A Nauseating Conclusion– the Supreme Court and Marriage
posted in Rantings |I hate listening to Randi Rhodes. But I do it. I hate it because she uses a lot of the radio tendencies that conservative radio hosts do, like running roughshod over her callers, and like sticking to one thought for an hour and bringing back every. single. topic. back. to that thought. I listen to her because every once in a while she says something smart.
Like … about two days ago, she said that the Supreme Court didn’t step into the Anna Nicole Smith inheritance debate because they had jurisdiction over the issue. They stepped in because they wanted to establish that they did have jurisdiction over the issue– that the Supreme Court can address issues of who can marry whom, and who gets to benefit from marriage. In other words, they used the discussion around her inheritance to increase their domain.
She went on to expound on the idea that marriage is a state-level function, not a nation-level function. Note that this chart shows that each state has its own rules about age of consent and about common-law marriages. She’s got it right; the US Supreme Court should never have been involved in Anna Nicole’s inheritance battle.
However, Frist’s Plans are not a secret. While Frist is ignoring problems with already-established checks-and-balances (he’s pushing for this vote rather than focusing on the Presidental use of Signing Statements or on the Search of William Jefferson’s Office), he’s instead riding a doomed horse to get the House and Senate to pass a bill restricting State Rights to condone same-sex marriages.
And the Supreme Court has recently gone out of their way to show that marriage is a Federal-level issue, and not just a state issue. This Supreme Court, with the new Bush appointees. Really makes ya think, doesn’t it?
