June 11, 2010
In 2009, while seeking confirmation as solicitor general, Elena Kagan gave a seemingly forthright written response when asked in writing by Sen. John Cornyn: "Given your rhetoric about the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy - you called it 'a profound wrong - a moral injustice of the first order' - let me ask this basic question: Do you believe that there is a federal constitutional right to same-sex...
April 3, 2010
The president's nominee had "a brilliant legal mind" and a charming manner, the critic wrote in an op-ed. But his record was "resolutely conservative." This made the Supreme Court nomination "a seismic event that threatens to deepen the nation's red-blue divide." It should be rejected, the critic implied.
The nominee was John Roberts, now the chief justice. The...
May 24, 2008
I wholeheartedly support gay marriage. And I am happy for the many gays who rejoiced at the California Supreme Court's 4-3 decision on May 15 ordering the state to stop calling committed gay couples "domestic partners" and start calling them "married."
So why do I see the decision as an unfortunate exercise in judicial imperialism? Let me count the ways. Then I'll touch on how...
March 1, 2007
A year after conservative Justice Samuel Alito succeeded liberal-leaning Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a disagreement between two of the nation's best legal journalists about how much President Bush has transformed the Supreme Court prompts this challenge to Court-watchers:
What will the legal landscape look like in 10 years? Make your predictions and place your bets.
In a widely acclaimed book...
June 10, 2006
President Bush and congressional Republicans have spent the past week rallying their base by flogging proposals on the issues headlined above that seem extreme and indefensible to many of us independents.
On gay marriage, the "Marriage Protection Amendment" that Bush is pushing would bar not only activist judges but also the people and their elected representatives from ever allowing...
March 13, 2004
"Because of the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution (which makes every state accept 'the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State'), gay marriage can be imposed on the entire country by a bare majority of the state supreme court of but one state.... The 1996 Defense of Marriage Act? Nonsense. It pretends to allow the states to reject marriage licenses...
November 22, 2003
As a policy matter, gay marriage is an easy call. I'm for it.
May 3, 2003
"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything.... The definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on...
February 19, 2000
Vermont and its legislature are mired in furious debate over the state Supreme Court's ruling two months ago that the legislature must "extend to same-sex couples the common benefits and protections that flow from marriage under Vermont law," either by allowing same-sex marriages or by creating comprehensive "domestic partnership" rights.
May 27, 1996
The Supreme Court's big gay rights decision on May 20 is at once immensely inspiring and intensely troubling.
The inspiring thing about Romer v. Evans is the Court's overdue embrace of simple justice for gay people, through fee majority's assertion that states "cannot make them unequal to everyone else" or "deem a class of persons a stranger to its laws."
If the courts build...
May 20, 1996
MARGARET WARNER: Today's most notable rulings came in two very different cases. The first struck down a Colorado constitutional amendment that forbid any city or the state from adopting laws or ordinances to protect homosexuals from discrimination. The second struck down a $2 million punitive damages award won by an Alabama doctor unhappy with the paint job on his new BMW. For more on today's...
