Obama Welcomes Supreme Court Move To End 'Patchwork' Marriage Laws

[Newsjock]

Source: BuzzFeed

President Obama Tuesday welcomed the Supreme Court’s signals that marriage equality is on the verge of becoming the law of the land, adding that he expected local Alabama officials resisting the shift to be swept aside by federal courts.

... “My sense is that the Supreme Court is about to make a shift, one that I welcome, which is to recognize that — having hit a critical mass of states that have recognized same-sex marriage — it doesn’t make sense for us to now have this patchwork system,” Obama said in an interview with BuzzFeed News. “It’s time to recognize that under the equal protection clause of the United States (Constitution), same-sex couples should have the same rights as anybody else.”

... In the interview, Obama said comparisons to Alabama’s civil rights past — Gov. George Wallace infamously blocked the door of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama on June 11, 1963 — aren’t exact, but that the same legal principle is involved.

... Obama also dismissed Moore’s attempts to foil the various federal courts’ moves, invoking Moore’s last high-profile clash with federal law over his efforts to bring a religious monument into the state supreme court building. That dispute ended with his removal from the bench.

Read more: http://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/obama-welcomes-supreme-court-move-to-end-patchwork-marriage

[forest444]

1. The problem - then as now - is the Seditious South (and a lot of other states besides).

And today's teanecks are a lot more brazen than even Orval Faubus, George Wallace, or Ross Barnett were in their day.

Back then, when Kennedy or Johnson gave ultimatums, these demagogues thought twice. Now, their attitude is a lot like those gun nut bumper stickers one sees so much of these days:

"Come and Take It."

[TexasTowelie]

2. Isn't it terrific that Judge Moore has offered to go to jail!

And while Moore doubled down Tuesday, telling Bloomberg Politics he would go to jail over the issue, Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley distanced himself from Moore, telling the Associated Press that he is “trying to move this state forward” and “do{esn’t} want Alabama to be seen as it was 50 years ago when a federal law was defied.”

Who could resist such an offer? We shouldn't disappoint him.

[24601]

3. What if SCOTUS decides only that it's a state issue? Are we then back to those few states that

chose same sex marriage by legislative or referendum action as opposed to the vast majority where it was decided by a federal judge?

Then what?

[Ms. Toad]

4. Then we have a real mess.

They will have to decide how to handle all of the marriages that have taken place in states where the state discrimination statute/amendment was declared unconstitutional.

That involves taking rights away (legally a much harder thing to do than to refuse to grant them in the first place)

or

Defending the unequal status between same gender couples married within the window and same gender couples who missed the window. They can make a rational basis argument for not granting marriage at all - but it is far harder to make a rational basis argument that the state should grant rights to couples married in the window - but not to couples who missed the window.

Neither is a legally attractive option.

[Ruby the Liberal]

5. Thank you PBO

Now how about ending the 'patchwork' of cannabis legalization.

[DeSwiss]

6. -$

- Neil says the answer is obvious:

[center]

''Too much BigPharma campain munies would be lost. It's science!''[/center]

[LittleGirl]

7. And then the 'brilliant'

folks of Alabama re-elected him last term. sigh.

My cousin, who is gay, lives in AL and he had a link up on his facebook yesterday to get Moore removed from the bench AGAIN.

edit typo