6th Circuit Ruling Patterned on White Supremacist Brief?

In a recent post I speculated whether Judge Jeffrey Sutton was a modern day segregationist.  Perhaps my shots at Sutton were closer to home than I realized.  A white supremacist group that filed an amicus curiae in the 6th Circuit case is ecstatic that Sutton seemingly adopted the hate group's argument in support of upholding same sex marriage bans.  And, of course, leave it to a Chimperator George W. Bush appointee to side with the argument of white supremacists. Here are  excerpts from the group's own website boasting about the argument swallowed by Sutton who needs to receive a set of KKK robes for his Christmas gift:

When vice is celebrated as virtue and the proponents of that which is Good are labeled political heretics by the System, it is only just and proper for one to be “bad” as far as the powers that be are concerned.   

In DeBoer v. Snyder, Texas Attorney Jason Van Dyke of the Van Dyke Law Firm, PLLC, and I, Michigan and Ohio Attorney Kyle Bristow of Bristow Law, PLLC, submitted what we jokingly refer to as an “animus curiae brief” in which we articulated why the Western Legal Tradition and American history evince that there is no constitutional or natural law right for homosexuals to marry one another.  Although Schuette opined that our amicus brief should only be used to “line a birdcage” by the Sixth Circuit since it did not mince words by employing the System’s politically correct language or ideals, the judges disagreed with him:  our brief was not only accepted and considered by the Court, but the position we articulated was in effect adopted by the federal appellate judges since they saw fit to rule 2-1 that Michigan’s ban on homosexual marriage is constitutional.

Did the Sixth Circuit consider the amicus brief of us two villain lawyers and bad guy Michigan limited liability company?  Judge Jeffrey Sutton, who wrote the majority opinion, which was joined by Judge Deborah Cook, cited Baker v. Nelson, 409 U.S. 810 (1972) in the opinion, and then followed it up by citing Hicks v. Miranda, 422 U.S. 332 (1975)—which were both cited in our brief in the same manner as the Sixth Circuit cited them.

Judge Sutton also referred to “thousands of years of adherence to the traditional definition of marriage” in his written opinion, which echoes the sentiment espoused within our brief:  “[T]he Western and American legal traditions have proscribed sodomy—much less same-sex marriage—for thousands and hundreds of years, respectively.”  Not surprisingly, Judge Sutton mentioned the importance of tradition in the very first paragraph of his lengthy written opinion:  “[M]arriage has long been a social institution defined by relationships between men and women.  So long defined, the tradition is measured in millennia, not centuries or decades.  So widely shared, the tradition until recently had been adopted by all governments and major religions of the world.”

Also, our brief pointed out that sexual deviants with proclivities stranger than those even of homosexuals could demand the “right” to marry if the Court ruled that states cannot constitutionally regulate marriage, and the liberals mocked us for making the “slippery slope argument.”  Well, Judge Sutton agrees with us, which is evinced by what he opined in his opinion:  “If it is constitutionally irrational to stand by the man-woman definition of marriage, it must be constitutionally irrational to stand by the monogamous definition of marriage.”  How do you liberals like them apples?

Given the thousands of years that slavery was legal and an accepted institution, one can only assume that Sutton would up hold that institution as well.   Oh, and what about antisemitism?  That was acceptable too for centuries and in Poland and Russia pogroms were government sanctioned. Under Sutton's rational, that must be perfectly fine as well.  Disgusting!

6th Circuit's Judge Jeffrey Sutton: Modern Day Segregationist?

Sutton - Is he a racist too?

Reactions to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling upholding marriage bans continue and outside of knuckle dragging Christofascists circles, none are very favorable towards Judge Jeffrey Sutton who not surprisingly is a George W. "Chimperator" Bush appointee. As previously notes, Sutton's "let the people decide" analysis would have been very popular in the South in the 1950's and 1960's and one can only speculate that we would still have segregated schools and bans on interracial marriage if Sutton's approach had been applied by the Supreme Court in cases such as Brown v. Board of Education and/or Loving v. Virginia.   Sutton clearly underscores the dangers of placing a cretin in the White House.   Here's one good take down of Judge Sutton:

Well, the media reports are correct. Sutton's lengthy introduction, before the analysis: "And all come down to the same question: Who decides? Is this a matter that the National Constitution commits to resolution by the federal courts or leaves to the less expedient, but usually reliable, work of the state democratic processes?" 

 Sutton did make two cute rhetorical moves with Loving. First, he insisted that the Court assumed marriage only encompassed opposite-sex unions, since the Court did not say differently and because the couple in Loving where not same-sex. Second is this: "Loving addressed, and rightly corrected, an unconstitutional eligibility requirement for marriage; it did not create a new definition of marriage." But this seems too clever by a half--all definitions of a thing are based on eligibility requirements for the definition of that thing. Is Sutton really suggesting that Loving would have come out differently if, instead of the law saying "If any white person intermarry with a colored person, or any colored person intermarry with a white person, he shall be guilty of a felony," it said "marriage shall only be between two white persons or two black persons"? 

Say this: Sutton hit every possible argument and issue surrounding marriage equality (although he soft-pedaled his discussion of the "marriage is for men and the women they accidentally knock-up" argument). So the opinion presents a good vehicle for thorough consideration (and reversal).

Finally, a question: Judge Daughtrey in her dissent described at length the facts underlying the claim by the Michigan plaintiffs. Under Michigan law, unmarried couples cannot jointly adopt, which means only one parent is the legal parent of the child and there is no guarantee that, if the legal parent dies, the child will be allowed to stay with the other, non-legal parent. But that imposes huge financial costs on the state, if it has to bring that child into the foster care system, not to mention the human and social cost to the child and the entire system. But if the ban on same-sex marriage imposes such costs, doesn't that render it irrational, if not based on animus?

Of course, all of us know that animus IS the real motivation.  Wonkette has an even less kind analysis:

Let’s skip ahead now to the lone dissenting voice of reason, Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey, who politely points out that, ahem, that argument is some kind of bullcrud:

There is not now and never has been a universally accepted definition of marriage. In early Judeo-Christian law and throughout the West in the Middle Ages, marriage was a religious obligation, not a civil status. Historically, it has been pursued primarily as a political or economic arrangement. Even today, polygamous marriages outnumber monogamous ones—the practice is widespread in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, especially in countries following Islamic law, which also recognizes temporary marriages in some parts of the world. In Asia and the Middle East, many marriages are still arranged and some are even coerced.

But oh well, guess the majority forgot about that, because it sure does insist — over and over and over again — that up until about a decade ago, there was one definition of marriage, everywhere, for all time. And that is why the real question is whether the court has the authority to overrule The Voice Of The People, when The People have been homophobic bigots for all these millennia.