I can’t say I feel sad that Scalia died – I feel sympathy for those who loved him, because they must be sad today, but that’s it.
Nor do I feel happy, although pragmatically of course I’m pleased that the prospects for some important issues now look a tiny bit better.
Mainly, I’m fascinated by how this will change the shape of the election. I could be wrong, but I don’t think the Republicans will approve any nomination before the election; even if the nominee is one that seems very good for them – e.g., as “centrist” as a Democratic President can nominate – in the end Senators are answerable to their base, not to their party, and I think accepting any Obama nomination would infuriate their base.
Presidential elections are always about “who will choose the next Supreme Court nominee(s),” but usually the mainstream media ignores that. They won’t be ignoring it this election. And if a Clinton or a Sanders chooses Scalia’s replacement, that will enormously change the landscape for a host of crucial progressive issues, possibly for a generation.
As for Scalia himself… I used to admire him. I thought of him as a man who I disagreed with, but who nonetheless acted out of deep principle, not partisan bias. My rosy view of Scalia was ended by the Bush v Gore decision, which revealed him as unprincipled, partisan, and contemptuous of democracy. (If Scalia is reading this blog from the afterlife – which he is not, because first there is no such, and second if there were he’d have much better things to do than read this blog, but if, he’d no doubt say “get over it!”).
Anyway, feel free to use this post to discuss anything Scalia-related; to facilitate, here’s some Scalinks:
What Scalia’s Death Means For Cases Currently In Process
- What happens to this Term’s close cases? : SCOTUSblog
Scalia’s votes on unannounced decisions are now void, turning some 5/4 decisions into 4/4 undecided cases. - The Simply Breathtaking Consequences Of Justice Scalia’s Death | ThinkProgress
Similar to the previous link, but lists a couple of additional cases. - What Antonin Scalia’s death means for Obama’s climate plans – Vox
Politics, politics, politics. - Supreme Court vacancies in presidential election years : SCOTUSblog
Save you a click: There’s no tradition of not nominating or confirming Justices in the last year of a President’s term. - OTOH, the argument over recess appointments to the Supreme Court has come up before: Flashback: Senate Democrats in 1960 pass resolution against election-year Supreme Court recess appointments – The Washington Post
- Will the G.O.P. Response to Antonin Scalia’s Death Hand the Election to the Democrats? – The New Yorker
The title is hyperbolic, but – especially if Senate Republicans refuse to confirm any Obama nominee, which seems likely – there’s no question that this election will be, to a significant extent, about The Supreme Court. (Really, it always was about The Supreme Court – but now the mainstream media, and presumably large sections of the public who get their info from the media, will realize that’s what it’s about.)Remembering Scalia and his legacy
- How Antonin Scalia Changed America>
A symposium of brief comments from notable Scalia admirers, critics, and in-betweens. - Remembering Antonin Scalia: His 7 Most Hateful and Homophobic Remarks – Towleroad
- Top 5 Scalia Rulings that helped Progressives | Informed Comment
- Scalia-Ginsburg friendship bridged opposing ideologies – CNNPolitics.com
“Ginsburg and Scalia were also the subject of an opera ‘Scalia/Ginsburg’ composed by Derrick Wang that had its debut last spring.” - The sarcastic lines that made Justice Scalia the king of Supreme Court sarcasm – The Washington Post
- Justice Antonin Scalia’s 10 most memorable lines – CNNPolitics.com
Following up on link #4, I was curious how long it typically takes a nominee to be concerned. I came across this story in the NY Times. Granted none of those were in election years, but not one of the last ten appointed justices going back 30 years took longer to confirm than the amount of time we have left before the election. Even the notoriously slow Clarence Thomas confirmation took 99 days; if it started tomorrow he would be confirmed on May 24, more than four months before the election. I think that’s ample time for Obama to nominate someone and the congressional republicans want to actually do their jobs.
Two random thoughts.
First, I am praying as much as an existentialist Christian can be considered to “pray” for Bernie to win the primaries after Hillary shifts gears and accepts a nomination for Scalia’s replacement. It would be worth it for all the strokes it would trigger in the Fox News demographic.
