I Hope This Is Good News?

[Content Note: Homophobia; war on agency; racism.]

US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg predicts that "the court will not duck the issue of same-sex marriage the next time a case comes to it, and could decide the issue by June 2016, and possibly a year earlier."

This is important, because the next time SCOTUS takes up a same-sex marriage case, it will likely set precedent for the constitutionality of same-sex marriage for the entire nation, and render to the dustbin the current state-by-state patchwork of legality.

Appeals courts in Denver and Richmond, Virginia, have upheld lower court rulings striking down state constitutional bans on same-sex marriage. Any of those cases could make their way to the Supreme Court in the coming months.

Attitudes have changed swiftly in favor of same-sex marriage, which is now legal in 19 states and the District of Columbia, Ginsburg said.

She predicted that the justices would not delay ruling as they did on interracial marriage bans, which were not formally struck down until 1967.

"I think the court will not do what they did in the old days when they continually ducked the issue of miscegenation," Ginsburg said. "If a case is properly before the court, they will take it."

So, it's good news the court will take up the issue. And it's promising that the court has seemed inclined to rule toward constitutionality of same-sex marriage.

But this court has not been exactly progressive on other social issues. In the same article, Bader Ginsburg defends the court's garbage decision on buffer zones, for example. But that was a "free speech" case, and US free speech protections are routinely prioritized even at the cost of people's safety, whereas civil rights cases tend to go the other way.

So, there's some reason to hope that a Supreme Court case on self-sex marriage would be decided in favor of progress and equality.

I fear the worst, but hope for the best.