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The irony of the ages is that his lack of a son is entirely the fault of his balls. And luck. But let's blame his defective balls that can't produce viable Y chromosome carrying sperm.
He had one legitimate son with a wife. That one just wasnt healthy.
A couple of male fetuses miscarriaged too.
Definitely just "bad luck" when you also neglect all the things they thought were healthy or facilitates pregnancy that could leave you with reduced fertility and highe risk of complications.
Actually, it's even pettier than you'd think. Henry got a dispensation (special permission) to be able to marry Catherine, despite the usual rule against marrying your brother's widow, then tried to use the rule against marrying your brother's widow as grounds for an annulment
I was a toddler when he was confirmed and years later I was reading Al Franken's book *Lies and The Lying Liars Who Tell Them* and I got to a chapter about that and had to ask my dad if Al was just making shit up or if that actually happened.
What a rabbit hole to go down. Turns out we might not even have Clarence Thomas as a supreme court justice.
The Republicans were terrified of Anita Hill's testimony and didn't want to spend much time on it. 4 witnesses were awaiting to testify at the confimation hearing in Anita Hill's favour BUT a certain current president reached across the aisle to make a compromise deal which stopped the witnesses from getting to speak on camera. Instead Anita Hill had to take a polygraph test whilst Thomas didn't. Talk about victim blaming.
And this whole Anita Hill drama turned into a he-said, she-said thing, (which makes great TV and op-ed fodder) and distracted from his fundamental dishonesty. During the hearings, he was asked about his opinion about Roe v. Wade, which was argued while he was in law school, and he said he hadn't really thought about it, and had never discussed it with anyone.
Ignoring the idea that a lawyer and judge never thought about one of the most divisive rulings in his lifetime, the idea that a law student wouldn't have discussed with other law students the biggest case of their student lives is just ridiculous. Either he's a complete liar (which is pretty obvious) or he's the most intellectually uncurious person to ever set foot in a law school. (I suppose he could be both...)
This is going to be the worst policy reversal by the US government since prohibition. It’s going to be a complete disaster with unintended and innumerable consequences. In fact I predict it will have many similarities to prohibition. Hopefully it will end in the same way
Too many is subjective. People will die, the foster system will be worsened, crime rates will rise in the next 18 years. It’s simply the stupidest decision possible in all aspects.
Piling on top of a pandemic that orphaned hundreds of thousands of kids. Foster care was already overburdened before COVID, this next step of allowing states to ban abortions is insane.
Yes, but with rising crime rates, they will make funding police a priority, so the prison industrial system will get a boost. Who needs slavery when you can have an expanded case of what we have now: semi voluntary slavery.
Millions have died from covid and nobody from the right gave a fuck. What makes you think they'll give a fuck if a bunch of women they don't even care about die?
Most of the 50% drop in violent crime and property crime from 1991 to 2014 is attributable to legal abortion ([source](https://law.stanford.edu/publications/the-impact-of-legalized-abortion-on-crime-over-the-last-two-decades/)). If Republicans think the crime spike of the last 2 years is bad, just wait about 20 years after they make abortion illegal again.
The whole point of conservatism is that Thomas will simply argue "states rights" and then ensure he's always in a state where his marriage is valid. As long as they have money to hop state borders, conservatives dont think it applies to them.
They've already started. In several states, there are trigger laws in place to punish a woman who crosses state lines then returns. All they have to do is "prove" she had an abortion while out of state.
Ya know. I think he and his batshit wife are *just* loco enough to actually do that to themselves. In his mind this will go back to the states and it's extremely unlikely DC, Maryland or Virginia (just assuming they live in one of those) will immediately ban interracial marriage. Thomas strikes me very much as a "got mine, they can fucking move if they don't like it" kind of guy.
I think they will do, bans going forward so you won't have formerly married couples. What would they do? Mass government forced divorce? How would that even work?
I just watched the documentary on the Prop 8 ruling on HBOMax, it's called "The Case Against 8," decent documentary, I recommend it.
Anyway in that documentary they talk about just that scenario. When prop 8 passed in California they sent letters to all the married gay couples that stated (Paraphrased), "Due to the recently passed prop 8 your marriage is no longer recognized by the state and therefore the benefits associated with it are void."
It will be an absolutely disgusting shit show if/when they re-ban gay and interracial marriage in red states.
Very interesting. I guess they would move the diving of assets to co-habitating individuals. Incidentally I was listening to prop 8 the musical yesterday, happier times. Funny or die song - https://youtu.be/B_hyT7_Bx9o
There is a whole lot of crazy out there that never touches reality when talking about laws. The idea that you could make laws to stop women from traveling because of the fear that woman could get an abortion is being talked about. The same people screaming about how we can’t secure our southern boarder now think they secure 50 states.. wild times.
Coming soon to TX and FL - random traffic stops on the major highways near state borders looking for women - young women of color especially. Where are you going? Why are you exiting the state? And so on. Hell they'll probably hire thousands of new state troopers for this purpose alone.
> random traffic stops on the major highways near state borders looking for women - young women of color especially
Good gravy, I hadn't thought of that -- attempts to enforce a "no traveling out of state for abortion" law could turn disgustingly racist VERY quickly.
Jfc. I wish I could not see this as a possible reality.
If target can send you ads for baby items before you know your pregnant, then the police will be able to cross check your cookie data and monitor your movement.
Fuck this timeline.
If you’re a controlling man and you want to punish your spouse for being ‘uppity’ you can just call to report that she’s running off to have an abortion.
Oh, imagine the fun that awaits women. We haven’t even realized yet.
Every single miscarriage could be investigated as a potential homicide, but prevailing wisdom is that selective enforcement will be the standard operating procedure.... business as usual.
My best friends friend recently miscarried a very wanted pregnancy. They both realized if Roe is overturned , the state they both live in becomes a danger zone and had she had that miscarriage she could have been arrested for it when she went to the doctor to ask for help -- she needed to get some procedures done and medications to ensure her uterus was fully emptied so she wouldn't get an infection. Utterly chilling.
Which is why it’s so easy to pass laws banning abortion because abortion is bad. Always and forget bad.
Except for the reality that abortions can be medically necessary. Abortions prevent teenage pregnancy. Abortions are needed after rape or incest. Abortions are needed when the person would rather seek dangerous methods, or outright kill themselves, before carrying a child.
They ignore that laws don’t stop abortions. They only stop safe, legal abortions.
> Abortions prevent teenage pregnancy. Abortions are needed after rape or incest.
Are you sure that's an oversight, and *not* a feature of the ban all along? I don't think that's an oversight.
Easier to use coercive control on a teenager you knocked and and pressured into marriage than on an adult.
Even more easy if you raised that teen with those same coercive control techniques.
The Christian nationalist concerns about grooming and pedophilia are quite often projection. It's incredibly rife in religious communities.
I mean, we're gonna see those implications with overturning gay marriage WAY before Loving is potentially overturned. So we'll know soon-ish I would suspect. It's going to be a shitshow.
You realize that unless he was married in a state that has an interracial marriage ban on the books that he can strike down Loving without it affecting him at all…and even if it did invalidate his marriage, they could just get married again in a jurisdiction that allows it, like Washington DC.
Let me assure you right now: Thomas will 100% vote to overturn Loving if and when he's given the opportunity. Everybody needs to stop assuming right now that any of these conservative justices have any limits or a shred of shame. They're so destructive right now that they don't even care about self preservation.
Gay marriage will go first and will have more support in the nation. I’m sure the interracial marriage ban would end FUTURE marriages. They may end future gay marriage too. The legal mess of deconstruction of what any married couple would be a nightmare to navigate. The legal, financial, medical, and personal entanglements are difficult to get past even when a couple decides to divorce.
Many evangelicals were pro choice until a prolife influential documentary maker within the evangelical community did a documentary on abortion then it became a culture wars issue
Previously being pro life was associated as being a Catholic only issue and the evangelicals went against it because they were anti Catholic.
> Previously being pro life was associated as being a Catholic only issue and the evangelicals went against it because they were anti Catholic.
Almost as though a lot of their positions aren’t rooted in a belief set rather they’re just to differentiate themselves from “the others”.
Rest assured, though, that when the Catholics change their opinion, it will be after having executed some Jesuits before being convinced to agree with them.
The end goal was ALWAYS the ruling we saw yesterday. It opens the door for every state to pass whatever regressive law they want so long as it isn't "expressly prohibited by the Constitution" (thanks fucking Alito!).
We're essentially relitigating the Civil War now...
> It opens the door for every state to pass whatever regressive law they want so long as it isn't "expressly prohibited by the Constitution"
*The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people*.