Second, now would be an amazingly interesting time for Ginsberg to finally retire for health reasons. Or Kennedy. Or both.
This is my favorite article I’ve read so far: The Death Of Antonin Scalia: Reactions From Quail — Medium
More at the link.
I figure that President Obama will do his job and nominate a replacement. I figure that the Senate should do their job and consider it. But that’s all their job it – to consider it. By all means they should have hearings and then a vote. And if they don’t like him or her, they should vote them down and tell the President to send them another. Which they can keep doing until after January 20th, 2017.
It will be hypocritical for Pres. Obama to complain about having his nominee filibustered. After all, as a Senator he attempted to filibuster someone else’s nominee.
Two other of those Senators were Sen. Biden and Sen. Clinton.
Well I mean—it wouldn’t be hypocritical of him to *complain* about his nominee getting filibustered, any more than it would be hypocritical to complain about senators just voting not to confirm. People have a right to complain about things not going the way they want. It’d only be hypocritical of him to claim that a filibuster of his nominee was an *illegitimate* move. (I mean, he’d still be correct if he did, but in a hypocritical way.)
I think a filibuster on a judge, as a way of trying to force the administration to withdraw an extreme choice and choose a more moderate choice, can be legitimate. However, I don’t agree with filibusters as a way of refusing the administration’s right to fill a position, period.
But in practice, the Republicans have a majority, so talking about filibusters is moot. If the Republicans don’t want to approve a nominee, they can just do it with a simple majority vote, no filibuster required. (Unless the Republicans are split, I suppose.)
Some commentators I’ve seen thought that Obama or Senate Democrats would be able to lean on Republicans up for reelection in split or Democrat-leaning districts. They’d only need to get 4 (but they probably can’t get 14 to prevent a filibuster).
Apparently back in July of 2007 Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) proposed that the Senate not confirm any more nominations from Pres. Bush. He didn’t propose to not hold hearings, but the effect would be the same – don’t fill the seat. And that would have been over a longer time period than Pres. Obama has left now.
Ron:
Republicans back then also seemed to be singing a different tune:
I’m not sure that this sort of “look what they said when the positions were reversed!” approach matters – but let’s not pretend that only the Democrats do it.
McConnell has been just as hypocritical in his refusal to bring important judicial nominees up for consideration until after the election – he made the exact same arguments against Democrats when they argued the current GOP position in late 2007 (I believe) against Bush’s nominees. (See this John Oliver video, with the most relevant footage of McConnell starting at about 3:00.) He didn’t even pretend there was something fundamentally different about the two situations, at least not in the footage I’ve seen or read about the Scalia situation – just “when my side does it, it’s cool; when your side does it, it’s bad.”
In any case I’d expect this will be a huge topic in the media in the coming months, and hopefully they point out that this would be the longest time for a SCOTUS nominee to get an up-or-down vote in decades if you count election day as the cut-off, and the longest in US history if you count Obama’s last day in Jan 17 as the cut-off. Hopefully some voters will draw some conclusions from that and realize that this is nothing but shamelessly blatant partisanship by the Republicans, refusing to fill an incredibly important seat, or even consider a nominee, for purely political reasons. I mean, the Constitution, which Republicans fall over themselves to say how much they revere, is pretty cut-and-dried on this – President nominates, and with the advice and consent of congress a SCOTUS judge is chosen. No time frame, no “let’s wait and see how the election plays out.”
If they go this route (which seems quite likely) I hope it will hurt them in November. It would certainly be a no-brainer argument for Sanders or Clinton to bring against whatever GOP nominee has praised Scalia for his strict interpretation of the Constitution.
The tragedy of Antonin Scalia. “He thought he could remove politics from the Supreme Court, but he only made them worse.”
Honestly, I can’t find it in me to be mad at all at the GOP for putting off confirming any (hypothetical) Obama nominee for Scalia’s seat until after the election. Were the positions reversed, I’d want Senate Democrats to do the exact same thing. I’m part of the hyper-partisan problem too.
I really don’t like the practice. Taken to it’s logical extreme, there will be tons of vacancies until both the Senate and the White House are held by the same party. What happens if the Dems win the White House in November but the GOP holds the Senate? Do we not confirm any Supreme Court Justices for at least the next 2 years?
