This evening, Chief Justice John Roberts, acting as the circuit justice for the District of Columbia, denied an application for a stay to prevent a law allowing same-sex marriage to take effect before there is a public referendum. Roberts’ opinion is here. More from Jan Crawford and SCOTUSBlog.
Guesty McGuesterson says:
This should shock nobody who knows the justice.
March 2, 2010, 10:11 pmGuy says:
Not surprising, as the D.C. courts interpreting D.C. law are traditionally treated by SCOTUS as if they were state courts interpreting state law, and so a dispute arising under the D.C. charter would be treated like a dispute under a state constitution – not appropriate for review by the Supreme Court.
March 2, 2010, 10:21 pmCornellian says:
I commend Justice Roberts for his lucid, plain-English writing style. It reminds me somewhat of Judge Easterbrook on the 7th Circuit. As someone who actually has to apply appellate level decisions in the real world, I find few things more irritating than an opinion that comes across as some kind of hybrid of a sociology essay and a free verse poetry contest.
March 2, 2010, 10:49 pmGuy says:
What about a haiku?
Gays getting married
March 2, 2010, 10:53 pmwithout a referendum
petition denied
Phil Nuejahr says:
I agree with @Guesty, not a real shocker. This is what we have come to expect from Justice Roberts.
March 3, 2010, 12:00 amBABH says:
Roberts seems to be saying that gay marriage is a matter “of exclusively local concern.”
I wonder what this might mean for DOMA.
March 3, 2010, 1:19 amGuy says:
As I pointed out above, cases that lack any federal jurisdiction except for arising under D.C. law are “of exclusively local concern”. As much as I’d like to think DOMA is doomed, it would be really reaching to divine its future based on this denial.
March 3, 2010, 1:29 amOrin Kerr says:
1. That was an excellent little opinion.
March 3, 2010, 1:37 am2. Guesty, that was a hilarious link.
Jay says:
A style question: Just in the last few days, I’ve noticed that the all-caps designation for JGR is “CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS.” Wasn’t it always formerly (for him and other CJs) “THE CHIEF JUSTICE”? Have they always been used interchangeably, or is this an intentional change made to seem a little less pretentious, like when popes stopped wearing tiaras?
March 3, 2010, 2:04 amChrisHo says:
I guess DREAD PIRATE ROBERTS was already taken?
March 3, 2010, 5:57 ampublic_defender says:
I guess it’s a credit to the Chief Justice’s plain vanilla writing that this post has been up ten hours and we have no hyperbolic pro- or anti-gay marriage posts.
March 3, 2010, 7:38 amSara says:
Perhaps, its a credit to such a plain vanilla issue.
March 3, 2010, 7:50 amJoe T. Guest says:
This is just another extremist right wing ruling from the most extreme of right wing…
Oh, wait a minute…
March 3, 2010, 8:14 amegd says:
Right, because it suggests that Chief Justice Roberts is a homosexual. A suggestion that, as I recall, was met with similar hilarity when such a suggestion was made about Judge Walker.
March 3, 2010, 9:12 amruuffles says:
I don’t get it. I thought it’s now widely accepted that Walker is a homosexual, but neither in the closet nor out of it.
March 3, 2010, 9:17 amGuesty McGuesterson says:
It makes no such insinuation. It just shows that Roberts loves lobster bakes with handsome mustached men in Provincetown and that he’s a better dresser than he lets on and the his marriage late-in-life to a woman with whom he adopted kid is totally legit and nobody asks these questions anyway. Seriously, what does beard even mean?
March 3, 2010, 9:35 amLTR says:
I think he’s trying to say that we shouldn’t dismiss the “Roberts is gay” theories because those theories ended up being correct in Vaughn Walker’s case. At least I understand it that way, the statement is a bit unclear.
March 3, 2010, 9:45 amSteveW says:
Is it typical for a Justice to write an explanation for the denial of a stay? Justice Robert’s opinion in the only opinion in the “in-chambers opinions” section of the Supreme Court’s website for the 2009 term, which suggests that it is unusual.