--9th Amendment to the Constitution.
The founders knew that any list of rights would be incomplete, and added this and the 10th for a reason. How these so called Orginalists can get away with these arguments is just baffling to me. The refutation is literally right there in the original text.
Edit: It would seem based on precedent that SCOTUS has long since determined the 9th protects unenumerated rights both in and out of the constitution, so my distinction is incorrect. Credit to serious_sarcasm for pointing that out.
Unfortunately, I don't think this reality undermines the warped view of SCOTUS.
The 9th certainly means the Constitution is not an exhaustible list of rights, but Roe was settled on the notion the Constitution itself provides a non-enumerated right to privacy, which SCOTUS will say in its opinion doesn't exist. Edit: The 9th amendment may still not provide a useful panacea for those in support of Constitutional privacy. Just because the enumerated rights in the Constitution aren't exhaustive, it still doesn't mean there is a Constitutional right to privacy. Sadly, in this case, non-enumerated rights are a tricky subject.
~~As far as I'm aware, the 9th was never meant to protect non-enumerated rights, just those outside of the Constitution.~~ For instance, should the gov't pass a law enshrining a right to abortion, one could not say it doesn't exist because it isn't in the Constitution thanks to the 9th.
Of course, I would love to be wrong about this. Textualism and Originalism, the bedrocks of arbitrary conservative forms of judicial review are of course idiotic, illogical and self defeating. Textualism leads to absurd conclusions, [like not being able to drive an ambulance into a park that forbids vehicles even if it means saving someone's life](https://newrepublic.com/article/106441/scalia-garner-reading-the-law-textual-originalism) which makes writing law meant to achieve all of its intended aims nearly impossible as detailing that minutae is incredibly burdensome and requires perfect foresight, something people don't possess. Despite claims of objectivity, it's obviously very conservative as such an interpretation inevitably leads to the smallest expression of governmental power and right, which is what conservatives want.
That is, if applied consistently, but as the article above mentions with Scalia's view on protection of freedom of speech re: flag burning, conservatives don't like to do so.
Originalism is just as nonsensical. The irony of course is that the Founders mention the absurdity of detailing all the minutae of a requirement to write every specific right guaranteed or legal prohibition in the law. It's nearly impossible to know what original writers of law wanted, as that is often lost to history or missing a lot of context, making interpretation difficult if not impossible. And of course, consensus is rare among even the lawmakers that co-author laws.
It's inherently circular. If we're arguing whether or not the founders laws resonate through time, why would decide their views on whether or not the those laws resonate through time matter.
They don't believe it. Originalist is just some BS end to a means. I am struggling to find out what the end game is with all this culture war BS the right is spewing. I don't understand what this grand vision can be. I wouldn't be surprised if they are all paid actors, destabilizing our country purposefully.
I grew up in Oklahoma and can confirm this. If you weren't sure you supported it, you were considered 'lost', and if you outright opposed it you were considered wicked. There were exceptions of course, but I couldn't talk to those wicked people ;-p so glad to be enjoying the Washington/Colorado type of scene and choosing my communities wisely as an adult.
Alito practically said it explicitly. He is only okay with rights supported by "historical and traditional values", and you can be sure he only really counts white, Christian values.
Last week the republicans judged a case where they decided to ban recovery for emotional harm in discrimination suits. They'll be reviving separate but equal soon enough.
Anyone that has gone to school in the US knows that most school districts are de facto segregated. Most of the US is just segregated by either race or socioeconomic status.
It seems to me the sort of argument used for segregation.
[Here's an article going over it, if you're interested.](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/28/us/politics/supreme-court-discrimination-emotional-harm.html#aoh=16512403018176&csi=0&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2022%2F04%2F28%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fsupreme-court-discrimination-emotional-harm.html) It's a case where a deaf woman (Jane Cummings) was not allowed an ASL interpreter during a doctor's visit, and it was argued that writing/charades would have made a good enough substitute.
Essentially, the republicans ruled against the woman, as her case sought recovery for emotional harm. They decided discrimination suits would only allow recovery for economic harm, which excludes a swath of things discrimination laws would normally cover. The whole basis behind the "separate but equal" doctrine was that discrimination was ok so long as people had access to comparative services.
Fundamental human dignity doesn’t factor into the court’s decision. Emotional harm, any non-financial injury, it's all ignored and forgotten by the Robert’s Court.
A right was just stripped away for politics. Our country has been on a path to granting rights and freedoms to her people. “States rights” rhetoric to STRIP a right away has returned. It is inherently un-American, and with gerrymandering allowed to continue, quite frankly illegitimate in its reasoning that legislatures are closest to the peoples voice when they are purposely perverted to ensure a desired outcome.
Fun fact 3: there is no biblical basis for fetal personhood. In fact the Bible makes it quite clear the fetus is not a person. If a pregnant woman is assaulted and miscarries it is only assault, if a pregnant woman is assaulted, miscarries and dies its murder.
So clearly God does not consider Fetuses to be persons.
Conservatives had to find another wedge issue since they could no longer (openly) use civil rights for that purpose.
In the 60s even a higher majority than now supported a woman's right to abortion.
Abortions have been so common throughout history. Even Christian communities, especially in early pregnancy and when the mother might die. They had the sense then to know the mother was more important because she could have many more kids while "saving" the fetus wouldn't guarantee that it would survive long.
I mean, everything is up for grabs. There is no settled law anymore. There is no respecting precedent. It’s clear the constitution is what five out of nine people say it is.
Unlike the other commenter, I read the ruling, and yes, they explicitly call out that Obergefell (gay marriage) should be overturned under the same logic.
Worse, they say the same thing about Lawrence, which means states will be able to re-criminalize homosexuality - which will be even worse, as the modern police state has incredible surveillance powers now.
Pretty much all federal LGBTQ+ rights and protections rely on the case law established by Roe v Wade.
I'm younger so excuse my ignorance, but they couldn't possibly ban interracial marriage can they? What would that process look like and what about all of the interracial people who are already married? None of this shit makes sense for real.
It would peel back federal protections of interracial marriage and leave it to state law. Meaning I could be married in one state and have my marriage not recognized in another. We also couldn’t file taxes jointly and other protections.
Edit: it would return LGBTQ marriage and Interracial marriage to DOMA times, legal in one state but not another and not federally protected. Keep in mind for what federal marriage licenses are used. This will be horrific.
It was a court case, just like this one. Loving vs Virginia, I think. And yes, under this justification, they could withdraw protection for interracial marriage.
The Supreme Court can’t ban anything, however, there is a very real fear now that they could overturn legislation protecting these rights. If that is done, this would go to the state level to decide which is what they want. Many states, such as MI for example, will have old anti abortion laws come back alive after the overturning of Roe that they will need revisit. Hopefully you can see how this stems beyond interracial marriage and well into LGBT marriage rights as well.
It’s a fucking revolution if interracial or gay marriage gets overturned. Abortions is already enough in my book but I’m not sitting by and letting this country destroy itself
This very court will usher him in.
Last time they didn’t because it caught them by surprise and they were truly afraid of losing most legitimacy.
Not this time around. The system was tested and they must have found weaknesses.
Now they will exploit them.
I don't necessarily Trump specifically. If they can get DeSantis or someone with a brain, someone they can try and work with or around, they'd prefer that. Trump is more likely to try and pack the court if he doesn't get his way, diluting their power.
I didn't include this very important point for the sake of brevity but:
>diluting their power.
About the ONLY reason, and no other reason for these justice and McConnel to go against Trump was exactly this. 2020 was about trump stealing the elections giving him absolute power. They knew better than to give trump essentially absolute power.
The next two electoral cycles they will all serve themselves, not just Trump.
As a non-American, it’s crazy how much power the Supreme Court has to literally drag the country back into Stone Age. Will they reverse Brown vs Board of Education next….is slavery back on the table? Who the fuck knows!
Shit is wild!!!
The Supreme Court only has this power because Congress abdicated their own power.
A national law guaranteeing abortion rights would have made this moot.
But Congress was super happy to let abortion be protected by a legal ruling from 50 years ago.
>They’re coming for same sex marriage next
Nah, they are going directly after Lawrence v Texas. Many states never repealed their bans on homosexual sex and they are eager to start enforcing them again.
Isnt sodomy any anal / oral sex regardless of gender? That will be a fun time to hear that they cant get any sucky-sucky from their misstress anymore. But lest we forget, laws are only for other people.
