Sudden as it seems to some, the Supreme Court’s endorsement of gay marriage in Windsor was a long time in coming. In cultural terms, of course, it is the fruit of fifty years of sexual liberation with all its attendant institutional, technological, and psychological shifts. In terms of . . . . Continue Reading »
1. If your bitterest ideological opponents in the other coalition are saying that you have to follow their advice and support their policy preferences in order to avoid your doom, then you know you are getting bad advice. So don’t do what they want. Figure out what works for you. 2. Imagine if a . . . . Continue Reading »
In The Moral Tradition of American Constitutionalism: A Theological Interpretation , Duke Law’s H. Jefferson Powell describes the contribution that common law made to the American legal tradition, highlighting the fact that common law represented a tradition of legal story-telling into which . . . . Continue Reading »
Jeffrey H. Anderson and Jay Cost have a lengthy and interesting National Affairs article on reforming the Republican nominating process. I think their institutional analysis is worthwhile (though I am not entirely convinced), but some of the problems of the Republican nominating process are only . . . . Continue Reading »
James Pethokoukis (who is usually one of my favorite bloggers) points to this study which argues that the US usually has a shortage of low-skill labor despite a thirty year decline in wages for low-skill workers. It turns out that even though the unemployment rate of workers with less than a high . . . . Continue Reading »
Scalia in dissent argues that the DOMA decision is already a decision about “traditional” state definitions of marriage: “the view that this Court will take of state prohibition of same-sex marriage is indicated beyond mistaking by today’s opinion. As I have said, the real . . . . Continue Reading »
After offering some of the legal interests served by DOMA, Scalia in dissent notes the rhetoric of the majority opinion, which clearly resembles the rhetoric of gay rights activists. He chides his colleagues for treating Congress and the President who signed DOMA so cavalierly: “to defend . . . . Continue Reading »
Alito says that the Court has decided an ongoing debate between two views of marriage. “The first and older view, which I will call the ‘traditional’ or ‘conjugal’ view, sees marriage as an intrinsically opposite-sex institution. BLAG notes that virtually every . . . . Continue Reading »
Last night my husband asked me the question I only briefly touched on in my last post; how does the tech support contracted to our government have so much access to national security data that it could do what Edward Snowden did? This morning, John Hinderaker is asking the same question in . . . . Continue Reading »
I seem to be conflicted about the Edward Snowden case. I have been trying to figure out how to write about it for many days. Today, I decided to write about how and why I seem to be conflicted, hoping to elicit responses that help me figure out the national dilemma on this topic. . . . . Continue Reading »
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