
in United States v. Windsor
— the case in which the high court deemed the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional —
he warned of the domino effect it would have on state bans on gay marriage.
Scalia warned that the Supreme Court's reasoning that struck down the Defense of Marriage Act
— which denied federal benefits to same-sex couples —
could be used to strike down state laws banning same-sex marriage.
Scalia, who's notoriously anti-gay marriage, was saying this was a bad thing. In an interesting twist,
Utah's Judge Shelby quoted Scalia's negative prophecy in his pro-gay marriage opinion.
Shelby then wrote that he "agreed" with that part of Scalia's opinion, and offered his response.
Though Scalia meant it as some kind of dire warning,
Shelby cited the Supreme Court's decision as a reason to overturn Utah's law:
Quote:
The court agrees with Justice Scalia’s interpretation of Windsor
and finds that the important federalism concerns at issue here are nevertheless insufficient to save
a state-law prohibition that denies the Plaintiffs their rights to due process and equal protection under the law.
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Shelby also cited Scalia's dissent in 2003's Lawrence v. Texas, the landmark case
in which the Supreme Court ruled that laws banning sodomy were unconstitutional:
Quote:
The court therefore agrees with the portion of Justice Scalia’s dissenting opinion
in Lawrence in which Justice Scalia stated that the Court’s reasoning logically extends
to protect an individual’s right to marry a person of the same sex.
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