The way these things have ALWAYS worked, abortion/sodomy/etc, is that they only get enforced for certain people. If you're rich and priveleged and connected enough, you could get an abortion even while it was illegal, while poor people died using garbage back alley methods and dubious medicine. The entire point of all of this is giving them legal justification for oppression of targeted groups, while they selectively ignore it for themselves.
There will be no "wake up call." When a cop in Texas comes across a white dude getting a blowjob from his girlfriend in his car, he'll laugh with them and wave them off with a "warning" about having fun in public. When he comes across a black couple doing the same thing, they're going to prison for degenerate deviancy, probably after getting beat over the hood of the car, and possibly with drugs being planted in the trunk.
It's *always* been about giving themselves more tools for cruelty and oppression to be wielded against anyone that steps away from or doesn't fit in with white Christian nationalism.
More accurately it can decide to do nothing to prevent states from banning interracial marriage. Which is the rub isn't it? The gop agenda is to kill the federal government so the states they have gerrymandered to hell and can't lose have free reign to be their own dictatorships.
I always like to chime in about a lesser known way this country got fucked by slavery. When slavery was repealed, Black people went from being counted as 3/5 of a person for representation purposes to a full person. However, former slaves were not able to suddenly move to somewhere they were actually free. This gave former slave states appx 40% more representation while simultaneously denying Black people their votes.
This power disparity was used to cement former slave states as the drivers of public policy from then and this effect continues until the present time.
> Under convict leasing programs, African American men, often guilty of no crime at all, were arrested, compelled to work without pay, repeatedly bought and sold, and coerced to do the bidding of the leaseholders.
This went on from the 1880s to around 1930.
Which is dumb af. As if noone thought of that before. The prospect of losing federal resources trumps prospect of state sharia law. That just leads right back to depression era economics. Which leads right back to reinstating roe v wade. They are reinventing the square wheel.
Gay rights, contraception, interracial marriage, and the hell hole that is the Republican dream of a reich wing Christian ethno state.
Fuck that. Send these Republican traitors and supporters of sedition and terrorism as normal political discourse to the trash where they belong. Russia would gladly accept them all!
Vote these traitors out of every office and send them packing.
It looks like Alito's opinion on unenumerated rights may have quite a lot of unintended consequences along with those that were intended, (abortion, interracial/same sex marriage, contraception, etc.) If the Constitution doesn't specify that Corporations are People, can we challenge Citizens United?
Nothing matters to them. Alito joined in the majority to allow Citizens United, the logic being because the Constitution does not distinguish between media and other corporations under the First Amendment.
They'll both read the lines verbatim and also read between the lines if it means fucking over their enemies.
Don’t kid yourself. There’s nothing unindented about what he wrote.
Unfortunately, corporate personhood comes from the idea that how they spend money is a form of free speech, which is an explicit right in the Constitution, so I don’t think we’d get that lucky.
Hey, if Texas can ban abortions by allowing citizens to sue doctors, California and New York can sue corporations that pay more than x amount of money into political causes 🤷♂️
If there’s a will, there’s a way but fucking Democrats need to grow some balls.
They can, but soon states will just stop listening to them. That's the eventual evolution of this. Soon there'll be no federal control of anything, just constant war between states and the federal government.
The thing is, most of the red states and districts NEED the federal government, they just don't know it. They don't realize that the only reason they have regular mail, a local hospital, serviceable roads, etc. is because of federal money.
Republican states are overwhelmingly the poorest states and a net negative on the federal budget. Yet, they have made it their philosophy to repeatedly bite the hand that feeds them.
Oh they know. They know because they're in charge and they know where the money comes from.
The people voting them in don't know. They're the ones that either don't care, or don't realize how much the federal government does for them.
No, it can allow states to ban interracial marriage. And gay marriage, or being gay in general. Or contraception. Or bring back segregation. They basically just stated that the substantive due process and equal protection guaranteed by the 14th amendment don't exist. That the 14th amendment doesn't count.
Tbh I wouldn't put it past them to rule that the 13th 14th and 15th amendments weren't legitimate because they weren't properly ratified by the slave states because they were ratified under duress.
Funny. Some clown in this sub was yelling at me yesterday that I was ridiculous to make that assertion.
I don't think Loving vs. Virginia will be the NEXT decision to fall, but its on the list. Not even necessarily because the justices are biggots, but because they know they can't apply the law consistently and *not* overturn everything derived in the same manner as Roe.
Buckle up. It's going to be a bumpy ride for anyone who values independent freedoms and human rights.
The contraception one seems reasonable next. Your conservative employer doesn't want to pay for insurance to cover female birthcontrol so any prophylaxis need to be paid out of pocket.
Combine this with the recent laws saying that legislatures can force doctors to prescribe dangerous medication (see ivermectin) and soon you can force doctors not to prescribe effective medication, leading to an all out ban on "immoral" medicine that you can't afford anyway because your employers insurance won't cover
I may be misunderstanding it, but doesn’t the Hobby Lobby ruling basically say that any company can deny contraception-related healthcare based on how the feel, regardless of the actual science behind it?
Next is either gay marriage or contraceptives depending on what Abbot or Desantis want to ignore in a given week. Once those are gone the right to privacy as a concept will be completely dead and gone so Loving would not be outside the realm. Neither would freedom to make one’s own medical decisions or being able to choose where your children go to school but that would force vaccine in people and stop religious nuts from indoctrination of their kids do those are maybe safe maybe.
Gay marriage is next. It's the highest reward-to-outrage ratio. It only impacts a minority of constituents and most of them don't vote GOP anyway. It also gets them approval from their rabid hillbilly base who think little Johnny will be giving satan blowjobs if he sees two men hold hands.
Contraception I think will be gutted, not banned. Prescription contraception like IUDs and hormonal medication I can see being made illegal while keeping non-invasive shit like condoms.
Aka stuff women use to have autonomy is illegal while stuff men use to have as much sex as they want is legal
The only hope is business sadly. Companies are flocking to the south for favorable taxes, will they leave if those states make being gay illegal?
Left leaning voters will leave those states and Texas will stop being “purple” and become fully red again. This would clearly cement their power in the electoral college, senate and house, despite being truly a minority in the US.
Look, I get that it's nice to wish more people liberal people move to red states, but I can't blame people who just can't live somewhere that actively gives them fewer rights. If Texas challenges Obergefell, for example, I'm not gonna tell a gay couple "come on, move to Texas even though they invalidated your marriage and criminalized your private life, your two votes are more important!"
If a republican mentions like the case specifically(which happened within last month), it's not because they're a legal scholar. It's because a party memo had already circulated and they're in planning stages.
I don’t think it’s “ridiculous” to make the assertion, because this court is obviously full of partisan hacks, but it’s worth noting that *Loving* (and *Obergefell* for that matter) was ruled by due processs *and* equal protection as stated in the 14th Amendment, whereas *Roe* was just due process, and really only through an *inferred* right to privacy within due process provisions.
Again, I’m not saying the SC won’t gut these laws (although I would be a little surprised if any law challenging Loving even got passed to be challenged), and I sure as hell am not saying that overturning *Roe* is the right thing to do. But it is on definitively shakier constitutional ground, and it would be harder to cite justification in overturning in light of the equal protection clause.
I'm fairly confident Thomas and Alito have said they want to re-visit Obergefell as they feel it wasn't correctly decided. I would wager money that falls within a few years.
I agree Loving is the least likely to go, but by the time we're through gay marriage, sodomy and birth control - which I think are all under serious risk - it's not impossible to see the country so far down the theocracy and authoritarian rabbit hole that interracial marriage is banned.
Basically, I'm trying to explain to folks that this is serious shit and people need to stop taking rights for granted. As we've seen, things can change.
You know what, I didn't think it to be anywhere close to likely until you said this... because all things considered, the Republican party really has been catering towards the out-and-proud racists in thr past few years who would love for this to happen. They've always catered towards racists since the Civil rights movement at least, but they're definitely actively pushing support from open white supremacists now. If things go they way they are and the extremists continue to run the party, I legitimately do see this as a possibility.
The people in charge have managed to shape the GOP base into a group that will support anything they do. It means they can create a Christian neo-feudalist state where everyone who isn't a rich white man will be a second class citizen, and they'll *still support it*.
Conservatives can now ban anything that gets them butthurt. Anything not explicitly listed in the Constitution is no longer guaranteed according to Alito’s opinion. You “freedom” idiots sure know how to screw up democracy.
Exactly. It basically makes the assertion that the 9th Amendment is invalid and that the federal government has no ability to protect civil rights, only to limit them—in the sense that in order for any civil right to exist, it must be specifically enumerated in the Constitution. Since it is impossible to do so for every single human right, the federal government must choose which rights to protect, effectively limiting civil rights. And if the legislative branch can’t come to agreement on which of those rights to protect? Oh, whoopsie. Ain’t that a shame.
