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02/13/2015
What NOM's Ginsburg 'demand' is really all about
You've probably heard by now that the National Organization For Marriage, a fail-prone organization that hasn't won just about anything in the past three years, and that has instead shepherded a nation where a majority of the states have and a majority of the population largely supports same-sex marriage, is "DEMANDING" that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recuse herself from the the upcoming marriage cases because of recent comments in which she said she feels the American public will accept full equality. Here's the press release if you want to read how an organization with no capital to make such demands tries to make them anyway:
National Organization for Marriage Demands That Ruth Bader Ginsburg Remove Herself from Hearing Marriage Case; If She Refuses Congress Should Conduct An Investigation [NOM]
Adorable.
But let's be clear here: NOM doesn't really think Ginsburg is going to recuse. NOM knows she, someone who has already made known her thoughts on the ill effects of marriage inequality and who believes the Windsor ruling (in which she joined the majority) disposed of most of the fundamental uncertainties, has done nothing out of line. Furthermore, NOM knows that no US Congress, even one controlled by the Republicans, is going to take on this fight against a respected high court judge on a subject from which even the right wing is ready to move on.
What NOM is doing here is trying to delegitimize the pro-equality ruling before it ever comes down. NOM likely believes that the ruling will be 5–4, so if they can go ahead and lay some groundwork about one or more of the justices being unethical, then that will give them fuel they can try to sell post-loss. NOM president Brian Brown has already talked about how he wants this to be a forty year fight, like Roe v. Wade. Well of course he does! Brian Brown makes hundreds of thousands of dollars for doing almost nothing! Of course he wants this gig to keep going, and in order to keep it going, he needs to find ways around that pesky ruling that almost everyone believes is going to deal the final blow to his discriminatory movement.
This is similar to what the far-right tried to do to Judge Vaughn Walker in the days and weeks leading up to the CA district court judge's 2010 Prop 8 ruling. Remember that whisper campaign about "the homosexual judge"? I do. Then, like now, the pro-discrimination forces knew they had a good chance of losing, so they needed to scheme up ways to make their loss seem like it was less-than-fair. That time, they floated the idea that only heterosexual judges are able to carefully weigh and apply the law. This time, the idea is that justices are not free to have even surface-level opinions about matters into which they've already delved and concepts that are now full legal realities in thirty-seven states and in our nation's capital, as well as under federal law.
Although to be honest, they lost me at "demands." The idea that this silly little outfit should be demanding anything out of anyone will sustain my laughter through this long weekend. Ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
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