If we want to reduce the power of the Judicial branch, that’s a good way to do it. But if we want a functional Judiciary, this is probably a bad road we’ve been headed down for the last 20 years.
As far as wanting Senate Dems to do the same if positions were reverse goes ; in a war between competing cultures and civilizations, playing fair is synonymous with mass suicide. Especially when the other side tends to shout their intentions to eliminate the opposition very loudly and consistently.
Yes, this. Like Jake, I really don’t like the practice. But I also don’t want my party to be the only party not engaging in it.
I suspect that in that situation, the political pressure on the Senate to approve of a nominee would become too much to hold out until a new president is elected, so they’d let a nominee through.
http://cheezburger.com/8751295488/funny-twitter-image-justice-scalia-irony
In case the image doesn’t load:
“Antonin #Scalia requested cremation in his will, but millions of women will meet tomorrow to discuss if that’s really best for his body.”
Can’t… type… laughing… too… hard…
Grace
Hm. According to a recent Gallup poll, 37% of the public thinks that the court is too liberal, 20% thinks it’s too conservative, and 40% think it’s about right. I have to wonder what effect that will have. I can figure out what the 37% and the 20% think of what the Senate GOP has planned, but the 40% is hard to figure.
Frankly, I’d like to see Scalia replaced with someone just like him. He seemed to understand that it’s not the place for unelected Justices to adjust the law to what they think best fits social or political circumstances. That’s what the legislature’s job is. Otherwise you have tyranny by 5 people.
Besides having the criterion that they understand what the phrase “separation of powers” means, I would like to see the new Justice bring some sorely needed diversity to the Court. It should be someone who did not attend Yale, Harvard or any other Ivy League school (all the current Justices, as well as Justice Scalia, went to either Harvard or Yale). It should be someone born, raised and educated between the Rockies and the Appalachians, and should be neither Jewish or Catholic. None of the current Justices would meet any of those criteria. The current Justices all fall within a very, very narrow geographic, educational and religious demographic. Time to go outside them. According to the Pew Research Center, one fourth of Americans are Evangelical Protestants. Seems to me that’s an awfully big chunk of the U.S. not to be represented on the Supreme Court.
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/16-trump-supporters-south-carolina-willing-tell-pollsters-they-are-openly-white not to beat a dead horse, but not everyone is sweetness and light on the inside. Anyone who thinks all people are essentially good inside and all people down deep worship the same God of Love and cute bunnies needs to get out and meet more people. Maybe read a book or three.
RonF:
I agree. I note that about 22% of the American population is “Unaffiliated.” I’d like to see that represented on the court, since from my perspective the difference between one theist and another theist seems very small, compared to the difference between a theist and an agnostic. I’d certainly be in favor of more perspective on that point.
For instance, it’d be nice to see the LGBT percentage of the population represented in some fashion.
And, as long as we’re agreed that how you were born, raised and educated might be material in shaping the experience you bring to the court, I’d like to see someone non-white. How about a two-spirit, female-assigned First Peoples agnostic from Minnesota?
Grace
I’d be fine with the Republicans making it clear that they intended to reject anyone except a judicial minimalist like Sri Srivanasan, as the Democrats rejected Bork and accepted Kennedy. A split government is reasonably not a point at which a strong ideologue should get onto the court. But rejecting the very idea of considering whomever the president nominates to the supreme court for a year, leaving the supreme court short a judge for at least a year (and if we have a split government again next year, it would still take months for a judge to be appointed), is a basic rejection of governance that I don’t want from any political party.
On the other hand, I look forward to the Republicans blocking Obama’s nominee, losing the senate and the presidency and getting a solid liberal justice for their troubles. I’d love to see Breyer replace Kennedy as the median justice. And, on a third hand, I fear what sort of nonsense Trump would put on the supreme court (at least with replacing Scalia, there is no chance of a Republican moving the median justice).
grace:
By the numbers, that’s a legitimate concept. But I’m uncomfortable with putting someone onto the institution that is supposed to be the final guardian of our rights who would be in denial about the central philosophy of where our rights come from – “… that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, ….” Someone who thinks that rights come from humans as opposed to a Creator might be more willing to allow humans to take away those rights.