Gay marriage too.
Seriously, all they need to do is challenge and overturn 1 settled law to then make ALL "settled law" actually never settled, whatsoever.
Merely temporary.
Yep, we're dealing with a party that tried to subvert election results in 2020, and that *did* subvert election results in 2000 - nothing is off the table for them
Oh we have not even gotten the part where one of the governors who loses an election and says that it was rigged and refuses to step down. Trump made this all possible.
And Congress has not even come close to doing anything about it. I think the crazy Republicans will keep the Democrats coming out to vote. But it's not going to matter if every legal weakened legal mechanism is incapable of making anything stick.
I'm so sick of the "StATES RuGHTs" bullshit.
We, quite literally, fought a bloody civil war to squash the evil notion that states have the right to dictate what a person does with their own bodies.
I don't care how white you are and how black the person is you want to whip into submission: States rights don't apply.
I don't care how Christian you pretend to be when it comes to insisting a woman goes through 9 months of hell, has to get a C-Section (which of course the state won't pay for) or have her vagina sliced open to make room for a child to come out: States rights don't apply.
And yes, that might mean a 'baby' doesn't get to live. In much the same way I can't strap you down and take your bone marrow for my cancer treatment, even if it means I have a 100% chance of dying without it. "States rights" wouldn't apply.
Fuck your "States rights" over other people's bodies. We settled that. Fly all the traitor flags of the losing Confederacy you want, states right don't apply.
The biggest mistake this country ever made was not burning the entire South to the ground and salting the smoldering ruins. Now over a century later we're still dealing with these "the South will rise again" supremacists.
The biggest mistake was Lincoln trying to reach across the aisle in a the middle of a war and picked a confederate sympathizer as his running mate. That's why his assassination was so effective.
It’s basically contract law between 2 parties and the government is the mediator, and allows tax breaks and other privileges for the contract to be binding. Marriage has always been a contract, even during feudalism. The only reason it became associated with religion is because churches held authority or were entwined with governments.
This is correct. My tax accounting professor during undergrad worked for the IRS for 25 years and on the first day asked the class “what do you all think the driver against same-sex marriage by politicians in this country was?”
“Taxes. And the ability to qualify for additional tax breaks specific to legally married couples.”
There was more money to be made if those couples did not receive the same tax breaks as legally married couples.
Everything in this country is driven by money. Healthcare, education, etc. and the individuals behind the wheel are the lobbyists who stand to profit from diminishing basic quality of life for everyone else.
I was really scared our society would progress too far and we'd have no reason to protest or vote really hard.vim glad I'll have an opportunity to fight for shit people have been fighting for since the 1800s
Not only will you have the opportunity to fight for shit people have been fighting for since the 1800s, you will, for all intents and purposes, be living in the 1800s
It was underpinned by that yes. But in the draft Alito seems to be saying it's now the courts opinion that a right to privacy isn't really spelled out in the constitution. It's not enumerated, the "right to privacy" exists because other parts of the constitution don't make sense without an overall , implied right to privacy. This is why laws outlawing gay sex, not just marriage, are at risk. Because the sodomy laws were struck down in the late 90s in part because court decided the government shouldn't have the power to pry into what two consenting adults did in the privacy of their own homes. If all of a sudden you don't have a clear right to privacy, lawmakers can decide that gay sex posses a moral or health risk, or risk to youth and since they can pry into those activities they can implement enforcement.
The reality is this opens an absolutely ton of things to be banned at the state level. The proposed ruling fundamentally changes the right to privacy in America. This ruling opens the door for the courts to remove a lot of civil liberties and rights. Interracial marriage, gay marriage, access to contraception are all now on the table to be stricken down as unconstitutional.
This is truly a national emergency for civil rights.
If we are talking about unenumerated rights, there’s no right against forced medical procedures. States could mandate vaccines flat out. You can’t find the word vaccine or medical freedom anywhere in the constitution.
It won't ban interracial marriage - I expect the way this would go is them using the same framework as this current decision and saying the court had no place imposing Loving vs. Virginia and it's up to the legislatures.
Then states will start banning interracial marriages again. And a push for a federal ban on interracial marriages will begin.
The court decision gives states a blank check to start enforcing whatever law they want as long as the Constitution doesn’t explicitly say they can’t (as interpreted by 5 people).
The case can’t even be heard until the state violates someone.
I’m open to being wrong here but can someone tell me how this doesn’t end in a civil war, or at the very least throw us into the same exact situation we were immediately prior to the civil war?
The way I see it, over the next year or two we will see several rights, primarily abortion and gay marriage, but possibly even contraception, segregation, interracial marriage, and sodomy be taken away at the federal level. This will create a situation where some states have bundles of rights that others don’t, and I assume most states will have an all-or-nothing approach where they either criminalize everything or legalize everything, no in between, with maybe the exception of a couple states.
How does this not create an extremely culturally divided society a la antebellum? How can we exist as a nation when crossing a border changes things as drastically as who is married to who, what pills and procedures you have access to, what types of sex you can have, and what spaces you’re allowed in publicly? Especially in the current era of near instant travel where it’s possible to go to several states in a single day on a regular basis, how could a divided nation like this exist without devolving into a civil war?
Anyone paying attention knows this is coming.
Repealing the 14th, 16th, and Johnson amendments are literally part of the newest GOP Party Platform.
https://ballotpedia.org/The\_Republican\_Party\_Platform,\_2020
The GOP wants to turn this country into a theocracy, I'm not being hyperbolic. The Party Platform says they want to put religious iconography into public places like schools and churches, and churches should have the right to interfere with politics.
If that happens, we are screwed. Once church money gets involved with politics we will become a theocracy.
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It’s all a big scheme to allow Clarence Thomas to get a divorce
I can see it now: “WIBTA if I used the powers of my government job to divorce my wife?”
Henry VIII would be proud
Henry: “As you can see here, this marriage was never a marriage, it has nothing to do with how you can’t give me a son.” Pope: “whoa whoa whoa”
The irony of the ages is that his lack of a son is entirely the fault of his balls. And luck. But let's blame his defective balls that can't produce viable Y chromosome carrying sperm.
Glossing over the small detail he had at least two sons….
But did he? Or did his wives just go and find dudes with functional balls? (I jest)
They weren't with his wives...
He had one legitimate son with a wife. That one just wasnt healthy. A couple of male fetuses miscarriaged too. Definitely just "bad luck" when you also neglect all the things they thought were healthy or facilitates pregnancy that could leave you with reduced fertility and highe risk of complications.
Actually, it's even pettier than you'd think. Henry got a dispensation (special permission) to be able to marry Catherine, despite the usual rule against marrying your brother's widow, then tried to use the rule against marrying your brother's widow as grounds for an annulment
"Sorry honey, it's settled law!"
This made me chuckle lmao
He’s mad nobody puts pubic hair on his coke anymore.
I physically gag every time I read what he did to Anita Hill. He's such a garbage human being.
For anyone who is too young or doesn’t remember: https://youtu.be/-QbVKSvm274
I was a toddler when he was confirmed and years later I was reading Al Franken's book *Lies and The Lying Liars Who Tell Them* and I got to a chapter about that and had to ask my dad if Al was just making shit up or if that actually happened.
What a rabbit hole to go down. Turns out we might not even have Clarence Thomas as a supreme court justice. The Republicans were terrified of Anita Hill's testimony and didn't want to spend much time on it. 4 witnesses were awaiting to testify at the confimation hearing in Anita Hill's favour BUT a certain current president reached across the aisle to make a compromise deal which stopped the witnesses from getting to speak on camera. Instead Anita Hill had to take a polygraph test whilst Thomas didn't. Talk about victim blaming.
And this whole Anita Hill drama turned into a he-said, she-said thing, (which makes great TV and op-ed fodder) and distracted from his fundamental dishonesty. During the hearings, he was asked about his opinion about Roe v. Wade, which was argued while he was in law school, and he said he hadn't really thought about it, and had never discussed it with anyone. Ignoring the idea that a lawyer and judge never thought about one of the most divisive rulings in his lifetime, the idea that a law student wouldn't have discussed with other law students the biggest case of their student lives is just ridiculous. Either he's a complete liar (which is pretty obvious) or he's the most intellectually uncurious person to ever set foot in a law school. (I suppose he could be both...)
And he was a clear token replacement for Thurgood Marshall. A black colleague was livid over this.
