The Supreme Court’s Gay Marriage and Obamacare Rulings, Predicted
June is always the most exciting month of the year for the Supreme Court. Typically, the court decides its most high-profile cases then, usually late in the month. And this June is no exception. It will bring important decisions regarding the Confederate flag on license plates, lethal injection drugs, regulating emissions of coal and power plants, housing discrimination and more.
But those decisions will be decided in the shadows of two of the highest-profile cases the court has had in years, or possibly decades: Obergefell v. Hodges, the same-sex marriage case, and King v. Burwell, the decision about whether to gut Obamacare and end affordable health care access for millions of people in the United States.
Here’s what to expect with both those cases.
The case: Obergefell v. Hodges
Background: Does the Constitution require marriage equality? The Supreme Court came close to answering this question back in 2013, but avoided it on technical grounds. This time, with Obergefell, it will address the issue head-on.
It may be hard to remember, but in May of 2004, there wasn’t a single state in the country that permitted same-sex marriage. Eleven years later, 37 states and the District of Columbia have marriage equality, and nearly 72 percent of Americans live in a state that allows same-sex couples to marry. That is remarkably sweeping change in a very short period of time.
Now, the Supreme Court has to decide whether the remaining states have to permit same-sex marriage. The case – originating from the four non-equality states of Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky and Michigan – was argued in late April, and all eyes are now on Justice Anthony Kennedy. (Based on their questioning at oral argument, neither the more liberal nor the more conservative justices gave us any reason to doubt how they will rule, though some people are still holding out for Chief Justice Roberts to surprise us and vote for equality.)
This case will likely be decided the last day of the court’s term, currently scheduled to be June 29.
Prediction: A historic 5-4 decision for equality.
Evidence: Predicting how Kennedy will vote requires us to probe the beliefs he’s expressed in the past about gay rights. And you could say – stay with me here – that his beliefs are well expressed by Whitney Houston lyrics. You see, Kennedy has authored each of the high court’s three major gay rights decisions over the past two decades, and in those cases he’s returned to the same themes: “the children are our future,” and the law “can’t take away [gay people’s] dignity.”
During oral arguments in April, he did this once again, peppering the lawyers defending the same-sex marriage bans with questions about how children of gay and lesbian couples are harmed by denying their parents the right to marry, and how gay and lesbian individuals lose their dignity by not being able to marry. Once again, he seemed this close to breaking into “The Greatest Love of All.”
Although we can’t know for sure what the Supreme Court will do, when Justice Kennedy channels his inner Whitney like this, it’s good news for supporters of marriage equality.