Buzzfeed‘s Chris Geidner is the first reporter I read today to point to Clarence Thomas’ dissent from the decision against letting Alabama temporarily defy a lower federal court order to license same-sex marriages as a clear tip-off of what SCOTUS is going to do very soon in reviewing the general subject. Once you read Thomas very unusual opinion (the seven justices in the majority did not bother to say anything) it does become pretty clear he’s conceding defeat on the underlying issue and is simply complaining the Court did not have the decorum to let Alabama continuing discriminating until the final deal goes down:
[R]ather than treat like applicants alike, the Court looks the other way as yet another Federal District Judge casts aside state laws without making any effort to preserve the status quo pending the Court’s resolution of a constitutional question it left open in United States v. Windsor, 570 U. S. ___ (2013) (slip op., at 25-26). This acquiescence may well be seen as a signal of the Court’s intended resolution of that question. This is not the proper
way to discharge our Article III responsibilities. And, it is indecorous for this Court to pretend that it is.
As Bob Dylan once said: “You don’t need a weatherman to know which the wind blows.” It’s blowing Alabama’s, and America’s, discriminatory marriage laws far out to sea.
