Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/07/25/emboldened-by-right-wing-supreme-court-conservatives-take-aim-at-gay-marriage.html
…
10 Likes
I wonder how Thomas will vote when the come after Loving.
24 Likes
“They won’t eat my face, I’m one of the good ones!”
34 Likes
I’m sure they’ll have a carve-out for Thomas. The Roberts Court is all about in-your-face hypocrisy.
24 Likes
He’ll totally do it. He thinks he’s protected by pushing this shit through.
24 Likes
Pack this fucking abomination of a court, please.
24 Likes
I just want to reiterate that the only way that happens is if Harris is elected President and the Democrats expand their majority in the Senate, probably by a lot. Enough to either make an amendment of the Judiciary Act filibuster proof, or by enough to eliminate the filibuster altogether. Either way, realistically we need a 60+ majority of Democrats in the Senate. That is not impossible. Unlikely, but not impossible.
21 Likes
They’ve made their intentions and willingness to act on them quite clear.
Project 2025 aims to gut protections for the LGBTQ community, which its organizers believe exists in opposition to the “traditional American family” and its Christian nationalist underpinnings. The Project would prioritize families “comprised of a married mother, father, and their children,” and would eliminate any federal policies that promote LGBTQ equality or that assist single mothers. The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) reports that the project claims falsely that, “Only heterosexual, two-parent families are safe for children, and that, ‘All other family forms involve higher levels of instability (the average length of same-sex marriages is half that of heterosexual marriages); financial stress or poverty; and poor behavioral, psychological, or educational outcomes.’ (Their data on the length of marriages is false).”
18 Likes
My understand is that the filibuster being an internal senate rule, can be eliminated by a simple majority vote; but hasn’t because “tradition”.
10 Likes
A 60+ majority in the Senate would also make it possible to impeach and convict Supreme Court justices.
16 Likes
Both please.
10 Likes
Somewhat related: A long-read I saw yesterday that points out that anti-trans bills tend to fail, and they have a long history of losing at the ballot box.
12 Likes
Gotta love how a person married 4 times, to 3 men, is the epitome of the virtue being used here and is somehow reason enough that the court will hear a case removing the rights of millions of happily married normal people.
17 Likes
That’s correct. Typically, the Senate adopts its rules at the beginning of each new Congress. In other words, every two years. The reason I say it realistically would require a larger majority is that there aren’t currently enough Democrats in favor of eliminating the filibuster. If they voted on it now, it would fail. And we’re almost certainly going to lose Manchin’s seat to the GOP. We need to flip a bunch of other Senate seats. Old guard Senate Democrats like Dick Durbin are unlikely to vote to eliminate the filibuster. We need more progressive Democrats in the Senate, and a majority, to make that happen. Sadly, I don’t think it’s likely. But I remain hopeful. It’s also possible to change people’s minds. I changed my mother’s mind on the filibuster. She had bought into this idea that the filibuster helps ensure that only more robust laws with greater support will pass. And then I sent her the Federalist Paper that talks about what happens when you require a supermajority for passing legislation (it’s Federalist Paper 22, and the tl;dr is that if you allow a minority portion of the government to hamstring the majority, nothing will get done…which was one of the problems of the Articles of Confederation and is the problem with the current Congress), and she changed her mind. So fingers crossed!
14 Likes
It would have to be two-thirds, i.e. 67 senators
10 Likes
Just for completeness, and so you can send to anyone in your life who may have a Mr. Smith Goes to Washington view of the filibuster, here’s the portion of Federalist Paper # 22 that changed my mother’s mind:
But this is not all: what at first sight may seem a remedy, is, in reality, a poison. To give a minority a negative upon the majority (which is always the case where more than a majority is requisite to a decision), is, in its tendency, to subject the sense of the greater number to that of the lesser. Congress, from the nonattendance of a few States, have been frequently in the situation of a Polish diet, where a single VOTE has been sufficient to put a stop to all their movements. A sixtieth part of the Union, which is about the proportion of Delaware and Rhode Island, has several times been able to oppose an entire bar to its operations. This is one of those refinements which, in practice, has an effect the reverse of what is expected from it in theory. The necessity of unanimity in public bodies, or of something approaching towards it, has been founded upon a supposition that it would contribute to security. But its real operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of the government, and to substitute the pleasure, caprice, or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent, or corrupt junto, to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority. In those emergencies of a nation, in which the goodness or badness, the weakness or strength of its government, is of the greatest importance, there is commonly a necessity for action. The public business must, in some way or other, go forward. If a pertinacious minority can control the opinion of a majority, respecting the best mode of conducting it, the majority, in order that something may be done, must conform to the views of the minority; and thus the sense of the smaller number will overrule that of the greater, and give a tone to the national proceedings. Hence, tedious delays; continual negotiation and intrigue; contemptible compromises of the public good. And yet, in such a system, it is even happy when such compromises can take place: for upon some occasions things will not admit of accommodation; and then the measures of government must be injuriously suspended, or fatally defeated. It is often, by the impracticability of obtaining the concurrence of the necessary number of votes, kept in a state of inaction. Its situation must always savor of weakness, sometimes border upon anarchy.
ETA: Also, this was written by Alexander Hamilton. It should come as no surprise, then, that it may have been Aaron Burr who paved the way for the filibuster.
15 Likes
You’re right – my math is bad.
Luckily, my low level of knowledge about stuff learned in elementary school means I’d be a perfect senator! 
6 Likes
Hopefully SCOTUS realizes what a precarious position they are currently in & refuses to hear this (seems Kavanaugh has this Circuit), lest they find themselves w 4 new colleagues next year
2 Likes
I’ve got bad news about your favorite planet 
6 Likes
I would agree that this is an excellent argument against the filibuster, where a minority can block normal legislation. But it might still be reasonable to require a qualified majority for things like amendments to a constitution.
Edit: also I think that majority vote is neither the only nor necessarily best way for making decisions in a democracy.
