The Big Picture and the Closeup

Some plays are born strange, some achieve strangeness, and some have strangeness thrust upon them (or upon their characters, at least). We consider one of each type herein.

Judge Feldman tried to draw comfort from the fact that Windsor did not employ the magic phrases “intermediate scrutiny” or “heightened scrutiny.” I would liken that comfort to saying that it’s anybody’s game with two out at the bottom of the ninth inning when the score is 20-0.

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.

Laws that give law a bad name. They do not and cannot bind the conscience. The only problem: Everyone has his/her own list of unforgivable laws.