March 3, 2010, 10:00 amruuffles says:
Clearly the NYT was on to something when they were trying to unseal the adoption records.
I thought all you guys were snarking but it appears this was raised as early as his scotus nomination.
http://underneaththeirrobes.blogs.com/main/2005/08/more_grist_for_.html
March 3, 2010, 10:03 amLTR says:
Actually, some say that the picture was taken on Martha’s Vineyard – slightly less gay location. Richard Lazarus is married AFAIK and I hear the same goes for the Tom Selleck-lookalike.
March 3, 2010, 10:24 amWide Stance Family Man says:
Why don’t righties assume that CJJR is at worst “cured” of teh g@y in light of the lack of recent plaid pants, no further trips to P-town and the late-bloomer family?
[Answer - because they don't really believe their own "it's a choice" BS.]
March 3, 2010, 10:34 amSCOTUSblog » Wednesday round-up says:
[...] Post cover the dispute. CBS News’s Jan Crawford, the BLT, Constitutional Law Prof Blog, and The Volokh Conspiracy also noted the Chief Justice’s [...]
March 3, 2010, 10:41 amSarcastro says:
Don’t look now, but I think egd kinda implied Roberts is gay, and thus the pic is not funny.
March 3, 2010, 10:46 amkdackson says:
I guess this absolutely proves that Roberts is a raving conservative hater who will bend the law to support homophobes whenever he gets the chance.
Oh, wait…..
March 3, 2010, 12:08 pmtroll_dc2 says:
So much for the legal analysis of Roberts’ opinion. I guess that some of our commenters are not too busy these days…
March 3, 2010, 12:21 pmDilan Esper says:
I don’t like the speculation about roberts’ sexuality any more than I liked the speculation about walker’s. It’s his business.
March 3, 2010, 12:30 pmegd says:
Obviously you don’t recall this particular flamewar (with excellent trolling done by Freedom!!!!11!!eleventy) [that is, the trolling was well done, not that it was a good thing]. In fact, I think one poster referred to the allegation as “stupid and dishonest.”
March 3, 2010, 1:08 pmRikiTiki says:
Dilan,
So if Walker and Roberts wanted to get married in DC this week, would you be okay with that, since of course, that is their business and not your business?
March 3, 2010, 1:54 pmMartinned says:
Wouldn’t that be bigamy?
March 3, 2010, 2:17 pmSarcastro says:
Oh, great, now there’s gonna be Justice/Judge slash fan-fiction!
March 3, 2010, 2:34 pmDilan Esper says:
So if Walker and Roberts wanted to get married in DC this week, would you be okay with that, since of course, that is their business and not your business?
Well, marriage is a public act where as being gay or bi- is private.
In any event, were Roberts not married to someone else, I would think he should be able to marry any consenting non-close relative adult he damn well pleases to.
March 3, 2010, 2:52 pmRandy says:
public defender: “I guess it’s a credit to the Chief Justice’s plain vanilla writing that this post has been up ten hours and we have no hyperbolic pro– or anti-gay marriage posts.”
I was taking a nap.
March 3, 2010, 3:05 pmricky says:
BIGAMY IS A HUMAN RIGHT!
March 3, 2010, 3:38 pmptt says:
I’ve been looking for an analysis of how typical or how unusual this stay was and have found nothing. It, too, struck me as long and over-informative in that it talked about another case wending its way through the appeals court.
March 3, 2010, 3:39 pmOrin Kerr says:
Just to be clear, I thought the link was funny because I assumed Guesty was making a joke based on the picture.
March 3, 2010, 5:12 pmptt says:
I don’t see what’s so funny about a photo of three men so enthusiastically violating Levitical law…
March 3, 2010, 5:46 pmkeypusher64 says:
What reason is there to prohibit close-relative-gay-marriage?
March 3, 2010, 6:15 pmpublic_defender says:
I thought the photo was funny because it was lighthearted and did not appear in any way serious. Some of the later comments may have been sarcastic, maybe not. If the later comments were jokes, they failed (see, Letterman apology to Palin family). If they were serious, they were way out of line. I’ve been plenty critical of the Chief Justice on other topics, but out-of-bounds cheap shots are just that.