I think we should have someone on the court who aligns with 24% of the population before we worry about getting someone on there who aligns with less than 4%.
Charles S:
You seriously think that refusing to confirm an Obama nominee will cost the GOP the Presidency and the Senate?
Ah. Good to know you support religious tests for public office, in contravention of Article VI Clause 3 of the Constitution.
Yes, and thankfully no one who believes that rights come from a Creator has ever advocated taking away rights from other humans. Whew – that’s a relief. I was worried for a minute there that slavery, disenfranchisement of blacks and women and non-landholding men, etc actually happened in this country.
Yes, he clearly thought that in Bush v. Gore. That wasn’t a decision that fit the “political circumstances” over the will of the people at all.
RonF,
I would point to Kim Davis as an example of someone using religious convictions to justify lawless behavior. And my impression is that many unaffiliated persons, including atheists, believe strongly in the idea of individual rights, even if they don’t think those rights have a supernatural component.
In general, I see religious belief (and lack thereof) as a poor proxy for determining whether someone cares about the idea of individual rights.
I’m not Charles, but I think that is definitely a possible outcome. I also think that this happening early in the primary process makes it even more likely.
My personal preference for a new Supreme Court Justice would be somebody whose political opinions align perfectly with mine and whose interpretation of the Constitution is identical to mine. I’d suggest me, but I just don’t have the energy or drive it takes to do the job.
RonF,
I think there is a reasonably good chance that the Republicans will lose the senate and the Democrats will hold the presidency this year, independent of the Republicans obstructing the entire process of appointing a supreme court justice.
I don’t think blocking a particular nominee would hurt the Republicans at all. I think declaring that they aren’t even going to hold hearings for any nominee that Obama proposes fits in with the basic rejection of governance that the Republicans have engaged in for the past 6 years. Certainly, being the anti-governance party hasn’t hurt them much, but they have generally timed it to not take place during an election. Indeed, 3 senators up for re-election this year have already switched their positions from pure obstructionism (I don’t think Grassley is doing it because he’s up for election, Grassley will win in a landslide anyway, but Tommey and Johnson have to be worried about their chances), and a fourth who isn’t even up for reelection has denounced Republican obstructionism.
I think being the party of government shut-downs and total obstruction is marginally not good for Republican prospects (although jamming up the court system is generally noticed by a lot fewer people than shutting down government services is). I’m not sure whether the hope of shifting from Kennedy to Breyer as the median justice will trump the fear of replacing Scalia with a liberal in terms of increased turnout. Fear works better than hope, but Republicans have fewer marginal voters. I don’t think supreme court justices are particularly interesting one way or the other to undecided voters.
Roughly 85% of supreme court justices have been protestant white men. Now that we have a court that is 100% not protestant, I’m open to having a protestant justice again, as long as they are highly qualified. I do think it is funny that the one spot in government where protestants don’t completely dominate, that you suddenly switch from being anti quota-based affirmative action to all in favor of it. And, as harlequin points out, it is interesting to see that your love of the constitution skips over the religious test part.
Stupid Liberal Memes, Clarence Thomas Edition
A good article objecting to the ugly belief among liberals that Thomas was essentially Scalia’s puppet.
Interestingly, if Sri Srinivasan was chosen, he would be the first member of the Supreme court from a non-Abrahamic religious tradition (he is Hindu.)
RonF,
Others have addressed the substance already, but the phrase ‘in denial’ is pretty condescending, implying that you know better than me (or any other atheist/agnostic) the state of my own mind, and I must really know, deep down, that a Creator does exist and is where our rights come from.
Amp re: Clarence Thomas–I’m surprised to hear that people actually think that. Thomas is further right than Scalia. I believe there’s a Scalia quote about Thomas: “Look, I’m an originalist, but I’m not a nut.”
Harlequin @ 25:
Charles S:
Where have I supported laws or regulations either requiring candidates for office to belong to a particular denomination or hold particular beliefs, or forbidding people holding particular beliefs or belonging to specific denominations from holding office? Perhaps you should re-read that clause and look up its history.
