"Gorsuch’s dissent is legally incoherent and factually inaccurate—an amateurish effort to justify anti-gay discrimination through deeply misleading analysis and an outright untruth."

We. Ain't. Seen. Nothing. Yet.

Last edited Wed Jun 28, 2017, 06:26 PM - Edit history (1)

It's puke. Equating Scalia to Tony Salerno is a slap in the to all italian Americans. We were not considered "white" in this country until the early 1980s. Accusing every Italian you don't like of being in the mafia is racist.

What the hell do you think is meant by "Fat Tony". It's a mafia reference and you meant it exactly that way.


Seriously. Ever heard of The Son's of Italy? It's a non profit organization that fights anti Italian stereotypes in America

Did you ever stop to think that a race who ruled the world for 600 years, pioneered the Renaissance, boasts of the greatest scientists, engineers, and architects the world has ever known as well as inventing a form of government mimicked all over the world can only be portrayed as mafia in this country? You don't think there's an issue?

Overreacting? Hardly. Think about it.

What italian immigrants had to go through m. The largest mass lynching in America was perpetrated against Sicilian immigrants.

We have come a long way, but too many throw the mafia references around to anyone with a name who ends in vowel. It happens too much here on DU and always has. Skinner tolerates it but he shouldn't.

Grazie mille

...however, after our exchange this afternoon I started doing some research, and will continue to do so.

But I want you to understand, it was not my intention to disparage Americans of Italian descent. It was, HOWEVER, my complete and total intention to disparage Anton Scalia, whom in my opinion, SHOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN PLACED ON THE SCOTUS.

And honestly, because of his background I have less respect for him. When you grow up opressed by the elite, then use all of your talents to help them opress others...



He forgot where he came from. Still, a racial slur is just that. Plenty to fault him for without insinuating he was in the mafia.


If you want to learn about the italian american, Google and watch Pane Amaro. Italian for "Bitter Bread". It is on YouTube and a great documentary.

Like I said, the Etruscans ruled the two greatest Western empires under Alexander and Rome. However here in America no Italian or Greek is portrayed in a positive light in the media.

Look at Godfather's Pizza. It's offensive. It's no different than Little Black Sambo Restaurant or Washington Redskins.

What I find concerning (and I don't blame you for this personally) is how easily Fat Tony is thrown around. You did not even realize it was a stereotype slur against Scalia's Sicilian heritage. It shows how ingrained this is in America and how little people think about it.

The fact that you linked a newspaper article calling him the same thing is awful. Could you imagine a headline saying "Bitch on the Rag is Dead"? Of course you could not. No one would tolerate it, yet Italian slurs are permitted in America and media portrayal of them is always negative. Either a mobster or a stupid thug like Rocky.

It's sad and I hope to bring it to more people's attention. Thanks for being open minded enough to consider another perspective.

...I didn't link to one article referenced by google... I linked to the page that showed OVER 23,000 references to "Fat Tony Scalia." Scalia had been called this for over 10 years, which of course, does not make it right. Again, I sincerely meant no slight to persons of Sicilian or Italian heritage, BUT MAKE NO MISTAKE, I DID MEAN EVERY SLIGHT I COULD MUSTER AGAINST SCALIA. HOWEVER, I do see your point, and I appreciate the learning opportunity. And I agree, I see how slights against certain ethnic heritages have become ingrained in our American social consciousnesses. Take the Irish, for example, drunkards that they are.... kidding, of course, I am English, Irish and Scot all rolled into the Western European mongrel package.

You are most welcome and thank you.

...actually judicial robes. Garland would have been TEN TIMES the Justice that Gorsuch portends to be.

Fuck you Mitch McConnell.

Both of them start with the answer they want, then figure out how to reverse-engineer the case to justify it.