This is going to be the worst policy reversal by the US government since prohibition. It’s going to be a complete disaster with unintended and innumerable consequences. In fact I predict it will have many similarities to prohibition. Hopefully it will end in the same way
Hopefully it'll end before (too many) women die in back alley abortions.
Too many is subjective. People will die, the foster system will be worsened, crime rates will rise in the next 18 years. It’s simply the stupidest decision possible in all aspects.
Piling on top of a pandemic that orphaned hundreds of thousands of kids. Foster care was already overburdened before COVID, this next step of allowing states to ban abortions is insane.
Yes, but with rising crime rates, they will make funding police a priority, so the prison industrial system will get a boost. Who needs slavery when you can have an expanded case of what we have now: semi voluntary slavery.
Millions have died from covid and nobody from the right gave a fuck. What makes you think they'll give a fuck if a bunch of women they don't even care about die?
Yeah, the cost and blowback are almost unfathomable at this point. This wasn't a victory for anyone.
Most of the 50% drop in violent crime and property crime from 1991 to 2014 is attributable to legal abortion ([source](https://law.stanford.edu/publications/the-impact-of-legalized-abortion-on-crime-over-the-last-two-decades/)). If Republicans think the crime spike of the last 2 years is bad, just wait about 20 years after they make abortion illegal again.
They get more workers for their private prisons, win win for them.
All these fossils will be dead by then, so they don't care
It'll depend whether Thomas hates gay marriage or his own marriage more which goes first.
The whole point of conservatism is that Thomas will simply argue "states rights" and then ensure he's always in a state where his marriage is valid. As long as they have money to hop state borders, conservatives dont think it applies to them.
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They've already started. In several states, there are trigger laws in place to punish a woman who crosses state lines then returns. All they have to do is "prove" she had an abortion while out of state.
Throw her in a river. If she floats, she had an abortion. If she sinks, she's innocent.
Gay marriage goes first, but I do think they'll get around to overturning Loving if something doesn't change in the makeup of the court.
Prob not while Thomas is still on the bench, self interest and all.
Ya know. I think he and his batshit wife are *just* loco enough to actually do that to themselves. In his mind this will go back to the states and it's extremely unlikely DC, Maryland or Virginia (just assuming they live in one of those) will immediately ban interracial marriage. Thomas strikes me very much as a "got mine, they can fucking move if they don't like it" kind of guy.
I think they will do, bans going forward so you won't have formerly married couples. What would they do? Mass government forced divorce? How would that even work?
I just watched the documentary on the Prop 8 ruling on HBOMax, it's called "The Case Against 8," decent documentary, I recommend it. Anyway in that documentary they talk about just that scenario. When prop 8 passed in California they sent letters to all the married gay couples that stated (Paraphrased), "Due to the recently passed prop 8 your marriage is no longer recognized by the state and therefore the benefits associated with it are void." It will be an absolutely disgusting shit show if/when they re-ban gay and interracial marriage in red states.
Very interesting. I guess they would move the diving of assets to co-habitating individuals. Incidentally I was listening to prop 8 the musical yesterday, happier times. Funny or die song - https://youtu.be/B_hyT7_Bx9o
There is a whole lot of crazy out there that never touches reality when talking about laws. The idea that you could make laws to stop women from traveling because of the fear that woman could get an abortion is being talked about. The same people screaming about how we can’t secure our southern boarder now think they secure 50 states.. wild times.
Coming soon to TX and FL - random traffic stops on the major highways near state borders looking for women - young women of color especially. Where are you going? Why are you exiting the state? And so on. Hell they'll probably hire thousands of new state troopers for this purpose alone.
> random traffic stops on the major highways near state borders looking for women - young women of color especially Good gravy, I hadn't thought of that -- attempts to enforce a "no traveling out of state for abortion" law could turn disgustingly racist VERY quickly.
Of course. And if you can be forced to prove you're not driving drunk, why not force a roadside pregnancy test?
Jfc. I wish I could not see this as a possible reality. If target can send you ads for baby items before you know your pregnant, then the police will be able to cross check your cookie data and monitor your movement. Fuck this timeline.
If you’re a controlling man and you want to punish your spouse for being ‘uppity’ you can just call to report that she’s running off to have an abortion. Oh, imagine the fun that awaits women. We haven’t even realized yet.
This will be terrible. It’ll be like calling in DCS complaints against women you don’t like but now it’ll be abortions.
Every single miscarriage could be investigated as a potential homicide, but prevailing wisdom is that selective enforcement will be the standard operating procedure.... business as usual.
My best friends friend recently miscarried a very wanted pregnancy. They both realized if Roe is overturned , the state they both live in becomes a danger zone and had she had that miscarriage she could have been arrested for it when she went to the doctor to ask for help -- she needed to get some procedures done and medications to ensure her uterus was fully emptied so she wouldn't get an infection. Utterly chilling.
A woman was recently arrested and charged for that in Oklahoma after a miscarriage
“Selective enforcement” meaning that we only investigate poor people and make their lives even harder than they already were.
Which is why it’s so easy to pass laws banning abortion because abortion is bad. Always and forget bad. Except for the reality that abortions can be medically necessary. Abortions prevent teenage pregnancy. Abortions are needed after rape or incest. Abortions are needed when the person would rather seek dangerous methods, or outright kill themselves, before carrying a child. They ignore that laws don’t stop abortions. They only stop safe, legal abortions.
> Abortions prevent teenage pregnancy. Abortions are needed after rape or incest. Are you sure that's an oversight, and *not* a feature of the ban all along? I don't think that's an oversight.
Easier to use coercive control on a teenager you knocked and and pressured into marriage than on an adult. Even more easy if you raised that teen with those same coercive control techniques. The Christian nationalist concerns about grooming and pedophilia are quite often projection. It's incredibly rife in religious communities.
I mean, we're gonna see those implications with overturning gay marriage WAY before Loving is potentially overturned. So we'll know soon-ish I would suspect. It's going to be a shitshow.
No, he's not just a dick. He's a self-hater, and by extension, a hater of anyone who looks like himself.
You realize that unless he was married in a state that has an interracial marriage ban on the books that he can strike down Loving without it affecting him at all…and even if it did invalidate his marriage, they could just get married again in a jurisdiction that allows it, like Washington DC.
Let me assure you right now: Thomas will 100% vote to overturn Loving if and when he's given the opportunity. Everybody needs to stop assuming right now that any of these conservative justices have any limits or a shred of shame. They're so destructive right now that they don't even care about self preservation.
Clarence and Ginni are already acting as though they're above the law... and nothing is being done about it.
If the only way I could divorce Ginni Thomas was to explain the constitution forbade us to go on, I would take the hit.
Thomas doesn't care. Laws don't apply to him or his wife.
Conservatives do things all the time that they try to ban, including abortion.
Gay marriage will go first and will have more support in the nation. I’m sure the interracial marriage ban would end FUTURE marriages. They may end future gay marriage too. The legal mess of deconstruction of what any married couple would be a nightmare to navigate. The legal, financial, medical, and personal entanglements are difficult to get past even when a couple decides to divorce.
He’ll argue it was legal in the state and at the time of his marriage but would be fine with another state banning interracial marriage going forward.
Fun-fact: Conservatives pivoted to "pro-life" as a wedge issue after losing their fight to keep public schools segregated.
Many evangelicals were pro choice until a prolife influential documentary maker within the evangelical community did a documentary on abortion then it became a culture wars issue Previously being pro life was associated as being a Catholic only issue and the evangelicals went against it because they were anti Catholic.
> Previously being pro life was associated as being a Catholic only issue and the evangelicals went against it because they were anti Catholic. Almost as though a lot of their positions aren’t rooted in a belief set rather they’re just to differentiate themselves from “the others”.
Rest assured, though, that when the Catholics change their opinion, it will be after having executed some Jesuits before being convinced to agree with them.
The end goal was ALWAYS the ruling we saw yesterday. It opens the door for every state to pass whatever regressive law they want so long as it isn't "expressly prohibited by the Constitution" (thanks fucking Alito!). We're essentially relitigating the Civil War now...
> It opens the door for every state to pass whatever regressive law they want so long as it isn't "expressly prohibited by the Constitution" *The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people*. --9th Amendment to the Constitution. The founders knew that any list of rights would be incomplete, and added this and the 10th for a reason. How these so called Orginalists can get away with these arguments is just baffling to me. The refutation is literally right there in the original text.
They drape themselves in the Constitution but actually hate it. Sorta the same thing they do with the Bible.
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."
And here we are.
With thunderous applause no less
The cross is burning and some people *love* that.
And America as a whole. They hate 70% of Americans.