Charles S again:
I actually don’t favor such. But I’ve seen a lot of support here for exactly that when it comes to putting women, blacks, Hispanics, etc. on the Court. So if that’s what you want to do, I’m just asking you to be consistent.
Kohai @ 27:
True – to a point. Her specific claim was that the Constitution’s requirement that the Federal government protect the free exercise of religion extended to her actions in public office. I do think she was wrong about that. I also think that there are very few people who have acted in such a fashion and overall that has proved to not be a threat.
Lee1 @ 26:
Some people thought that God justified that. But they were defeated by people who held that God opposed it – and sometimes paid the bill in their own blood.
To address numerous comments: I quite agree that the way the GOP should handle this is to accept the President’s nomination, examine the nominee’s credentials, hold hearings and take whatever action they then think appropriate. I’m sure it won’t be hard to find critical deficiencies in whoever President Obama nominates. But the GOP seems to have been tone-deaf for a very long time when it comes to things like this.
That religious people are found on both sides of the civil rights struggles suggests that being religious does not make one less “willing to allow humans to take away those rights”; if religious people were a lot more protective of rights than non-religious, then nearly all of the religious people would have been on the pro-civil rights side.
And when it comes to the civil rights of LGBT people, there are – again – religious people on both sides of the struggle. But when it comes to equal rights under the law, atheists and agnostics are far more in favor than evangelicals – for example, 88% of atheists favor marriage equality, compared to 22% of white evangelicals. So that’s an issue area where being religious is associated with being against rights.
Scalia is a particularly obvious example of this: In his dissent in Lawrence vs Texas, and throughout his career, he argued that it was fine for people to hold contempt for homosexuals, including passing laws outlawing homosexuality. In his view, nothing in the Constitution protects people from being put in prison for having gay sex in their own homes. And he was devoutly religious by all reports. I think it’s very likely that an atheist in that position would have had a lot more respect for the human rights of lgb people.
(I say “lgb” and not “lgbt” because I’m not sure if Scalia ever spoke publicly about transsexual rights.)
This is an extension of the problem where in the last 50 years, instead of amending or even trying to amend the Constitution, we have tried to have the Supreme Court amend it for us. The problem is that it allowed various sides to win big without engaging the other side in the political or compromise process but ultimately has just pushed the fight to bitter fights over the political views of the nominees.
But if we are just going to allow the Supreme Court to be another political branch, it isn’t clear why we need it. If fidelity to the Constitution isn’t the important value in Justices of the Supreme Court, but rather fidelity to political parties or fidelity to political movements, why not just let Congress rule?
[Please note, I’m not advocating it, I actually like the idea of the Supreme Court as a guardian of the Constitution, but we can’t let them effectively amend it or they have too much power].
Sebastian:
Do you think that Marbury v Madison was wrongly decided?
What specific case do you think is the start of this?
RonF:
That’s certainly a statable hypothesis.
In my personal lived experience, casual transphobia and the consequent willingness to deny me equal protection without apparent thought are apparent in every demographic (though some have better averages than others, for sure). However, there is absolutely no doubt that an overwhelming majority of the people willing to work hard to deprive me of my rights have been and are theists. In fact, that overwhelming majority consists entirely of Protestant-sect Christians.
Huh.
So I think your hypothesis is wrong, and very obviously wrong. Deridably wrong, in fact.
It fascinates me that all nine justices are avowedly Christian or Jewish, and you dislike the fact that too many of the justices are a particular kind of Christian, and yet do not see the problem with the entire Supreme Court being Judeo-Christian. Or even just theist. Or, if you see the problem, that you feel free to discount it entirely, while at the same time arguing that the newly appointed justice “should be” a Protestant Christian.
RonF:
You know that those categories are not mutually exclusive, right? That LGBT Protestants are a thing which exists?
How about a single step toward equity? For most of our country’s history, the Supreme Court was 100% Christian, and, indeed, 100% Protestant. And yet, as far as we know for sure, there has never been a single member of the US Supreme Court who was not cisgender and heterosexual.
But no, it’s much more desirable to get a Protestant back on the Supreme Court than it is to have the first LGBT justice in 114 appointments, even when those two categories aren’t mutually exclusive.
