Tag Archives: scalia

Doe v. Reed

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The Supreme Court issued a fascinating decision this morning in connection with the marriage equality movement. It pits Justice Scalia against the anti-gay folks, and I’m not totally sure which side I agree with here.

Last year, in Washington State, the governor signed a same-sex domestic partnership bill into law. In response, a group called Protect Marriage Washington tried to get an initiative onto the ballot to repeal the law. They managed to get enough signatures to do so. In response to that, a coalition of groups sued under the state’s Public Records Act to learn the names of everyone who signed the petition.

Protect Marriage Washington argued that this would be a violation of the First Amendment rights of everyone who signed the petition, because it would have a chilling effect on speech. They argued that if you can’t sign a petition without staying anonymous, this will discourage people from signing petitions and thereby their free speech rights will be curtailed. They also argued that in this particular instance, the signers of the petition were subject to threats from gay-rights people.

This morning, the Court, in Doe v. Reed, ruled that there is no blanket right to anonymity if you sign a petition. But they refrained from ruling on the particular circumstances of this case; they kicked back to the lower court the issue of whether there’s a legitimate threat against the petition signers that would necessitate keeping their identities secret.

Chief Justice Roberts wrote the majority opinion, which was 6-3, although the lineup is a little splintered. Only Justice Thomas dissented completely, arguing that the First Amendment in all cases protects the anonymity of petition signers.

Scalia’s concurrence is the most interesting, though. He argues that there is no protection of anonymity regardless of whether there are threats; he examines American history and finds that there is not even a First Amendment right to a secret ballot in an ordinary election, because until the late 19th century, most states didn’t have secret ballots, and the secret ballot was instituted not because of First Amendment concerns, but in order to minimize election fraud.

The highlight of his concurrence is at the end:

There are laws against threats and intimidation; and harsh criticism, short of unlawful action, is a price our people have traditionally been willing to pay for self-governance. Requiring people to stand up in public for their political acts fosters civic courage, without which democracy is doomed. For my part, I do not look forward to a society which, thanks to the Supreme Court, campaigns anonymously… and even exercises the direct democracy of initiative and referendum hidden from public scrutiny and protected from the accountability of criticism. This does not resemble the Home of the Brave.

He’s basically saying to the anti-equality people: don’t be such wimps. Have the courage to argue your opinions in public.

And I kind of respect that.

I’m still not sure if I agree whether petition signers should have the right to their anonymity. I think I’d say, no, except in certain circumstances, such as someone signing a petition for racial equality in the South during the 1960s, in a time and place where there was a history and demonstrated threat of racial violence.

And I don’t like the idea that you can sign a petition to take away someone’s rights and then turn around and falsely complain that you’re subject to the threat of violence for doing so.

Finally, it’s interesting to read this decision alongside the Court’s January ruling that the Prop 8 trial in California shouldn’t be broadcast because it could cause “irreparable harm” to the anti-equality side’s witnesses.

It’s always funny to me that lots of anti-gay people make fun of gay men for being sissies and yet cower in fear of physical harm from them.

Prop 8 Trial Continues

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During the Prop 8 trial, I’ve been following the Prop 8 Trial Tracker blog created by the Courage Campaign. It seems like our side has been putting on a great case, and the Prop 8 folks have been putting on a pretty lackluster case.

Of course, none of this really matters, because even if Judge Walker rules in our favor, and even if the Ninth Circuit upholds that decision, this will eventually wind up in the U.S. Supreme Court, where Justice Kennedy will be the deciding vote. No matter how rational our side’s arguments are, we’ll never get the votes of Roberts, Scalia, Thomas or Alito.

It’s really unclear what side Kennedy would be on. He’s written a couple of seminal pro-gay decisions — Romer and Lawrence. But what would he think about the validity of marriage equality?

No matter what happens in the Supreme Court, though, this trial has been a net plus. While I don’t know how much publicity the trial has had since the first week, it can only change people’s minds in favor of equality. I seriously doubt it would turn anyone againstmarriage equality who wasn’t already opposed.

Even if we lose in the Supreme Court, that’s not so bad. The Court wouldn’t outlaw marriage equality; it would just leave everything up to the states, which is where we are now. And any state-based marriage case that involved the interpretation of a state’s constitution would be unaffected, because the U.S. Supreme Court has no legal say over how to interpret a state constitution.

There are some who say that an adverse decision in the Supreme Court would set back the cause of equality, but that’s not necessarily so. As last week’s campaign finance case shows, the Court has no compunction about overturning its own precedents, even if those precedents are less than ten years old.

So I think that whatever happens, this trial has been a net win.

There’s a Martin Luther King quote that Obama has often used in the last couple of years:

The arc of history is long… but it bends towards justice.

In the long run, we’re moving toward equality.

SCOTUS: No Cameras in Prop 8 Trial

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“Irreparable harm.”

Nobody expected the U.S. Supreme Court to get involved in the Prop 8 case so soon, but a couple of hours ago, the Court issued an order preventing the broadcast of the Prop 8 trial to five federal courthouses across the country after being asked to do so a few days ago by the pro-Prop 8 lawyers. The order doesn’t address whether the trial can be broadcast on the internet, because that issue is still being worked out at the lower level (“the technical staff encountered some unexpected difficulties preparing a satisfactory video suitable for on-line posting”).

This whole case has so many people on edge — me included — that anything the Supreme Court says about it, even on a supposedly tangential issue like cameras in the courtroom, is being given talmudic scrutiny.

What worries me is the makeup of the justices in this decision. It just so happens that the five justices who voted to bar cameras in this case — and therefore agreed with the pro-Prop 8 lawyers — are Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and Kennedy, and that the four justices who dissented are Stevens, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor. This is exactly the lineup a decision on the merits could have, with the possible exception of Kennedy.

The thing is, I tend to agree more with the majority here, that the lower court probably didn’t follow proper procedure in allowing cameras in this case. But I could be persuaded that the minority is right as well. This really isn’t an emotionally charged issue — except for the fact that it happens to involve a trial about Prop 8.

And the fact that the trial is about Prop 8 is relevant. The majority opinion, which is unsigned, isn’t just about proper procedure; it also endorses the claims raised by the pro-Prop 8 lawyers that some pro-Prop 8 people have been harrassed, even physically, and says that there could be “irreparable harm” in letting cameras in.

Never mind the fact that we’re not even talking about broadcasting the trial on the internet — we’re just talking about broadcasting the trial in five federal courthouses.

So, is this an attempt to paint pro-gay-rights people as crazy harrassers? What about the people who get gay bashed? What about kids who get driven to suicide because their classmates taunt them for being gay or even just for being effeminate? Granted, the anti-Prop-8 people apparently didn’t bring that up in their arguments. But in citing “irreparable harm,” the majority opinion seems a little too sympathetic to the anti-gay side here. And again, that worries me.

So “irreparable harm” rears its ugly head again. It’s a valid legal concept, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with it. But I can’t help but remember that it came up in Bush v. Gore, too. There, Justice Scalia said — in an example of great chutzpah: “The counting of votes that are of questionable legality does in my view threaten irreparable harm to petitioner Bush, and to the country, by casting a cloud upon what he claims to be the legitimacy of his election.”

I really hope this procedural order isn’t a portent of how the case turns out.