If Roberts becomes (and he probably will–don’t expect much from the cowardly Dems) the next justice on the highest bench in the land, how would it effect LGBT civil rights and liberties? Certainly there is a possibility he could face cases such as same-sex marriage, LGBT adoption, civil unions, equal employment opportunities and protection, and anti-LGBT hate crimes. Human Rights Campaign, National Stonewall Democrats, P.F.L.A.G., Log-Cabin Republicans, LAMBDA Legal, and National Gay and Lesbian Task Force have released statements on Roberts’ nomination voicing some concern due to his conservative ideals. So given his conservative leanings how do think he would rule on them (yes, I’m asking you to “prejudge“)? There already has been speculation on the news that perhaps his Catholicism would play a part in his rulings–so, how do you think he would rule on LGBT issues? Would they be beneficial or detrimental to the LGBT Community? And yes, I really did have to ask because I have to post something on Roberts today other than reproductive rights. “Prejudge” and speculate away.
I'm actually kind of disturbed at how accurate my predictions have been lately. I predicted that Brexit would pass, that…
Hi.
Regarding how he’ll vote on reproductive rights (even though you didn’t ask, but it’s relevant to gay/lesbian rights as well), I’m predicting Roe will NEVER be overturned but will slowly be whittled down through NOT accepting any more cases where states pass laws eviscerating Roe.
Thus Roe will eventually die by the death of a thousand cuts and we’ll be right back where we started from with it being a state’s rights thing.
I think it could be the same thing with gay/lesbian rights. Remember a lot of the rights that individuals have were handed to us by the Supreme Court overturning the unconstitutional laws that States passed.
So simply by ignoring any new cases on the issues, it will give States a green light to begin eviscerating the laws we currently have on the books.
Remember how we discussed that some legistive bodies had already begun putting laws on the books that any adoptive parent must now be screened to ensure they are not gay? So just refusing to hear those cases would make it settled law.
I also predict the US will begin doing what England, Sweden and some other western countries have done, which is to make it illegal for single women (both gay and straight) to use anonymous sperm donors anymore. Which would pretty much put to an end anyone but a married couple from either adopting or using donor sperm to have a family.
So this will be Roberts impact I believe. Since he’s stated Roe is “settled law” so he accepts it as such and would never overturn it. So that’s probably pretty much his philosophy to these issues I believe. He’ll never vote to overturn any law he disagees with as it’s settled, but will he defend them to see that the STATES themselves won’t undermine them. I think the answer is a definite NO.
I sure hope he won’t overturn Roe, for the sake of a lot of women and our rights. I also hope that the progression of the LGBT civil rights movement won’t be halted or slowed down by him.
Mostly right now it’s fair to say we don’t know.
Catholic does not equal bigot, nor does conservative equal bigot.
JFK and Justice Brennan, for examples, were catholics who did not follow the church’s stated positions on such issues.
Justice Kennedy’s position in Lawrence v Texas was a conservative one – the idea that the constitution protects liberty.
Justice Thomas’s opinion in Lawrence was a different flavor of conservativism. He said that the sodomy statute was stupid and shameful, but not prohibited by the constitution.
I could see Roberts disagreeing with Romer –
he may be enough of a federalist to tend to support the right of the states to have their own constitutions, so long as they don’t directly controvene the federal constitution.
I tend to think he’ll decide cases based on his idea of what the law is, rather than just pick the outcome he prefres and rationalize it. What his theory of the law is, we really don’t know yet.
“I tend to think he’ll decide cases based on his idea of what the law is, rather than just pick the outcome he prefres and rationalize it. What his theory of the law is, we really don’t know yet. ”
But my point was that the Supreme Court votes to pick the cases they will actually HEAR, so that alone is a control mechanism which can ultimately undermine settled law. By chosing to NOT hear certain cases they can allow states to pass laws undermining just about any right we can think of from abortion to gay/lesbian adoption.
This I was predicting will be the way that a very conservative, strict constitutionalist can overturn settled case law w/o actually DOING anything. A strict constitutionalist believes that the federal governments authority is limited by the constitution and that whatever the constitution doesn’t delegate to the federal government is the province of the states.
So following that logic a strict constitutionalist would NOT have permitted the federal government under Kennedy or Johnson to intervene with the states during the 60s or passed the Voting Rights Act, for instance, which was a federal law forbidding the states from having poll taxes and literacy testing to limit voting by African-Americans.
So it’s not how Roberts himself would vote on any particular issue which is the problem, as you are right, we can never know that ahead of time. It’s his whole philosophy of being a strict constitutionalist that is the issue; as it’s a philosophy which would leave people at the mercy of state governments which have shown themselves to be more susceptible to rule by popularity, which is frequently akin to mob rule.
That’s the issue. That why they keep saying ‘he won’t make law from the bench’. In other words he’ll leave it to the states to make their own rules which have frequently been shown to be unfair and there won’t be any interference at the federal level anymore.
So if we assume that the Supreme Court has been very helpful to women and minorities in stopping states from passing laws harmful to us and I think many do assume this, then Roberts is a bad choice.
Not that I think we can stop his confirmation, so it’s mostly just a discussion issue as there isn’t much we can do about it.