Grace
Someone who thinks rights come from humans rather than a creator might put more weight into protecting those rights, since there’s no higher authority that can fix things if they screw up.
Amp @38:
Just a quick hit and run, because I have not been able to weigh in the way I would like here. Lochner could be an early incursion by SCOTUS, but I don’t look at a single case. In the 30’s, there was some early resistance to FDR’s expansion of the Commerce Clause, but SCOTUS caved when FDR threatened to pack the Court (one of many attempts by liberals to coerce the third branch (which I may address at some point, time permitting)).
However, this brings up a whole new issue. So much of Federal mission creep over the decades has come through the commerce clause. What infuriates conservatives about Roberts is that, in affirming Obamacare: 1) he affirmed Obamacare; 2) he seemed to cave on his principles; and 3) even while limiting the CC, he expanded the tax clause. Now, while Riberts suggests the CC does not cover the ACA, the tax clause is broad enough to cover it.
And the limits of the federal government shrink every term….
-Jut
Jut,
It’s a bit weird to refer to Lochner as a single case. Although it’s true that Lochner was a single case, there were many cases decided on the basis of substantive due process. So dismissing Lochner as a single case is like dismissing Roe v. Wade as a single case, as though there weren’t a bunch of cases decided on right to privacy.
I think this is something a lot of liberals and conservatives can agree on. For example, Clarence Thomas, even by Scalia’s acknowledgement the most conservative justice on the court, used the commerce clause to justify a conviction against someone growing pot for his own medicinal use in CA, because it could potentially affect the interstate market for pot even though this guy had no intention of selling across state lines (at least that was my understanding of the case – US vs. Raich I think).
grace @ 39:
That would depend on what your definition of rights appertaining to transsexuals is. I suspect we would differ on the matter.
Hey, if you can find an Evangelical Christian (which is what I was talking about, not simply “Protestant”) that’s also LGBT, go for it.
Eytan @ 40:
I don’t think so. I figure that someone who a) is on the Supreme Court and b) believes that rights come from humans is more likely to figure that they have both the justification and the authority to change them if that seems to be the current majority opinion.
JutGory @ 41 and Lee1 @ 43: Bingo on the Commerce Clause and the concomitant expansion of Federal authority. It seems to me that the fact that the Founders wrote that clause means that they conceived that there was both intrastate and interstate commerce; whereas the Supreme Court has essentially decided that there is no such thing as intrastate commerce, so the Federal government has the right to regulate any kind of commerce. That’s NOT what the Founders intended. But the Supremes wanted to give that power to the Feds, so that’s what they did through soliphistic argument.
We now have on record yet another Senator who held that a sitting President should not exercise his power to nominate a Supreme Court Justice during an election year and that if he does, the Senate should not even hold hearings, never mind vote to confirm him or her. That would be then-Senator and now Vice President Joe Biden. Which, of course, contradicts his current position.
Ron @ 44
I’d agree that’s a possible situation, but then wouldn’t it make more sense, when conducting hearings, to directly ask what the candidate’s opinion about the authority that they expect to have over rights, rather than try to infer it from their religious views or lack thereof?
The same principle, by the way, applies to religious Justices who may think that rights should be cancelled when they might contradict what they perceive to be God’s will. For example, if they felt that free speech may lead to blasphemy, or if they believe the right to bear arms contradicts the sixth commandment. If I were American, I’d want the president/senate to make sure that a candidate doesn’t hold these views, rather than just rule out Christians and Jews because they might.
Ron, regarding Biden:
Given that during the exact same speech, Biden clearly promised to seriously consider Bush nominees, and all but promised to vote for any moderate (i.e., Kennedy or Souter-like) choice, it seems that your claim is unfair.
RonF:
There’s no reason to leave it at suspicion. I’m happy to lay my cards on the table. I think that, like cis people, trans people should be entitled to marry whom they please, without regard to that person’s gender, and therefore to exercise the same rights of inheritance, medical decision-making, etc., which cis people can. I think that, like cis people, trans people should have equal access, without danger, to public accommodations like restaurants, hotels and public bathrooms. I think that, like cis people, trans people should enjoy a reasonable expectation that they will be hired, remunerated, and promoted on the basis of their ability to do a job. I think that trans people, like cis people, should be able to access adequate medical care, so that medical professionals will not refuse to treat them, or discontinue treatment, when they find out that the human being under their care is trans. (Also, I recognize the fact that many cis people often don’t, functionally, have equal access to these things, because they fall into other categories of people who experience disparate impact, categories like race, gender, physical ability, ethnicity, and so on.)