The stronger theories are the ones that survive more tests.

like scalia, his vote is predictable. Thankfully, Justice Roberts seems to actually care about court precedent so even with (possibly) upcoming Kennedy replacement (to Scalia 3.0), I think gay marriage related decision should be relatively safe. But it does go on to show that with the 'right' justices, every decision can be overturned. If we don't take the senate back in 2018; we may be bracing ourselves for decades of regression. Same-sex marriage and Roe v. wade can be easily overturned in their entirety with justices like gorsuch.

Remember, the real enemies of democracy are not those who voted for trump. It is the ones who didn't or don't vote in each and every election no matter how small.

they were intolerant for any other reason, they would be disqualified.

Thanks for posting, very useful article.

for all of posterity! He's going to be known as one of the dimmest SC justices over time. I bet first year law students will be ridiculing him for decades!

No, really. We're all so grateful for your moral purity.

Perfect will always be the enemy of good. And as long as the right can convince us that our candidates need to be perfect while their candidates need only rise to the capability of DJT...we'll always be fighting among ourselves for the highest of moral high grounds while the republicans are looting the country.

Oh yeah - and the wall street speeches. Good that we don't have to worry about a president who's "too connected" to wall street (in particular goldman sachs).

I know I sleep better.

in case it's necessary.

...his blatant obstructionism of Obama's pick is at the root of this issue...he should have been tarred and feathered for that....

A thousand times yes.

less regard for truth than Scalia, or at least less talent for developing phony arguments. Regarding HIS problem, perhaps Limbaugh can give him some lessons. Ours?

As for his argument that birth certificates need to list biological parents, he's treading in dangerous waters. For the first time in human history, states are able to confirm biological paternity by readily available genetic testing. And apparently they may have a duty to... According to precedent opinion Gorsuch is, probably inadvertently, establishing.

I hope the anti Clinton people are proud of the mess they have created. The Supreme Court could become a rightwing swamp for the next fifty years or more.

I'm losing interest in dealing with America. I just don't have any hope left.

Maybe I'm just not looking hard enough.

I can high tail it as a single man with resources and a profession. But I have young nieces and nephews that will ultimately be crushed by the chaos I run away from.

WTF. I knew he was a conservative corporatist, but is he truly this incompetent? He would have done himself a favor by dissenting without comment.

Based on this decision, he may well be. And a Trump on the Supreme Court is even worse than a Trump as president.

His arguments were - huh? Not really related to the case. Scary.

This is appalling but completely what was expected. For the Republicans it was what was desired.

This might not be a great thing to latch onto?

I will NEVER accept this a***ole as legitimate. Goes for DT as well.

First, he wrote that the court should have dismissed the appeal because “in this particular case and all others of its kind, the state agrees, the female spouse of the birth mother must be listed on birth certificates too.” What? That issue lay at the heart of this case—but Gorsuch has it exactly backward: Arkansas explicitly refused to list “the female spouse of the birth mother” on birth certificates. That’s how the case wound up at the Supreme Court in the first place.

I asked Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights—which represented the Arkansas plaintiffs—what he made of Gorsuch’s assertion.

“That’s just completely wrong,” he told me. “It is patently untrue. Arkansas refused to put the female spouse of a birth mother on the birth certificate. The Arkansas Supreme Court upheld the policy, and the state would not issue birth certificates that listed both same-sex parents.” Minter should know; he represented two couples who were denied the right to “legally accurate” birth certificates.'

Thanks for opty to learn something about this matter.

Of reasons, but if the SC was the only issue, to those who lectured me, yes the SC was a big deal

Just less skilled at it, and less entertaining.

Like Alito, Thomas, and Roberts--he seems to value perverted versions of Biblical principles over Constitutional principles, and never met a corporation he didn't like (or an individual that he DID like).

I'm bad sorting through Google's options.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/16-992_868c.pdf

JUSTICE GORSUCH, with whom JUSTICE THOMAS and
JUSTICE ALITO join, dissenting.