In this case, he wrote a well-written opinion that cut against people whose ideology he appears to support. Give him a little credit.
And as to getting married later in life and adopting, geez, the adoption world is full of parents who waited too long to have kids the old fashioned way. And even the mafia leaves the family alone. Grow up.
March 3, 2010, 7:20 pmDilan Esper says:
What reason is there to prohibit close-relative-gay-marriage?
There is not really any so long as the thing is consensual, but on the other hand, there isn’t any tradition of discrimination against and repression of people desiring to enter into same-sex marriages with close relatives (as there clearly is against gays and lesbians in general) and there IS a problem with ascertaining consent with respect to close relatives.
Bottom line, though, is that the problem with many opponents of gay marriage is that they refuse to view the gay marriage issue in the context of centuries of discrimination against and repression of gays and lesbians, instead wanting to define it as some abstract thing and then say that since some other, tiny inequity in our marriage laws hasn’t been addressed, this proves that there’s no place for gay marriage.
March 3, 2010, 7:54 pmArthur Kirkland says:
Let’s ignore the distraction about Justice Roberts, and focus on the bright side of a ruling that clearly constitutes an abomination:
If God unleashes hellfire in D.C., it would reduce at least some of the snowpack.
March 3, 2010, 8:20 pmpublic_defender says:
Comment thread winner. Honorable mention to the first post.
March 4, 2010, 7:56 amyankee says:
It’s really only “private” if you try to hide it. To keep people you know from finding out, you have to actively avoid ever mentioning your boyfriend/girlfriend. If you live together, you have to misleadingly characterize them as your “roommate.” When you tell people about your vacations, you have to carefully excise any reference to your partner. If you’re single, you have to avoid ever telling people about dates you’ve been or go through contortions to avoid referring to your date with a pronoun. And so forth and so on.
In the case of a public figure, being gay and unmarried is about as “private” as an unmarried heterosexual public figure’s dating life. Not necessarily something you want to talk about at press conferences (unless you want to make a public statement about being gay for political reasons), but not something completely unknown either. The only way to keep it truly private is to actively hide it.
March 4, 2010, 1:42 pmDilan Esper says:
yankee:
There is a lot of what you say that I agree with about the public/private distinction, but it seems to me that unless a person has volunteered information about his or her sexual orientation, we really shouldn’t be trying to dig it up, precisely because at least some people consider that to be a private matter.
March 4, 2010, 1:54 pmyankee says:
Dilan: it seems to me that if CJ Roberts is having an affair with a man, it should be treated the same way as an affair with a woman. I see nothing wrong with trying to dig up that sort of scandal on a prominent public figure. You may think heterosexual affairs are private matters the media shouldn’t dig up either; if you do, we’ll just have to disagree on that.
Same goes for an unmarried Justice’s gay dating life. If a reporter spotted Justice Sotomayor on a date with a man, that would be legitimate gossip-column fodder, and likewise if she were spotted on a date with a woman. If you think the media should stay away from reporting Sotomayor’s heterosexual dates, they should stay away from her hypothetical gay dates too.
March 4, 2010, 2:29 pmDilan Esper says:
yankee:
A couple of points.
First, I am not sure orientation is the same issue as affairs. Orientation is treated as a lot more private, and is subject to greater stigmatization. There may be a more legitimate reason not to report on orientation.
Second, I am completely unconvinced that if a Supreme Court justice is having an affair, absent some issue such as a quid pro quo or a blackmail or sexual harassment issue, it is really news. (Indeed, I haven’t seen any reporting on any Supreme Court justice having an affair, and I assume this means the media agrees with me– after all, I assume that Supreme Court justices, like other powerful people, have affairs.)
So I don’t really think we should be getting information about Sonia Sotomayor’s dating life, or whether Clarence Thomas or Antonin Scalia is getting some on the side, or anyone’s sexual orientation on the court. It’s simply not important. Frankly, I don’t even think it’s all that interesting.
March 4, 2010, 2:59 pm