This is all off the top of my head, and not intended to be phrased perfectly or to be comprehensive, but there’s a good start on my definition of trans rights: equal access to what cis people get, or at least are supposed to get.
What’s yours?
Grace
Eytan – not a bad idea. I’d love to hear the answers to those questions.
Amp – hah. I didn’t read the whole speech, in fact. Fair enough, then. That falls in line with what I’ve said I’d like to see. Let the Senate hold hearings, and then let the Senators vote “No” and explain why.
Grace:
“… trans people should be entitled to marry whom they please, without regard to that person’s gender,”
We’re not in agreement there – but then, my views of marriage are that the Supreme Court overreached when it made it’s ruling on same-sex marriage. We’re not going to agree on this one.
“and therefore to exercise the same rights of inheritance, medical decision-making, etc., which cis people can.”
I think that trans people should be able to designate anyone they want for any of these things. I anticipate that your argument (if you’ll forgive me for putting words in your mouth) is that married people have certain statuses of these things set by default though the act of marriage. I’d go along with some kind of civil contract to be made available to everyone regardless of the sex of the members of the couple.
“I think that, like cis people, trans people should have equal access, without danger, to public accommodations like restaurants, hotels and public bathrooms.”
“equal access” and “without danger” are terms you can spend a lot of time arguing about. Restaurants and hotels I don’t see an issue with. But a lot of people don’t want to have to share a bathroom with someone who is biologically not the same sex they are, and I don’t think it’s the province of the State to force them to have to.
“I think that, like cis people, trans people should enjoy a reasonable expectation that they will be hired, remunerated, and promoted on the basis of their ability to do a job.”
I don’t know what circumstances would necessarily prevent this, other than being disappoving of the whole concept of someone being trans – which I well imagine occurs and I would agree should not be a legal barrier to employment. Without going into specifics I imagine that there might be a conflict with freedom of religion if the employer is a religious order or institution, but I’d have to think more about it.
“I think that trans people, like cis people, should be able to access adequate medical care, so that medical professionals will not refuse to treat them, or discontinue treatment, when they find out that the human being under their care is trans. (Also, I recognize the fact that many cis people often don’t, functionally, have equal access to these things, because they fall into other categories of people who experience disparate impact, categories like race, gender, physical ability, ethnicity, and so on.)”
That makes sense (providing that there’s not an issue of a particular kind of medical expertise needed that the provider does not have).
Briefly, Slate discusses Scalia’s passing and its effect on white/class privilege exercised on the Supreme Court.
RonF:
The term “biologically not the same sex as they are” can make trans people feel unwelcome on “Alas.” In general, if the context actually requires referring to this, you could say “a lot of people don’t want to have to share a bathroom with trans people of their own sex.”
Or, if referring to someone who was born a particular sex, you could have said “assigned male at birth” (AMAB for short) or “assigned female at birth” (AFAB for short). But, again, only if it’s in a context where it’s relevant to discussion.
So, about those folks who don’t want share a bathroom with trans people of their own sex. Would they be more comfortable if they were in the ladies room and trans man Buck Angel walked in? Or if they were in the men’s room and trans woman Janet Mock walked in?
What bothers me much more than cis people being made to be uncomfortable, however, is that I’m not convinced that it’s safe for Buck to force him to use the women’s room, as you’d apparently like him to do. Likewise, I’m not convinced it’s safe for Janet to force her to use the men’s room.
There is unquestionably a danger of harassment and even violence against trans people. A lot of trans people (especially those who are able to pass for cis) manage this carefully, by choosing for themselves if and when they “out” themselves as trans. A bathroom law would give those trans people an unfair choice between breaking the law every time they need to use a public restroom; or being forced to out themselves as trans in a situation where they may feel unsafe, and where they may be unsafe.