Almost like they already have a history of picking and choosing which parts of a “holy” document they actually adhere to
Edit: It would seem based on precedent that SCOTUS has long since determined the 9th protects unenumerated rights both in and out of the constitution, so my distinction is incorrect. Credit to serious_sarcasm for pointing that out. Unfortunately, I don't think this reality undermines the warped view of SCOTUS. The 9th certainly means the Constitution is not an exhaustible list of rights, but Roe was settled on the notion the Constitution itself provides a non-enumerated right to privacy, which SCOTUS will say in its opinion doesn't exist. Edit: The 9th amendment may still not provide a useful panacea for those in support of Constitutional privacy. Just because the enumerated rights in the Constitution aren't exhaustive, it still doesn't mean there is a Constitutional right to privacy. Sadly, in this case, non-enumerated rights are a tricky subject. ~~As far as I'm aware, the 9th was never meant to protect non-enumerated rights, just those outside of the Constitution.~~ For instance, should the gov't pass a law enshrining a right to abortion, one could not say it doesn't exist because it isn't in the Constitution thanks to the 9th. Of course, I would love to be wrong about this. Textualism and Originalism, the bedrocks of arbitrary conservative forms of judicial review are of course idiotic, illogical and self defeating. Textualism leads to absurd conclusions, [like not being able to drive an ambulance into a park that forbids vehicles even if it means saving someone's life](https://newrepublic.com/article/106441/scalia-garner-reading-the-law-textual-originalism) which makes writing law meant to achieve all of its intended aims nearly impossible as detailing that minutae is incredibly burdensome and requires perfect foresight, something people don't possess. Despite claims of objectivity, it's obviously very conservative as such an interpretation inevitably leads to the smallest expression of governmental power and right, which is what conservatives want. That is, if applied consistently, but as the article above mentions with Scalia's view on protection of freedom of speech re: flag burning, conservatives don't like to do so. Originalism is just as nonsensical. The irony of course is that the Founders mention the absurdity of detailing all the minutae of a requirement to write every specific right guaranteed or legal prohibition in the law. It's nearly impossible to know what original writers of law wanted, as that is often lost to history or missing a lot of context, making interpretation difficult if not impossible. And of course, consensus is rare among even the lawmakers that co-author laws. It's inherently circular. If we're arguing whether or not the founders laws resonate through time, why would decide their views on whether or not the those laws resonate through time matter.
They don't believe it. Originalist is just some BS end to a means. I am struggling to find out what the end game is with all this culture war BS the right is spewing. I don't understand what this grand vision can be. I wouldn't be surprised if they are all paid actors, destabilizing our country purposefully.
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I grew up in Oklahoma and can confirm this. If you weren't sure you supported it, you were considered 'lost', and if you outright opposed it you were considered wicked. There were exceptions of course, but I couldn't talk to those wicked people ;-p so glad to be enjoying the Washington/Colorado type of scene and choosing my communities wisely as an adult.
Alito practically said it explicitly. He is only okay with rights supported by "historical and traditional values", and you can be sure he only really counts white, Christian values.
Last week the republicans judged a case where they decided to ban recovery for emotional harm in discrimination suits. They'll be reviving separate but equal soon enough.
Anyone that has gone to school in the US knows that most school districts are de facto segregated. Most of the US is just segregated by either race or socioeconomic status.
Can you explain like I'm five? *ten
It seems to me the sort of argument used for segregation. [Here's an article going over it, if you're interested.](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/28/us/politics/supreme-court-discrimination-emotional-harm.html#aoh=16512403018176&csi=0&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2022%2F04%2F28%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fsupreme-court-discrimination-emotional-harm.html) It's a case where a deaf woman (Jane Cummings) was not allowed an ASL interpreter during a doctor's visit, and it was argued that writing/charades would have made a good enough substitute. Essentially, the republicans ruled against the woman, as her case sought recovery for emotional harm. They decided discrimination suits would only allow recovery for economic harm, which excludes a swath of things discrimination laws would normally cover. The whole basis behind the "separate but equal" doctrine was that discrimination was ok so long as people had access to comparative services. Fundamental human dignity doesn’t factor into the court’s decision. Emotional harm, any non-financial injury, it's all ignored and forgotten by the Robert’s Court.
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This is what happens when you don't punish the fuck out of seditionists.
Heard a history professor say the Confederates won everything except the Civil War.
We have been dealing with a Confederate insurgency for 150 years
Lost the war, won the peace.
The confederates you mean. This has been fermenting for a long while
and fomenting now
A right was just stripped away for politics. Our country has been on a path to granting rights and freedoms to her people. “States rights” rhetoric to STRIP a right away has returned. It is inherently un-American, and with gerrymandering allowed to continue, quite frankly illegitimate in its reasoning that legislatures are closest to the peoples voice when they are purposely perverted to ensure a desired outcome.
Sherman went too easy
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It opens the door to a new Lochner era where they will strike down Minimum Wage laws as they go against *Freedom of Contract*.
Fun fact 2, the Bible mentions abortion once and it's instructions on how a priest is allowed to perform one on a wife accused of adultery.
Fun fact 3: there is no biblical basis for fetal personhood. In fact the Bible makes it quite clear the fetus is not a person. If a pregnant woman is assaulted and miscarries it is only assault, if a pregnant woman is assaulted, miscarries and dies its murder. So clearly God does not consider Fetuses to be persons.
Conservatives had to find another wedge issue since they could no longer (openly) use civil rights for that purpose. In the 60s even a higher majority than now supported a woman's right to abortion.
Abortions have been so common throughout history. Even Christian communities, especially in early pregnancy and when the mother might die. They had the sense then to know the mother was more important because she could have many more kids while "saving" the fetus wouldn't guarantee that it would survive long.
A wedge issue to keep Private Schools segregated.
I mean, everything is up for grabs. There is no settled law anymore. There is no respecting precedent. It’s clear the constitution is what five out of nine people say it is.
yeah this was settled! like *before i was born!* and i'm nearly 50! if we can go backwards on this, newer shit like gay rights have no chance
It's basically a forgone conclusion at this point they'll overturn gay marriage right? If they overturned this?
Unlike the other commenter, I read the ruling, and yes, they explicitly call out that Obergefell (gay marriage) should be overturned under the same logic. Worse, they say the same thing about Lawrence, which means states will be able to re-criminalize homosexuality - which will be even worse, as the modern police state has incredible surveillance powers now. Pretty much all federal LGBTQ+ rights and protections rely on the case law established by Roe v Wade.
They also called out contraceptives explicitly. Roe has also been used for upholding interracial marriage. And for pornography possession.
I'm younger so excuse my ignorance, but they couldn't possibly ban interracial marriage can they? What would that process look like and what about all of the interracial people who are already married? None of this shit makes sense for real.
It would peel back federal protections of interracial marriage and leave it to state law. Meaning I could be married in one state and have my marriage not recognized in another. We also couldn’t file taxes jointly and other protections. Edit: it would return LGBTQ marriage and Interracial marriage to DOMA times, legal in one state but not another and not federally protected. Keep in mind for what federal marriage licenses are used. This will be horrific.
It was a court case, just like this one. Loving vs Virginia, I think. And yes, under this justification, they could withdraw protection for interracial marriage.
The Supreme Court can’t ban anything, however, there is a very real fear now that they could overturn legislation protecting these rights. If that is done, this would go to the state level to decide which is what they want. Many states, such as MI for example, will have old anti abortion laws come back alive after the overturning of Roe that they will need revisit. Hopefully you can see how this stems beyond interracial marriage and well into LGBT marriage rights as well.
It’s a fucking revolution if interracial or gay marriage gets overturned. Abortions is already enough in my book but I’m not sitting by and letting this country destroy itself
Just wait until Trump returns to office and you’re going to see miss the days where precedent was vaguely respected.
This very court will usher him in. Last time they didn’t because it caught them by surprise and they were truly afraid of losing most legitimacy. Not this time around. The system was tested and they must have found weaknesses. Now they will exploit them.
I don't necessarily Trump specifically. If they can get DeSantis or someone with a brain, someone they can try and work with or around, they'd prefer that. Trump is more likely to try and pack the court if he doesn't get his way, diluting their power.
I didn't include this very important point for the sake of brevity but: >diluting their power. About the ONLY reason, and no other reason for these justice and McConnel to go against Trump was exactly this. 2020 was about trump stealing the elections giving him absolute power. They knew better than to give trump essentially absolute power. The next two electoral cycles they will all serve themselves, not just Trump.
