I have decided to leave the previous blog as it was (save for a typo). I should clarify that it is not the timing of the court’s anticipated decision that is important, except that we should not assume that it must necessarily be delayed until June; it is the question of whether that decision, whenever it comes, is an extensive, reasoned, landmark decision, setting forth reasons for mandating marriage equality, or merely a slap in the face of the Sixth Court—for arguing issues that have no place in an American court (the sociology of marriage), more that for merely being wrong in their conclusions—and terse reversal of their error. American courts are unusual in that they are prohibited from considering general questions, laws in the abstract, or the general welfare; those issues may arise in argument and opinion, but the only issue that an American court may properly adjudicate is a dispute between parties, one aggrieved and the other able to correct the problem. That is why the court denied standing to the proponents of Proposition 8 (the California constitutional amendment): the proponents had no power to rectify the putative wrong done to the plaintiffs. The government of California, in the person of the governor and the attorney general, having withdrawn from the case, and thus, alleviated the wrong, the case before the Supreme Court was moot.
Let me review the recent events that lead me to believe that this issue—marriage equality—was decided long ago:
In United States v. Windsor (2013), the court held, among other things, that the United States could not interfere with a state’s definition of marriage that granted equality to same-sex couples. (That does not mean, pace opponents of marriage equality, that such definitions are exempt from the restrictions imposed on all American governments by the Constitution of the United States.) In doing so, the court accepted, on behalf of the United States, the possibility that the word “marriage” could include same-sex couples. This is important because one of the favorite arguments of the opponents of marriage equality is that it makes no sense to refer to a same-sex couple as married; they insist that violence must be done to the very meaning of the word to allow it to include same-sex couples. While the Windsor court did not explicitly say that same-sex marriage was required by the Constitution, they clearly understood the concept and accepted that it had validity. The court also discussed the grave harm imposed on same-sex couples, notably their dignity, by unequal application of the marriage statutes. The court noted that they were not mandating a constitutional right to marriage equality. Justice Scalia, in his dissent, said that they were doing precisely that (a warning he has been sounding since his dissent in Lawrence v. Texas ten years before), and he predicted that the issue would be back in the following term; the calendar did not oblige, but he was only off by one year, and not even a whole calendar year.
The court did another thing: they imposed on the country a partial solution. Sober reflection on what they wrote in Windsor, and its implications for the lives of citizens affected by it, should have led, maybe did lead them to the understanding that they were visiting a torrent of ambiguity and legal wrangling on the country. (Because of geography much of the legal wrangling landed on the desks of the Fourth Circuit and probably informed that court’s ill-tempered refusal to stay their decision in favor of marriage equality in Bostic v. Schaefer (2014), despite a near certainty that the Supreme Court would reverse them, as it did routinely until October 2014.) A charitable interpretation of the justices failure to address this problem of which they could hardly have been ignorant, is “judicial restraint”: a desire to make the narrowest ruling and await developments before turning to the consequences of their actions; another interpretation would be “judicial cowardice”.
In the event, they ruled narrowly and lawsuits sprung up across the country, like dandelions after a spring rain; some were motivated by the judicial chaos engendered by Windsor, some by perceived opportunity to attain the long-desired goal; and of course the desire of counsel to write their names in the law books.
Cases arose from every state in the union, with varying complaints and issues, all related to the denial of the fundamental right to marry. Some cases had been in progress for a decade or more, some were filed and passed through the appeals courts in less than a year. In almost every case (the initial run was over twenty consecutive cases without a loss) and with near judicial unanimity the verdict was rendered. Judges were citing the opinions of colleagues the day they were published. Interestingly the first victory in a circuit court of appeal was from Utah—go figure!
One important refrain, not universal, but common was that despite the Supreme Court’s declaration, in Windsor, that they were not deciding the issue of the constitutionality of same-sex marriage, court after court, both a the district and the circuit level opined that they most certainly had made that decision in the clear implication of their ruling and their elucidation of it.
Which brings me to October of last year, the beginning of this term for the Supreme Court. As I have written elsewhere, I expected the court to avoid writing a decision, and they did not write. Seized with numerous appeals from three circuit courts, they denied cert. with unusual haste. Denial of cert. does not imply anything in terms of legal precedent, but as I wrote Friday, when it seems to transform a very large percentage of the judicial landscape, questions arise and answers follow. Faced with a landmark issue the court may well deny cert. when it deems the issue is not “ripe”, but usually such a denial is of a single case, or a small group of cases, and, most importantly, leaves the status quo ante undisturbed; it distresses the plaintiffs in the particular case, delays the sought-for resolution, but rarely, if ever, does such a denial allow a sweeping change to settled law stand, when it is the creation of the lower courts. As I wrote on Friday, there was absolutely no pressure on the court to act when they did. They could have waited weeks, or months, before denying cert. without causing any undue curiosity, and we would have arrived at today, with all those cases pending, waiting for the long-awaited pronouncement from the nine justices. They could have waited even longer, but to go beyond June and the end of the current term would have raised questions. It is hard to see how, if there was any intention in their conference seriously to consider reversing those rulings, they would not have waited. Moreover if they had wanted to write an opinion on the subject, they could have waited, or accepted one or more of the cases before them. Their action, in denying cert., accomplished two things: 1) it made marriage equality mandatory across much of the country; 2) it avoided the need for them to write an opinion.
Their denial of cert. caused jubilation in the Fourth, Seventh, and Tenth circuits, and some consternation in friends of mine who found themselves living in a Michigan suddenly behind Indiana, not to mention Utah, in the matter of gay rights. Cases in other circuits ground forward, but the Supreme Court in a change from previous behavior denied stays of lower court orders in favor of marriage equality.
A stay is another action that carries no value as precedent, but stays are granted largely based on two criteria: the relative damage to the parties if the stay is, or is not, granted, and the likelihood that the party requesting the stay will prevail. The most likely significant, short-term damage, in the court’s opinion, is that the plaintiffs would be denied a fundamental right, and if that is the case, any review of the underlying order would elicit heightened scrutiny (in other words it would be hard to deny their right). The likely standard for “probability of success” in such a high-profile case with such sweeping consequences, would, think I, be something like “we will hear arguments, and read briefs, but if nothing substantial changes, plaintiffs will succeed.” Note that Justices Roberts and Alito voted to deny the stay in at least two cases—Scalia and Thomas wrote dissents in both—indicating their evaluation of the combination of the legal damage that a stay would cause and the likelihood of the plaintiffs prevailing was in the plaintiffs favor (i.e. that marriage equality would become the law of the land). Lower courts may have to speculate on the outcome when evaluating a request for a stay: the Supreme Court knows that they will make the final decision themselves.
The court wants to avoid a disquisition that would open further considerations and saying nothing will mandate marriage equality without further action.
So, with baited breath, we await a decision that was written and published almost two years ago.