Whiny Gays Finally Get Day in Court, Keep Whining Anyway

Hey gay homosexuals! Be happy! The Supreme Court is going to hear your gay cases about all the sick things you gays do, like get married and serve in the military. Wait, what? You're NOT uniformly happy that the Supreme Court will hear your gay cases because there's some complex different issues blah blah blah? WHAT DO YOU PEOPLE WANT FROM US?

You have a wide variety of non-Wonkette sources that will actually, you know, explain the cases to you. For some detailed and thoughtful analysis from actual lawyers, go read SCOTUSblog. If you want a non-legalistic summary of what's going on, try HuffPo. If you want someone to explain to you why one of these cases is cool for the homosessicans and one is bad, you can't really do better than Mother Jones:  

The DOMA case asks the justices to strike down the federal law that dictates which marriages are valid. Even better for supporters of same-sex marriage: Of the several DOMA cases the court could have taken, it decided on  Windsor v. United States  [4], in which plaintiff Edith Windsor was unable to claim an estate-tax deduction after her female partner died. Between striking down part of a heavy-handed federal statute and helping someone get a tax cut, it's the kind of same-sex marriage case even a conservative justice could love. Most importantly, from the point of view of getting the requisite five votes, striking down that part of DOMA would not prevent states from banning same-sex marriage.

The Prop. 8 case argues something much broader, however: It claims there is a fundamental right to same-sex marriage in the Constitution, and that any attempt to ban same-sex marriage violates the 14th Amendment. The Ninth Circuit's ruling was written so narrowly [5] that if the Supreme Court had decided not to take the case, then the Ninth Circuit's decision would have affirmed the rights of same-sex couples in California alone. But if SCOTUS were to affirm the constitutionality of California's ban on same-sex marriage, the ruling could well apply to any such law nationwide.

Let's Wonkettize this for you. DOMA case likely to succeed because states' rights good and taxes bad. Proposition 8 case is messy because possibly epileptic altar boy John Roberts, swarthy anger bear Antonin Scalia, quietly bloodthirsty Clarence Thomas, and perpetually in a snit Samuel Alito are pretty sure to use the case to find a way to ban teh gays from the marrying forever. So, as always, the whole thing will come down to endless maw of ass-kissing need Anthony Kennedy. Same as it ever was. So, homosexuals and friends, start sending fruit baskets or Porsche Boxsters or epic love poems or erotic chocolates or SOMETHING to Justice Kennedy ASAP.

[ SCOTUSblog / HuffPo / Mojo ]