And when rights for trans people are settled, as they will be, next generation’s Ron will say “well, there were religious people involved in advocating for trans rights, which proves religion advocates for rights.”
I’m uncomfortable being forced to share bathrooms only with people Ron (or, by proxy, bathroom laws) says I can. Does my discomfort count?
RonF:
But a lot of [cis] people don’t want to have to share a bathroom with someone who is [trans and was assigned the opposite sex from them at birth], and I don’t think it’s the province of the State to force them to have to.
Is it the province of the state to force trans people who don’t want to share a bathroom with people they consider the opposite sex to to use that bathroom?
The way you phrased this is a little weird, too. It’s not a matter of forcing anyone to use a bathroom, it’s disallowing/not disallowing certain people from using certain bathrooms. No one will be required to use a public restroom if they would rather refrain from using the restroom or seek out single-person restrooms than risk the possibility that there could be a trans person in there.
I have heard that the Republicans have put out an official position that the Senate will not vote on any nominee Obama puts up.
Stupid, stupid, STUPID!
Here is my position: they should say, nominate whomever you want, but, if they are not at least as credentialed as Robert Bork, we will Bork them. And Then, Bork the shit out of every single one he puts up. No one since him (except maybe RBG has had his stature. Tell Obama that you don’t want a Kennedy, a Breyer, or a Souter, you want someone as smart as Bork, and if he gives them anything less, they will Botk the Fuck out of his nominee.
But, don’t say you won’t hold hearings. That’s childish.
-Jut
RonF:
Awhile back I took a palpable lump in for examination and was diagnosed with cancer. A few months earlier, my general practitioner had decided not to give me a routine physical exam of the sort one usually does annually with all patients, checking, among other things, for lumps. That refusal to touch my trans body in exactly the way a doctor normally touches cis bodies — in your opinion, was that discriminatory, and should that be illegal?
Grace
(Note for anyone kind enough to be concerned. We evicted the cancer, and as far as we know, we got it in time and it’s gone. Thank you. If it turns out in the next few years that we didn’t get it in time, there will be a strong argument to be made that that doctor’s transphobia prevented her from saving my life.)
RonF:
Dan Savage had this to say about civil unions, last year:
Here’s the reason conservatives lost the marriage fight, Ron: because they always wanted to stop short of equality. They could have come out of the starting gate with, “Yes, of course we are willing to write and pass legislation which says that unions between people of the same sex shall be called ‘civil unions’ and shall have all of the rights and responsibilities accorded to opposite-sex unions referred to by the term marriage, and in law, all references in existing law to ‘marriage’ shall mean ‘marriage and civil unions’.” But they didn’t do that. They said, in essence, “No, we want to create a separate construct never before seen in our society’s legal system, which will be different from marriage, and separate from marriage, and almost, but not quite, equal to marriage (y’know, within certain tolerances, and your mileage may vary in specific cases like hospital visitation in the deep south where medical staff feel really, really strongly about this).”
Now conservatives want to do the same thing with trans people who use bathrooms (in other words, with trans people). We’re welcome to use whatever bathrooms we can find… as long as it’s not a bathroom where a cis person might be uncomfortable.
Grace
RonF:
In total agreement with what Grace just wrote, but I’ll also note that (a) that “some kind of civil contract” is called a civil marriage (b) you are going along with it right now!
I still don’t understand why my infertile self and atheist husband are a-okay with the “marriage is sacred” crowd.
@ Mandolin 59
Same with atheist me and my atheist wife, who never had any intention of having kids and have been married in the eyes of the law for eight years. But at least we’re not gay!
Mandolin @59, Lee1 @60: I think it comes down to the fact that most anti-SSM arguments are attempts to make a gut feeling logical. (That’s not unique to anti-SSM arguments, of course–I think most political arguments about social issues work that way, from all sides of the political spectrum.) You may be selfish godless heathens, but anti-SSM folks see you and think your marriage looks like what they think a marriage looks like.
This is explicit in “What Is Marriage“, probably the most comprehensive of the anti-SSM arguments (its utter lack of persuasiveness is telling):
(The section on infertile couples starts on p 265/p 21 of the PDF.)