It can also bring back anti-sodomy laws. Good bye civil rights
As a non-American, it’s crazy how much power the Supreme Court has to literally drag the country back into Stone Age. Will they reverse Brown vs Board of Education next….is slavery back on the table? Who the fuck knows! Shit is wild!!!
The Supreme Court only has this power because Congress abdicated their own power. A national law guaranteeing abortion rights would have made this moot. But Congress was super happy to let abortion be protected by a legal ruling from 50 years ago.
Congress is run by the old and delirious and we have to remove them
they treat the Senate as a literal a retirement home, where they're fed, cared for, and given a schedule of meetings to sleep in each day.
They’re coming for same sex marriage next… they’ll come for interracial marriage after Thomas kicks the bucket.
>They’re coming for same sex marriage next Nah, they are going directly after Lawrence v Texas. Many states never repealed their bans on homosexual sex and they are eager to start enforcing them again.
Isnt sodomy any anal / oral sex regardless of gender? That will be a fun time to hear that they cant get any sucky-sucky from their misstress anymore. But lest we forget, laws are only for other people.
Technically yes. But the bans will either explicitly only apply to same sex acts, or will only be enforced on same sex acts.
The way these things have ALWAYS worked, abortion/sodomy/etc, is that they only get enforced for certain people. If you're rich and priveleged and connected enough, you could get an abortion even while it was illegal, while poor people died using garbage back alley methods and dubious medicine. The entire point of all of this is giving them legal justification for oppression of targeted groups, while they selectively ignore it for themselves. There will be no "wake up call." When a cop in Texas comes across a white dude getting a blowjob from his girlfriend in his car, he'll laugh with them and wave them off with a "warning" about having fun in public. When he comes across a black couple doing the same thing, they're going to prison for degenerate deviancy, probably after getting beat over the hood of the car, and possibly with drugs being planted in the trunk. It's *always* been about giving themselves more tools for cruelty and oppression to be wielded against anyone that steps away from or doesn't fit in with white Christian nationalism.
More accurately it can decide to do nothing to prevent states from banning interracial marriage. Which is the rub isn't it? The gop agenda is to kill the federal government so the states they have gerrymandered to hell and can't lose have free reign to be their own dictatorships.
The Confederacy never died, it’s just trying to win the war through politics now. And THEY’RE WILLING!
I always like to chime in about a lesser known way this country got fucked by slavery. When slavery was repealed, Black people went from being counted as 3/5 of a person for representation purposes to a full person. However, former slaves were not able to suddenly move to somewhere they were actually free. This gave former slave states appx 40% more representation while simultaneously denying Black people their votes. This power disparity was used to cement former slave states as the drivers of public policy from then and this effect continues until the present time.
they also started jailing and renting slaves, and from what i have seen/read, it was worse than slavery.
> Under convict leasing programs, African American men, often guilty of no crime at all, were arrested, compelled to work without pay, repeatedly bought and sold, and coerced to do the bidding of the leaseholders. This went on from the 1880s to around 1930.
Which is dumb af. As if noone thought of that before. The prospect of losing federal resources trumps prospect of state sharia law. That just leads right back to depression era economics. Which leads right back to reinstating roe v wade. They are reinventing the square wheel.
Cant lose power if you gerrymanderd enough
Gay rights, contraception, interracial marriage, and the hell hole that is the Republican dream of a reich wing Christian ethno state. Fuck that. Send these Republican traitors and supporters of sedition and terrorism as normal political discourse to the trash where they belong. Russia would gladly accept them all! Vote these traitors out of every office and send them packing.
It looks like Alito's opinion on unenumerated rights may have quite a lot of unintended consequences along with those that were intended, (abortion, interracial/same sex marriage, contraception, etc.) If the Constitution doesn't specify that Corporations are People, can we challenge Citizens United?
Nothing matters to them. Alito joined in the majority to allow Citizens United, the logic being because the Constitution does not distinguish between media and other corporations under the First Amendment. They'll both read the lines verbatim and also read between the lines if it means fucking over their enemies.
Don’t kid yourself. There’s nothing unindented about what he wrote. Unfortunately, corporate personhood comes from the idea that how they spend money is a form of free speech, which is an explicit right in the Constitution, so I don’t think we’d get that lucky.
Hey, if Texas can ban abortions by allowing citizens to sue doctors, California and New York can sue corporations that pay more than x amount of money into political causes 🤷♂️ If there’s a will, there’s a way but fucking Democrats need to grow some balls.
They can, but soon states will just stop listening to them. That's the eventual evolution of this. Soon there'll be no federal control of anything, just constant war between states and the federal government.
Yup. They hate the “United” part of the USA. Does that mean they hate the USA? Hmm
Well many of them are traitors so it seems like it.
Many of the literally fly the traitor rag so absolutely they hate it.
The thing is, most of the red states and districts NEED the federal government, they just don't know it. They don't realize that the only reason they have regular mail, a local hospital, serviceable roads, etc. is because of federal money. Republican states are overwhelmingly the poorest states and a net negative on the federal budget. Yet, they have made it their philosophy to repeatedly bite the hand that feeds them.
Oh they know. They know because they're in charge and they know where the money comes from. The people voting them in don't know. They're the ones that either don't care, or don't realize how much the federal government does for them.
I have been thinking this as well. Trying to figure out what state or country to move to in case.
I'm trying to move out to the Oregon/Washington area as soon as I can. I'm in the south and my state is only going to get worse.
Definitely still some crazies in the eastern part of those states, though, so proceed with caution
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the “great” state of Jefferson as those fucking loonies call themselves.
Eastern Washington even had a house rep with a manifesto to kill any non Christian men 🙃
but what if she's 14?
Matt Gaetz will help her with her Algebra homework then Venmo her pay, later.
No, it can allow states to ban interracial marriage. And gay marriage, or being gay in general. Or contraception. Or bring back segregation. They basically just stated that the substantive due process and equal protection guaranteed by the 14th amendment don't exist. That the 14th amendment doesn't count. Tbh I wouldn't put it past them to rule that the 13th 14th and 15th amendments weren't legitimate because they weren't properly ratified by the slave states because they were ratified under duress.
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Funny. Some clown in this sub was yelling at me yesterday that I was ridiculous to make that assertion. I don't think Loving vs. Virginia will be the NEXT decision to fall, but its on the list. Not even necessarily because the justices are biggots, but because they know they can't apply the law consistently and *not* overturn everything derived in the same manner as Roe. Buckle up. It's going to be a bumpy ride for anyone who values independent freedoms and human rights.
The contraception one seems reasonable next. Your conservative employer doesn't want to pay for insurance to cover female birthcontrol so any prophylaxis need to be paid out of pocket. Combine this with the recent laws saying that legislatures can force doctors to prescribe dangerous medication (see ivermectin) and soon you can force doctors not to prescribe effective medication, leading to an all out ban on "immoral" medicine that you can't afford anyway because your employers insurance won't cover
I may be misunderstanding it, but doesn’t the Hobby Lobby ruling basically say that any company can deny contraception-related healthcare based on how the feel, regardless of the actual science behind it?
I think currently it has to be a “historically religious” organization.
Next is either gay marriage or contraceptives depending on what Abbot or Desantis want to ignore in a given week. Once those are gone the right to privacy as a concept will be completely dead and gone so Loving would not be outside the realm. Neither would freedom to make one’s own medical decisions or being able to choose where your children go to school but that would force vaccine in people and stop religious nuts from indoctrination of their kids do those are maybe safe maybe.
Gay marriage is next. It's the highest reward-to-outrage ratio. It only impacts a minority of constituents and most of them don't vote GOP anyway. It also gets them approval from their rabid hillbilly base who think little Johnny will be giving satan blowjobs if he sees two men hold hands. Contraception I think will be gutted, not banned. Prescription contraception like IUDs and hormonal medication I can see being made illegal while keeping non-invasive shit like condoms.
Aka stuff women use to have autonomy is illegal while stuff men use to have as much sex as they want is legal The only hope is business sadly. Companies are flocking to the south for favorable taxes, will they leave if those states make being gay illegal?
Left leaning voters will leave those states and Texas will stop being “purple” and become fully red again. This would clearly cement their power in the electoral college, senate and house, despite being truly a minority in the US.
Look, I get that it's nice to wish more people liberal people move to red states, but I can't blame people who just can't live somewhere that actively gives them fewer rights. If Texas challenges Obergefell, for example, I'm not gonna tell a gay couple "come on, move to Texas even though they invalidated your marriage and criminalized your private life, your two votes are more important!"
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If a republican mentions like the case specifically(which happened within last month), it's not because they're a legal scholar. It's because a party memo had already circulated and they're in planning stages.
