This is so discouraging.

If he serves out his term, the justice department won't be recognizable.

Post this far & wide:

Last edited Mon Jan 8, 2018, 02:33 PM - Edit history (1)

"Manifest Destiny held that the United States was destined—by God, its advocates believed—to expand its dominion and spread democracy and capitalism across the entire North American continent."

Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 (1996), is a landmark United States Supreme Court case dealing with sexual orientation and state laws. It was the first Supreme Court case to address gay rights since Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), when the Court had held that laws criminalizing sodomy were constitutional.[1]
The Court ruled in a 6–3 decision that a state constitutional amendment in Colorado preventing protected status based upon homosexuality or bisexuality did not satisfy the Equal Protection Clause.[2] The majority opinion in Romer stated that the amendment lacked "a rational relationship to legitimate state interests", and the dissent stated that the majority "evidently agrees that 'rational basis'—the normal test for compliance with the Equal Protection Clause—is the governing standard".[2][3] The state constitutional amendment failed rational basis review.[4][5][6][7]

The decision in Romer set the stage for Lawrence v. Texas (2003), where the Court overruled its decision in Bowers,[1] for the Supreme Court ruling striking down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act in United States v. Windsor (2013), and for the Court's ruling striking down state bans on same-sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015). Justice Anthony Kennedy authored all four opinions, and was joined by Justices Breyer and Ginsburg in every one.

Contents [hide]
1 Passage of Amendment 2
2 Proceedings in state court
3 U.S. Supreme Court ruling
4 Dissenting opinion
5 Scholarly commentary
6 Related cases and events
7 See also
8 References
9 Further reading
10 External links

From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romer_v._Evans

The Mississippi law concerns public accommodations with regard to the Commerce Clause, not the 14th Amendment.

The Court has not ruled on the constitutionality of private businesses refusing to accommodate patrons based on sexual orientation.

"State government will not take any discriminatory action aganst persons who don't believe in..."

Unbelievable.

SECTION 2. The sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions protected by this act are the belief or conviction that:

(a) Marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman;

(b) Sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage; and

(c) Male (man) or female (woman) refer to an individual's immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy and genetics at time of birth.


To have such a broad carve out for "sincerely held religious beliefs".

I hope this law is repealed in MS asap, and I hope another case reverses this horrible decision by SCOTUS. I know Kagan, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Breyer did not agree to this.

It only takes four justices to grant a petition for certiorari. The fact that the petitions were denied means that at least one of those four did not support hearing the case.

In all likelihood, it wasn't just one of them. The issue raised by the petition did not go to the issue of whether the Mississippi law violated the Constitution or was otherwise unlawful. It went solely to the question of whether these particular petitioners had "standing" to bring the case. Even the liberal wing of the Court adheres to the requirement of a showing of standing. While separate statements on the denial of petitions for certiorari are the exception, if there was a close division in the court on this case, I would have expected to see a separate statement from one of the Justices. The absence of a separate statement is a further indication that this wasn't considered a close call.

before the court will give a shit.

It basically gives carte blanche to everyone in the state to discriminate in any matter related to interactions with anyone from the LGBQT community. This includes official state and private personal interactions.

You shouldn't have to have standing for legislation so in conflict with prior SC decisions - that is unless you plan to overturn those decisions.

States' rights, except for oil drilling in virgin waters

Nothing missed at all.

We are only beginning to see the payoff for stacking the SCOTUS. Expect much worse to come from this reprehensible SCOTUS majority.

The appeals court overturned the lower court based on standing, the supreme court is simply agreeing the original plantiffs had no damages from the law. Also remember the court is currently deliberating the CO cake designer case they are not going to take another case that is essentially the same thing while they haven't even issued a ruling on the current case.

If the court rules against the cake maker then the MS law can be challenged on it's constitutionality based on the new precsendent. If they rule for cake maker then someone who was discriminated under the MS law can sue again.

No choice but to dismiss based on standing...why is an elementary principal of law so often overlooked? Should have been no problem getting a plaintiff actually harmed.

when I read about a case being rejected for standing and it was so patently obvious. Why are they wasting the courts time, if they really want to bring the suit then find someone that is clearly harmed, it shouldn't be that hard.

When Arizona went after Hispanics, groups moved their conferences to other states, businesses left, and new businesses stayed away costing the state billions of dollars. Is anything even feasible with a state like Mississippi, which doesn't have a lot to offer in the first place that can be boycotted?

A year or so ago, the evangelicals there were upset that some business owners were putting up stickers in their windows that said they served everyone, claiming it was somehow an attack on their religious freedom. I've often thought that instead of those stickers which are bought due to the desires of the business owner, there should be a law that says that you CAN discriminate in your business based on religious grounds. Every business has to fill out a form stating whether or not they want to, and stickers are issued accordingly. Any of the religious jerks object, ask them why they're so shy in defending what God wants, etc. Then wait for those businesses to go under as more people frequent the friendly businesses - even in Mississippi, where the younger generations don't hold truck with the older generation currently in power over LGBTQ issues.

TlalocW

Before people lose their minds over this, please understand that the question before the Supreme Court, as posed by the petitioners seeking Supreme Court review, was a narrow procedural one: namely, whether the petitioners had "standing" to bring the case.

As the petitioners in Southern Equality v. Bryant put it the question presented was: "Do petitioners have standing to
challenge HB 1523 on the grounds that it violates the Establishment Clause?"

For those who may not recall, standing can and often is a barrier to litigants. It was what stopped most of the birther cases in their tracks.

To get review, only four justices would have had to support hearing the case. The fact that the petition didn't get four justices and the further fact that no justice wrote a separate opinion (something that isn't typical, but sometimes occurs when there is a deep division in the court) suggests that this wasn't a particularly close call, even for the liberal wing of the court.