Summary reversal is usually reserved for cases where
“the law is settled and stable, the facts are not in dispute,
and the decision below is clearly in error.” Schweiker v.
Hansen, 450 U. S. 785, 791 (1981) (Marshall, J., dissenting).
Respectfully, I don’t believe this case meets that
standard.
To be sure, Obergefell addressed the question whether a
State must recognize same-sex marriages. But nothing in
Obergefell spoke (let alone clearly) to the question whether
§20–18–401 of the Arkansas Code, or a state supreme
court decision upholding it, must go. The statute in question
establishes a set of rules designed to ensure that the
biological parents of a child are listed on the child’s birth
certificate. Before the state supreme court, the State
argued that rational reasons exist for a biology based birth
registration regime, reasons that in no way offend Obergefell—like
ensuring government officials can identify public
health trends and helping individuals determine their
biological lineage, citizenship, or susceptibility to genetic
disorders. In an opinion that did not in any way seek to
defy but rather earnestly engage Obergefell, the state
supreme court agreed. And it is very hard to see what is
wrong with this conclusion for, just as the state court
recognized, nothing in Obergefell indicates that a birth
registration regime based on biology, one no doubt with
many analogues across the country and throughout history,
offends the Constitution. To the contrary, to the
extent they speak to the question at all, this Court’s precedents
suggest just the opposite conclusion. See, e.g.,
Michael H. v. Gerald D., 491 U. S. 110, 124–125 (1989);
Tuan Anh Nguyen v. INS, 533 U. S. 53, 73 (2001). Neither
does anything in today’s opinion purport to identify any
constitutional problem with a biology based birth registration
regime. So whatever else we might do with this case,
summary reversal would not exactly seem the obvious
course.
What, then, is at work here? If there isn’t a problem
with a biology based birth registration regime, perhaps
the concern lies in this particular regime’s exceptions. For
it turns out that Arkansas’s general rule of registration
based on biology does admit of certain more specific exceptions.
Most importantly for our purposes, the State
acknowledges that §9–10–201 of the Arkansas Code controls
how birth certificates are completed in cases of artificial
insemination like the one before us. The State
acknowledges, too, that this provision, written some time
ago, indicates that the mother’s husband generally shall
be treated as the father—and in this way seemingly anticipates
only opposite-sex marital unions.
But if the artificial insemination statute is the concern,
it’s still hard to see how summary reversal should follow
for at least a few reasons. First, petitioners didn’t actually
challenge §9–10–201 in their lawsuit. Instead, petitioners
sought and the trial court granted relief eliminating the
State’s authority under §20–18–401 to enforce a birth
registration regime generally based on biology. On appeal,
the state supreme court simply held that this overbroad
remedy wasn’t commanded by Obergefell or the Constitution.
And, again, nothing in today’s opinion for the Court
identifies anything wrong, let alone clearly wrong, in that
conclusion. Second, though petitioners’ lawsuit didn’t
challenge §9–10–201, the State has repeatedly conceded
that the benefits afforded nonbiological parents under §9–
10–201 must be afforded equally to both same-sex and
opposite-sex couples. So that in this particular case and
all others of its kind, the State agrees, the female spouse
of the birth mother must be listed on birth certificates too.
Third, further proof still of the state of the law in Arkansas
today is the fact that, when it comes to adoption (a
situation not present in this case but another one in which
Arkansas departs from biology based registration), the
State tells us that adopting parents are eligible for
placement on birth certificates without respect to sexual
orientation.
Given all this, it seems far from clear what here warrants
the strong medicine of summary reversal. Indeed, it
is not even clear what the Court expects to happen on
remand that hasn’t happened already. The Court does not
offer any remedial suggestion, and none leaps to mind.
Perhaps the state supreme court could memorialize the
State’s concession on §9–10–201, even though that law
wasn’t fairly challenged and such a chore is hardly the
usual reward for seeking faithfully to apply, not evade,
this Court’s mandates.

I respectfully dissent.