Harry Litman: The Supreme Court is already pulling us back to the future (via latimesopinion)
The Supreme Court opened the 2020 term Monday, the first Monday in October, and the incipient hard-right majority quickly flexed its muscles. Two immediate moves send clear signals that the court is poised to take an ax to landmark constitutional holdings that define important aspects of American society now.
In Davis vs. Ermold, the justices declined to hear a case brought by a county clerk in Kentucky who refused to issue wedding licenses to same-sex couples because it would interfere with her religiously based opposition to such marriages. Same-sex unions have been the law of the land since the Supreme Court’s landmark 2015 decision in Obergefell vs. Hodges, which held that a prohibition on gay marriage violates the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection.
Think about the implications.
And it’s about to get finer with the potential addition of Amy Coney Barrett to the court. Barrett has already signaled her disagreement with the Obergefell decision and her relatively lax view of the force ofAs she sees it, precedent modestly encumbers the overruling of even foundational decisions that have stood the test of earlier challenges, and on which hundreds of thousands of Americans have built their lives.And there was more Monday.
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