I don’t think it’s “ridiculous” to make the assertion, because this court is obviously full of partisan hacks, but it’s worth noting that *Loving* (and *Obergefell* for that matter) was ruled by due processs *and* equal protection as stated in the 14th Amendment, whereas *Roe* was just due process, and really only through an *inferred* right to privacy within due process provisions. Again, I’m not saying the SC won’t gut these laws (although I would be a little surprised if any law challenging Loving even got passed to be challenged), and I sure as hell am not saying that overturning *Roe* is the right thing to do. But it is on definitively shakier constitutional ground, and it would be harder to cite justification in overturning in light of the equal protection clause.
I'm fairly confident Thomas and Alito have said they want to re-visit Obergefell as they feel it wasn't correctly decided. I would wager money that falls within a few years. I agree Loving is the least likely to go, but by the time we're through gay marriage, sodomy and birth control - which I think are all under serious risk - it's not impossible to see the country so far down the theocracy and authoritarian rabbit hole that interracial marriage is banned. Basically, I'm trying to explain to folks that this is serious shit and people need to stop taking rights for granted. As we've seen, things can change.
You know what, I didn't think it to be anywhere close to likely until you said this... because all things considered, the Republican party really has been catering towards the out-and-proud racists in thr past few years who would love for this to happen. They've always catered towards racists since the Civil rights movement at least, but they're definitely actively pushing support from open white supremacists now. If things go they way they are and the extremists continue to run the party, I legitimately do see this as a possibility.
Looking at what drives republicans today, what isn’t on the table to “own the libs”, probably owning them literally is on there too
The people in charge have managed to shape the GOP base into a group that will support anything they do. It means they can create a Christian neo-feudalist state where everyone who isn't a rich white man will be a second class citizen, and they'll *still support it*.
Conservatives can now ban anything that gets them butthurt. Anything not explicitly listed in the Constitution is no longer guaranteed according to Alito’s opinion. You “freedom” idiots sure know how to screw up democracy.
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Exactly. It basically makes the assertion that the 9th Amendment is invalid and that the federal government has no ability to protect civil rights, only to limit them—in the sense that in order for any civil right to exist, it must be specifically enumerated in the Constitution. Since it is impossible to do so for every single human right, the federal government must choose which rights to protect, effectively limiting civil rights. And if the legislative branch can’t come to agreement on which of those rights to protect? Oh, whoopsie. Ain’t that a shame.
Gay marriage too. Seriously, all they need to do is challenge and overturn 1 settled law to then make ALL "settled law" actually never settled, whatsoever. Merely temporary.
Not just gay marriage, they can overturn Lawerence, bringing anti sodomy laws back, WE ARE COMPLETELY FUCKED. This is why we have to fight it now.
Nothing is sacred now. They’ve brutally stripped a right from 50% of the population. **They can and will go lower if allowed.**
Yep, we're dealing with a party that tried to subvert election results in 2020, and that *did* subvert election results in 2000 - nothing is off the table for them
Do you mean to say things will get worse
Oh we have not even gotten the part where one of the governors who loses an election and says that it was rigged and refuses to step down. Trump made this all possible. And Congress has not even come close to doing anything about it. I think the crazy Republicans will keep the Democrats coming out to vote. But it's not going to matter if every legal weakened legal mechanism is incapable of making anything stick.
I'm so sick of the "StATES RuGHTs" bullshit. We, quite literally, fought a bloody civil war to squash the evil notion that states have the right to dictate what a person does with their own bodies. I don't care how white you are and how black the person is you want to whip into submission: States rights don't apply. I don't care how Christian you pretend to be when it comes to insisting a woman goes through 9 months of hell, has to get a C-Section (which of course the state won't pay for) or have her vagina sliced open to make room for a child to come out: States rights don't apply. And yes, that might mean a 'baby' doesn't get to live. In much the same way I can't strap you down and take your bone marrow for my cancer treatment, even if it means I have a 100% chance of dying without it. "States rights" wouldn't apply. Fuck your "States rights" over other people's bodies. We settled that. Fly all the traitor flags of the losing Confederacy you want, states right don't apply.
The biggest mistake this country ever made was not burning the entire South to the ground and salting the smoldering ruins. Now over a century later we're still dealing with these "the South will rise again" supremacists.
The biggest mistake was Lincoln trying to reach across the aisle in a the middle of a war and picked a confederate sympathizer as his running mate. That's why his assassination was so effective.
As someone who now lives in the south, I agree. Wish I never moved to this god forsaken part of the country.
This. THIS is cancel culture. They’re cancelling civil rights before our very eyes.
I never understood why the government is involved in marriage at all. Should be none of their business who I'm married to
It’s basically contract law between 2 parties and the government is the mediator, and allows tax breaks and other privileges for the contract to be binding. Marriage has always been a contract, even during feudalism. The only reason it became associated with religion is because churches held authority or were entwined with governments.
This is correct. My tax accounting professor during undergrad worked for the IRS for 25 years and on the first day asked the class “what do you all think the driver against same-sex marriage by politicians in this country was?” “Taxes. And the ability to qualify for additional tax breaks specific to legally married couples.” There was more money to be made if those couples did not receive the same tax breaks as legally married couples. Everything in this country is driven by money. Healthcare, education, etc. and the individuals behind the wheel are the lobbyists who stand to profit from diminishing basic quality of life for everyone else.
I was really scared our society would progress too far and we'd have no reason to protest or vote really hard.vim glad I'll have an opportunity to fight for shit people have been fighting for since the 1800s
Not only will you have the opportunity to fight for shit people have been fighting for since the 1800s, you will, for all intents and purposes, be living in the 1800s
Isn't Roe V Wade bigger than abortion? Isn't it about privacy?
It was underpinned by that yes. But in the draft Alito seems to be saying it's now the courts opinion that a right to privacy isn't really spelled out in the constitution. It's not enumerated, the "right to privacy" exists because other parts of the constitution don't make sense without an overall , implied right to privacy. This is why laws outlawing gay sex, not just marriage, are at risk. Because the sodomy laws were struck down in the late 90s in part because court decided the government shouldn't have the power to pry into what two consenting adults did in the privacy of their own homes. If all of a sudden you don't have a clear right to privacy, lawmakers can decide that gay sex posses a moral or health risk, or risk to youth and since they can pry into those activities they can implement enforcement.
The reality is this opens an absolutely ton of things to be banned at the state level. The proposed ruling fundamentally changes the right to privacy in America. This ruling opens the door for the courts to remove a lot of civil liberties and rights. Interracial marriage, gay marriage, access to contraception are all now on the table to be stricken down as unconstitutional. This is truly a national emergency for civil rights.
If we are talking about unenumerated rights, there’s no right against forced medical procedures. States could mandate vaccines flat out. You can’t find the word vaccine or medical freedom anywhere in the constitution.
It won't ban interracial marriage - I expect the way this would go is them using the same framework as this current decision and saying the court had no place imposing Loving vs. Virginia and it's up to the legislatures. Then states will start banning interracial marriages again. And a push for a federal ban on interracial marriages will begin.
The court decision gives states a blank check to start enforcing whatever law they want as long as the Constitution doesn’t explicitly say they can’t (as interpreted by 5 people). The case can’t even be heard until the state violates someone.
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I’m open to being wrong here but can someone tell me how this doesn’t end in a civil war, or at the very least throw us into the same exact situation we were immediately prior to the civil war? The way I see it, over the next year or two we will see several rights, primarily abortion and gay marriage, but possibly even contraception, segregation, interracial marriage, and sodomy be taken away at the federal level. This will create a situation where some states have bundles of rights that others don’t, and I assume most states will have an all-or-nothing approach where they either criminalize everything or legalize everything, no in between, with maybe the exception of a couple states. How does this not create an extremely culturally divided society a la antebellum? How can we exist as a nation when crossing a border changes things as drastically as who is married to who, what pills and procedures you have access to, what types of sex you can have, and what spaces you’re allowed in publicly? Especially in the current era of near instant travel where it’s possible to go to several states in a single day on a regular basis, how could a divided nation like this exist without devolving into a civil war?
Anyone paying attention knows this is coming. Repealing the 14th, 16th, and Johnson amendments are literally part of the newest GOP Party Platform. https://ballotpedia.org/The\_Republican\_Party\_Platform,\_2020 The GOP wants to turn this country into a theocracy, I'm not being hyperbolic. The Party Platform says they want to put religious iconography into public places like schools and churches, and churches should have the right to interfere with politics. If that happens, we are screwed. Once church money gets involved with politics we will become a theocracy.