Cheating Marriage: A Tragedy in Three Acts
64 Pages Posted: 20 Aug 2015 Last revised: 21 Aug 2015
Date Written: 2015
Abstract
In his dissenting opinion in United States v. Windsor, Justice Scalia accused the Court of “cheating,” because it decided an issue that properly belonged to the voters. But the cheating that went on in the case, and the parallel case involving Proposition 8 in California, was also of the vintage variety. This article tells the largely untold story about the many machinations by elected officials and judges to produce the end result in favor of same-sex marriage, from conflicts of interest, to collusion by nominally “opposing” counsel, and finally to an aggressive refusal by high-ranking government lawyers (including one who would then cast the deciding vote in the case) to defend laws for which there were perfectly reasonable defenses well-rooted in then-existing precedent.
Keywords: Courts, Same-Sex Marriage, Legal Ethics
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