Law Commons^™

Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around: The Supreme Court Is Harming People With Its Inscrutable Gay Marriage Actions, Sonja R. West, Dahlia Lithwick

Popular Media

The Supreme Court’s decision Monday (Oct. 5, 2014) to decline the appeals of decisions striking down same-sex marriage bans in five states was, to most court-watchers, a huge surprise. It was also a deeply strange move given the magnitude of the constitutional issue and the general confusion about what a non-decision actually means. While Monday’s denial of certiorari was not technically a decision on the merits, most supporters of same-sex marriage celebrated the move as part of the justices’ inexorable crawl toward marriage equality. And in Virginia, Oklahoma, Colorado, and other affected states, gay couples who have waited—in many cases …

Quick Change Justice, Sonja R. West, Dahlia Lithwick

Popular Media

The architecture of the U.S. Supreme Court Building is rife with turtles. There are turtles holding up the lampposts in the courtyard and turtles engraved in the stone decor. You can buy turtle coffee mugs at the gift shop. The turtle is said to represent the slow and deliberate pace of justice. This is an institution, the turtle tells us, that moves slowly, deliberately, and removed from the knee-jerk pace of the political branches.

Yet moments before they adjourned for their summer recess, the justices proved they can act quite quickly and recklessly when it comes to violating the terms …