Same-sex marriage and public acceptance of legal equality for LGBT folk has broken out of the beachhead phase; defenders of inequality have turned to erecting enclaves for discrimination like the failed “religious freedom” law in Arizona. Marijuana legalization is still in the beachhead phase. We’ll know it’s broken out when enclaves start being built against that. But redoubts almost never hold.
It seems quite possible the Supreme Court could act in such fashion as to lavoid announcing a constitutional right for same-sex couples to marry. And there is a reasonable chunk of the commentariat encouraging the Court to do just that. In my view, such a sidestep would be a big mistake becauseIt would put the Court in bed with stupidity, a place the Court can ill afford to be these days.
When, at his confirmation hearings, Chief Justice Roberts claimed his job was just calling balls and strikes, he was being disingenuous. The very concept of balls and strikes presupposes a strike zone, and constitutional interpretation is full of competing strike zones. In fact, there aren’t even reliable rules for choosing among these strike zones.